This is the clew to his career.
In his speech in the House of Representatives in 1817, on internal
improvements, Calhoun warned his colleagues against "a low, sordid,
selfish, and sectional spirit," and declared that "in a country so
extensive, and so various in its interests, what is necessary for
the common good, may apparently be opposed to the interests of
particular sections. It must be submitted to as the condition of our
greatness." [Footnote: Annals of Cong., 14 Cong., 2 Sess., 854,
855.] This was the voice of the nationalistic west, as well as that
of South Carolina in Calhoun's young manhood.
In view of his later career, it is significant that many of those
who described him in these youthful years of his nationalistic
policy found in him a noticeable tendency to rash speculation and
novelty. "As a politician," said Senator Mills, of Massachusetts,
about 1823, he is "too theorizing, speculative, and metaphysical,--
magnificent in his views of the powers and capacities of the
government, and of the virtue, intelligence, and wisdom of the
PEOPLE.
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