What did john C Calhoun have to do with the Civil War?

Answer 1

Calhoun was a political leader in South Carolina and a strong proponent of States Rights. Calhoun was the leader who brought on the "Nullification Crisis" during Andrew Jackson's first term, when the Federal Congress raised the tariff on imported goods, which was a direct tax on rich southerners. Southerner's called it "the Tariff of Abominations". Under Calhoun's leadership South Carolina announced that it had the right to "nullify" and Federal law with which it disagreed. This was a direct challenge to the supremacy of the Federal government, and might have started the Civil War then in the 1830s. But Jackson announced that he would raise a large Federal Army, take his place at the head of it, march into South Carolina, and hang John C. Calhoun "as high as Haman" from the first tree, and everyone believed he would do it. This ended the "Nullification Crisis" as Calhoun backed down to save his neck, but the entire episode was a disturbing precursor of sectional disagreements and prepared fertile ground for the later flowering of the issues rehearsed during this crisis.

Answer 2

Nothing. Calhoun had been dead eleven years before the war started.

Had he been alive its safe to assume he would have been a secessionist and like the rest of the secessionists would have wanted to see the south gains its independence from the north.