The Daily Dispatch: October 13, 1864., [Electronic resource]

We yesterday alluded to the complete misconstruction which had been placed, by the large majority of the American people, upon the views and objects of Mr. Calhoun, who, after having spent the greater part of his life in useless efforts to prevent the destruction of the Union, went down to his grave with the reputation of having been its most decided enemy. He knew, as all Southern statesmen knew, that unless the rights of the States could be preserved, the preservation of the Union was impossible; and he saw, what too many Southern statesmen overlooked, that a party was forming in the North, whose first principle was deadly and decided hostility to those rights. The measures which he proposed to arrest the progress of this party were misinterpreted, and he fell under the odium which once attached to the name of disunionist.

Nor was he altogether singular in his fate. Among other illustrious Southern men who fell under the same suspicion was the late John B. Floyd, the hereditary friend and confidant of Mr. Calhoun, and the man, of all others, who best comprehended his views and the ends which he proposed to accomplish. For, as it was said of old, "they are not all Israel that are of Israel;" so it was not every admirer, and even follower, of Mr. Calhoun who fully comprehended his principles. The reason of the failure is sufficiently obvious. The intellect of Mr. Calhoun was the most subtle, we are prone to believe, ever accorded to a human being, unless Aristotle and Hobbes may contest the palm with him. He possessed a rapidity of analysis that eluded the grasp and defied the attention of the most acute and most untiring listener. His speeches are all remarkable for their power of condensation, their almost scornful rejection of ornament, and the acuteness of the logic which pervades them, and renders them dissimilar to any others. One of the most eminent lawyers that Virginia ever produced — a man whose acuteness of intellect was considered something like a prodigy in his day — is understood to have declared that he found the greatest difficulty in following Mr. Calhoun's train of thought through one of his speeches.--Each speech was as comprehensive as a volume, and many volumes might have been formed out of any half dozen of them. He could be better comprehended when they were published than while they were in the course of delivery, because it could then be seen how much thought he had packed into how small a space. They remind us of the treatise of equity, which goes under the name of Fonblauque, but was really written by a man named Ballow, in which the whole science of equity is dispatched in about one hundred pages, and that so completely and comprehensively, that the hundreds of volumes published on the subject since, contain nothing more than elaborations of the principles there laid down. It was not wonderful, therefore, that Mr. Calhoun, while he had many admirers, had few friends that could grasp his views. Governor Floyd was one of those few. He adopted the views of Mr. Calhoun because he comprehended them, and they convinced his reason.

Governor Floyd had long been under the impression that the Black Republican party was a standing menace to the Union. When he became Secretary of War, under Mr. Buchanan, having better chances of observation than he had ever enjoyed before, he saw that the danger was even greater and more imminent than he had believed it to be. He felt that, unless some means could be discovered of arresting the progress of the Black Republican party, the Union must inevitably be overthrown; for he saw that they were determined to push matters to the last extremity, and to leave the South no room to retreat, or to save so much even as its honor. He was devoted to the Union, and he cast about for some method by which it might be possible to rally and re-unite the country. A war with some foreign power suggested itself as the only remedy, and, desperate as this was, he did not hesitate to recommend its adoption. This, we learn from authority which we believe to be undoubted, Governor Floyd himself stated in the latter days of his life.--He used every exertion to bring on a war with Great Britain; and as our readers may probably recollect, the war was very near coming. It would have come but for the want of pluck on the part of Old Buck, who could not be brought up to the fighting point by all the arguments, entreaties and persuasions of which Governor Floyd was master — and he was master of as many of each as most men. He failed completely, and he saw at a glance that there was no longer the vestige of a hope for the Union. He immediately, upon reaching this conclusion, set to work to do the best he could for his own section, since he knew that the war was to be sectional. Can anybody but a Yankee blame him?

A great superfluity of arms and munitions of war had been collected in the arsenals and depots of the United States. Congress directed that these should be distributed among the States, according to representation. It was the duty of the War Secretary to put that law in execution, and Floyd was War Secretary.--The North got the lion's share, as it always did, though the South did much the larger business in the way of paying. The Secretary was never accused of withholding its quota from the North, but it wanted all. That he determined it should not have. It would have been entitled to it under no circumstances whatever. Under circumstances which he knew to exist, it would have been a crime a little worse than Arnold's had he gratified its cupidity. He felt no inclination to prove a traitor, and a traitor he would have been to the State to which his allegiance was due, and to the whole Southern country, had he given the North all it required. He did no such thing. He sent to the South the full sum total in arms, munitions and equipments to which she was entitled. A yell of rage burst from the battled wolves of the Northern press. He was denounced as a traitor from Washington to the river St. John's; from Boston to Mormondom. A traitor to what?--To that agency forsooth which our fathers set up to conduct our foreign affairs, but which had now set itself up to be a sovereign, usurping all the functions of the States--the only true sovereigns on this part of the continent. He laughed their anger to scorn. He boldly avowed that he had sent cannon to the South, and powder and ball to load them with. It was the act of a patriot, and he had no reason to be ashamed of it. He could not prevent the disruption of the Union. He had tried every means to avert the catastrophe. He had failed, and the Yankees had succeeded. What could he do but look out for his own country? Posterity will do him justice, as Virginia already does.