hazards, regardless of its measures.”[238] This insistence on the defeat of the Administration, “regardless of its measures,” was the reasoning of an ambitious politician, none too scrupulous, in a pinch, in his methods. The rest is known--how Calhoun threw his influence to Jackson in 1828, and was reflected to the Vice-Presidency with the hero of the Hermitage. Close students of the period are now convinced that preliminary to this alliance an agreement had been made that Calhoun was to succeed to the Presidency after four years. At this time he was in the full maturity of his wonderful power, and the future must have seemed secure. Quincy, who saw him about this time, found him “a striking looking man, with thick black hair brushed back defiantly,” and he comments on Calhoun’s policy of cultivating and fascinating all young men visiting the National capital.[239] The world is too familiar with the tragic features of the great Carolinian to require a description. The rugged carving, the low broad brow, the spare frame almost amounting to attenuation, the penetrating gaze of the “glorious pair of yellow-brown shining eyes,” the bushy brows and the sunken sockets--Calhoun looked unlike any other man in history.[240] He was a commanding figure at the time of the quarrel which was to change the entire course of his life, and to alter his political character. II We have seen that Calhoun was annoyed with Jackson over matters of patronage, but the development of the quarrel to the breaking point is to be traced in the story of a debate and two dinners. While it has not been customary to attach any party significance to the Webster-Hayne debate, it was conducted along party lines and was a party battle. To such a seasoned observer of parliamentary fights as Thomas H. Benton, it was little more than a party skirmish.[241] Even Webster, at the time, evidently looked upon Hayne’s assault upon him as political in its character. Some time before he had sent Senator White of Florida to Calhoun to warn him that by permitting his friends to attack New England, he was playing into the hands of Van Buren, who would capture New England States that would otherwise go to the South Carolinian. And Calhoun, no less alive to the political significance of the promised fight, had, according to White’s story to Adams, been impressed. “He said Calhoun seemed to be considerably at a loss what to do,” wrote Adams at the time; “that he did not know what things were coming to; that he had no feeling of unfriendliness to me, and would by now have visited me but for fear of being misrepresented; that if I had consulted him four years ago, and not have appointed Clay Secretary of State, I should now have been President of the United States.”[242] This purported warning of Webster to Calhoun is given color by the former’s action during his great speech, in turning his fine black eyes upon the latter, in the chair, while quoting: