its author would have been estopped from promulgating if these antecedents had been recollected. History now pleads them as an estoppel against his followers. Mr. Monroe, in his letter to General Jackson, immediately after the establishment of the Missouri compromise, said that that compromise settled the slavery agitation which threatened to break up the Union. Thirty-four years of quiet and harmony under that settlement bear witness to the truth of these words, spoken in the fulness of patriotic gratitude at seeing his country escape from a great danger. The year 1854 has seen the abrogation of that compromise; and with its abrogation the revival of the agitation, and with a force and fury never known before: and now may be seen in fact what was hypothetically foreseen by Mr. Calhoun in 1838, when, as the fruit of this agitation, he saw the destruction of all sympathy between the two sections of the Union--obliteration from the memory of all proud recollections of former common danger and glory--hatred in the hearts of the North and the South, more deadly than ever existed between two neighboring nations. May we not have to witness the remainder of his prophetic vision--"TWO PEOPLE MADE OF ONE!" P.S.--After this chapter had been written, the author received authentic information that, during the time that John M. Clayton, Esq. of Delaware, was Secretary of State under President Taylor (1849-50), evidence had been found in the Department of State, of the fact, that the opinion of Mr. Calhoun and of the rest of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, had been filed there. In consequence a note of inquiry was addressed to Mr. Clayton, who answered (under date of July 19th, 1855) as follows: "In reply to your inquiry I have to state that I have no recollection of having ever met with Mr. Calhoun's answer to Mr. Monroe's cabinet queries, as to the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise. It had not been found while I was in the department of state, as I was then informed: but the archives of the department disclose the fact, that Mr. Calhoun, and other members of the cabinet, did answer Mr. Monroe's questions. It appears by an index that these answers were filed among the archives of that department. I was told they had been abstracted from the records, and could not be found; but I did not make a search for them myself. I have never doubted that Mr. Calhoun at least acquiesced in the decision of the cabinet of that day. Since I left the Department of State I have heard it rumored that Mr. Calhoun's answer to Mr. Monroe's queries had been found; but I know not upon what authority the statement was made." CHAPTER XXXIV. DEATH OF COMMODORE RODGERS, AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER.