John Caldwell Calhoun

Calhoun, John Caldwell

Early Career

Calhoun studied law under Tapping Reeve at Litchfield, Conn., and began (1808) his public career in the South Carolina legislature. Frontier born, he acquired a large plantation by marrying (1811) his cousin, Floride Calhoun. (Calhoun's plantation, with his house, Fort Hill, is now the campus of Clemson Univ.) Later he came to represent the interests of the Southern planter aristocracy.

A Congressman (1811–17) and acting chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Calhoun was one of the leading "war hawks," who whipped up enthusiasm for the War of 1812. He remained a nationalist for some time after the war, speaking for a strong army and navy, for encouragement of manufacturing, for internal improvements, and for a national bank; many of these causes he later opposed. Calhoun was an efficient Secretary of War (1817–25) under President Monroe.

Vice President

Calhoun first served as Vice President (1825–29) under John Quincy Adams. Throughout Adams's administration he opposed the President and aligned himself with the supporters of Andrew JacksonJackson, Andrew,
1767–1845, 7th President of the United States (1829–37), b. Waxhaw settlement on the border of South Carolina and North Carolina (both states claim him). Early Career

A child of the backwoods, he was left an orphan at 14.
..... Click the link for more information. . An able constitutional lawyer, he made an imposing figure skillfully presiding over the Senate. When the Jacksonians finally triumphed in 1828, Calhoun was again elected Vice President.

It was widely assumed that he would succeed Jackson in office, but relations between the two men soon cooled. Calhoun, prodded by his wife and his supporters, offended the President in the Eaton affair (see O'Neill, MargaretO'Neill, Margaret
(Peggy O'Neill), c.1796–1879, wife of John Henry Eaton, U.S. secretary of war under President Andrew Jackson. She was the daughter of a Washington tavern keeper and married John Timberlake, a purser in the U.S. navy.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Jackson finally became furious when he discovered that years before Calhoun had privately denounced Jackson's conduct in Florida while publicly giving the impression that he had supported the general. Primarily, however, Jackson and Calhoun had come to disagree on the nature of the Union.

Nullification

As the preeminent spokesman for the South, Calhoun tried to reconcile the preservation of the Union with the fact that under the Union the South's dominant agricultural economy was being neglected and even injured for the benefit of the ever-increasing commercial and industrial power of the North. When a still higher tariff replaced (1832) the Tariff of Abominations of 1828, he maintained that the Constitution, rightly interpreted, gave a state the power to nullify federal legislation inimical to its interests. He returned to South Carolina, had a state convention called, and directed the passage of the famous ordinance of nullificationnullification,
in U.S. history, a doctrine expounded by the advocates of extreme states' rights. It held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that they deem unconstitutional.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Senator and Advocate of States' Rights

In Dec., 1832, Calhoun quit the vice presidency after being elected to the Senate, where he eloquently defended his states' rightsstates' rights,
in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
..... Click the link for more information.  principles in dramatic debates with Daniel Webster. The firmness of Andrew Jackson and the compromise tariff proposed by Henry ClayClay, Henry,
1777–1852, American statesman, b. Hanover co., Va. Early Career

His father died when he was four years old, and Clay's formal schooling was limited to three years.
..... Click the link for more information.  resolved the nullification crisis in 1833, but the larger issue of states' rights persisted, leading ultimately to secessionsecession,
in political science, formal withdrawal from an association by a group discontented with the actions or decisions of that association. The term is generally used to refer to withdrawal from a political entity; such withdrawal usually occurs when a territory or state
..... Click the link for more information.  and the Civil War.

Martin Van BurenVan Buren, Martin,
1782–1862, 8th President of the United States (1837–41), b. Kinderhook, Columbia co., N.Y. Early Career

He was reared on his father's farm, was educated at local schools, and after reading law was admitted (1803) to the bar.
..... Click the link for more information. , Calhoun's bitter political enemy, held the vice presidency in Jackson's second term and went on to succeed Jackson in the office Calhoun had coveted for many years. As the abolitionists grew stronger in the North, Calhoun became an outspoken apologist for slavery and made every effort to maintain the delicate balance between North and South in the Senate by opposing the prohibition of slavery in newly admitted states. Thus, while serving briefly (1844–45) as Secretary of State under John Tyler, he completed negotiations for the admission of Texas as a slave state, but later tried to avert war with Mexico.

Again (1845–50) in the Senate, he advocated compromise in the Oregon boundary dispute but opposed the admission of California as a free state in the debates over the Compromise of 1850Compromise of 1850.
The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the hostility between North and South concerning the question of the extension of slavery into the
..... Click the link for more information. . In rejecting the Wilmot ProvisoWilmot Proviso,
1846, amendment to a bill put before the U.S. House of Representatives during the Mexican War; it provided an appropriation of $2 million to enable President Polk to negotiate a territorial settlement with Mexico.
..... Click the link for more information. , Calhoun set forth the theory that all territories were held in common by the states and that the federal government merely served as a trustee of the lands.

Political Philosophy

His Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, both published posthumously, crystallized his political philosophy. The Constitution, he stated, established a government of concurrent majorities composed of two elements—the state governments and the federal government. Hence the states enjoy the power of veto, or nullification, and the right of secession results necessarily from the origin of the Union as a compact among the sovereign parties. His theories attempted to formulate democracy in terms of protection for a minority, specifically, the South, and they were later embodied in the Confederate constitution. Because his ideas are associated with an institution—slavery—offensive to the idealism of most Americans, Calhoun has not been a popular figure in U.S. history.

Bibliography

See Calhoun's works (ed. by R. K. Crallé, 6 vol., 1851–55); his papers (ed. by R. L. Meriwether and W. E. Hemphill, Vol. I–VII, 1959–73); biographies by C. M. Wiltse (3 vol., 1944–51), and G. M. Capers (1968).