And if one chose to look through the belonging parts of the Correspondence and the other accessible pertinent records, he will find ample proofs that he was ever alert to all the duties of his office, performing each one, whether important or trivial, with the height of skill and diligence. Consider, as to his career in the war department, this language of one of the most inveterate of his disparagers: "Many of his friends and admirers had with regret seen him abandon his seat in the legislative hall for a place in the president's council. They apprehended that he would, to a great extent, lose the renown which he had gained as a member of congress, for they thought that the didactic turn of his mind rendered him unfit to become a successful administrator. He undeceived them in a manner which astonished even those who had not shared these apprehensions. The department of war was in a state of really astounding confusion when he assumed charge of it. Into this chaos he soon brought order, and the whole service of the department received an organization so simple and at the same time so efficient that it has, in the main, been adhered to by all his successors, and proved itself capable of standing even the test of the civil war."[47] Now let us glance at his magnificent success in winning for the United States the vast territory of Texas and Oregon. The latter had long been in dispute between us and England. Ever since 1818 it had been jointly occupied under agreement. We wanted all of it; and of course as our settlements in the west approached nearer and nearer, our desire for it mounted. And England wanted all of it too. Soon after Texas achieved her independence she applied for admission into our union, but as the settlers had carried slavery with them free-soil opposition kept her out. Texas got in debt, and the only thing for her to do was to tie to some great power willing to receive her. England, seeing her opportunity, was trying to propitiate Mexico in order, with the favor of the latter, to get Texas for herself. Of course the south wanted Texas to come in, but the free-soilers did not. And the north wanted Oregon; and although its soil and climate did not admit of slavery, the south was against its acquisition unless the concession be made that it be permitted to slavery to occupy all the suitable soil of the Territories. As early as 1843 Calhoun, with his piercing vision, saw the situation clearly. If the dispute as to Oregon provoked war, England could throw troops thither from China by a much shorter route than ours, the latter going as it did from the States on the Atlantic coast around Cape Horn. That would be bad enough for us. But suppose England gets Texas. A hostile power, with a vast empire of land, will spring up under the very nose of the States, where our adversary will acquire a base of operations in the highest degree unfavorable to us. Then