Mention has previously been made with regard to what is herein considered Calhoun’s failure in 1833 to cope successfully with Clay; but the very slight gains then secured were wiped out in a new tariff in 1842. In 1846, being free from the terrific responsibilities and overshadowing dangers of Nullification, Calhoun secured legislation, which seems in its workings to have balanced very satisfactorily the imports and exports of the country, being apparently passed upon the sound principles of Lowndes’s legislation. But the effort drew from Gadsden’s swollen greatness, this insolent characterization of the main creator of it: “The passage of the tariff has pleased, but not satisfied us. Perhaps it was the best terms which at this crisis could be got, and doing away with the minimums and the _ad valorem_ duty is a point gained. The valuation is ambiguous. Whether on the foreign or the home we cannot understand. The bill may be construed either way. The Pennsylvanians really seem to control you.”[131] The conclusion must have been galling, and it was followed in 1847 with another letter in which, with professions of devotion, it was intimated that General Taylor’s candidacy for the Presidency would be a serious impediment to the only kind of candidacy Calhoun could undertake. Whether Mr. Gadsden received the early answer he requested on the ground “that the concert of action may be certain to secure the triumph of one, who will not court our influence to deceive,”[132] does not appear; but the next year there was a strong movement, led by George A. Trenholm of Charleston, to oust Gadsden from the presidency of the railroad, and in the last two years of his life, Calhoun’s intimacy with Gadsden is not evidenced by any correspondence. Rather it was upon Hammond that he leant more and more and it was to him that he addressed the last letter written to any one beyond the immediate circle of his own hearthstone. To Hammond the dying statesman turned with a confidence calculated to inspire the latter’s belief in himself: “Without flattery I know of no one better informed than you are on the subject that now agitates the country, or more capable of deciding what should be done, with the knowledge you would acquire of the state of things here or of preparing whatever papers the Convention may think proper to put out.... Never before has the South been placed in so trying a situation, nor can it ever be placed in one more so. Her all is at stake.”[133] The convention was the Nashville Convention of 1850, which met a few months after Calhoun’s death. Hammond and many others hoped to have had Calhoun’s advice at it, and possibly the suggestion for a new Constitution framed by Calhoun. They believed emancipation was impending, and that with it the South would be reduced to the condition of Hayti. Hammond had declared to Calhoun: