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John C. Calhoun

 
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John C. Calhoun, U.S. Vice President / U.S. Secretary of State

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John C. Calhoun
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  • Born: 18 March 1782
  • Birthplace: McCormick County, South Carolina
  • Died: 31 March 1850
  • Best Known As: U.S. viice president to Adams and Jackson

Most famous for his role in the pre-Civil War debate over states' rights, John Caldwell Calhoun was a U.S. senator from South Carolina (1832-43, 1845-50) and vice president under presidents John Quincy Adams (1825-29) and Andrew Jackson (1829-32). Calhoun grew up in South Carolina and was educated at Yale University before opening a law practice back home in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was a state representative (1808) and a U.S. representative (1811-1817) before serving as President Monroe's Secretary of War (1817-25). His terms as vice president were marked by his vocal differences with his presidents. Adams was an avid abolitionist from Boston, but Calhoun was a pro-slavery southern plantation owner, and Jackson and Calhoun were openly hostile to each other. Things heated up in the early 1830s over the issue of federal tariffs: Calhoun claimed that states could nullify federal laws, earning him the nickname of "Arch Nullifier," and Jackson threatened to use the army if South Carolina forced the issue. (Calhoun's colleague, Senator Henry Clay, helped work out a compromise.) Calhoun resigned as Jackson's vice president in 1832 and became a U.S. senator, then briefly served as Secretary of State under President Tyler (1844-45) and finally served in the Senate again until his death in 1850. After his death Calhoun became a symbol for southern unity and his likeness was used on the currency of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War (on $1000 bills in 1861 and $100 bills in 1862).

Calhoun, Clay and Daniel Webster, colleagues in the Senate, were dubbed the "Great Triumvirate" for their oratory and statesmanship... Calhoun was sometimes known as "the cast-iron man" for his cool logic and stern temperament... In 1959 a Senate committee named Calhoun one of the Senate's five most outstanding members ever (the committee was chaired by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts).

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Oxford Companion to US Military History:

John C. Calhoun

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(1782–1850), congressman, secretary of war, vice president, senator, and secretary of state

When James Monroe appointed Congressman John C. Calhoun secretary of war in 1817, the South Carolinian discovered a department mired in financial irresponsibility and managerial incompetence. Calhoun eliminated economic waste, initiated a series of coastal defenses, tightened the army command structure, and improved the curriculum at West Point. He continued the standing policy of negotiating treaties for Indian land and Indian removal, and sent out expeditions to explore the country's vast western expanse. Calhoun, however, struggled to get along with his generals, especially the headstrong Andrew Jackson.

Government retrenchment due to the Panic of 1819 sidetracked many of his initiatives, eliminating his improved transportation system. In 1820 to avoid the disastrous impact of a huge cut in the army, Calhoun proposed his ingenious Expandable Army Plan. The reduction would come among privates; officer and noncommissioned officer strength would remain. In crisis, the army could expand by recruiting privates to serve under experienced leadership. A penurious Congress rejected the scheme. The South Carolinian was, however, able to implement another of his plans, the prohibition of the recruitment of blacks into the U.S. Army, an order that remained in effect from 1820 until the Civil War.

When Calhoun left office in 1825, he had accomplished much less than he had desired. However, he had restored some fiscal responsibility and some order to a department found in chaos. Though better known for his later political career, Calhoun was an influential secretary of war.

[See also African Americans in the Military; Army, U.S.: 1783–1865.]

Bibliography

  • Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, 3 vols. 1944–51.
  • Irving H. Bartlett, John C. Calhoun, A Biography, 1993
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

John Caldwell Calhoun

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The American statesman John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850) became the most effective protagonist of the antebellum South. It was his tragedy to be come the spokesman for the dying institution of slavery.

John C. Calhoun was born on March 18, 1782, in the uplands of South Carolina, the son of Patrick and Martha Caldwell Calhoun. The family was Scotch-Irish and Calvinist and was relatively wealthy; his father owned twenty or more slaves, was a judge, and served in the state legislature. John graduated from Yale in 1804. He studied in the law school of Tapping Reeves in Litchfield, Conn., and in an office in Charleston, S.C., and was admitted to the bar in 1807. He quickly established a practice in Abbeville near his family home.

In 1811 Calhoun married a distant cousin, Floride Bouneau, by whom he had nine children. The marriage brought him a modest fortune. He enlarged his holdings and in 1825 established a plantation, called Fort Hill, in his native area.

Handsome in early life and with a commanding presence and piercing eyes all his life through, Calhoun had a striking personality. He had a gracious manner, and Daniel Webster and others not his partisans paid tribute to his character and integrity. In later years he struck observers as a "thinking machine," speaking very rapidly and always terribly in earnest. The picture is conveyed in Harriet Martineau's phrase that Calhoun was a "cast-iron man who looks as if he had never been born and could never be extinguished." He was concerned almost exclusively with ideas, politics, and business; he had little humor and no broad, cultural interests. One Senate colleague said there was no relaxation with the man, and another complained that to be with Calhoun was to be made to think all the time and to feel one's inferiority.

Political Career

Calhoun was elected to the South Carolina Legislature in 1808 and 2 years later won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Henry Clay made him chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Calhoun and other "War Hawks" moved the country to the unsuccessful War of 1812 against Great Britain. Calhoun led the effort in the House to supply and strengthen the Army, and after the war he continued to work for a stronger military establishment. He advocated measures which he would later denounce as unconstitutional: Federal encouragement of manufactures by means of a protective tariff, and internal improvements to "bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals." To objections that the Constitution did not authorize such Federal expenditures, Calhoun replied that "the instrument was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on. It ought to be construed with plain, good sense…"

Calhoun was secretary of war in James Monroe's Cabinet (1817-1825). He became less and less militaristic through his life. In 1812 he had said that "a war, just and necessary in its origin, wisely and vigorously carried on, and honorably terminated," would establish "the integrity and prosperity of our country for centuries." But in 1846 he refused to vote for the declaration of war against Mexico; he asserted that the grounds for war given by the President were false and said simply, "I regard peace as a positive good, and war as a positive evil."

In Monroe's Cabinet, Calhoun was a nationalist. In 1821 John Quincy Adams appraised Calhoun as "a man of fair and candid mind … of enlarged philosophic views, and of ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and factional prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union…. " Calhoun was Adams's vice president (1825-1829) and was elected to the office again in 1828 under Andrew Jackson. He had expectations of becoming president following Jackson's tenure, but there was a rupture between them during Jackson's first term. The social contretemps over Peggy Eaton was involved, but more important was Jackson's discovery that Calhoun had criticized his invasion of Florida in 1818. Even without these irritants the clash would have come. Calhoun had anonymously written the "South Carolina Exposition" in response to the so-called Tariff of Abominations of 1828. He argued the right of a state to "nullify" a Federal enactment injurious to its interests if the state believed the law to be unconstitutional. By 1830 Calhoun was known as the author of the doctrine, and at a Jefferson's birthday dinner that year Jackson glared at Calhoun and proposed the toast, "Our Federal Union - it must be preserved!" Calhoun replied, "The Union - next to our liberty, the most dear!"

Jackson threatened military force to collect the duties in South Carolina, and in 1832 Calhoun in an unprecedented action resigned from the vice presidency and was elected by South Carolina to the Senate to defend its cause. Henry Clay brought forth a compromise, which Calhoun supported, to lower the tariff gradually over a decade; the crisis subsided for a time.

In the Senate in the 1830s, Calhoun attacked the abolitionists, demanding that their publications be excluded from the mails, that their petitions not be received by Congress, and finally that a stop be put to agitation against slavery in the North as had been done in the South. By 1837 he was defending slavery as "a positive good" and had become an advocate for the suppression of open discussion and a free press.

Calhoun's shift from a national to a sectional position had virtually destroyed his chances for the presidency, but he continued to aspire to that office. He declared his candidacy in 1843 but withdrew to accept appointment as secretary of state for the last year of John Tyler's term. In his efforts for the annexation of Texas, Calhoun wrote a famous letter to the British minister in Washington, arguing that annexation was necessary to protect slavery in the United States and asserting (against the position of the British government, which was urging the emancipation of slaves throughout the world) that freed African Americans tended to be deaf, blind, and insane in far higher proportions than those in slavery. The letter did not help his cause in Congress. The treaty of annexation which he negotiated with the Republic of Texas was rejected by the Senate, where it was impossible to muster the required two-thirds vote in its favor. Calhoun then supported the device, of doubtful constitutionality, of admitting Texas by a joint resolution of Congress.

Calhoun returned to the Senate in 1845, where he first opposed the war against Mexico and then the Wilmot Proviso, which would have prohibited slavery in all the territories acquired from Mexico by that war. He denounced the Compromise of 1850, which did not guarantee the right of Southerners to take their slaves into all territories of the Union. He did not live to see that compromise adopted, dying on March 31, 1850. His last words were, "The South! The poor South!"

Political Philosophy

The political theory Calhoun had developed from the time of the Nullification Crisis of 1828 he began to organize in a formal treatise in the middle 1840s. His two works, Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, were published posthumously. Calhoun argued that government by mere numbers must inevitably result in despotism by the majority, a proposition supported by the men who drew up the Constitution. He also insisted that the Constitution should be based upon the "truth" of the inequality of man and on the principle that people are not equally entitled to liberty.

Calhoun said the U.S. Constitution lacked the necessary restraints to prevent the majority from abusing the minority. He proposed to give the minorities (the minority he had in mind was the Southern slaveholders) a veto power over Federal legislation and action by means of what he called the "concurrent majority." In the Discoursehe proposed the device of dual executives for the Union, each to be chosen by one of the great sections of the country, with the agreement of both necessary for Federal action.

The 20th-century experience of the dangers of centralized governmental power has brought a renewed interest in Calhoun's proposals for the protection of minority rights. But although Calhoun's critical analysis was perceptive, his proposed solutions have not been regarded as serious contributions to the problem. Indeed, as critics have pointed out, although he spoke in general terms and categories, he was really interested only in defending the rights of a specific propertied minority - the slaveholding South.

Further Reading

Calhoun's own A Disquisition on Government and A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, originally published in 1851, are now available together in several editions. The Works of John C. Calhoun, edited by Richard K. Crallé (6 vols., 1851-1856), has been the basic published collection of his writings. However, a more recent, definitive collection of Calhoun's writings is The Papers of John C. Calhoun, edited by Robert L. Meriwether (4 vols., 1959-1969).

A representative collection of essays by Calhoun scholars is John L. Thomas, ed., John C. Calhoun: A Profile (1968). It provides an excellent introduction to the literature on Calhoun. The comprehensive biography is Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun (3 vols., 1944-1951); however, it denigrates his rivals and justifies Calhoun's actions throughout his career. The best one-volume biography, with a better interpretive balance, is Margaret L. Coit, John C. Calhoun: American Portrait (1950). For a more critical account see Gerald M. Capers, John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Reappraisal (1960). Richard N. Current, John C. Calhoun (1963), provides a good analysis of Calhoun's political theory.

To examine the changing interpretations of Calhoun over the last century see the biographies by John S. Jenkins, The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun (1852); H. von Holst, John C. Calhoun (1882); Gaillard Hunt, John C. Calhoun (1908); William M. Meigs, The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun (2 vols., 1917); and Arthur Styron, The Cast Iron Man: John C. Calhoun and American Democracy (1935).

Oxford Dictionary of Politics:

John C. Calhoun

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(1782-1850) Calhoun has three claims to fame. One stems from his prominence as an American politician between 1811 and 1850. During that period he was, successively, an important member of the House of Representatives (1811-17), Secretary of War (1817-25), Vice-President of the United States (1825-32), senator for South Carolina (1832-44), Secretary of State (1844-5) and, yet again, senator for South Carolina (1845-50). In his lifetime his reputation as a politician was mixed. He was variously described as a patriot, a nationalist, an apologist for the slave-owning South, ‘first amongst second rate men’, an opportunist, and the destroyer of the Union. What is clear is that for the last twenty years of his life he was one of the leaders of the Old South in its attempts to defend its interests in the Union.

As a political theorist his claim to fame rests largely on three works, The South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828), A Disquisition on Government, and A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States (both published after his death in 1850). The Exposition presents the case for state nullification of federal laws, the Discourse is a states' right tract incorporating ideas for a plural executive, and the Disquisition presses the case for a ruling concurrent majority, that is, one rooted not in numbers but in interests, each of which possesses a ‘mutual negative’. These ideas were all attempts to avoid the South's secession. The problem was that although presented in a scholarly fashion they all suffered from the same crucial weakness—their success depended on acceptance by Northern politicians. For a theorist obsessed with power this was, to say the least, a significant weakness.

Calhoun's final claim to fame rests on the analytical problems he bequeathed to politicians and theorists who followed him. One of these is the role of pressure groups. The other, and more important problem, is how, short of secession, the interests of territorial minorities can be defended in wider Unions. Calhoun never resolved these problems, but neither has anyone else. In short, Calhoun remains important because of the problems which defeated him.

— Jim Bulpitt

Houghton Mifflin Companion to US History:

Calhoun, John C.

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(1782-1850), preeminent spokesman for the slave-plantation system of the antebellum South, U.S. representative, secretary of war, senator, vice president, and secretary of state. A nationalist at the outset of his political career, Calhoun was one of the leading War Hawks who maneuvered the unprepared United States into war with Great Britain in 1812. After the Treaty of Ghent that ended that conflict, Calhoun was responsible for establishing the Second Bank of the United States, and he wrote the bonus bill that would have laid the foundation for a nationwide network of roads and canals if President James Madison had not vetoed it.

A candidate for the presidency in 1824, Calhoun was the object of bitter partisan attacks from other contenders. Dropping out of the race, he settled for the vice presidency and was twice elected to that position. But after Andrew Jackson's assumption of the presidency in 1829, Calhoun found himself isolated politically in national affairs.

At first he supported the Tariff of 1828, the so-called Tariff of Abominations, but responding to his constituents' criticism of the measure and believing that the tariff was being unfairly assessed on the agrarian South for the benefit of an industrializing North, Calhoun drafted for the South Carolina legislature his Exposition and Protest. In this essay he claimed original sovereignty for the people acting through the states and advocated state veto or nullification of any national law that was held to impinge on minority interests. He later developed the argument in his two essays Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution, presenting the classic case for minority rights within the framework of majority rule. A moderate during the nullification crisis of 1832-1833, Calhoun joined with Henry Clay in working out the Compromise Tariff.

By then he had resigned from the vice presidency and had been elected a senator from South Carolina. For the rest of his life he defended the slave-plantation system against a growing antislavery stance in the free states. He continued his strident defense of slavery even after he joined the Tyler administration as secretary of state. In that position he laid the groundwork for the annexation of Texas and the settlement of the Oregon boundary with Great Britain. Reelected to the Senate in 1845, he opposed the Mexican-American War because he felt American victory would result in territorial concessions that would place the Union at jeopardy. Similarly he opposed the admission of California as a free state, and the free-soil provision in the Oregon territorial bill. In his last address to the Senate, he foretold the disruption of the Union unless the slave states were given adequate and permanent protection for their institutions.

Calhoun, along with Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, dominated American political life from 1815 to 1850. A tall, spare individual, Calhoun was a gifted debater, an original thinker in political theory, and a person of broad learning who was especially well read in philosophy, history, and contemporary economic and social issues. His public appearance as the so-called Cast Iron Man was belied by his personal warmth and affectionate nature in private life.

Bibliography:

John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (1988); Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, 3 vols. (1944-1951).

Author:

John Niven

See also Nullification Controversy; Secession; War Hawks.


Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:

Works by John C. Calhoun

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(1782-1850)

1828South Carolina Exposition and Protest. A report drafted at the request of the South Carolina legislature in response to federal protective tariffs deemed harmful to Southern states. Outlining a doctrine later to be termed nullification, Calhoun opposes President Jackson's nationalist agenda. Jackson's vice president at the time, Calhoun writes the paper secretly but would break openly with Jackson later and resign as vice president in 1832.
1851A Disquisition on Government and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. This posthumously published essay attempts to establish a theory of minority rights within the framework of majority rule and argues that government is less important than society. Calhoun served as secretary of war, senator, vice president, and secretary of state, and this essay caps his reputation as one of the South's preeminent political theorists.

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:

Calhoun, John C.

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(kal-hoohn)

The leading southern politician of the early nineteenth century; he served as vice president under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson and then was elected senator from South Carolina. Calhoun championed slavery and states' rights. During the early 1830s, he led the nullification movement, which maintained that when a state found a federal law unacceptable, the state had the right to declare the law null, or inoperative, within its borders. Nullification was aimed particularly at the high protective tariff of 1828; Calhoun opposed protective tariffs. A man of powerful intellect, Calhoun increasingly became obsessed with the South's minority status and with finding ways to protect slavery. Although he died in 1850, his influence helped point the South toward secession and the Civil War.

Quotes By:

John C. Calhoun

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Quotes:

"The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority."

"The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised."

"I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even."

"Our well-founded claim, grounded on continuity, has greatly strengthened, during the same period, by the rapid advance of our population toward the territoryits great increase, especially in the valley of the Mississippias well as the greatly increased facility of passing to the territory by more accessible routes, and the far stronger and rapidly-swelling tide of population that has recently commenced flowing into it."

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

John C. Calhoun

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 It has been suggested that Anna Maria Calhoun be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2011.
John Caldwell Calhoun
John C. Calhoun as he appears at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
7th Vice President of the United States
In office
March 4, 1825 – December 28, 1832
President John Quincy Adams &
Andrew Jackson
Preceded by Daniel Tompkins
Succeeded by Martin Van Buren
16th United States Secretary of State
In office
April 1, 1844 – March 10, 1845
President John Tyler
Preceded by Abel Upshur
Succeeded by James Buchanan
10th United States Secretary of War
In office
October 8, 1817 – March 4, 1825
President James Monroe
Preceded by William Crawford
Succeeded by James Barbour
United States Senator
from South Carolina
In office
November 26, 1845 – March 31, 1850
Preceded by Daniel Huger
Succeeded by Franklin Elmore
In office
December 29, 1832 – March 4, 1843
Preceded by Robert Hayne
Succeeded by Daniel Huger
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from South Carolina's 6th district
In office
March 4, 1811 – November 3, 1817
Preceded by Joseph Calhoun
Succeeded by Eldred Simkins
Personal details
Born March 18, 1782(1782-03-18)
Abbeville, South Carolina, U.S.
Died March 31, 1850(1850-03-31) (aged 68)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party Democratic (1839–1850)
Other political
affiliations		 Democratic-Republican (Before 1825)
Nullifier (1828–1839)
Spouse(s) Floride Colhoun
Alma mater Yale University
Tapping Reeve Law School
Religion Unitarianism
Signature Cursive signature in ink

John Caldwell Calhoun (pronounced /kælˈhuːn/; March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. After 1840 he switched to states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade. He is best known for his intense and original defense of slavery as something positive, for his inventing the theory of minority rights in a democracy, and for pointing the South toward secession from the Union.

Devoted to the principle of liberty (though not for slaves) and fearful of corruption, Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights—with the white South the minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule he called for a "concurrent majority" whereby the minority could sometimes block offensive proposals. Increasingly distrustful of democracy, he minimized the role of the Second Party System in South Carolina. Calhoun's defense of slavery became defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been incorporated into the American value system.[1] Calhoun asserted that Southern whites, outnumbered in the United States by voters of the more densely-populated Northern states were one such "minority" deserving special protection in the legislature.

Calhoun held major political offices, serving terms in the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate and vice presidency, as well as secretary of war and state. He usually affiliated with the Democrats, but flirted with the Whig Party and considered running for the presidency in 1824 and 1844. As a "war hawk", he agitated in Congress for the War of 1812 to defend American honor against Britain. As Secretary of War under President James Monroe, he reorganized and modernized the War Department, building powerful permanent bureaucracies that ran the department, as opposed to patronage appointees.

Calhoun died nearly 10 years before the start of the American Civil War, but he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860–61. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his ideological rigidity [2][3] as well as for his determination to defend the causes he believed in, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification, under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they viewed unconstitutional. He was an outspoken proponent of the institution of slavery, which he defended as a "positive good" rather than as a "necessary evil".[4] His rhetorical defense of slavery was partially responsible for escalating Southern threats of secession in the face of mounting abolitionist sentiment in the North.

Calhoun was one of the "Great Triumvirate" or the "Immortal Trio" of Congressional leaders, along with his Congressional colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Calhoun as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft.[5] Calhoun "was a public intellectual of the highest order...and a uniquely gifted American politician."[6]

Contents

Origins and early life

An 1822 portrait of John C. Calhoun, aged 40

Calhoun was born in 1782, the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun and his wife Martha Caldwell in Abbeville District, SC. His father had joined the Scotch Irish immigration from County Donegal to the backcountry of South Carolina.[7]

When his father became ill, 17-year-old John Calhoun quit school to work on the family farm. With his brothers' financial support, he later returned to his studies, earning a degree from Yale College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1804. After studying law at the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, he was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807.[8]

Marriage and family

J. C. Calhoun's wife since 1811, Floride Calhoun, (1792–1866), was the daughter of South Carolina United States Senator and lawyer John E. Colhoun, (1750–1802).

In January 1811, Calhoun married Floride Bonneau Calhoun, a first cousin once removed.[9] The couple had 10 children over 18 years; three died in infancy: 1. Andrew Pickens Calhoun (1811–1865), 2. Floride Pure Calhoun (1814–1815), 3. Jane Calhoun (1816–1816), 4. Anna Maria Calhoun (1817–1875), 5. Elizabeth Calhoun (1819–1820), 6. Patrick Calhoun (1821–1858), 7. John Caldwell Calhoun, Jr. (1823–1855), 8. Martha Cornelia Calhoun (1824–1857), 9. James Edward Calhoun (1826–1861) and 10. William Lowndes Calhoun (1829–1858). During her husband's second term as Vice President, Floride Calhoun was a central figure in the Petticoat affair. She was an active Episcopalian and Calhoun often accompanied her to church. However he never joined a church and rarely mentioned religion; a Presbyterian in his early life, historians believe he was closest to the informal Unitarianism typified by Thomas Jefferson.[10]

War hawk

Calhoun was "a high-strung man of ultra intellectual cast,",[11] and unlike Henry Clay or Andrew Jackson was not noted for charisma or charm (except when dealing with women and children).[12][13] But he was a brilliant intellectual and orator and strong organizer. Historian Russell Kirk says "That zeal which flared like Greek fire in Randolph burned in Calhoun, too; but it was contained in the Cast-iron Man as in a furnace, and Calhoun's passion glowed out only through his eyes. No man was more stately, more reserved."[14]

With a base among the Irish (or Scotch Irish), he won his first election to Congress in 1810.[15] Calhoun immediately became a leader of the "War Hawks," along with Speaker Henry Clay and South Carolina congressmen William Lowndes and Langdon Cheves. They disregarded European complexities in the wars between Napoleon and Britain, and brushed aside the vehement objections of New Englanders; they demanded war against Britain to preserve American honor and republican values.[16] Clay made Calhoun the acting chairman of the powerful committee on foreign affairs. On June 3, 1812, Calhoun's committee called for a declaration of war in ringing phrases. The episode spread Calhoun's fame nationwide. War—the War of 1812—was declared but it went very badly for the poorly organized Americans, whose ports were immediately blockaded by the British Royal Navy. Several attempted invasions of Canada were fiascos, but the U.S. did seize control of western Canada and broke the power of hostile Indians in battles in Canada and Alabama.

Calhoun labored to raise troops, to provide funds, to speed logistics, to improve the currency, and to regulate commerce to aid the war effort. Disasters on the battlefield made him double his legislative efforts to overcome the obstructionism of John Randolph of Roanoke and Daniel Webster and other opponents of the war. With Napoleon apparently gone, and the British invasion of New York defeated, British and American diplomats (Clay and John Quincy Adams among the American delegation) signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. Before the treaty reached the Senate for ratification, and even before news of its signing reached New Orleans, a massive British invasion force was utterly defeated at the Battle of New Orleans, which made a national hero out of General Andrew Jackson. The mismanagement of the Army during the war distressed Calhoun, and he resolved to strengthen the War Department so it would never fail again.[17]

Nationalist

After the war, Calhoun and Clay sponsored a Bonus Bill for public works. With the goal of building a strong nation that could fight future wars, Calhoun aggressively pushed for protective tariffs (to build up industry), a national bank, internal improvements (such as canals and ports), and many other nationalist policies he later repudiated.[18]

Calhoun expressed his nationalism in advising Monroe to approve the Missouri Compromise, which most other Southern politicians saw as a distinctly bad deal. Calhoun believed that continued agitation on the slavery issue threatened the Union, so he wanted the Missouri dispute to be concluded.[citation needed]

John Quincy Adams concluded in 1821 that: "Calhoun is a man of fair and candid mind, of honorable principles, of clear and quick understanding, of cool self-possession, of enlarged philosophical views, and of ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted."[19] Historian Charles Wiltse agrees, noting, "Though he is known today primarily for his sectionalism, Calhoun was the last of the great political leaders of his time to take a sectional position—later than Daniel Webster, later than Henry Clay, later than Adams himself."[20]

An observer commented that Calhoun was "the most elegant speaker that sits in the House... His gestures are easy and graceful, his manner forcible, and language elegant; but above all, he confines himself closely to the subject, which he always understands, and enlightens everyone within hearing; having said all that a statesman should say, he is done." His talent for public speaking required systematic self-discipline and practice. A later critic noted the sharp contrast between his hesitant conversations and his fluent speaking styles, adding that Calhoun "had so carefully cultivated his naturally poor voice as to make his utterance clear, full, and distinct in speaking and while not at all musical it yet fell pleasantly on the ear."[21]

Secretary of War: 1817–25

In 1817, President James Monroe appointed Calhoun Secretary of War, where he served until 1825. Calhoun continued his role as a leading nationalist during the "Era of Good Feeling". He proposed an elaborate program of national reforms to the infrastructure that would speed economic modernization. His first priority was an effective navy, including steam frigates, and in the second place a standing army of adequate size; and as further preparation for emergency "great permanent roads," "a certain encouragement" to manufactures, and a system of internal taxation which would not be subject like customs duties to collapse by a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade. He spoke for a national bank, for internal improvements (such as harbors, canals and river navigation) and a protective tariff that would help the industrial Northeast and, especially, pay for the expensive new infrastructure.[22] The word "nation" was often on his lips, and his conscious aim was to enhance national unity which he identified with national power.

After the war ended in 1815 the "Old Republicans" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for economy in the federal government, sought at every turn to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department. In 1817, the deplorable state of the War Department led four men to turn down requests to fill the Secretary of War position before Calhoun finally accepted the task. Political rivalry, namely, Calhoun's political ambitions as well as those of William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, over the pursuit of the 1824 presidency also complicated Calhoun's tenure as War Secretary.

Calhoun proposed an expansible army similar to that of France under Napoleon, whereby a basic cadre of 6,000 officers and men could be expanded into 11,000 without adding additional officers or companies. Congress wanted an army of adequate size in case American interests in Florida or the west led to war with Britain or Spain. However the nation was satisfied by the diplomacy that produced the Convention of 1818 with Britain and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 with Spain, the need for a large army disappeared, and Calhoun could not prevent cutbacks in 1821.[23]

As secretary, Calhoun had responsibility for management of Indian affairs. A reform-minded modernizer, he attempted to institute centralization and efficiency in the Indian department, but Congress either failed to respond to his reforms or responded with hostility. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political rivalries, and ideological differences that dominated the late early republic spurred him to unilaterally create the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824.[24] He supervised the negotiation and ratification of 38 treaties with Indian tribes.

Vice Presidency

Election

Vice President John C. Calhoun

Calhoun originally was a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1824. After failing to win the endorsement of the South Carolina legislature, he decided to be a candidate for Vice President. Although no presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College and the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives, the Electoral College elected Calhoun vice president by a landslide. Calhoun served four years under John Quincy Adams, and then, in 1828, won re-election as Vice President running with Andrew Jackson.

The Adams administration

Calhoun believed that the outcome of the 1824 presidential election, in which the House made Adams President despite the greater popularity of Andrew Jackson, demonstrated that control of the federal government was subject to manipulation by Adams and Henry Clay. Calhoun resolved to thwart Adams and Clay's nationalist program. He opposed it even as he held office with them.[citation needed] In 1828, Calhoun ran for reelection as the running mate of Andrew Jackson. He thus became one of two vice presidents to serve under two presidents.[25]

Nullification

See also: Nullification (U.S. Constitution)

Under Andrew Jackson, Calhoun's vice presidency was also controversial. In time he developed a rift over policy with President Jackson, this time about hard cash, a policy which he considered to favor Northern financial interests.

Calhoun opposed an increase in the protective tariff. While Vice-President in the John Quincy Adams administration (1825–1829), he and other southerners devised a high tariff legislation that placed burdensome duties on selected New England imports. Calhoun had been assured that the northeastern interests would reject the Tariff of 1828, exposing New England (pro- Adams) congressmen to charges that they selfishly opposed legislation popular among Jacksonian Democrats in the west and Mid-Atlantic States. The southern legislators miscalculated and the Tariff of Abominations passed. [26] Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation to write "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", an essay rejecting the nationalist philosophy he once advocated.[27]

Calhoun proposed the theory of a concurrent majority through the doctrine of nullification —- "the right of a State to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government, within its limits."[28] Nullification can be traced back to arguments by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. They had proposed that states could nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Jackson, who supported states' rights but believed that nullification threatened the Union, opposed it. Calhoun differed from Jefferson and Madison in explicitly arguing for a state's right to secede from the Union, if necessary, instead of simply nullifying certain federal legislation. James Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law.[29]

At the 1830 Jefferson Day dinner at Jesse Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, Jackson proposed a toast and proclaimed, "Our federal Union, it must be preserved." Calhoun replied, "the Union, next to our liberty, the most dear."[30]

In May 1830, Jackson discovered that Calhoun had asked President Monroe to censure then-General Jackson for his invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818. Calhoun was then serving as James Monroe's Secretary of War (1817–1823). Jackson had invaded Florida during the First Seminole War without explicit public authorization from Calhoun or Monroe. Calhoun's and Jackson's relationship deteriorated further.

Calhoun defended his 1818 position. The feud between him and Jackson heated up as Calhoun informed the President that he risked another attack from his opponents. They started an argumentative correspondence, fueled by Jackson's opponents, until Jackson stopped the letters in July 1830.

By February 1831, the break between Calhoun and Jackson was final. Responding to inaccurate press reports about the feud, Calhoun had published the letters in the United States Telegraph.[31]

More upheaval came when his wife Floride Calhoun organized Cabinet wives against Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John Eaton.[32] The scandal, which became known as the "Petticoat affair" or the "Peggy Eaton affair", ripped apart the cabinet and created an intolerable situation for Jackson. Jackson saw attacks on Eaton stemming ultimately from the political opposition of Calhoun, and he used the affair to consolidate control over his cabinet, forcing the resignation of several members and ending Calhoun's influence in the cabinet.

Nullification crisis

In 1832, states' rights theory was put to the test in the Nullification Crisis, after South Carolina passed an ordinance that nullified federal tariffs. The tariffs favored northern manufacturing interests over southern agricultural concerns. The South Carolina legislature declared them unconstitutional. Calhoun had formed a political party in South Carolina explicitly known as the Nullifier Party.

In response to the South Carolina move, Congress passed the Force Bill, which empowered the President to use military power to force states to obey all federal laws. Jackson sent US Navy warships to Charleston harbor. South Carolina then nullified the Force Bill. Tensions cooled after both sides agreed to the Compromise Tariff of 1833, a proposal by Senator Henry Clay to change the tariff law in a manner which satisfied Calhoun, who by then was in the Senate.

Calhoun had earlier suggested that the doctrine of nullification could lead to secession. In his 1828 essay "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any law it considered unconstitutional.[31]

U.S. Senator

John C. Calhoun, painted by Rembrandt Peale, 1834

With his break with Jackson complete, in 1832, Calhoun ran for the Senate rather than continue as Vice President. Because he had expressed nullification beliefs during the crisis, his chances of becoming President were very low.[31] After the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was implemented, the Nullifier Party, along with other anti-Jackson politicians, formed a coalition known as the Whig Party. Calhoun sided with the Whigs until he broke with key Whig Senator Daniel Webster over slavery, as well as the Whigs' program of "internal improvements". Many Southern politicians opposed these as improving Northern industrial interests at the expense of Southern interests. Whig Party leader Henry Clay sided with Daniel Webster on these issues.[33] Calhoun was the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office, doing so on December 28, 1832[34] (Spiro Agnew did so in 1973). He achieved his greatest influence and most lasting fame as a Senator.

Slavery

Calhoun led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate in the 1830s and 1840s, opposing both abolitionism and attempts to limit the expansion of slavery into the western territories; actively anti-Wilmot Proviso. [35] He was a major advocate of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which required the co-operation of local law enforcement officials in free states to return escaped slaves.[33]

Calhoun was shaped by his father, Patrick Calhoun, a prosperous upstate planter who supported Independence during the American Revolutionary War but opposed ratification of the federal Constitution. The father was a staunch slaveholder who taught his son that one's standing in society depended not merely on one's commitment to the ideal of popular self-government but also on the ownership of a substantial number of slaves. Flourishing in a world in which slaveholding was a badge of civilization, Calhoun saw little reason to question its morality as an adult. He never visited Europe. Calhoun believed that the spread of slavery into the back country of his own state improved public morals by ridding the countryside of the shiftless poor whites who had once held the region back.[36] He further believed that slavery instilled in the white who remained a code of honor that blunted the disruptive potential of private gain and fostered the civic-mindedness that lay near the core of the republican creed. From such a standpoint, the expansion of slavery into the backcountry decreased the likelihood for social conflict and postponed the declension when money would become the only measure of self worth, as had happened in New England. Calhoun was thus firmly convinced that slavery was the key to the success of the American dream.[37]

Whereas other Southern politicians had excused slavery as a necessary evil, in a famous [[s:Slavery a Positive Good|speech on the Senate floor] on 6 February 1837], Calhoun asserted that slavery was a "positive good." He rooted this claim on two grounds: white supremacy and paternalism. All societies, Calhoun claimed, are ruled by an elite group which enjoys the fruits of the labor of a less-privileged group. Senator William Rives of Virginia earlier had referred to slavery as an evil that might become a "lesser evil" in some circumstances. Calhoun believed that conceded too much to the abolitionists: "I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good... I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe—look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse... I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other."[38] A year later in the Senate (January 10, 1838), Calhoun repeated this defense of slavery as a "positive good": "Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world."[39] Calhoun rejected the belief of Southern Whigs such as Henry Clay that all Americans could agree on the "opinion and feeling" that slavery was wrong, although they might disagree on the most practicable way to respond to that great wrong. Calhoun's constitutional ideas acted as a viable conservative alternative to Northern appeals to democracy, majority rule and natural rights.[40]

Calhoun's home, Fort Hill, on the grounds that became part of Clemson University, in Clemson, South Carolina.

After a one-year service as Secretary of State (April 1, 1844 – March 10, 1845), Calhoun returned to the Senate in 1845. He participated in the epic political struggle over the expansion of slavery in the Western states. Regions were divided as to whether slavery should be allowed in the formerly Imperial Spanish and Mexican lands. The debate over this issue culminated in the Compromise of 1850.

Democratic politics

To restore his national stature, Calhoun cooperated with Jackson's successor Martin Van Buren, who became president in 1837. Democrats were very hostile to national banks, and the country's bankers had joined the opposition Whig Party. The Democratic replacement was the "Independent Treasury" system, which Calhoun supported and which went into effect. Calhoun, like Jackson and Van Buren, attacked finance capitalism, which he saw as the common enemy of the Northern laborer, the Southern planter, and the small farmer everywhere. His goal, therefore, was to unite these groups in the Democratic Party, and to dedicate that party to states' rights and agricultural interests as barriers against encroachment by government and big business.[33]

Foreign policy

When Whig president William Henry Harrison died after a month in office in 1841, vice president John Tyler took office. Tyler was a former Democrat and broke bitterly with the Whigs, and named Calhoun Secretary of State in 1844. Public opinion was inflamed about the Oregon country, claimed by both Britain and the U.S.. Calhoun compromised by splitting the area down the middle at the 49th parallel, ending the war threat.[41]

Texas

Tyler and Calhoun were eager to annex the independent Republic of Texas, which wanted to join the Union. Texas was slave country and anti-slavery elements in the North denounced annexation as a plot to enlarge the Slave Power (that is, the excess political power controlled by slave owners). When the Senate could not muster a two-thirds vote to pass a treaty of annexation with Texas, Calhoun devised a joint resolution of the Houses of Congress, requiring only a simple majority; Texas joined the Union. Mexico had warned all along that it would go to war if Texas joined the Union; war broke out in 1846.[33]

The evils of war and political parties

Calhoun was consistently opposed to the war with Mexico from its very beginning, arguing that an enlarged military effort would only feed the alarming and growing lust of the public for empire regardless of its constitutional dangers, bloat executive powers and patronage, and saddle the republic with a soaring debt that would disrupt finances and encourage speculation. Calhoun feared, moreover, that Southern slave owners would be shut out of any conquered Mexican territories (as almost happened with the Wilmot Proviso).

Anti-slavery Northerners denounced the war as a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery; Calhoun saw a conspiracy of Yankees to destroy the South. By 1847 he decided the Union was threatened by a totally corrupt party system. He believed that in their lust for office, patronage and spoils, politicians in the North pandered to the antislavery vote, especially during presidential campaigns, and politicians in the slave states sacrificed Southern rights in an effort to placate the Northern wings of their parties. Thus, the essential first step in any successful assertion of Southern rights had to be the jettisoning of all party ties. In 1848–49, Calhoun tried to give substance to his call for Southern unity. He was the driving force behind the drafting and publication of the "Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress, to Their Constituents." It listed the alleged Northern violations of the constitutional rights of the South, then warned southern voters to expect forced emancipation of slaves in the near future, followed by their complete subjugation by an unholy alliance of unprincipled Northerners and blacks, and a South forever reduced to "disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness." Only the immediate and unflinching unity of Southern whites could prevent such a disaster. Such unity would either bring the North to its senses or lay the foundation for an independent South. But the spirit of union was still strong in the region and fewer than 40% of the southern congressmen signed the address, and only one Whig.[27]

Southerners believed his warnings and read every political news story from the North as further evidence of the planned destruction of the southern way of life. The climax was the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which led immediately to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other cotton states. They formed the new Confederate States of America, which, in accord with Calhoun's theory, did not have any political parties.[42]

Rejects Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850, devised by Clay and Democratic leader Stephen Douglas, was designed to solve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories acquired from Mexico. Calhoun, back in the Senate but too feeble to speak, wrote a blistering attack on the compromise. A friend read his speech, calling upon the Constitution, which upheld the South's right to hold slaves; warning that the day "the balance between the two sections" was destroyed would be a day not far removed from disunion, anarchy, and civil war. Could the Union be preserved? Yes, easily; the North had only to will it to accomplish it; to agree to a restoration of the lost equilibrium of equal North–South representation in the Senate; and to cease "agitating" the slavery question. Calhoun had precedent and law on his side of the debate. But the North had time and rapid population growth due to industrialization, and the Compromise was passed.[33]

Death

Grave of John C. Calhoun, St. Philip's Church yard, Charleston, South Carolina, 1865

Calhoun died in Washington, D.C. in March 1850 of tuberculosis, at the age of 68. He was buried in St. Philip's Church yard in Charleston, South Carolina.

Calhoun's fierce defense of states' rights and support for the Slave Power had influence beyond his death. Southern supporters drew from his thought in the growing divide between Northern and Southern states on this issue. They wielded the threat of Southern secession to back slave state demands.

Political philosophy

Agrarian republicanism

See also: Agrarianism

Cheek (2001) distinguishes between two strands of American republican thought—the puritan tradition, based in New England, and the agrarian or South Atlantic tradition. Cheek argues that Calhoun is best understood as a representative of the South Atlantic tradition of agrarian republicanism. While the New England tradition stressed a politically centralized enforcement of moral and religious norms to secure civic virtue, the South Atlantic tradition relied on a decentralized moral and religious order based on the idea of "subsidiarity" (or localism). Cheek locates the fundamental principles of Calhoun's republicanism in the "Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions" (1798) written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Calhoun emphasizes the primacy of the idea of subsidiarity: popular rule is best expressed in local communities that are nearly autonomous while serving as units of a larger society.[43]

Concurrent majority

A photograph of John C. Calhoun.

Calhoun's basic concern for protecting the diverse interests of minority interests is expressed in his chief contribution to political science—the idea of a concurrent majority across different groups as distinguished from a numerical majority. According to the principle of a numerical majority, the will of the more numerous citizens should always rule, regardless of the burdens on the minority. Such a principle tends toward a consolidation of power in which the interests of the absolute majority always prevail over those of the minority. Calhoun believed that the great achievement of the American constitution was in checking the tyranny of a numerical majority through institutional procedures that required a concurrent majority, such that each important interest in the community must consent to the actions of government. To secure a concurrent majority, those interests that have a numerical majority must compromise with the interests that are in the minority. A concurrent majority requires a unanimous consent of all the major interests in a community, which is the only sure way of preventing majority tyranny. This idea supported Calhoun's doctrine of interposition or nullification, in which the state governments could refuse to enforce or comply with a policy of the Federal government that threatened the vital interests of the states. [44]

Historian Richard Hofstadter (1948) emphasizes that Calhoun’s conception of "minority" was very different from the minorities of a century later:

“Not in the slightest was [Calhoun] concerned with minority rights as they are chiefly of interest to the modern liberal mind – the rights of dissenters to express unorthodox opinions, of the individual conscience against the State, least of all of ethnic minorities. At bottom he was not interested in any minority that was not a propertied minority. The concurrent majority itself was a device without relevance to the protection of dissent, designed to protect a vested interest of considerable power...it was minority privileges rather than [minority] rights that he really proposed to protect.”[45]

Calhoun was chiefly concerned with protecting the interests of the Southern States (which he largely identified with the interests of their slaveholding elites), as a distinct and beleaguered minority among the members of the federal Union. However the idea of a concurrent majority as a protection for minority rights has gained wide acceptance in American political thought.[46][47]

John C. Calhoun on the “concurrent majority” from his Disquisition (1850)

"If the whole community had the same interests, so that the interests of each and every portion would be so affected by the action of the government, that the laws which oppressed or impoverished one portion, would necessarily oppress and impoverish all others — or the reverse — then the right of suffrage, of itself, would be all-sufficient to counteract the tendency of the government to oppression and abuse of its powers....But such is not the case. On the contrary, nothing is more difficult than to equalize the action of the government, in reference to the various and diversified interests of the community; and nothing more easy than to pervert its powers into instruments to aggrandize and enrich one or more interests by oppressing and impoverishing the others; and this too, under the operation of laws, couched in general terms — and which, on their face, appear fair and equal.....Such being the case, it necessarily results, that the right of suffrage, by placing the control of the government in the community must . . . lead to conflict among its different interests — each striving to obtain possession of its powers, as the means of protecting itself against the others — or of advancing its respective interests, regardless of the interests of others. For this purpose, a struggle will take place between the various interests to obtain a majority, in order to control the government. If no one interest be strong enough, of itself, to obtain it, a combination will be formed....[and] the community will be divided into two great parties — a major and minor — between which there will be incessant struggles on the one side to retain, and on the other to obtain the majority — and, thereby, the control of the government and the advantages it confers."[48]


Disquisition on Government

The Disquisition on Government is a 100-page abstract treatise that comprises Calhoun's definitive and fully elaborated ideas on government; he worked on it intermittently for six years before it was finished in 1849.[49] It systematically presents his arguments that 1) a numerical majority in any government will typically impose a despotism over a minority unless some way is devised to secure the assent of all classes, sections, and interests[50] and 2) that inate human depravity would debase government in a democracy. [51]

Calhoun offered the concurrent majority as the key to achieving consensus, a formula by which a minority interest had the option to nullify objectionable legislation passed by a majority interest. [52] The doctrine would be made effective by this tactic of nullification, a veto that would suspend the law within the boundaries of the state. [53][54]

Veto power was linked to the right of secession; with secession came the threat of anarchy and social chaos. Constituencies would call for compromise to prevent this outcome.[55] With a concurrent majority in place, the US Constitution would no longer exert collective authority over the various states and cease to be the “supreme law of the land” (Article IV, clause 2).

The mechanisms for his system are convincing if one shares Calhoun’s conviction that a functioning concurrent majority never leads to stalemate in the legislature; rather, talented statesmen, practiced in the arts of conciliation and compromise would pursue “the common good”,[56] however explosive the issue. His formula promised to produce laws satisfactory to all interests. [57] The ultimate goal of these mechanism was to facilitate the authentic will of the white populace. Calhoun explicitly rejected the founding principles of equality in the Declaration of Independence, denying that humanity is born free and equal in shared human nature and basic needs. He regarded this precept as “the most false and dangerous of all political errors”. [58] States could constitutionally take action to free themselves from an overweening government, but slaves as individuals or interest groups could not do so.

Calhoun’s assumed that with the establishment of a concurrent majority, interest groups would influence their own representatives sufficiently to have a voice in public affairs; the representatives would perform strictly as high-minded public servants. [59] Under this scenario, the political leadership would improve and persist; corruption and demagoguery would subside; and the interests of the people would be honored. [60].[61] This introduces the second theme in the Disquisition and a counterpoint to his concept of the concurrent majority: political corruption.[62]

Calhoun considered the concurrent majority essential to provide structural restraints to counter his belief that “a vast majority of mankind is entirely biased by motives of self-interest and that by this interest must be governed.” [63] This innate selfishness, which he viewed as axiomatic, would inevitably emerge when government revenue became available to political parties for distribution as patronage. [64]

Politicians and bureaucrats would succumb to the lure of government lucre accumulated through taxation, tariff duties and public land sales. Even a diminishment of massive revenue effected through nullification by the permanent minority would not eliminate these temptations. A robust national defense – acknowledged by all interests as a essential to national security– would require significant military expenditures. These funds alone would be sufficient to entice political leaders into abandoning the interests of their constituents in favor of serving personal and party interests. [65]

Calhoun predicted that electioneering, political conspiracies and outright fraud would be employed to mislead and distract a gullible public; inevitably, perfidious demagogues would come to rule the political scene. A decline in authority among the principal statesmen would follow, and, ultimately, the eclipse of the concurrent majority. [66]

Calhoun contended that however confused and misled the masses were by political opportunists, any efforts to impose majority will upon a minority would be thwarted by a minority veto. [67] What Calhoun fails to explain, according to historian William W. Freehling, is how a compromise would be achieved in the aftermath of a minority veto, when the ubiquitous demagogues betray their constituencies and abandon the concurrent majority altogether. Calhoun’s two key concepts – the maintenance of the concurrent majority by high-minded statesmen on the one hand; and the inevitable rise of demagogues who undermine consensus on the other – are never reconciled or resolved in the Disquisition. [68]

South Carolina and other Southern states, in the three decades preceding the Civil War, had provided legislatures in which the vested interests of land and slaves dominated in the upper houses, while the popular will of the numerical majority prevailed in the lower houses. There was little opportunity for demagogues to establish themselves in this political milieu – the democratic component among the people was too weak to sustain a plebian politician. The conservative statesmen – the slaveholding gentry – retained control over the political apparatus. [69][70] William W. Freehling described the nature of the democracy that existed in ante bellum South Carolina:

[T]he apportionment of [state] legislative seats gave the small majority of low country aristocrats control of the senate and a disproportionate influence in the house. Political power in South Carolina was uniquely concentrated in a legislature of large property holders who set state policy and selected the men to administer it. The characteristics of South Carolina politics cemented the control of upper class planters. Elections to the state legislature – the one control the masses could exert over the government – were often uncontested and rarely allowed the “plebian” a clear choice between two parties or policies. [71]

This was done in conscious acceptance of the doctrine of the Disquisition.[72]

The Disquisition was published shortly after his death as was his other book, Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.

State Sovereignty and the "Calhoun Doctrine"

In the 1840s three interpretations of the Constitutional powers of Congress to deal with slavery in territories emerged: the "free-soil doctrine," the "Calhoun doctrine," and "popular sovereignty". The Free Soilers said Congress had the power to outlaw slavery in the territories. The Popular Sovereignty position said the voters living there should decide. The Calhoun doctrine said Congress could never outlaw slavery in the territories.[73]

In what historian Robert R. Russell calls the "Calhoun Doctrine," Calhoun argued that the Federal Government's role in the territories was only that of the trustee or agent of the several sovereign states: it was obliged not to discriminate among the states and hence was incapable of forbidding the bringing into any territory of anything that was legal property in any state. Calhoun argued that citizens from every state had the right to take their property to any territory. Congress, he asserted, had no authority to place restrictions on slavery in the territories. [74] As Constitutional historian Hermann von Holst noted, "Calhoun's doctrine made it a solemn constitutional duty of the United States government and of the American people to act as if the existence or non-existence of slavery in the Territories did not concern them in the least."[75] The Calhoun Doctrine was vehemently opposed by the Free Soil forces, who merged into the new republican Party around 1854.[76]


$100 bill issued by Confederate States of America, bearing image of Calhoun, November 1862
John C. Calhoun, CSA issue of 1862

Memorials

See also: List of places named for John C. Calhoun

During the Civil War, the Confederate government honored Calhoun on a one-cent postage stamp, which was printed in 1862 but was never officially released.

Calhoun was honored by Minneapolis, naming one of its Chain of Lakes, Lake Calhoun, after him.

Calhoun was also honored by his alma mater, Yale University, which named one of its undergraduate residence halls "Calhoun College". A sculpture of Calhoun appears on the exterior of Harkness Tower, a prominent campus landmark.

The Clemson University campus in South Carolina occupies the site of Calhoun's Fort Hill plantation, which he bequeathed to his wife and daughter. They sold it and its 50 slaves to a relative, for which they received $15,000 for the 1,100 acres (450 ha) and $29,000 for the slaves. (They were valued at about 600 USD apiece.) When that owner died, Thomas Green Clemson foreclosed the mortgage. He later bequeathed the property to the state for use as an agricultural college to be named after him.

A wide range of places, streets and schools were named after Calhoun, as may be seen on the above list. The "Immortal Trio" were memorialized with streets in Uptown New Orleans. Calhoun Landing, on the Santee-Cooper River in Santee, South Carolina, was named after him. The Calhoun Monument was erected in Charleston, South Carolina. The USS John C. Calhoun was a Fleet Ballistic Missile nuclear submarine, in commission from 1963 to 1994.

In 1957, United States Senators honored Calhoun as one of the "five greatest senators of all time."

References

  1. ^ Safford, "John C. Calhoun, Lani Guinier, and Minority Rights," (1995)
  2. ^ Coit, 1970 p. 70-71
  3. ^ Miller, 1996, p. 115-116
  4. ^ Ford (1998)
  5. ^ "The "Famous Five"". http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Famous_Five.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  6. ^ Thomas L. Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President (2008), p. 232
  7. ^ Margaret Coit, John C. Calhoun: An American Portrait (1950)
  8. ^ Coit (1950)
  9. ^ Her branch of the family spelled the surname differently than did his.
  10. ^ Clyde Wilson, ed. The papers of John C. Calhoun (2003) vol. 27 pp 254–5
  11. ^ William Montgomery Meigs, The life of John Caldwell Calhoun (1917) Volume 2 p 8
  12. ^ Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1988) pp. 280, 408
  13. ^ Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition (1948) p 96
  14. ^ Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (2001) p 168
  15. ^ Michael Glazier, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America (1999) p 96
  16. ^ Bradford Perkins, Prologue to war: England and the United States, 1805–1812 (1961) p 359 online
  17. ^ Wiltse (1944)
  18. ^ Wiltse (1944), vol, 1, ch, 8–11,
  19. ^ Adams, Diary, V, 361
  20. ^ Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nationalist, p. 234
  21. ^ William Meigs, The life of John Caldwell Calhoun (1917) p. 221 (online)
  22. ^ Preyer, Norris W. (1959). "Southern Support of the Tariff of 1816 – a Reappraisal". Journal of Southern History 25 (3): 306–322. doi:10.2307/2954765. JSTOR 2954765. 
  23. ^ Fitzgerald, Michael S. (1996). "Rejecting Calhoun's Expansible Army Plan: the Army Reduction Act of 1821". War in History 3 (2): 161–185. doi:10.1177/096834459600300202. 
  24. ^ Belko, William S. (2004). "John C. Calhoun and the Creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: an Essay on Political Rivalry, Ideology, and Policymaking in the Early Republic". South Carolina Historical Magazine 105 (3): 170–197. JSTOR 27570693. 
  25. ^ The other was George Clinton, 1805-1812.
  26. ^ Bailey, 1971.
  27. ^ a b Bartlett (1994)
  28. ^ "Report Prepared for the Committee on Federal Relations of the Legislature of South Carolina, at its Session in November, 1831," in Calhoun, Works, Vol. VI (Crallé, ed., New York, 1888), p. 96.
  29. ^ Robert Allen Rutland, James Madison: The Founding Father (1997), pp. 248–249.
  30. ^ Niven 173
  31. ^ a b c John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President 1825–1832, Senate.gov, accessed Oct 9, 2009
  32. ^ They alleged that John and Peggy Eaton had engaged in an adulterous affair while Mrs. Eaton was still legally married to her first husband.
  33. ^ a b c d e Bartlett, (1994)
  34. ^ "Calhoun resigns vice presidency". History. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/calhoun-resigns-vice-presidency. Retrieved 26 December 2011. 
  35. ^ "Law Library: Wilmot Proviso". http://law.jrank.org/pages/11335/Wilmot-Proviso.html. 
  36. ^ Bartlett, John C. Calhoun (1994), p 218
  37. ^ Bartlett, John C. Calhoun (1994), p. 228.
  38. ^ Bartlett, John C. Calhoun (1994) p 227
  39. ^ John Caldwell Calhoun, The Works of John C. Calhoun: Speeches ... delivered in the House ed. by Richard Kenner Crallé (1853) p 180
  40. ^ Ford (1988)
  41. ^ The British area became British Columbia; the American area became Washington and Oregon.
  42. ^ Freehling (1965)
  43. ^ Cheek (2001)
  44. ^ Ford (1994)
  45. ^ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 90-91
  46. ^ Baskin, Darryl (1969), "The Pluralist Vision of John C. Calhoun", Polity (Polity, Vol. 2, No. 1) 2 (1): 49–65, doi:10.2307/3234088, http://jstor.org/stable/3234088 
  47. ^ Kateb, George (1969), "The Majority Principle: Calhoun and His Antecedents", Political Science Quarterly (Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 84, No. 4) 84 (4): 583–605, doi:10.2307/2147126, http://jstor.org/stable/2147126 
  48. ^ Constance Polin and Raymond Polin, eds., Foundations of American political thought (2006) p 380
  49. ^ Bartlett, John C. Calhoun, pp 351-55
  50. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 218-219
  51. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 222-223
  52. ^ Freehing, p. 219
  53. ^ Coit, 1950, 150-151
  54. ^ Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln, p. 171
  55. ^ Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln, p. 174
  56. ^ Coit, 1950, 147
  57. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 222
  58. ^ Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln,, p. 166-167
  59. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 223
  60. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 218-219
  61. ^ Krannawitter, 2008 p. 170-171
  62. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 223
  63. ^ Coit, 1950, 149
  64. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 219 - 220
  65. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 221 - 222
  66. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 223
  67. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 222
  68. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 223
  69. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 225 - 226
  70. ^ Varon, 2008, p. 91-92
  71. ^ Freehing, 1965, p. 225 - 226
  72. ^ Brown (2000)
  73. ^ Don E. Fehrenbacher, Slavery, law, and politics: the Dred Scott case in historical perspective (1981) pp 64-65
  74. ^ Russell, Robert R. (1966). "Constitutional Doctrines with Regard to Slavery in Territories". Journal of Southern History 32 (4): 466–486. doi:10.2307/2204926. JSTOR 2204926. 
  75. ^ Hermann E. von Holst, John C. Calhoun (1883) p. 312
  76. ^ Eric Foner, Free soil, free labor, free men: the ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970) p 178

Further reading

Biographies

  • Bartlett, Irving H. John C. Calhoun: A Biography (1994), 413pp, the best one-volume scholarly biography; Bartlett, while hostile to slavery, portrays Calhoun as a principled, consistent, and often admirable champion of slavery and the South.
  • Capers, Gerald M. John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Reappraisal (1960) online edition
  • Coit, Margaret, L John C. Calhoun: American Portrait 620pp; prize winning popular history excerpt and text search
  • Current, Richard N. John C. Calhoun (1966), short biography by a scholar
  • Hofstadter, Richard. "The Marx of the Master Class" in The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, (1948), influential essay on Calhoun. online in ACLS E-Book
  • Meigs, William Montgomery. The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun, (2 vol 1917), old but solid scholarship; complete text online
  • Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (1993) excerpt and text search
  • Niven, John. "Calhoun, John C."; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000
  • Peterson, Merrill D. Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987), comparison of three key leaders excerpt and text search
  • Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782–1828 (1944) ISBN 0-8462-1041-X; John C. Calhoun, Nullifier, 1829–1839 (1948); John C. Calhoun, Sectionalist, 1840–1859 (1951); the standard scholarly biography

Specialized studies

  • Bailey, Thomas. The American Pageant, A History of the Republic. 4th Edition. Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1971.
  • Belko, William S. "'John C. Calhoun and the Creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: An Essay on Political Rivalry, Ideology, and Policymaking in the Early Republic," South Carolina Historical Magazine 2004 105(3): 170–197. ISSN 0038-3082
  • Brown, Guy Story. "Calhoun's Philosophy of Politics: A Study of A Disquisition on Government" (2000)
  • Capers Gerald M., "A Reconsideration of Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification," Journal of Southern History, 14 (Feb., 1948), 34–48. online in JSTOR
  • Cheek, Jr., H. Lee. Calhoun And Popular Rule: The Political Theory of the Disquisition and Discourse. (2004) online edition
  • Ford Jr., Lacy K. Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860 (1988)
  • Coit, Margaret L. (Editor). 1970. John C. Calhoun: Great Lives Observed. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey
  • Ford Jr., Lacy K. "Inventing the Concurrent Majority: Madison, Calhoun, and the Problem of Majoritarianism in American Political Thought," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 19–58 in JSTOR
  • Ford, Lacy K. Jr. "Republican Ideology in a Slave Society: The Political Economy of John C. Calhoun," Journal of Southern History 54 (1988): 405–24; in JSTOR
  • Freehling, William W. "Spoilsmen and Interests in the Thought and Career of John C. Calhoun," Journal of American History 52 (1965): 25–42. in JSTOR
  • Gutzman, Kevin R. C., "Paul to Jeremiah: Calhoun's Abandonment of Nationalism," The Journal of Libertarian Studies 16 (2002), 3–33.
  • Hofstadter, Richard. 1948. The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: A. A. Knopf.
  • Krannawitter, Thomas L. "John C. Calhoun and the New Science of Race and Politics," in Ronald J. Pestritto and Thomas G. West, eds. Challenges to the American founding: slavery, historicism, and progressivism in the nineteenth century (2004) ch 2 pp 43+
  • Lerner, Ralph. "Calhoun's New Science of Politics," American Political Science Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 918–932 in JSTOR
  • Merriam, Charles E. "The Political Theory of Calhoun," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Mar., 1902), pp. 577–594 in JSTOR
  • Miller, William Lee. 1996. Arguing About Slavery. John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-3945-6922-9
  • Rayback Joseph G., "The Presidential Ambitions of John C. Calhoun, 1844–1848," Journal of Southern History, XIV (Aug., 1948), 331–56. online in JSTOR
  • Safford, John C. Calhoun, "Lani Guinier, and Minority Rights," PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 211–216 in JSTOR
  • Varon, Elizabeth R. 2008. Disunion! : The coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859 University of North Carolina Press.
  • Wiltse, Charles. "Calhoun's Democracy," Journal of Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May, 1941), pp. 210–223 in JSTOR
  • Wood, W. Kirk, “History and Recovery of the Past: John C. Calhoun and the Origins of Nullification in South Carolina, 1819–1828,” Southern Studies, 16 (Spring–Summer 2009), 46–68.

Primary sources

  • Calhoun, John C. John C. Calhoun: Selected Writings and Speeches edited by H. Lee Cheek, (2003) excerpt and text search
  • The Papers of John C. Calhoun Edited by Clyde N. Wilson; 28 volumes, University of South Carolina Press, 1959–2003. [1]; contains all letters, pamphlets and speeches by Calhoun and most letters written to him.
  • Calhoun, John C. Slavery a Positive Good, speech on the Senate floor, February 6, 1837.
  • Calhoun, John C. Ed. Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun, 1992. ISBN 0-86597-102-1. ed by Ross M. Lence
  • "Correspondence Addressed to John C. Calhoun, 1837–1849," Chauncey S. Boucher and Robert P. Brooks, eds., Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1929. 1931

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