“And that should give me great pleasure,” said the General, casting a comic side-look towards me. Then, with a plain purpose of helping the scout to his discoveries: “And what of Congress? I suppose both House and Senate still heave with the ground-swells of the Webster-Hayne debate.” “There is no end of cloakroom talk,” said Rhetz. “And, by the way, Mr. President,”--here was a feeler--“there be folk, and your friends at that, who wonder you are not openly with Calhoun and against Webster and his Yankees for this principle of States Rights.” Rhetz followed this last observe with a setting forth of argument bearing for the Calhoun-Hayne contention. “Beware of metaphysics,” observed the General dryly, turning his gray look against Rhetz, as that rice-land sophist laid down one by one those various refinements and abstractions wherewith the Palmetto gentry--the Cal houns and the Butlers and the Pinckneys and the Haynes--were blazing the path for Secession; “beware of metaphysics! No good comes of splitting hairs. A rough-hewn honesty--a turgid frankness--should be the better road.” The General walked on in silence fora brief space, Rhetz also silent, feeling himself on the brink of some precipice of the General's temper, and in no sort eager for a fall. “Sir,” resumed the General, “let me now set you an example; let me be most open with you, not only for Nullification, but for your friend, Calhoun. First, then, Calhoun is not trustworthy. Did he not for years teach me to believe he was my friend with Monroe, when it was he of all that cabinet who urged my court-martial for taking Florida and hanging Ambristie and Arbuth-not? Calhoun was my enemy, sir; he is my enemy now. He would hide the fact, but it is too late. When I tell you how Calhoun is my enemy, would you still urge on me this prince of duplicity for a statesman whose word is worth a following? Calhoun, for a plan or a principle, can not be relied on. He is congenitally bad, and will propose nothing that is true or high.” Here, as the General's anger began to tower, he would strike viciously at old weeds, dead and winter-bitten, which ranked the path we traversed, cutting them down with his hickory stick as with a saber; Rhetz still silent, without voice. “There lives but one more trustless than Calhoun--that arch-rogue Clay. And my friends would show amazement at my failure to be openly with Calhoun! Also, you say they fear I may follow Webster and his Yankees. Sir, I know the Yankees; they are a dour, hard brood, who to aid their interests might not scruple to over-reach. I have yet to hear, however, they betray their friends, as did Calhoun; I have still to know they would bargain the downfall of their party, as did Clay. Judas would have done a no more ebon deed than did that Kentucky renegade when he sold his soul to Adams for a place. And now am I to take a great doctrine from such children of deceit? Webster and his Yankees may be centered on themselves and selfish;