The Life Of John Calhoun

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Njeri Kamau

Dr. Mwarabu

CSC 101

May 10, 2018.

The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun

During his time, John C. Calhoun acquired for himself a number of titles. The many titles

he managed to hold during his lifetime were a statesman, a secretary of war, a political philosopher,

a secretary of state, a member of the congress, a member of the senate, the champion of southern

rights, and at one time, the vice president of the United States. Regardless of the position in which

he found himself, the dreams and views he held for the South, where he came from, remained

consistent. When he was the vice president, he was constantly pushing Jackson, the then President

of the United States, to help in keeping the life of the South. Most of the things that Calhoun did

in his life were aimed at promoting the South to grow. The purpose of this essay is to give an

account of the life of John Caldwell Calhoun from my own opinion as I use some sources to support

those opinions. The major focus will be to explain his life as a story, explaining his major

achievements and a reflection upon them.

Calhoun was born to a farmer in South Carolina, Abbeville District in the year 1782.

Patrick Calhoun, his father, was overly religious and was harsh in his treatment to his son. His

career was a judge and was a master to a number of slaves. His father was a farmer of Scottish-

Irish origin. John Caldwell Calhoun was the fourth child born to his parents, who had immigrated

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to Carolina Piedmont from Pennsylvania (Ashworth, 199). He had spent some part of his life

serving in the legislature of South Carolina. When John was 17, his father fell ill. John was forced

to drop out of school to work on the farm belonging to the family. However, John decided to

continue with his studies. He went to Yale University where he completed his studies in 1804,

when he graduated with distinction. After this, John went on to study law in Litchfield, CN, at

Tapping Reeves, in the office of one of the prominent members of the Federalist Party (Ashworth,

199). He was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1807. John got married in 1811 to one distant

cousin of his with whom he got nine children. This marriage brought John a great fortune and,

consequently, in 1825, John established the Fort Hill plantation. He left law practice and became

a planter-statesman after getting married. With time, Calhoun started to involve himself with such

things as business, and political ideas and philosophy. Later, he was nicknamed a “thinking

machine” because he was very fast in speaking and was spoke seriously at all times.

John got elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1808, which marked the beginning of his

career in politics. After two years, he got elected to the House of Representatives. He was selected

by Henry Clay to chair the committee on foreign affairs. He was among the major forces behind

the war of 1812. He constantly urged the house to ensure the army was strong. He continued his

efforts to build a strong military even after the war. However, as time went by, so did the

importance of a strong army in his mind decreased. In the year 1846, John was against the war in

Mexico and, therefore, voted against its declaration. The idea of peace came into his mind. He

considered peace to be right and named was a “positive evil”. After the 1812 war, during the time

when Calhoun was a member of the United States Congress, Calhoun helped to establish the

Second Bank in the United States. He chaired various committees that introduced Bills for the

construction of permanent roads, a modern navy, and a standing army. He was fully in support of

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the 1816 protective tariff. At this time, Calhoun was distinguished as the major intellectual

spokesman of nationalism in America.

In 1817, John joined the Cabinet of James Monroe as a nationalist. In this cabinet, he

maintained the position of the secretary of War until 1825. In this post, John performed

exceptionally, and this performance, as well as his prominence in the South Carolina legislature,

led John Adams, the secretary of state at that time, to declare than John Calhoun “is above all

sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have

ever acted” (HistoryNet). Since 1825 until 1829, Calhoun served as the Vice President of the

United States at the time John Adams was the president. Under the administration of Andrew

Jackson, he also served as the Vice President. His two terms as the Vice President of the United

States are what Calhoun is best remembered for.

Calhoun achieved a lot of recognition because of his skills in parliamentary matters, as a

leader of the Republican Party. However, his eagerness to advance personally, his glib debate

exuberance, and egotism served as factors that triggered a lot of distrust. A former Treasury

Secretary, Albert Gallatin, commenting on the nomination of Calhoun for the presidency in 1921,

referred to him as “a smart fellow, one of the first among second-rate men, but of lax political

principles and a disordinate ambition not over-delicate in the means of satisfying itself.” TO a

degree that was not achieved by any of the people during his life time, Calhoun had a burning

passion to become the president of the United States. He was vigorously seeking the office and

run for the presidency thrice. During all of the three attempts, there was the appearance of

anonymous eulogistic bibliographies in print. These were autobiographies that were written in the

third person.

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It was during his time as the Vice President of Andrew Jackson that the Nullification Crisis

arose. The Tariff of Abominations is linked to this period in time, as well as the chaos that came

about as a result of it. Calhoun wanted to run for the presidency after the end of the term for

President Jackson, but there were many conflicts between the two during the first term of President

Jackson. For instance, Jackson was not happy that Calhoun has criticized his 1818 Florida

invasion. In addition, Calhoun held his own beliefs and thoughts about the Tariff of Abominations,

these beliefs were expresses in his document, The South Carolina Exposition and Protest. Later

on, this would be referred to as Calhoun’s exposition. Calhoun had written the document

anonymously, but to most people, it was clear that he was the author. This document warned that

the Tariff of Abominations would cause South Carolina to break away if not rejected. In the

document, also, Calhoun states that any state had the right to nullify a Federal document if it

considered it unconstitutional. Of course, this is not the case because federal law is above state

laws and has to be followed in all the states. Later on, this idea was named the Calhoun’s Doctrine

of Nullification, which proposed the theory of concurrent majority. Calhoun clearly tries to

convince other people that this tariff was meant to directly attack the south. He claimed that the

tariff was assessed unfairly on the Agrarian South so that it could benefit the North, which was in

the process of industrialization. Calhoun clearly showed his position in an address to the United

States citizens on 24

November, 1832, which, in part, said:

“We, then, hold it as unquestionable that on the separation from the Crown of Great Britain,

the people of the several colonies became free and independent states, possessed of the full

right of self-government; and that no power can be rightfully exercised over them but by

the consent and authority of their respective states, expressed or implied. We also hold it

as equally unquestionable that the Constitution of the United States is a compact between

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the people of the several states, constituting free, independent, and sovereign communities;

that the government it created was formed and appointed to execute, according to the

provisions of the instrument, the powers therein granted as the joint agent of the several

states; that all its acts, transcending these powers, are simply and of themselves null and

void, and that in case of such infractions, it is the right of the states, in their sovereign

capacity, each acting for itself and its citizens, in like manner as they adopted the

Constitution to judge thereof in the last resort and to adopt such measures—not inconsistent

with the compact—as may be deemed fit to arrest the execution of the act within their

respective limits. Such we hold to be the right of the states in reference to an

unconstitutional act of the government; nor do we deem their duty to exercise it on proper

occasions less certain and imperative than the right itself is clear” (Belko, 172).

According to the theory of concurrent majority that was the conception of Calhoun, the

proponents of the measure that is nullified would have to seek for the constitution to be amended;

and this required 67% of the votes in every house of congress and support by 75% of the states,

which confirms congress’ power to take such an action. Although this tariff was the specific issue

in the 1832 to 1833 nullification crisis, Calhoun was majorly fighting to protect the peculiar

institution of slavery in the South (Roesch, 2017). This is because he feared that it could be

abolished someday by the Northern States. As Calhoun wrote in one of his many public letters, the

tariff is “of vastly inferior importance to the great question to which it has given rise…the right of

a state to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General

Government.” To his dismay, most of the states of the South vehemently and formally rejected

this doctrine of nullification. Even Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of

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America during the American Civil War, denied that a state had the right to nullify a congressional

act.

Calhoun was a genius in his own capacity, and lacked the capacity to build close

friendships. This caused him enmity with most of his former associates, even president Jackson.

However, it can be said that Jackson’s banishment of him was just but bad luck, because no one

was more active than him in trying to ensure Jackson became president (Richard, 632). His 1828

prospects were quite promising as he stated, “I was a candidate for reelection on a ticket with

General Jackson himself, with a certain prospect of the triumphant success of the ticket, and a fair

prospect of the highest office to which an American citizen can aspire” (Baskin, 58). Calhoun

teamed up with his wife as well as the wives of the other members of the cabinet to boycott Peggy

Eaton, the Secretary of War’s wife, for an alleged act of adultery. President Jackson defended

Eaton, fired all his cabinet, and broke with Calhoun, the then vice president.

Calhoun, in 1832, resigned from his position as the Vice President and got elected into the

Senate a short while afterwards. He seized the opportunity and used it in all ways he could to

defend the state of South Carolina. It is in the same year that South Carolina declared the Tariff of

Abominations meaningless in the state (Baskin, 58). However, other states in the south did not

follow the example that South Carolina set, as they had planned earlier. Therefore, Henry Clay

proposed a sort of a compromise that was designed to bring the Tariffs down over a long time

period. In the 1830s while he was in the senate, Calhoun started to attack abolitions and demanded

that the revolts in the North that sought to end slavery be ceased. He did not want the congress to

acknowledge abolitionist petitions (Ashworth, 199). He use all his power to defend the south and

slavery. Soon after, Calhoun became known to most people as the most popular slavery defender.

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Calhoun held the belief that slavery assisted in preserving the profitable system of the plantations.

He also believed slavery brought stability in the society. Some of his efforts in defending slavery

were opposing the admission of California and Oregon into the Union of Free States. However,

the efforts were in vain, and his defense of slavery as a positive good led to strong anti-southern

feelings among the members of the Free States. Some of the remarks of Calhoun that show his

support for slavery were delivered in the February of 1837 and stated:

“We of the South will not, cannot surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing

relations between the two races inhabiting that section of the Union is indispensable to the

peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country in blood

and extirpating one or the other of the races. Be it good or bad, it has grown up with our

society and institutions and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy

us as a people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the

existing relations between the two races, in the slaveholding states, is an evil. Far

otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be, to both, and will

continue to prove so, if not disturbed by the fell spirit of Abolition.

I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history

to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically

but morally and intellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded, and savage condition,

and, in the course of a few generations, it has grown up under the fostering care of our

institutions, as reviled as they have been, to its present comparative civilized condition.

This, with the rapid increase of numbers, is conclusive proof of the general happiness of

the race, in spite of all the exaggerated tales to the contrary.” (Bartlett).

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Although Calhoun made plans to be chosen as a suitable candidate to run for the presidency

in letters he wrote to some friends of his, he was not expected by the greater majority of the people

to become a candidate. As the presidential election neared, Calhoun put more effort and spent more

time seeking to gain the respect of the people, besides impressing them. In one such an attempt,

Calhoun became a member of the New York Irish Immigrant Society. This, he did to show that he

was proud of his own heritage and that of his father who, himself, was an immigrant from Ireland.

This attempt was successful, as it won the attention of many of the New York’s citizens of the

working class. In 1843, Calhoun declared that he would be a presidential candidate in the elections

that would follow. He, however, withdrew from the race later. He, instead, took on the title of the

secretary of state. This was under John Tyler.

Texas had been adopted by the Congress, by 1844, into the Union. The direct consequence

of this was the growing of the United States’ slavery area. As aimed, this helped to maintain the

Union’s sectional balance (Baskin, 58). By the time the following year started, Calhoun had come

back in the senate. At the time Calhoun was in the senate, he had opposed the Wilmot Proviso.

This is after having first opposed the war against Mexico. The purpose of the Wilmot Proviso was

to hinder the occurrence of any slavery in any of the areas that had been taken from Mexico at the

time of the war. Calhoun knew it was not a good idea that America should be involved in a war

with Mexico (Ashworth, 199). He had a fear that if America declared a war with Mexico, it would

go into the war under circumstances that would not be right.

Calhoun achieved success, while he was in the senate, in limiting the frequency at which

discussions about slavery occurred. Calhoun did not change his attitude towards slavery, and when

the Compromise idea got introduced, he both voted against it and went on to declare publicly that

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his view of it was that it was a disgrace (Kateb, 591).. This Compromise states that the rights of

the southerners to bring the slaves they owned to other Union territories were not a guarantee. At

the time this Compromise got adopted, Calhoun was not alive. The last time Calhoun was seen in

the Congress was on March, 7. On this date, he listened and approved of the peace appeal that

Daniel Webster approved. In his last month alive, Calhoun was involved in a number of

discussions with other southerners. He clearly showed that he was fearful about the future of the

south. He categorically stated, "Nothing short of the terms I propose can settle it finally and

permanently. Indeed, it is difficult to see how two peoples so different and hostile can exist

together" (Bartlett).

In my opinion, the civil war in America was so vast an event that it could not be the

responsibility of a single man. However, one can say that the contribution made by Calhoun to its

coming was similar to that which was made by William Garrison, the abolitionist crusader and

President Abraham Lincoln. Calhoun was an enigma and a staunch nationalist in the first half

during his life in politics. In 1823, Calhoun told Alexander Hamilton’s son that the attempt by his

father to create a federal government that is strong as dictates by the measures of the Washington’s

administration would be the only working policy for the United States. In the latter part of his

political career, Calhoun became a strong leader in advocating for the rights of the states. Yet,

shortly before he died, he states that, “If I am judged by my acts, I trust I shall be found as firm a

friend of the Union as any man in it.…If I shall have any place in the memory of posterity it will

be in consequence of my deep attachment to it” (HistoryNet). After John Calhoun died, his

apprentice, James Hammond states that, “pre-eminent as he was intellectually above all the men

of this age as I believe, he was so wanting in judgment in the managing of men, was so unyielding

and unpersuasive, that he never could consolidate sufficient power to accomplish anything great,

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of himself and due season…and the jealousy of him—his towering genius and uncompromising

temper, has had much effect in preventing the South from uniting to resist” (Roesch, 2017).

The two books of Calhoun that were published after his death and the many speeches that

he gave in congress have given him the reputation of one of the foremost political theorists of the

United States. Calhoun can be said to have preceded Karl Marx in interpreting history

economically. However, most of the basic ideas guiding his political stand, were learnt from his

30 years senior, James Madison. Although people remember Calhoun as a defender of minority

groups, he did not have any use for any minorities, neither abolitionists nor laborers, but the

Southern ones (Bartlett, 1993). To solve the problem of preserving the union Calhoun believed

that the South should be given all they demanded. Calhoun was equally devoted to the South and

to the Union, and he could not choose one to attach himself to in his life, but maintained loyalty to

both until death. However, it can be seen that Calhoun was not for the Union because with a rare

insight, he tells a friend, in 1850, that the union is doomed to dissolve. He states that he fixes the

probable occurrence of the Union within a period of twelve years, equivalent to three presidential

terms.

In the way he thought of himself, he worked backwards, like a person working from the

answer given at the end of a mathematical problem. His objective was in his mind, and chose a

premise that was seemingly harmless and inoffensive. From this, he progressed logically t the

solution that he desired. According to William Trent, the historian, in the 1890s, Calhoun began

with the conclusion he desired and then reasoned back do that he could find the right steps that

could help him arrive at the desired conclusion. He goes on to state that Calhoun did not lead men

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but thought. In the opinion of Trent, Calhoun lacked imagination, and so his leadership of thought

was bad.

The political philosophy of John Calhoun culminates in a state’s right to secede from the

Union, which seems to be a political fact in the logical formulation of Calhoun. The doctrine of

Calhoun may be seen as part of a government that has been set up by the people of every state, not

only for themselves, but also for governing all the people of the United States (Freehling, 37).

First, according to Calhoun’s assertion, the nature of man is two-fold. In one aspect, man is a social

being who exists in the social state. It is in this state of the society that a man acquires, develops,

and makes perfect their intellectual and moral faculties (Bartlett, 1993). Therefore, the community

is very advantageous for man. Unfortunately, according to Calhoun, the second aspect of the nature

of a man jeopardizes the way man should view the social state. According to Calhoun, the

government’s duty is to preserve for all the people the social state. However, if the government is

not restrained, it may encounter the problems that are encountered by individuals in their social

state. He argues that the constitution is the government’s controlling agent. He goes on to state that

a constitution should operate on the basis of the concurrent majority (Gordon). In the way Calhoun

understands American politics, he seems to suggest that every individual is born in the States of

the Union, and that it is the secondary social state where states place themselves at will.

To advance the claim, Calhoun states that every state gained independence and sovereignty

from Britain and from all the other states when the Declaration of Independence was done (Belko,

182). He then goes on to state that every state seeks to bring happiness to itself, and this is so even

if it means sacrificing other states’ interests. A state will seek to promote what it enjoys. Therefore,

the states find themselves in a state of insecurity. According to him, that is why there is a

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government to preserve the social state (Bartlett, 1993). Briefly, Calhoun says that every state has

come into a constitutional compact to make sure that it is protected from any threats and that it

carries out activities that benefit the people who live in the state.

In the sense of the literature of Shakespeare and the Greeks, the life of Calhoun was a

tragedy. He helped the people who opposed him. His despair for the future of the south is seen in

his words at the end of his life. And it can be guessed that deep from within himself, he was

mourning for the poor south. Walt Whitman, the poet, heard one of the Union soldiers say when

the confederate forces surrendered at the Appomattox Court House that Calhoun’s true monuments

were the gaunt chimneys and the wasted farms that abound in the south.

On the night when Calhoun died, he told his friends that had he one more hour in strength

and good health to devote to the country in the senate, he could not do any more than he had done

in all his life. That Calhoun was very sincere in his devotion to the Union cannot be disputed.

Calhoun deserves respect for the measures that he took and the efforts that he put forward to protect

the South and support it. John. Caldwell Calhoun was declared dead on the 31

f March, 1850, in

Washington D.C. died of a tuberculosis attack at the age of 68 and was laid to rest in South Carolina

in the Churchyard of Saint Philip in Charleston.

Conclusion

This essay has serves its purpose well. It has given an account of the life of John Caldwell

Calhoun as a story that captures his major achievements in life and a reflection upon them. It has

also provided personal opinions on his life and used some sources of information to articulate and

support those opinions. John has been a successful man in his political career and his work and

political ideologies remain in the minds of most Americans to date. He was a strong man whose

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position never shifted. He knew how to hold on to his position and defend it with all his might. In

addition, no one would cause him to abandon what he felt was right, not even the President. Most

of the people he encountered and who have commented on his life all com to one conclusion, that

he was a bright man.

Works Cited

“John C. Calhoun. Founder and Key Historical Figures. History. About. Clemson University,

South Carolina.”Clemson.edu. N.p., 2017. 24 April, 2018.

“United States Senate”. John C, Calhoun, 7

Vice President(1825 -1832). “John C. Calhoun, 7

Vice President (1825-1832)”

Ashworth, John. Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Vlume1.

Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, 1995. 195-

205.

Bartlett, Irving H. John C. Calhoun: A Bibliography. W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Baskin, Darryl. “The Pluralist Vision of John C. Calhoun.” Policy 2.1 (1969): 49-65.

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.”The South

Carolina Historical Magazine 105.3 (2004): 170-197.

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Calhoun, John, “A Disquisition on Government and Selections from the Disourse, ed. By

Gordon C. Post.” (1849).

Freehling, William W. “Spoilsmen and Interests in the Thought and Career of John C. Calhoun.”

The Journal of American History 52.1 (1965): 25-42.

John C. Calhoun: He started the Civil War. HistoryNet. (2017). HistoryNet. Retrieved 28

November 2018, from http://www.historynet.com/john-ccalhoun-he-started-the-civil-

war-htm

Kateb, George. “The Majority Principle: Calhoun and his antecedents.” Political Science

Quarterly 84.4 (1969): 583-605.

Richard K. Cralle (ed.). Works of John C. Calhoun (1856). Pp. 631-632.

Roesch, J. (2017). John C. Calhoun and “State’s Rights”. Abbeville Institute.

Abbevilleinstitute.org. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/john-c-calhoun-and-states-rights/

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