On beyond is John C. Calhoun, with head bent forward, listening intently. His, likewise, was a career of remarkable significance in the Nation. He had entered Congress almost at the same time with Mr. Clay, and both in concert with Langdon Cheves and William Lowndes, who seemed to have been elected for that purpose, put forth their utmost efforts with success, to procure a declaration of war with Great Britain. The measure was regarded essential to the continuance of the Republican Party in power, and Mr. Madison reluctantly acceded to it, regretting his compliance soon afterward. The next turn of the wheel made Mr. Calhoun a Cabinet Minister, and an aspirant for the presidency, for which he had the support of Daniel Webster. Falling short of that ambition, he became the champion of State Rights and nullification, bringing his native commonwealth to the verge of civil war, and himself into personal peril. Thenceforth he set about educating his people for mortal conflict. The attempt to add new territory to this country for the extending of the power of the Southern as against the Northern States, had brought nearer the crisis which Mr. Clay was striving to avert. It seems almost anachronism to place Mr. Calhoun in this picture, for he died in 1850. Daniel Webster, however, is the figure soonest recognized. The artist has placed him in a row a little way behind the orator, sitting in a thoughtful mood, but leaving us at a loss to surmise whether he is attending to the subject under discussion, or meditating upon some topic which he may esteem to be of profounder importance. He was translated to the Cabinet a second time by President Fillmore, but found himself without supporters except personal friends and admirers, and estranged from his political associates. He quickly followed Mr. Clay to the grave in 1852. The other faces in the picture seem familiar and are carefully depicted. We do not find, however, the “new men” who had already come as precursors of the next epoch in American history. John P. Hale and William H. Seward are left out, and we fail of finding Daniel S. Dickinson, John Davis or Stephen A. Douglas. Those whom we do see there were undoubtedly regarded as more notable, belonging as they did to an era that seems to have passed almost completely into oblivion. For it is true however discreditable as it may seem, that the events of that time and the men of that time are almost as little cognized by Americans of the present generation as though they had been of the period of Magna Charta and the Conference of Barons at Runnymede.