[Facsimile] Your obedt servt. William H. Crawford William Harris Crawford was born in Virginia, February 24th, 1772; was United States Senator 1807-1813; Minister to France, 1813-1815; Secretary of War, 1815-1816; Secretary of the Treasury, 1816-1825; Judge of the Northern Circuit Court of Georgia, 1827, until he died at Elberton, Georgia, September 15th, 1834.
The old Senate Chamber, now used by the Supreme Court, was admirably adapted for the deliberations of the forty-eight gentlemen who composed the upper house of the Nineteenth Congress. Modeled after the theatres of ancient Greece, it possessed excellent acoustic properties, and there was ample accommodation in the galleries for the few strangers who then visited Washington. The Senate used to meet at noon and generally conclude its day's work by three o'clock, while adjournments over from Thursday until the following Monday were frequent.
John C. Calhoun was Vice-President of the United States, and consequently President of the Senate--a position which was to him very irksome, as he was forced to sit and dumbly listen to debates in which he was eager to participate. He had been talked of by some of the best men in the country as a candidate during the then recent Presidential election, but the North had not given him any substantial support. Regarding each Senator as an Ambassador from a sovereign State, he did not believe that as Vice-President he possessed the power to call them to order for words spoken in debate. Senator John Randolph abused this license, and one day commenced one of his tirades by saying: "_Mr. Speaker! I mean Mr. President of the Senate and would-be President of the United States, which God in His infinite mercy avert_," and then went on in his usual strain of calumny and abuse.
Mr. Calhoun was tall, well-formed, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, with a serious expression of countenance rarely brightened by a smile, and with his black hair thrown back from his forehead, he looked like an arch-conspirator waiting for the time to come when he could strike the first blow. In his dress Mr. Calhoun affected a Spartan simplicity, yet he used to have four horses harnessed to his carriage, and his entertainments at his residence on Georgetown Heights were very elegant. His private life was irreproachable, although when Secretary of War under Mr. Monroe, he had suffered obloquy because of a profitable contract, which had been dishonestly awarded during his absence by his chief clerk to that official's brother-in-law.