perfected plans to advance him to the White House on the expiration of Monroe’s term. It is not now fashionable to think of him as a designing and ambitious politician, but one of his biographers has commented on his tendency to stoop “to cover with an approving and admiring smile a resentment which is lurking in the corner of his heart, and on the other side to break off all social intercourse with old and highly respected associates, merely because others whose services he wished to secure might not like these connections.”[231] And yet, despite his efforts, his candidacy appears to have made no impression upon the country. Among the publicists he was strong; but the people were not impressed. He was the original “young man’s candidate,” but this weakened him among the older and more important leaders. “His age, or rather his youth,” wrote one,[232] “at the present moment is a formidable objection to his elevation to the chair.” Nevertheless, placing his reliance on the younger element, he pushed on. Even in Massachusetts he was charged with having “newspapers set up” to support him.[233] Certain it is that Webster favored his election as long as it seemed possible of achievement, and when failure there seemed certain, the greatest of his future rivals earnestly urged his election to the Vice-Presidency.[234] To the latter position he was elected through a combination of the friends of Adams and Jackson. And now we find the presidential fever consuming him. He becomes the practical, scheming, not overly scrupulous politician--a rôle he is not popularly supposed to have ever filled. From the very beginning he set to work to undermine the Administration of his chief. His apologists explain that when the “bargain” story was advanced, he was forced to choose between the two factions that had combined to elect him, and preferred to go with the Jackson forces.[235] Whatever his motive, he entered into no half-hearted opposition. This notable activity against Adams and in favor of Jackson has been ascribed to a presumptive premonition that the latter was certain to reach the Presidency, and, in view of Jackson’s assurance that he would be satisfied with one term, Calhoun calculated that the defeat of Adams would shorten his period of waiting by four years.[236] So ardently was he panting for the Presidency at this time that he summoned his friends to assist in the establishment of a paper, impatiently brushed aside the objections as to cost, and calling Duff Green to the editorship of the “National Telegraph,” created the most powerful party organ that had existed in this country up to that time.[237] Less than a year after Adams’s inauguration, Calhoun was actively organizing for his defeat. We find him inviting a Philadelphian to his chamber in the Capitol to urge him to coöperate with the Opposition party on the ground that “because of the manner in which it came into power it must be defeated at all