John C. Calhoun

Source

• 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).

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

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).

(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

(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.

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:

"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."

John Caldwell Calhoun
7th Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1825 – December 28, 1832
President	John Quincy Adams Andrew Jackson
Preceded by	Daniel D. 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 P. 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 H. Crawford
Succeeded by	James Barbour
United States Senator from South Carolina
In office December 29, 1832 – March 3, 1843
Preceded by	Robert Y. Hayne
Succeeded by	Daniel E. Huger
In office November 26, 1845 – March 31, 1850
Preceded by	Daniel E. Huger
Succeeded by	Franklin H. Elmore
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance
In office 1845 – 1846
Preceded by	Levi Woodbury
Succeeded by	Dixon Lewis
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
Born	March 18, 1782(1782-03-18) Abbeville, South Carolina
Died	March 31, 1850 (aged 68) Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic-Republican, Democratic, Nullifier
Spouse(s)	Floride Colhoun Calhoun
Alma mater	Yale University Tapping Reeve Law School
Religion	Unitarian[1]
Signature

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was the seventh Vice President of the United States and a leading Southern politician from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun was an advocate of slavery, states' rights, limited government, and nullification. He was the second man to serve as Vice President under two administrations (as a Democratic-Republican under John Quincy Adams and as a Democrat under Andrew Jackson), the first Vice President to have been born after the American Revolution, and the first Vice President to resign from office. Calhoun briefly served in the South Carolina legislature. There he wrote legislation making South Carolina the first state to adopt universal suffrage for white men.

Although Calhoun died nearly 11 years before the start of the American Civil War, he was an advocate of secession. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his determination to defend the causes in which he believed, Calhoun supported state's rights and nullification, under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they deemed to be unconstitutional. He was an outspoken proponent of the institution of slavery, which he famously defended as a "positive good" rather than as a "necessary evil".^[2] 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 statesmen, along with his Congressional colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Calhoun served in the House of Representatives (1810–1817) and the United States Senate (1832–1843). He was appointed Secretary of War (1817–1824) under James Monroe and Secretary of State (1844–1845) under John Tyler.

Contents 1 Origins and early life 2 Marriage and family 3 Early political career 4 Vice Presidency 4.1 Election 4.2 The Adams administration 4.3 The Jackson administration 4.3.1 Nullification crisis 5 U.S. Senator and views on slavery 6 The Calhoun Doctrine 7 Legacy 8 Notes 9 References 9.1 Primary sources 9.2 Academic secondary sources 10 External links

Origins and early life

An 1822 portrait of John C. Calhoun, aged 40

Calhoun was born on March 18, 1782, the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun and his wife Martha (née Caldwell). His father was an Ulster-Scot who emigrated from County Donegal to the Thirteen Colonies where he met Martha, daughter of a Protestant Scots-Irish immigrant father ^[3].

When his father became ill, the 17-year-old 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,^[4] in 1804. After studying law at the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, Calhoun was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807.^{[citation needed]}

Marriage and family

In January 1811, Calhoun married Floride Bonneau Colhoun, a first cousin once removed. Her branch of the family spelled the surname differently than did his. The couple had 10 children over 18 years; three died in infancy. During her husband's second term as Vice President, Floride Calhoun was a central figure in the Petticoat affair.

Early political career

In 1810, Calhoun was elected to Congress, and became one of the War Hawks. Led by Henry Clay, they argued for what became the War of 1812. Calhoun made his public debut in calling for war after the Chesapeake-Leopard affair in 1807.

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 high protective tariffs (to build up industry), a national bank, internal improvements, and many other policies he later repudiated.^{[clarification needed][5]}

In 1817, President James Monroe appointed Calhoun Secretary of War, where he served until 1825. Belko (2004) argues that Calhoun's actions in this capacity proved his nationalism. His opponents were the "Old Republicans" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for economy in the federal government; they often attacked the operations and finances of the War Department. Calhoun was a reform-minded executive, who attempted to institute centralization and efficiency in the Indian department. Congress either failed to respond to his reforms or rejected them. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political rivalries, and the ideological differences that dominated the late early republic spurred him to unilaterally create the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

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]}

As Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote in 1821,

"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."

^[6] 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."^[7]

Vice Presidency

Election

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 go for the Vice Presidency. As no presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College, the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives. Calhoun was elected Vice President in a landslide. Calhoun served four years under 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 (the other was George Clinton in the early 19th century).

The Jackson administration

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). She organized Cabinet wives to criticize John Henry Eaton, then Jackson's Secretary of War, for allegedly having been involved with his wife while she was still married to her first husband.

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, or policy which he considered to favor Northern financial interests. Calhoun opposed the Tariff of 1828 (also known as the Tariff of Abominations.) Calhoun had been assured that Jacksonians would reject the bill, but Northern Jacksonians were primarily responsible for its passage. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation to write "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", an essay rejecting the nationalist philosophy he once advocated.^{[citation needed]}

He supported the theory of a concurrent majority through the doctrine of nullification—that individual states could override federal legislation they deemed unconstitutional.^{[citation needed]} Nullification 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.^[8]

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."^[9]

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 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.^[10]

More damage was done when conservative Floride Calhoun organized Cabinet wives against Peggy Eaton, wife of 13th Secretary of War John Eaton. They alleged that John and Peggy Eaton had engaged in an adulterous affair while Mrs. Eaton was still legally married to her first husband John B. Timberlake. Some critics believed that the affair had contributed to Timberlake's suicide in 1828.

The scandal, which became known as the Petticoat affair or the Peggy Eaton affair, resulted in the resignation of all Jackson's Cabinet except for Postmaster General William T. Barry and Secretary of State Martin Van Buren. Van Buren resigned as Secretary of State but only to take a position as United States Ambassador to Britain (1831–1832).

Nullification crisis

Sketch of John C. Calhoun

In 1832, the 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.^[10]

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.^[10] 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.

U.S. Senator and views on slavery

John C. Calhoun

On December 28, 1832, Calhoun accepted election to the United States Senate from his native South Carolina. He was the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office. He achieved his greatest influence and most lasting fame as a Senator.

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.^{[citation needed]} He was a major advocate of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which enforced the co-operation of law enforcement in free states to return people who escaped from slavery.^{[citation needed]} Calhoun couched his defense of the institution of slavery in terms of liberty and self-determination for residents of Southern states.

Whereas other Southern politicians had excused slavery as a necessary evil, in a famous February 1837 speech on the Senate floor, 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.

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

In that speech, he stated: "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."

After a one-year break as the 16th United States Secretary of State, (April 1, 1844 – March 10, 1845) under President John Tyler, 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 — Mexican lands. The debate over this issue culminated in the Compromise of 1850.

Calhoun died in 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.

The Calhoun Doctrine

Southerners challenged the doctrine of congressional authority to regulate or prohibit slavery in the territories. In 1847 Calhoun claimed 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. If the Northern majority continued to ride roughshod over the rights of the Southern minority, the Southern states would have little option but to secede.

Legacy

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

A photograph of John C. Calhoun in his final years.

During the Civil War, the Confederate government honored Calhoun on a one-cent postage stamp, which was printed but never officially released (as seen below).

Calhoun was also honored by his alma mater, Yale University, which named one of its undergraduate residence halls "Calhoun College" and erected a statue of Calhoun in Harkness Tower, a prominent campus landmark.

Clemson University campus, 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."

Cora Calhoun, a descendant of John C. Calhoun, was the grandmother of renowned African-American actress and singer Lena Horne.

Notes

1. ^ Vision & Values in a Post-9/11 World: A curriculum on Civil Liberties, Patriotism, and the U.S. Role Abroad for Unitarian Universalist Congregations, Developed by Pamela Sparr on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, Spring 2002. (Retrieved August 28, 2007)
2. ^ Slavery a Positive Good, John C. Calhoun, February 6, 1837
3. ^ wc.rootsweb.com
4. ^ Historical Figures: John C. Calhoun, ‘’Clemson.edu’’, accessed Oct 9, 2009
5. ^ Wiltse (1944) vol 1 ch 8-11
6. ^ Adams, Diary, V, 361
7. ^ Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nationalist, 234
8. ^ Rutland, Robert Allen. (1997) James Madison: The Founding Father, p.248–249.
9. ^ Niven 173
10. ^ ^{a b c} John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President 1825-1832, Senate.gov, accessed Oct 9, 2009

References

• Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust,The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South, (Louisiana State University Press, 1982) ISBN 978-0807116067

• James L. Roark Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Paperback), October 1978, Louisiana University, ISBN 0393009017 ISBN 9780393009019)

• 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

Primary sources

• 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 JCC and most letters written to him.
• speech in the Senate, January 13, 1834, -- "fanatics and madmen of the North"  "No, Sir, State rights are no more."
• speech on the bill to continue the charter of the Bank of the United States, March 21, 1834
• speech on the Senate floor September 18, 1837, on the bill authorizing an issue of Treasury Notes
• speech on his amendment to separate the Government and the banks, October 3, 1837
• reply to Clay March 10, 1838, the Clay-Calhoun debate -- "Whatever the Government receives and treats as money, is money"
• Slavery a Positive Good, speech on the Senate floor, February 6, 1837.
• Calhoun, John C. Ed. H. Lee Cheek, Jr. Calhoun: Selected Writings and Speeches (Conservative Leadership Series), 2003. ISBN 0-89526-179-0.
• Calhoun, John C. Ed. Ross M. Lence, Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun, 1992. ISBN 0-86597-102-1.
• "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

Academic secondary sources

• Bartlett, Irving H. John C. Calhoun: A Biography (1993)
• Brown, Guy Story. "Calhoun's Philosophy of Politics: A Study of A Disquisition on Government"
• Capers; Gerald M. John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Reappraisal 1960.
• Capers Gerald M., "A Reconsideration of Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification," Journal of Southern History, XIV (Feb., 1948), 34-48. online in JSTOR
• Cheek, Jr., H. Lee. Calhoun And Popular Rule: The Political Theory Of The Disquisition And Discourse. (2004) ISBN 0-8262-1548-3
• Ford Jr., Lacy K. Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (1988)
• Ford Jr., Lacy K. "Republican Ideology in a Slave Society: The Political Economy of John C. Calhoun, The Journal of Southern History. Vol. 54, No. 3 (Aug., 1988), pp. 405–424 in JSTOR
• 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
• Gutzman, Kevin R. C., "Paul to Jeremiah: Calhoun's Abandonment of Nationalism," in _The Journal of Libertarian Studies_ 16 (2002), 3-33.
• Hofstadter, Richard. "Marx of the Master Class" in The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (1948)
• Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (1988)
• Peterson, Merrill. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987)
• Rayback Joseph G., "The Presidential Ambitions of John C. Calhoun, 1844-1848," Journal of Southern History, XIV (Aug., 1948), 331-56. online in JSTOR
• 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

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John C. Calhoun

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John C. Calhoun

• John C. Calhoun at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Works by John C. Calhoun at Project Gutenberg
• University of Virginia: John C. Calhoun - Timeline, quotes, & contemporaries, via University of Virginia
• Fort Hill house [2] at Clemson University.
• Other images via The College of New Jersey: [3], [4], [5]
• Response to Calhoun's Disquisition
• Find-A-Grave profile for John C. Calhoun
• Patrick Calhoun Burial Grounds Historical Marker
• Birthplace of Calhoun Historical Marker
• The Law Offices of John C. Calhoun Monument
• Collection of letters by John Calhoun
• Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice

Political offices
Preceded by Abel P. Upshur	United States Secretary of State Served Under: John Tyler, James K. Polk April 1, 1844 – March 10, 1845	Succeeded by James Buchanan
Preceded by Daniel D. Tompkins	Vice President of the United States March 4, 1825 – December 28, 1832	Vacant Title next held by Martin Van Buren
Preceded by William H. Crawford	United States Secretary of War Served Under: James Monroe October 8, 1817 – March 4, 1825	Succeeded by James Barbour
United States Senate
Preceded by Daniel E. Huger	United States Senator (Class 2) from South Carolina November 26, 1845 – March 31, 1850 Served alongside: George McDuffie, Andrew P. Butler	Succeeded by Franklin H. Elmore
Preceded by Robert Y. Hayne	United States Senator (Class 2) from South Carolina December 29, 1832 – March 3, 1843 Served alongside: Stephen D. Miller, William C. Preston, George McDuffie	Succeeded by Daniel E. Huger
Preceded by Levi Woodbury New Hampshire	Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance 1845 – 1846	Succeeded by Dixon Lewis Alabama
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Joseph Calhoun	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 6th congressional district March 4, 1811 – November 3, 1817	Succeeded by Eldred Simkins
Party political offices
Preceded by Daniel D. Tompkins	Democratic Party vice presidential candidate 1824, 1828(1)	Succeeded by Martin Van Buren
Notes and references
1. The Democratic Party vice-presidential nominee split this year between Calhoun and William Smith.

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v • d • e United States Senators from South Carolina Class 2 P. Butler · Hunter · Pinckney · Sumter · Taylor · W. Smith · R. Hayne · Calhoun · Huger · Calhoun · Elmore · Barnwell · Rhett · De Saussure · Evans · A. Hayne · Chesnut · Robertson · M. Butler · Tillman · Benet · Pollock · Dial · Blease · Byrnes · Lumpkin · Peace · Maybank · Daniel · Thurmond · Wofford · Thurmond · Graham Class 3 Izard · Read · Colhoun · P. Butler · Gaillard · Harper · W. Smith · Miller · Preston · McDuffie · A. Butler · Hammond · Sawyer · Patterson · Hampton · Irby · Earle · McLaurin · Latimer · Gary · E. Smith · Hall · Johnston · Russell · Hollings · DeMint

v • d • e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Finance Campbell • Eppes • Sanford • Holmes • Lowrie • Smith • Webster • Wright • Clay • Evans • Woodbury • Calhoun • Lewis • Atherton • Dickinson • Hunter • Pearce • Fessenden • Sherman • Fessenden • Sherman • Morrill • Bayard • Morrill • Voorhees • Morrill • Aldrich • Penrose • Simmons • Penrose • McCumber • Smoot • Harrison • George • Millikin • George • Millikin • Byrd • Long • Dole • Packwood • Bentsen • Moynihan • Packwood • Roth • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus

v • d • e Cabinet of President James Monroe (1817-1825) Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins (1817 – 1825) Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (1817 – 1825) Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford (1817 – 1825) Secretary of War John C. Calhoun (1817 – 1825) Attorney General Richard Rush (1817) • William Wirt (1817 – 1825) Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1817 – 1818) • Smith Thompson (1819 – 1823) • Samuel L. Southard (1823 – 1825)

v • d • e Cabinet of President John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) Vice President John C. Calhoun (1825-1829) Secretary of State Henry Clay (1825-1829) Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush (1825-1829) Secretary of War James Barbour (1825-1828) • Peter B. Porter (1828-1829) Attorney General William Wirt (1825-1829) Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard (1825-1829)

v • d • e Cabinet of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) Vice President John C. Calhoun (1829-1832) • None (1832-1833) • Martin Van Buren (1833-1837) Secretary of State Martin Van Buren (1829-1831) • Edward Livingston (1831-1833) • Louis McLane (1833-1834) • John Forsyth (1834-1837) Secretary of the Treasury Samuel D. Ingham (1829-1831) • Louis McLane (1831-1833) • William J. Duane (1833) • Roger B. Taney (1833-1834) • Levi Woodbury (1834-1837) Secretary of War John Eaton (1829-1831) • Lewis Cass (1831-1836) Attorney General John M. Berrien (1829-1831) • Roger B. Taney (1831-1833) • Benjamin F. Butler (1833-1837) Postmaster General William T. Barry (1829-1835) • Amos Kendall (1835-1837) Secretary of the Navy John Branch (1829-1831) • Levi Woodbury (1831-1834) • Mahlon Dickerson (1834-1837)

v • d • e Cabinet of President John Tyler (1841-1845) Vice President None (1841-1845) Secretary of State Daniel Webster (1841-1843) • Abel P. Upshur (1843-1844) • John C. Calhoun (1844-1845) Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing (1841) • Walter Forward (1841-1843) • John C. Spencer (1843-1844) • George M. Bibb (1844-1845) Secretary of War John Bell (1841) • John C. Spencer (1841-1843) • James M. Porter (1843-1844) • William Wilkins (1844-1845) Attorney General John J. Crittenden (1841) • Hugh S. Legaré (1841-1843) • John Nelson (1843-1845) Postmaster General Francis Granger (1841) • Charles A. Wickliffe (1841-1845) Secretary of the Navy George E. Badger (1841) • Abel P. Upshur (1841-1843) • David Henshaw (1843-1844) • Thomas W. Gilmer (1844) • John Y. Mason (1844-1845)

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Persondata
NAME	Calhoun, John Caldwell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American politician
DATE OF BIRTH	March 18, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH	Abbeville, South Carolina
DATE OF DEATH	March 31, 1850
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C.

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