Prevailing conditions were inimical to men whose strength lay more in their intelligence than in their will.

It was a period of big phrases, of personal motives and altercations, of intellectual attenuation, and of narrow, moral commonplaces,--all of which made it very difficult for any statesman to see beyond his nose, or in case he did, to act upon his knowledge.

Yet in spite of all this, it does seem as if some Whig might have worked out the logic of the national idea with as much power and consistency as Calhoun worked out the logic of his sectional idea.

That no Whig rose to the occasion is an indication that in sacrificing their ideas they were sacrificing also their personal integrity.

Intellectual insincerity and irresponsibility was in the case of the Democrats the outcome of their lives and their point of view; but on the part of the Whigs it was equivalent to sheer self-prostitution.