They had omitted it purposely in making up the issues for the Van Buren campaign of 1840, and, up to the hour when Mr.Calhoun entered the State Department, the intention of the managers was to omit it in the contest of 1844 against Mr.Clay.

Mr.Tyler's advocacy of Texas annexation had injured rather than promoted it in the estimation of the Democratic party; but when Mr.Calhoun, with his astute management, and his large influence in the slave-holding States, espoused it, the whole tenor of Southern opinion was changed, and the Democracy of that section received a new inspiration.
Mr.Van Buren, aspiring again to the Presidency, desired to avoid the Texas issue.

Mr.Calhoun determined that he should meet it.
He had every motive for distrusting, opposing, even hating, Van Buren.

The contest between them had been long and unrelenting.
When Van Buren, as secretary of State, was seized with the ambition to succeed Jackson, he saw Calhoun in the Vice-Presidency, strongly intrenched as heir-apparent; and he set to work to destroy the friendship and confidence that existed between him and the President.
The rash course of Jackson in the Seminole campaign of 1818 had been severely criticised in the cabinet of Monroe, and Mr.Calhoun, as secretary of War, had talked of a court of inquiry.

Nothing, however, was done and the mere suggestion had been ten years forgotten, when Jackson entered upon the Presidency, entertaining the strongest friendship, both personal and political, for Calhoun.
But the damaging fact was unearthed and the jealousy of Jackson was aroused.