Henry Clay, the speaker, appointed him a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which John C. Calhoun was chairman, and for some forty years these three constituted a great triumvirate in American politics.
The tariff of 1828 aroused bitter opposition in South Carolina, and called from Vice-President Calhoun the statement of the doctrine of nullification which was adopted by the South Carolina legislature at the close of the year and is known as the South Carolina Exposition.
The rejection, ostensibly attributed in large part to Van Buren's instructions to Louis McLane, the American minister to England, regarding the opening of the West India trade, in which reference had been made to the results of the election of 1828, was in fact the work of Calhoun, the vice-president; and when the vote was taken enough of the majority refrained from voting to produce a tie and give Calhoun his longed-for "vengeance."
Calhoun was vice-president of the United States from 1825 to 1832, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, and during most of the first administration of Andrew Jackson.
In the quarrel between Jackson and John C. Calhoun, Green supported the latter, and through the columns of the Telegraph violently attacked the administration.