Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1830-1842.] MR. VAN BUREN'S FORTUNATE ISOLATION. 131

attempt to coerce their wives into visiting anybody whom
they had made up their minds not to visit. In vain did the
old hero storm and rage, becoming, indeed, "so much excited
that he was like a roaring lion." Meanwhile, Mr. Van Buren
(fortunate in being a widower) prudently kept out of the melde
-the only calm personage in the tableau. This was in the year
1830. The next year Mr. Van Buren resigned; the Cabinet
was shivered to pieces, and a new one was formed; and from
that time Mr. Calhoun severed his relations with the President and Mr. Van Buren, and took his own course, regardless
of old associations.
During the following year the political excitement increased; the whole country was in a ferment about the
United States Bank, the tariff, the threatening attitude of
South Carolina, and the coming Presidential election. Fresh
fuel had been added to the flame by the insult offered to Mr.
Van Buren by the Senate of the United States, to which I
have already referred. Appointed Minister to the Court of
St. James, he went to England in September, 1831, although
the nomination had not yet been acted on by the Senate,
which, indeed, was not to meet until the following December.
Meanwhile, an opposition was developed, under influence hostile to the President, by whom the new minister had been appointed, as well as to Mr. Van Buren himself, who was already
regarded as a candidate for the Presidency. More than two
months had elapsed since Mr. Van Buren's arrival in London
before the Senate met. A long delay ensued after his name
had been sent in, until, in January, 1832, by the casting-vote
of Mr. Calhoun, the nomination was rejected. Nothing could
have been more mortifying than the position in which that
distinguished gentleman was thus placed. The action of the
Senate was without a precedent in the history of our diplomatic service, and the indignation caused by his treatment
was prodigious. His friends in the Legislature, together with
many of the leading citizens of Albany, concurred in calling
a public meeting to denounce the action of the Senate. Gen