John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist who served as the seventh
vice president of the United States
The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest ranking office in the Executive branch of the United States government, executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks f ...
from 1825 to 1832. Born in
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
, he adamantly defended
American slavery and sought to protect the interests of
white Southerners
White Southerners are White Americans from the Southern United States, originating from the various waves of Northwestern European immigration to the region beginning in the 17th century.
Academic John Shelton Reed argues that "Southerners' d ...
. Calhoun began his political career as a
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
,
modernizer and proponent of a strong
federal government
A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...
and
protective tariffs
Protective tariffs are tariffs that are enacted with the aim of protecting a domestic Industry (economics), industry. They aim to make imported goods cost more than equivalent goods produced domestically, thereby causing sales of domestically pr ...
. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of
states' rights
In United States, American politics of the United States, political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments of the United States, state governments rather than the federal government of the United States, ...
,
limited government
In political philosophy, limited government is the concept of a government limited in power. It is a key concept in the history of liberalism.Amy Gutmann, "How Limited Is Liberal Government" in Liberalism Without Illusions: Essays on Liberal ...
,
nullification, and
opposition to high tariffs. Calhoun saw
Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
's remaining in the Union. His beliefs heavily influenced the South's
secession from the Union in 1860 and 1861. Calhoun was the first of two vice presidents to resign from the position, the second being
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew (; November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second of two vice presidents to resign, the first being John C. ...
, who resigned in 1973.
Calhoun began his political career with election to the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
in 1810. As a prominent leader of the
war hawk faction, he strongly supported the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
. Calhoun served as
Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
under President
James Monroe
James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American Founding Father of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as presiden ...
and, in that position, reorganized and modernized the
War Department. He was a candidate for the presidency in the
1824 election. After failing to gain support, Calhoun agreed to be a candidate for vice president. The
Electoral College
An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...
elected him vice president by an overwhelming majority. He served under
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diploma ...
and continued under
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...
, who defeated Adams in the
election of 1828, making Calhoun the most recent U.S. vice president to serve under two different presidents.
Calhoun had a difficult relationship with Jackson, primarily because of the
Nullification Crisis and the
Petticoat affair. In contrast with his previous nationalist sentiments, Calhoun vigorously supported South Carolina's right to nullify federal tariff legislation that he believed unfairly favored the North, which put him into conflict with Unionists such as Jackson. In 1832, with only a few months remaining in his second term, Calhoun resigned as vice president and was elected to the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
. He sought the
Democratic Party nomination for the presidency in
1844
In the Philippines, 1844 had only 365 days, when Tuesday, December 31 was skipped as Monday, December 30 was immediately followed by Wednesday, January 1, 1845, the next day after. The change also applied to Caroline Islands, Guam, Marian ...
but lost to surprise nominee
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk (; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and ...
, who won the general election. Calhoun served as
Secretary of State under President
John Tyler
John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president of the United States, vice president in 1841. He was elected ...
from 1844 to 1845, and in that role supported the
annexation of Texas as a means to extend the
Slave Power
The Slave Power, or Slavocracy, referred to the perceived political power held by American slaveholders in the federal government of the United States during the Antebellum period. Antislavery campaigners charged that this small group of wealth ...
and helped to settle the
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a 19th-century territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations in ...
with Britain. Calhoun returned to the Senate, where he opposed the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...
, the
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the ...
and the
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states during the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designe ...
before he died of tuberculosis in 1850. He often served as a virtual independent who variously aligned as needed, with Democrats and
Whigs.
Later in life, Calhoun became known as the "cast-iron man" for his rigid defense of white Southern beliefs and practices. His concept of
republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self ...
emphasized
proslavery thought
Proslavery is support for slavery. It is sometimes found in the thought of ancient philosophers, religious texts, and in American and British writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through the 20th century. Arguments in ...
and minority states' rights as embodied by the South. He owned dozens of slaves in
Fort Hill, South Carolina, and asserted that slavery, rather than being a "
necessary evil", was a "
positive good" that benefited both slaves and enslavers.
To protect minority rights against majority rule, he called for a
concurrent majority by which the minority could block some proposals that it felt infringed on their liberties. To that end, Calhoun supported states' rights, and nullification, through which states could declare null and void federal laws that they viewed as unconstitutional. He was one of the "
Great Triumvirate
In U.S. politics, the Great Triumvirate (known also as the Immortal Trio) was a triumvirate of three statesmen who dominated American politics for much of the first half of the 19th century, namely Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster of M ...
" or the "Immortal Trio" of
congressional
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...
leaders, along with his colleagues
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary o ...
and
Henry Clay
Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...
.
Early life
John Caldwell Calhoun was born in
Abbeville District, South Carolina on March 18, 1782. He was the fourth child of Irish-born
Patrick Calhoun and his wife Martha Caldwell. Patrick's father, also named Patrick, joined the waves of
Scotch-Irish emigration from
County Donegal
County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...
to southwestern
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
. After the death of the elder Patrick in 1741, the family moved to
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
. Following the British defeat at the
Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, the family, fearing
Indian attacks, moved to
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
in 1756. Patrick, a prominent member of the tight-knit
Scotch-Irish community on the
frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary.
Australia
The term "frontier" was frequently used in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, th ...
who worked as surveyor and farmer, was elected to the
South Carolina Legislature in 1763 and acquired ownership over
slave plantation
A slave plantation is an agricultural farm that uses enslaved people for labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century.
Slavery
Planters embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive ...
s. As a
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
, he stood opposed to the established
Anglican
Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
planter class
The planter class was a Racial hierarchy, racial and socioeconomic class which emerged in the Americas during European colonization of the Americas, European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the class, most of whom were settle ...
based in
Charleston. Patrick remained neutral in the
American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
and opposed
ratification of the U.S. Constitution on grounds of
states' rights
In United States, American politics of the United States, political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments of the United States, state governments rather than the federal government of the United States, ...
and personal liberties. Calhoun would eventually adopt his father's beliefs on states' rights.
Young Calhoun showed scholastic talent, and although schools were scarce on the Carolina frontier, he was enrolled briefly in an academy taught by his brother-in-law
Moses Waddel. It stressed the Latin and Greek classics. He continued his studies privately. When his father died, his brothers were away starting business careers, and so the 14-year-old Calhoun took over management of the family farm and five other farms. For four years he simultaneously kept up his reading and his hunting and fishing. The family decided he should continue his education, and so he resumed studies at Waddel's academy after it reopened.
With financing from his brothers, he went to
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
in Connecticut in 1802. For the first time in his life, Calhoun encountered serious, advanced, and well-organized intellectual dialogue that could shape his mind. Yale was dominated by President
Timothy Dwight, a
Federalist
The term ''federalist'' describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters call themselves ''Federalists''.
History Europe federation
In Europe, proponents of deep ...
who became his mentor. Dwight's brilliance entranced (and sometimes repelled) Calhoun.
Biographer John Niven says:
Dwight repeatedly denounced
Jeffersonian democracy
Jeffersonian democracy, named after its advocate Thomas Jefferson, was one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to American republicanism, wh ...
, and Calhoun challenged him in class. Dwight could not shake Calhoun's commitment to republicanism. "Young man," retorted Dwight, "your talents are of a high order and might justify you for any station, but I deeply regret that you do not love sound principles better than
sophistry—you seem to possess a most unfortunate bias for error." Dwight also expounded on the strategy of
secession
Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...
from the Union as a legitimate solution for
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
's disagreements with the national government. Calhoun made friends easily, read widely, and was a noted member of the debating society of
Brothers in Unity
Brothers in Unity (formally, the Society of Brothers in Unity) is an undergraduate literary and debating society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-centu ...
. He graduated as valedictorian in 1804. He studied law at the nation's first independent law school,
Tapping Reeve Law School in
Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,192 at the 2020 census. The town is part of the Northwest Hills Planning Region. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are ...
, where he worked with
Tapping Reeve
Tapping Reeve (October 1, 1744 – December 13, 1823) was an American lawyer, judge, and law educator. In 1784 he opened the Litchfield Law School, the first law school in the United States, in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was also the brother-in ...
and
James Gould. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807.
Biographer
Margaret Coit argues that:
Personal life
In January 1811, Calhoun married
Floride Bonneau Colhoun, a
first cousin once removed. She was the daughter of wealthy United States Senator and lawyer
John E. Colhoun, a leader of Charleston high society.
The couple had ten children:
* Andrew Pickens (1811–1865)
* Floride Pure (1814–1815)
* Jane (1816–1816)
*
Anna Maria (1817–1875), who married
Thomas Green Clemson
Thomas Green Clemson (July 1, 1807April 6, 1888) was an American politician and statesman, serving as Chargés d'Affaires to Belgium, and United States Superintendent of Agriculture. He served in the Confederate Army and founded Clemson Univers ...
who later founded
Clemson University
Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...
in South Carolina
* Elizabeth (1819–1820)
* Patrick (1821–1858)
* John Caldwell Jr. (1823–1850)
* Martha Cornelia (1824–1857)
* James Edward (1826–1861)
* William Lowndes (1829–1858)
Calhoun was not openly religious and was generally not outspoken about his religious beliefs. He was raised as an
orthodox Presbyterian, but was attracted to Southern varieties of
Unitarianism
Unitarianism () is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian sect of Christianity. Unitarian Christians affirm the wikt:unitary, unitary God in Christianity, nature of God as the singular and unique Creator deity, creator of the universe, believe that ...
like those that attracted Jefferson. Southern Unitarianism was generally less organized than the variety popular in New England. After his marriage, Calhoun and his wife attended the Episcopal Church, of which she was a member. In 1821, he became a founding member of
All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C.
Historian
Merrill D. Peterson describes Calhoun: "Intensely serious and severe, he could never write a love poem, though he often tried, because every line began with 'whereas' ..."
House of Representatives
War of 1812
With a base among the Irish and Scotch Irish, Calhoun won election to
South Carolina's 6th congressional district of the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
in
1810, defeating
John Archer Elmore
John Archer Elmore (21 August 1762 – 24 April 1834) was an American military officer and politician. Born in Virginia to a Quaker father, Elmore nonetheless joined the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
Biography
Elmore was born i ...
. He immediately became a leader of the
War Hawks, along with Speaker
Henry Clay
Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...
of Kentucky and South Carolina congressmen
William Lowndes and
Langdon Cheves
Langdon Cheves ( September 17, 1776 – June 26, 1857) was an American politician, lawyer and businessman from South Carolina. He represented the city of Charleston in the United States House of Representatives from 1810 to 1815, where he played ...
. Brushing aside the vehement objections of both anti-war New Englanders and ardent
Jeffersonians led by
John Randolph of Roanoke, they demanded war against Britain, claiming that American honor and republican values had been violated by the British refusal to recognize American shipping rights.
As a member, and later acting chairman, of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Calhoun played a major role in drafting two key documents in the push for war, the Report on Foreign Relations and the War Report of 1812. Drawing on the linguistic tradition of the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...
, Calhoun's committee called for a declaration of war in ringing phrases, denouncing Britain's "lust for power", "unbounded tyranny", and "mad ambition".
The United States
declared war on Britain on June 18, inaugurating the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
. The opening phase involved multiple disasters for American arms, as well as a financial crisis when the Treasury could barely pay the bills. The conflict caused economic hardship for Americans, as the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
blockaded the ports and cut off imports, exports, and the coastal trade. Several attempted invasions of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
were fiascos, but the U.S. in 1813 seized control of
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...
and broke the power of hostile Indians in battles such as the
Battle of the Thames
The Battle of the Thames , also known as the Battle of Moraviantown, was an American victory in the War of 1812 against Tecumseh's Confederacy and their United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British allies. It took place on October 5, 1813, ...
in Canada in 1813 and the
Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama in 1814. These Indians had, in many cases, cooperated with the British or
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
in opposing American interests.
Calhoun labored to raise troops, provide funds, speed logistics, rescue the currency, and regulate commerce to aid the war effort. One colleague hailed him as "the young Hercules who carried the war on his shoulders".
Disasters on the battlefield made him double his legislative efforts to overcome the obstructionism of John Randolph,
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary o ...
, and other opponents of the war. By 1814 the British were thwarted at the
invasions of New York and
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
, but
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
capitulated, meaning America would now face Britain's formidable reinforcement with units previously committed to Europe if the war were to continue. British and American diplomats signed the
Treaty of Ghent
The Treaty of Ghent () was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in ...
undertaking a return to the borders of 1812 with no gains or losses. Before the treaty reached the Senate for ratification, and even before news of its signing reached New Orleans, a British invasion force was decisively defeated in January 1815 at the
Battle of New Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815, between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the Frenc ...
, making a national hero of General
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...
. Americans celebrated what they called a "second war of independence" against Britain. This led to the beginning of the "
Era of Good Feelings
The Era of Good Feelings marked a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812. The era saw the collapse of the Fe ...
", an era marked by the formal demise of the Federalist Party and increased nationalism.
Postwar planning
Despite American successes, the mismanagement of the Army during the war very much distressed Calhoun, and he resolved to strengthen and centralize the
War Department. The militia had proven itself quite unreliable during the war and Calhoun saw the need for a permanent and professional military force. In 1816 he called for building an effective navy, including steam frigates, as well as a standing army of adequate size. The British blockade of the coast had underscored the necessity of rapid means of internal transportation; Calhoun proposed a system of "great permanent roads". The blockade had cut off the import of manufactured items, so he emphasized the need to encourage more domestic manufacture, fully realizing that industry was based in the Northeast. The dependence of the old financial system on import duties was devastated when the blockade cut off imports. Calhoun called for a system of internal taxation that would not collapse from a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade, as the tariffs had done. The expiration of the charter of the
First Bank of the United States
The President, Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States, commonly known as the First Bank of the United States, was a National bank (United States), national bank, chartered for a term of twenty years, by the United States Congress ...
had also distressed the Treasury, so to reinvigorate and modernize the economy Calhoun called for a new national bank. A new bank was chartered as the
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Second Report on Public Credit, Hamiltonian national bank in the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bank was chartered from February 1816 to January ...
by Congress and approved by President
James Madison
James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...
in 1816. Through his proposals, Calhoun emphasized a national footing and downplayed sectionalism and states rights. Historian
Ulrich B. Phillips
Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (November 4, 1877 – January 21, 1934) was an American historian who largely defined the field of the social and economic studies of the History of the Southern United States, history of the Antebellum South and Slavery ...
says that at this stage of Calhoun's career, "The word ''nation'' was often on his lips, and his conviction was to enhance national unity which he identified with national power."
Rhetorical style
Regarding his career in the House of Representatives, 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."
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". Calhoun was "a high-strung man of ultra intellectual cast". As such, Calhoun was not known for charisma. He was often seen as harsh and aggressive with other representatives. But he was a brilliant intellectual orator and strong organizer. Historian
Russell Kirk
Russell Amos Kirk (October 19, 1918 – April 29, 1994) was an American political philosopher, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, author, and novelist who influenced 20th century American conservatism. In 1953, he authored '' T ...
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."
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 ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." Historian Charles Wiltse noted Calhoun's evolution, "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."
Secretary of War and postwar nationalism

In 1817, the deplorable state of the War Department led four men to decline offers from President
James Monroe
James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American Founding Father of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as presiden ...
to accept the office of
Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
before Calhoun finally assumed the role. Calhoun took office on December 8 and served until 1825.
He continued his role as a leading nationalist during the Era of Good Feelings. He proposed an elaborate program of national reforms to the infrastructure that he believed would speed up economic modernization. His priority was an effective navy, including steam frigates, and in the second place a standing army of adequate size—and as further preparation for an emergency, "great permanent roads", "a certain encouragement" to manufacturers, and a system of internal taxation that would not collapse from a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade, like customs duties.
A reform-minded modernizer, Calhoun attempted to institute centralization and efficiency in the Indian Department and in the Army by establishing new coastal and frontier fortifications and building military roads, but Congress either failed to respond to his reforms or responded with hostility. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political rivalries, and ideological differences spurred him to create the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...
in 1824.
Thomas McKenney was appointed as its first head.
As secretary, Calhoun had responsibility for the management of Indian affairs. He promoted a plan, adopted by Monroe in 1825, to preserve the sovereignty of eastern Indians by
relocating
Relocation, also known as moving, or moving house, is the process of leaving one's dwelling and settling in another. The new location can be in the same neighborhood or a much further place in a different city or different country (immigration). ...
them to western reservations they could control without interference from state governments. In over seven years Calhoun supervised the negotiation and ratification of 40 treaties with Indian tribes. Calhoun opposed the invasion of
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida () was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. ''La Florida'' formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and th ...
launched in 1818 by General Jackson during the
First Seminole War
The Seminole Wars (also known as the Florida Wars) were a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles that took place in Florida between about 1816 and 1858. The Seminoles are a Native American nation which co ...
, which was done without direct authorization from Calhoun or President Monroe, and in private with other cabinet members, advocated censuring of Jackson as punishment. Calhoun claimed that Jackson had begun a war against Spain in violation of the Constitution and, that he had contradicted Calhoun's explicit orders in doing so. Specific official instructions not to invade Florida or attack the Spanish were not issued by the administration. However, Calhoun supported the
execution of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, two British subjects living in Florida who had been accused by American officials of inciting the Seminole to war against the United States. Calhoun accused the British of being involved in "wickedness, corruption, and barbarity at which the heart sickens and which in this enlightened age it ought not scarcely to be believed that a Christian nation would have participated". He added that he hoped the executions of Arbuthnot and Ambrister would deter the British and any other nations "who by false promises delude and excite an Indian tribe to all the deeds of savage war". The United States annexed Florida from Spain in 1819 through the
Adams–Onís Treaty
The Adams–Onís Treaty () of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Spanish Cession, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty,Weeks, p. 168. was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to ...
.
Calhoun's tenure as Secretary of War witnessed the outbreak of the
Missouri crisis in December 1818, when a petition arrived from Missouri settlers seeking admission into the Union as a slave state. In response, Representative
James Tallmadge Jr. of New York proposed two amendments to the bill designed to restrict the spread of slavery into what would become the new state. These amendments touched off an intense debate between North and South that had some talking openly of disunion. In February 1820, Calhoun predicted to Secretary of State
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diploma ...
, a New Englander, that the Missouri issue "would not produce a dissolution" of the Union. "But if it should," Calhoun went on, "the South would of necessity be compelled to form an alliance with... Great Britain." "I said that would be returning to the colonial state," Adams recalled saying afterward. According to Adams, "He said, yes, pretty much, but it would be forced upon them."
After the war ended in 1815 the "
Old Republicans
The tertium quids (sometimes shortened to quids) were various factions of the Jeffersonian Republican Party in the United States during the early 1800s, which gradually faded into political obscurity by the 1820s.
In Latin, '' tertium quid'' m ...
" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for an economy in the federal government, sought to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department. Calhoun's political rivalry with
William H. Crawford
William Harris Crawford (February 24, 1772 – September 15, 1834) was an American politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He later ran for U.S. president in the 1824 United States presidential electi ...
, the Secretary of the Treasury, over the pursuit of the presidency in the 1824 election, complicated Calhoun's tenure as War Secretary. The general lack of military action following the war meant that a large army, such as that preferred by Calhoun, was no longer considered necessary. The "Radicals", a group of strong states' rights supporters who mostly favored Crawford for president in the coming election, were inherently suspicious of large armies. Some allegedly also wanted to hinder Calhoun's presidential aspirations for that election.
Thus, on March 2, 1821, Congress passed the Reduction Act, which reduced the number of enlisted men of the army by half, from 11,709 to 5,586, and the number of the officer corps by a fifth, from 680 to 540. Calhoun, though concerned, offered little protest. Later, to provide the army with a more organized command structure, which had been severely lacking during the War of 1812, he appointed Major General
Jacob Brown to a position that would later become known as "
Commanding General of the United States Army
Commanding General of the United States Army was the title given to the service chief and highest-ranking officer of the United States Army (and its predecessor the Continental Army), prior to the establishment of the Chief of Staff of the Unit ...
".
Vice presidency (1825–1832)
1824 and 1828 elections and Adams presidency
Calhoun was initially a candidate for
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
in the
election of 1824. Four other men also sought the presidency: Andrew Jackson, Adams, Crawford, and Henry Clay. Calhoun failed to win the endorsement of the South Carolina legislature, and his supporters in Pennsylvania decided to abandon his candidacy in favor of Jackson's, and instead supported him for vice president. Other states soon followed, and Calhoun therefore allowed himself to become a candidate for
vice president
A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
rather than president.
The
Electoral College
An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...
elected Calhoun vice president by a landslide on December 1, 1824. He won 182 of 261 electoral votes, while five other men received the remaining votes. No presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College, and the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives, where Adams was declared the winner over Crawford and Jackson, who in the election had led Adams in both popular vote and electoral vote. After Clay, the Speaker of the House, was appointed Secretary of State by Adams, Jackson's supporters denounced what they considered a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay to give Adams the presidency in exchange for Clay receiving the office of Secretary of State, the holder of which had traditionally become the next president. Calhoun also expressed some concerns, which caused friction between him and Adams.
Calhoun also opposed President Adams' plan to send a delegation to observe a meeting of South and Central American leaders in
Panama
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...
, believing that the United States should stay out of foreign affairs. Calhoun became disillusioned with Adams' high tariff policies and increased centralization of government through a network of "internal improvements", which he now saw as a threat to the rights of the states. Calhoun wrote to Jackson on June 4, 1826, informing him that he would support Jackson's second campaign for the presidency in
1828
Events
January–March
* January 4 – Jean Baptiste Gay, vicomte de Martignac succeeds the Jean-Baptiste de Villèle, Comte de Villèle, as Prime Minister of France.
* January 8 – The Democratic Party of the United States is organiz ...
. The two were never particularly close friends. Calhoun never fully trusted Jackson, a frontiersman and popular war hero, but hoped that his election would bring some reprieve from Adams's anti-states' rights policies.
Jackson selected Calhoun as his running mate, and together they defeated Adams and his running mate
Richard Rush
Richard Rush (August 29, 1780 – July 30, 1859) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat who served as the 8th United States Attorney General from 1814 to 1817 and the 8th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1825 to 1829. He serv ...
. Calhoun thus became the second of two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents. The only other man who accomplished this feat was
George Clinton, who served as vice president from 1805 to 1812 under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
During the election, Jackson's aide
James Alexander Hamilton attempted a rapprochement between Jackson and Crawford, whom Jackson resented owing partially to the belief that it was he, not Calhoun, who had opposed the invasion of Florida. Hamilton spoke about this prospect with Governor
John Forsyth of Georgia, who acted as a mediator between the Jackson campaign and Crawford. Forsyth wrote a letter back to Hamilton in which he claimed that Crawford had stated to him that it was Calhoun, not Crawford, who had supported censuring Jackson for his invasion of Florida. Knowing that the letter could destroy the partnership between Jackson and Calhoun, Hamilton and fellow Jackson aide
William B. Lewis allowed it to remain in Hamilton's possession without informing Jackson or the public of its existence.
Petticoat affair
Early in Jackson's administration, Calhoun's wife Floride Bonneau Calhoun organized Cabinet wives (hence the term "petticoats") against
Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War
John Eaton John Eaton may refer to:
* John Eaton (divine) (born 1575), English divine
* John Eaton (pirate) (fl. 1683–1686), English buccaneer
*Sir John Craig Eaton (1876–1922), Canadian businessman
* John Craig Eaton II (born 1937), Canadian businessman ...
, and refused to associate with her. They alleged that John and Peggy Eaton had engaged in an adulterous affair while she was still legally married to her first husband, and that her recent behavior was unladylike. The allegations of scandal created an intolerable situation for Jackson. The Petticoat affair ended friendly relations between Calhoun and Jackson.
Jackson sided with the Eatons. He and his late wife
Rachel Donelson had undergone similar political attacks stemming from their marriage in 1791. The two had married in 1791 not knowing that Rachel's first husband, Lewis Robards, had failed to finalize the expected divorce. Once the divorce was finalized, they married legally in 1794, but the episode caused a major controversy, and was used against him in the 1828 campaign. Jackson saw attacks on Eaton stemming ultimately from the political opposition of Calhoun, who had failed to silence his wife's criticisms. The Calhouns were widely regarded as the chief instigators.
Jackson, who loved to personalize disputes, also saw the Petticoat affair as a direct challenge to his authority, because it involved lower-ranking executive officials and their wives seeming to contest his ability to choose whomever he wanted for his cabinet. Secretary of State
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren ( ; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as Attorney General o ...
, a widower, took Jackson's side and defended the Eatons. Van Buren was a northerner and a supporter of the 1828 tariff (which Calhoun bitterly opposed). Calhoun and Van Buren were the main contenders for the vice-presidential nomination in the ensuing election, and the nominee would then presumably be the party's choice to succeed Jackson. That Van Buren sided with the Eatons, in addition to disagreements between Jackson and Calhoun on other issues, mainly the
Nullification Crisis, marked him as Calhoun's likely vice presidential successor.
Some historians, including Jackson biographers Richard B. Latner and
Robert V. Remini, believe that the hostility towards the Eatons was rooted less in questions of proper behavior than in politics. Eaton had been in favor of the Tariff of Abominations. He was also politically close to Van Buren. Calhoun may have wanted to expel Eaton from the cabinet as a way of boosting his anti-tariff agenda and increasing his standing in the Democratic Party. Many cabinet members were Southern and could be expected to sympathize with such concerns, especially Treasury Secretary
Samuel D. Ingham, who was allied with Calhoun and believed that he, not Van Buren, should succeed Jackson as president.
In 1830, reports had emerged accurately stating that Calhoun, as Secretary of War, had favored censuring Jackson for his 1818 invasion of Florida. These infuriated Jackson. Eventually, Lewis decided to reveal the existence of Forsyth's letter, and on April 30, Crawford wrote a second letter, this time to Forsyth, repeating the charge Forsyth represented him as having previously made. Jackson received the letter on May 12, which confirmed his suspicions. He claimed that Calhoun had "betrayed" him. Eaton took his revenge on Calhoun. For reasons unclear, Calhoun asked Eaton to approach Jackson about the possibility of Calhoun publishing his correspondence with Jackson at the time of the Seminole War. Eaton did nothing, leading Calhoun to believe that Jackson had approved the publication of the letters. Calhoun published them in the ''United States Telegraph,'' a newspaper edited by a Calhoun protégé,
Duff Green
Duff Green (August 15, 1791June 10, 1875) was an American teacher, military leader, Democratic Party politician, journalist, author, diplomat and industrialist.
Early life and education
Green, the son of William and Lucy Ann (Marshall) Green, ...
.
This gave the appearance of Calhoun trying to justify himself against a conspiracy to damage him and further enraged the President.
Finally in the spring of 1831, at the suggestion of Van Buren, who, like Jackson, supported the Eatons, Jackson replaced all but one of his Cabinet members, thereby limiting Calhoun's influence. Van Buren began the process by resigning as Secretary of State, facilitating Jackson's removal of others. Van Buren thereby grew in favor with Jackson, while the rift between the President and Calhoun was widened. Later, in 1832, Calhoun, as vice president, cast a tie-breaking vote against Jackson's nomination of Van Buren as
Minister to Great Britain in a failed attempt to end Van Buren's political career. Missouri Senator
Thomas Hart Benton, a staunch supporter of Jackson, then stated that Calhoun had "elected a Vice President", as Van Buren was able to move past his failed nomination as Minister to Great Britain and instead gain the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nomination in the
1832 election, in which he and Jackson were victorious.
Nullification
Calhoun had begun to oppose increases in protective tariffs, as they generally benefited Northerners more than Southerners. While he was vice president in the Adams administration, Jackson's supporters devised a high tariff legislation that placed duties on imports that were also made in New England. Calhoun had been assured that the northeastern interests would reject the
Tariff of 1828, exposing pro-Adams New England 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 so-called "Tariff of Abominations" passed and was signed into law by President Adams. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation, where he anonymously composed ''
South Carolina Exposition and Protest'', an essay rejecting the centralization philosophy and supporting the principle of nullification as a means to prevent a tyranny of a central government.
Calhoun supported the idea of nullification through a
concurrent majority. Nullification is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law it deems unconstitutional. In Calhoun's words, it is "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". Nullification can be traced back to arguments by Jefferson and Madison in writing the
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799 in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. The resolutions argued ...
of 1798 against the
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were a set of four United States statutes that sought, on national security grounds, to restrict immigration and limit 1st Amendment protections for freedom of speech. They were endorsed by the Federalist Par ...
. Madison expressed the hope that the states would declare the acts unconstitutional, while Jefferson explicitly endorsed nullification. Calhoun openly argued for a state's right to secede from the Union, as a last resort to protect its liberty and sovereignty. In his later years, Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law.
In "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any federal law that went beyond the enumerated powers and encroached upon the residual powers of the State. President Jackson, meanwhile, generally supported states' rights, but opposed nullification and secession. 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. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union." Calhoun's publication of letters from the Seminole War in the ''Telegraph'' caused his relationship with Jackson to deteriorate further, thus contributing to the nullification crisis. Jackson and Calhoun began an angry correspondence that lasted until Jackson stopped it in July.
Jackson supported a revision to tariff rates known as the
Tariff of 1832. It was designed to placate the nullifiers by lowering tariff rates. Written by Treasury Secretary
Louis McLane
Louis McLane (May 28, 1786 – October 7, 1857) was an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware, Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware, and Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland. He was a veteran of the War of 1812, a member of t ...
, the bill lowered duties from 45% to 27%. In May, Representative John Quincy Adams introduced a slightly revised version of the bill, which Jackson accepted. It passed Congress on July 9 and was signed by the president on July 14. The bill failed to satisfy extremists on either side. In October, the South Carolina legislature voted to call a convention to nullify the tariffs. On November 24, the South Carolina Nullification Convention passed an ordinance nullifying both the Tariff of 1832 and the Tariff of 1828 and threatening to secede if the federal government attempted to enforce the tariffs. In response, Jackson sent
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...
warships to
Charleston harbor, and threatened to hang Calhoun or any man who worked to support nullification or secession. After joining the Senate, Calhoun began to work with Clay on a new
compromise tariff. A bill sponsored by the administration had been introduced by Representative
Gulian C. Verplanck of New York, but it lowered rates more sharply than Clay and other protectionists desired. Clay managed to get Calhoun to agree to a bill with higher rates in exchange for Clay's opposition to Jackson's military threats and, perhaps, with the hope that he could win some Southern votes in his next bid for the presidency. On the same day, Congress passed the
Force Bill, which empowered the President of the United States to use military force to ensure state compliance with federal law. South Carolina accepted the tariff, but in a final show of defiance, nullified the Force Bill. In Calhoun's speech against the Force Bill, delivered on February 5, 1833, no longer as vice president, he strongly endorsed nullification, at one point saying:
In his three-volume biography of Jackson,
James Parton summed up Calhoun's role in the Nullification crisis: "Calhoun began it. Calhoun continued it. Calhoun stopped it."
Resignation
As tensions over nullification escalated, South Carolina Senator
Robert Y. Hayne was considered less capable than Calhoun to represent South Carolina in the Senate debates, so in late 1832 Hayne resigned to become governor; Calhoun resigned as vice president, and the South Carolina legislature elected Calhoun to fill Hayne's Senate seat. Van Buren had already been elected as Jackson's new vice president, meaning that Calhoun had less than three months left on his term anyway. The South Carolina newspaper ''City Gazette'' commented on the change:
Biographer John Niven argues "that these moves were part of a well-thought-out plan whereby Hayne would restrain the hotheads in the state legislature and Calhoun would defend his brainchild, nullification, in Washington against administration stalwarts and the likes of Daniel Webster, the new apostle of northern nationalism." As vice president, Calhoun cast a then-record 31
tie-breaking votes in the Senate, the most of any vice president in their capacity as Senate president until vice president
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 49th vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025 under President Joe Biden. She is the first female, first African American, and ...
surpassed it in 2023.
First term in the U.S. Senate

When Calhoun took his seat in the Senate on December 29, 1832, his chances of becoming president were considered poor due to his involvement in the
Nullification Crisis, which left him without connections to a major national party.
After the implementation of the
Compromise Tariff of 1833, which helped solve the Nullification Crisis, the
Nullifier Party
The Nullifier Party was an American political party based in South Carolina in the 1830s. Considered an early American third party, it was started by John C. Calhoun in 1828.
The Nullifier Party was a states' rights party that supported stri ...
, along with other anti-Jackson politicians, formed a coalition known as the
Whig Party. Calhoun sometimes affiliated with the Whigs, but chose to remain a virtual independent due to the Whig promotion of federally subsidized "internal improvements".
From 1833 to 1834, Jackson was engaged in removing federal funds from the
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Second Report on Public Credit, Hamiltonian national bank in the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bank was chartered from February 1816 to January ...
during the
Bank War
The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (B.U.S.) during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). The affair resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its repl ...
. Calhoun opposed this action, considering it a dangerous expansion of executive power. He called the men of the Jackson administration "artful, cunning, and corrupt politicians, and not fearless warriors". He accused Jackson of being ignorant about financial matters. As evidence, he cited the economic panic caused by
Nicholas Biddle as a means to stop Jackson from destroying the Bank. On March 28, 1834, Calhoun voted with the Whig senators on a successful motion to
censure
A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a sp ...
Jackson for his removal of the funds. In 1837, he refused to attend the inauguration of Jackson's chosen successor, Van Buren, even as other powerful senators who opposed the administration, such as Webster and Clay, did witness the inauguration. However, by 1837, Calhoun generally had realigned himself with most of the Democrats' policies.
To restore his national stature, Calhoun cooperated with Van Buren. Democrats were hostile to national banks, and the country's bankers had joined the Whig Party. The Democratic replacement, meant to help combat the
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that began a major depression (economics), depression which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages dropped, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment rose, and pes ...
, was the
Independent Treasury system, which Calhoun supported and which went into effect. Calhoun, like Jackson and Van Buren, attacked finance capitalism and opposed what he saw as encroachment by government and big business. For this reason, he opposed the candidacy of Whig
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was the ninth president of the United States, serving from March 4 to April 4, 1841, the shortest presidency in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causin ...
in the
1840 presidential election, believing that Harrison would institute high tariffs and therefore place an undue burden on the Southern economy.
Calhoun resigned from the Senate on March 3, 1843, four years before the expiration of his term, and returned to Fort Hill to prepare an attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the
1844 presidential election.
He gained little support, even from the South, and quit.
Secretary of State
Appointment and the Annexation of Texas
When Harrison died in 1841 after a month in office, Vice President
John Tyler
John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president of the United States, vice president in 1841. He was elected ...
succeeded him. Tyler, a former Democrat, was expelled from the Whig Party after vetoing bills passed by the Whig congressional majority to reestablish a national bank and raise tariffs. He named Calhoun
Secretary of State on April 10, 1844, following the death of
Abel P. Upshur, one of six people killed when a cannon exploded during a public demonstration in the
USS ''Princeton'' disaster.
Upshur's loss was a severe blow to the Tyler administration. When Calhoun was nominated as Upshur's replacement, the White House was well-advanced towards securing a treaty of annexation with Texas. The State Department's secret negotiations with the Texas republic had proceeded despite explicit threats from a suspicious Mexican government that an unauthorized seizure of its northern district of
Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas, officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila y Tejas (), was one of the constituent states of the newly established United Mexican States under its 1824 Constitution.
It had two capitals: first Saltillo (1822–1825) f ...
would be equivalent to an act of war. Both the negotiations with Texas envoys and the garnering of support from the U.S. Senate had been spearheaded aggressively by Secretary Upshur, a strong pro-slavery partisan. Tyler looked to its ratification by the Senate as the ''sine qua non'' to his ambition for another term in office. Tyler planned to outflank the Whigs by gaining support from the Democratic Party or possibly creating a new party of discontented Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs.
Calhoun, though as avid a proponent for Texas acquisition as Upshur, posed a political liability to Tyler's aims. As secretary of state, Calhoun's political objective was to see that the presidency was placed in the hands of a southern
extremist
Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...
, who would put the expansion of slavery at the center of national policy.
Tyler and his allies had, since 1843, devised and encouraged national propaganda promoting Texas annexation, which understated Southern slaveholders' aspirations regarding the future of Texas. Instead, Tyler chose to portray the annexation of Texas as something that would prove economically beneficial to the nation as a whole. The further introduction of slavery into the vast expanses of Texas and beyond, they argued, would "diffuse" rather than concentrate slavery regionally, ultimately weakening white attachment and dependence on slave labor. This theory was yoked to the growing enthusiasm among Americans for
Manifest Destiny
Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American pioneer, American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''m ...
, a desire to see the social, economic and moral precepts of republicanism spread across the continent. Moreover, Tyler declared that national security was at stake: If foreign powers—Great Britain in particular—were to gain influence in Texas, it would be reduced to a British cotton-producing reserve and a base to exert geostrategic influence over North America. Texas might be coerced into relinquishing slavery, inducing slave uprisings in adjoining slave states and deepening sectional conflicts between American free-soil and slave-soil interests. The appointment of Calhoun, with his southern states' rights reputation—which some believed was "synonymous with slavery"—threatened to cast doubt on Tyler's carefully crafted reputation as a nationalist. Tyler, though ambivalent, felt obliged to enlist Calhoun as Secretary of State, because Tyler's closest confidantes had, in haste, offered the position to the South Carolinian statesman in the immediate aftermath of the ''Princeton'' disaster. Calhoun would be confirmed by Congress by unanimous vote.
In advance of Calhoun's arrival in Washington, D.C., Tyler attempted to quickly finalize the treaty negotiations.
Sam Houston
Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...
, President of the Texas Republic, fearing Mexican retaliation, insisted on a tangible demonstration of U.S. commitments to the security of Texas. When key Texas diplomats failed to appear on schedule, the delay compelled Tyler to bring his new Secretary of State directly into negotiations. Secretary Calhoun was directed to honor former Secretary Upshur's verbal assurances of protection now offered by Calhoun in writing, to provide for U.S. military intervention in the event that Mexico used force to hold Texas. Tyler deployed U.S. Navy vessels to the Gulf of Mexico and ordered army units mobilized, entirely paid for with $100,000 of executive branch contingency funds. The move side-stepped constitutional requirements that Congress authorize appropriations for war.
On April 22, 1844, Secretary Calhoun signed the treaty of annexation and ten days later delivered it to the Senate for consideration in secret session. The details of the treaty negotiations and supporting documents were leaked to the press by Senator
Benjamin Tappan of Ohio. Tappan, a Democrat, was an opponent of annexation and of slavery. The terms of the Tyler–Texas treaty and the release of Calhoun's letter to British ambassador
Richard Pakenham exposed the annexation campaign as a program to expand and preserve slavery. In the Pakenham letter, Calhoun alleged that the institution of slavery contributed to the physical and mental well-being of Southern slaves. The U.S. Senate was compelled to open its debates on ratification to public scrutiny, and hopes for its passage by the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution were abandoned by administration supporters. In linking Texas annexation to the expansion of slavery, Calhoun had alienated many who might previously have supported the treaty.
On June 8, 1844, after fierce partisan struggles, the Senate rejected the Tyler–Texas treaty by a vote of 16–35, a margin of more than two-to-one. The vote went largely along party lines: Whigs had opposed it almost unanimously (1–27), while Democrats split, but voted largely in favor (15–8). Nevertheless, the disclosure of the treaty placed the issue of Texas annexation at the center of the 1844 general election.
Election of 1844

At the Democratic Convention in Baltimore, Maryland in May 1844, Calhoun's supporters, with Calhoun in attendance, threatened to bolt the proceedings and shift support to Tyler's third party ticket if the delegates failed to produce a pro-Texas nominee. Calhoun's Pakenham letter, and its identification with proslavery extremism, moved the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, the northerner Martin Van Buren, into denouncing annexation. Therefore, Van Buren, already not widely popular in the South, saw his support from that region crippled. As a result,
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk (; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and ...
, a pro-Texas Jacksonian and Tennessee politician, won the nomination. Historian
Daniel Walker Howe says that Calhoun's Pakenham letter was a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of the 1844 election, writing:
In the general election, Calhoun offered his endorsement to Polk on condition that he support the annexation of Texas, oppose the
Tariff of 1842, and dissolve the ''Washington Globe,'' the semi-official propaganda organ of the Democratic Party headed by
Francis Preston Blair
Francis Preston Blair Sr. (April 12, 1791 – October 18, 1876) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
Blair was an early member of the D ...
. He received these assurances and enthusiastically supported Polk's candidacy. Polk narrowly defeated Henry Clay, who opposed annexation. Lame-duck President Tyler organized a joint House–Senate vote on the Texas treaty which passed, requiring only a simple majority. He signed a bill of annexation on March 1, With President Polk's support, the Texas annexation treaty was approved by the Texas Republic in 1845. A bill to admit Texas as the 28th state of the Union was signed by Polk on December 29, 1845.
Second term in the Senate
Mexican–American War and Wilmot Proviso
Calhoun was re-elected to the Senate in 1845 following the resignation of
Daniel Elliott Huger. He soon became vocally opposed to the Mexican–American War. He believed that it would distort the national character by undermining republicanism in favor of empire and by bringing non-white persons into the country.
When Congress declared war against Mexico on May 13, he abstained from voting on the measure. In South Carolina, Calhoun received some praise for his principled position, but support for the war was high in spite of his opposition. Calhoun also vigorously opposed the
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the ...
, an 1846 proposal by Pennsylvania Representative
David Wilmot to ban slavery in all newly acquired territories. The House of Representatives, through its Northern majority, passed the provision. However, the Senate never approved the measure.
Oregon boundary dispute
A major crisis emerged from the persistent
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a 19th-century territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations in ...
between Great Britain and the United States, due to an increasing number of American migrants. The territory included most of present-day
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
,
Washington,
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
, and
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
. American expansionists used the slogan "54–40 or fight" in reference to the Northern boundary coordinates of the Oregon territory. The parties compromised, ending the war threat, by splitting the area down the middle at the 49th parallel, with the British acquiring British Columbia and the Americans accepting Washington and Oregon. Calhoun, along with President Polk and Secretary of State
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvan ...
, continued work on the treaty while he was a senator, and it was ratified by a vote of 41–14 on June 18, 1846.
Rejection of the Compromise of 1850
The
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states during the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designe ...
, devised by Clay and
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas (né Douglass; April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. As a United States Senate, U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party (United States) ...
, a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois, was designed to solve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories acquired from Mexico. Many pro-slavery Southerners opposed it as inadequate protection for slavery, and Calhoun helped organize the
Nashville Convention, which would meet in June to discuss possible
Southern secession. The 67-year-old Calhoun had suffered periodic bouts of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
throughout his life. In March 1850, the disease reached a critical stage. Weeks from death and too feeble to speak, Calhoun wrote a blistering attack on the Compromise that would become his most famous speech. On March 4 a friend and disciple, Senator
James Mason
James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, three Golden Globes (winning once) and two ...
of Virginia, read his remarks. Calhoun affirmed the right of the South to leave the Union in response to what he called Northern subjugation, specifically
the North's growing opposition to the South's "
peculiar institution" of slavery. He warned that the day "the balance between the two sections" was destroyed would be a day not far removed from disunion, anarchy, and civil war. Calhoun queried how the Union might be preserved in light of subjugation of the "weaker" party—the pro-slavery South—by the "stronger" party, the anti-slavery North. He maintained that the responsibility of solving the question lay entirely on the North—as the stronger section, to allow the Southern minority an equal share in governance and to cease its anti-slavery agitation. He added:
Calhoun died soon afterward, and although the Compromise measures did eventually pass, Calhoun's ideas about states' rights attracted increasing attention across the South. Historian William Barney argues that Calhoun's ideas proved "appealing to Southerners concerned with preserving slavery. ...Southern radicals known as '
Fire-Eaters
In American history, the Fire-Eaters were a loosely aligned group of radical pro-secession Democrats in the antebellum South who urged the separation of the slave states into a new nation, in which chattel slavery and a distinctive "Southern ci ...
' pushed the doctrine of states' rights to its logical extreme by upholding the constitutional right of the state to secede".
Death and burial

Calhoun died at the
Old Brick Capitol
The Old Brick Capitol in Washington, D.C., served as the temporary meeting place of the Congress of the United States from 1815 to 1819, while the Capitol Building was rebuilt after the burning of Washington.
"Old Brick" served as a private ...
boarding house in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, on March 31, 1850, of tuberculosis, at the age of 68. The
last words
Last words are the final utterances before death. The meaning is sometimes expanded to somewhat earlier utterances.
Last words of famous or infamous people are sometimes recorded (although not always accurately), which then became a historical an ...
attributed to him were "The South, the poor South!"
He was interred at
St. Philip's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. During the Civil War, a group of Calhoun's friends were concerned about the possible desecration of his grave by Federal troops and, during the night, removed his coffin to a hiding place under the stairs of the church. The next night, his coffin was buried in an unmarked grave near the church, where it remained until 1871 when it was again exhumed and returned to its original place.
After Calhoun had died, an associate suggested that Senator
Thomas Hart Benton give a eulogy in honor of Calhoun on the floor of the Senate. Benton, a devoted Unionist, declined, saying: "He is not dead, sir—he is not dead. There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines."
The
Clemson University
Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...
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. 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.
Calhoun's widow, Floride, died on July 25, 1866, and was buried in St. Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery in
Pendleton, South Carolina, near their children, but apart from her husband.
Political philosophy
Agrarian republicanism
Historian LeeH. Cheek Jr. characterizes Calhoun's American
republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self ...
as within the South Atlantic tradition, as opposed to the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
tradition. While the New England–based puritan tradition stressed a politically centralized enforcement of moral and religious norms to secure
civic virtue
Civic virtue refers to the set of habits, Value (ethics), values, and Attitude (psychology), attitudes that promote the general welfare and the effective functioning of a society. Closely linked to the concept of citizenship, civic virtue () repr ...
, the South Atlantic tradition relied on a decentralized moral and religious order based on the idea of
subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines subsid ...
(or localism). Cheek considers the 1798
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799 in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. The resolutions argued ...
, written by Jefferson and Madison, the cornerstone of Calhoun's republicanism. Calhoun believed that popular rule is best expressed in local communities that are nearly autonomous while serving as units of a larger society.
Slavery
Calhoun led the
pro-slavery faction in the Senate, opposing both total
abolitionism
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. ...
and attempts such as the
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the ...
to limit the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
Calhoun's father, Patrick Calhoun, was a staunch supporter of slavery who taught his son that social standing depended not merely on a 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 hallmark of civilization, Calhoun saw little reason to question its morality as an adult. He believed that slavery instilled in white people a code of honor that fostered civic-mindedness. From Calhoun's standpoint, the expansion of slavery decreased the likelihood for social conflict and postponed the decay of when money would become the only measure of self-worth, as he believed had happened in New England. Calhoun was firmly convinced that slavery was the key to the success of the
American dream
The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the ...
.
Whereas other Southern politicians had excused slavery as a "necessary evil", in a famous
speech on the Senate floor on February 6, 1837, Calhoun asserted that slavery was a "positive good".
He rooted this claim on three grounds:
white supremacy
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...
,
paternalism
Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy against their will and is intended to promote their own good. It has been defended in a variety of contexts as a means of protecting individuals from significant harm, s ...
and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
. All societies, Calhoun claimed, are ruled by an elite group that enjoys the fruits of the labor of a less-exceptional group. Senator
William Cabell Rives of Virginia had earlier referred to slavery as an evil that might become a "lesser evil" in some circumstances. Calhoun believed that conceded too much to the abolitionists:
Calhoun's treatment of his own slaves includes an incident in 1831, when his slave Alick ran away when threatened with a severe whipping. Calhoun wrote to his second cousin and brother-in-law, asking him to keep a lookout for Alick, and if he was taken, to have him "severely whipped" and sent back. In a letter to Alick's captor, Calhoun wrote:
Calhoun rejected the belief of Southern leaders, 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.
As well as providing an intellectual justification of slavery, Calhoun played a central role in devising the South's overall political strategy. According to historian Ulrich B. Phillips,
alhoun'sdevices were manifold: to suppress agitation, to praise the slaveholding system; to promote white Southern prosperity and expansion; to procure a Western alliance; to frame a fresh plan of government by concurrent majorities; to form a Southern bloc; to warn the North of the dangers of Southern desperation; to appeal for Northern magnanimity as indispensable for the saving of the Union.
Shortly after delivering his speech against the Compromise of 1850, Calhoun predicted the destruction of the Union over the slavery issue. Speaking to Senator Mason, he said:
Opposition to the War with Mexico

Calhoun was consistently opposed to the War with Mexico, 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 nearly happened with the Wilmot Proviso. He argued that the war would detrimentally lead to the annexation of all of Mexico, which would bring Mexicans into the country, whom he considered deficient in moral and intellectual terms. He said, in a speech on January 4, 1848:
Calhoun argued that a war for territory was morally wrong and felt that the Polk administration had been too aggressive in trying to force a war. Anti-slavery Northerners denounced the war as a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery; Calhoun in turn perceived a connivance of Yankees to destroy the South. By 1847 he decided the Union was threatened by a totally corrupt
party system
A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of government by political parties in a democratic country. The idea is that political parties have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable ...
. He believed that in their lust for office, patronage and
spoils, politicians in the North pandered to the anti-slavery 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 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. Whites would flee and the South would "become the permanent abode of 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.
Many Southerners believed his warnings and read every political news story from the North as further evidence of the planned destruction of the white southern way of life. The climax came a decade after Calhoun's death with the election of Republican
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
in
1860
Events
January
* January 2 – The astronomer Urbain Le Verrier announces the discovery of a hypothetical planet Vulcan (hypothetical planet), Vulcan at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France.
* January 10 &ndas ...
, which led to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states. They formed the new
Confederate States
The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states th ...
, which, in accordance with Calhoun's theory, did not have any organized political parties.
Concurrent majority

Calhoun's basic concern for protecting the diversity 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. A concurrent majority is a system in which a minority group is permitted to exercise a sort of veto power over actions of a majority that are believed to infringe upon the minority's rights.
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 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
tyranny of the majority
Tyranny of the majority refers to a situation in majority rule where the preferences and interests of the majority dominate the political landscape, potentially sidelining or repressing minority groups and using majority rule to take non-democrat ...
. 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.
Historian
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier historic ...
(1948) emphasizes that Calhoun's conception of minority was very different from the minorities of a century later:
Unlike Jefferson, Calhoun rejected attempts at economic, social, or political leveling, claiming that true equality could not be achieved if all classes were given equal rights and responsibilities. Rather, to ensure true prosperity, it was necessary for a stronger group to provide protection and care for the weaker one. This meant that the two groups should not be equal before the law. For Calhoun, "protection" (order) was more important than freedom. Individual rights were something to be earned, not something bestowed by nature or God.
Calhoun was concerned with protecting the interests of the Southern States (which he identified with the interests of their slaveholding elites) as a distinct and beleaguered minority among the members of the federal Union; his idea of a concurrent majority as a protection for minority rights has gained some acceptance in American political thought. Political scientist Malcolm Jewell argues, "The decision-making process in this country resembles John Calhoun's 'concurrent majority': A large number of groups both within and outside the government must, in practice, approve any major policy."
Calhoun's ideas on the concurrent majority are illustrated in ''
A Disquisition on Government''. The ''Disquisition'' is a 100-page essay on Calhoun's definitive and comprehensive ideas on government, which he worked on intermittently for six years until its 1849 completion. It systematically presents his arguments that 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 and, similarly, that innate human depravity would debase government in a democracy.
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 "
popular sovereignty
Popular sovereignty is the principle that the leaders of a state and its government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state.
In the case of its broad associativ ...
position," and the "Calhoun doctrine". The Free Soilers stated that Congress had the power to outlaw slavery in the territories. The popular sovereignty position argued that the voters living there should decide. The Calhoun doctrine said that neither Congress nor the citizens of the territories could outlaw slavery in the territories.
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 and local voters, he asserted, had no authority to place restrictions on slavery in the territories. In a February 1847 speech before the Senate, Calhoun declared that "the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, in to any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination and would therefore be a violation of the Constitution". Enslavers therefore had a fundamental right to take their property wherever they wished. 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." The Calhoun Doctrine was opposed by the Free Soil forces, which merged into the new
Republican Party around 1854. Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney
Roger Brooke Taney ( ; March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, chief justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 186 ...
used Calhoun's arguments in his decision in the 1857 Supreme Court case ''
Dred Scott v. Sandford,'' in which he ruled that the federal government could not prohibit slavery in any of the territories.
Legacy
Monuments and memorials
Many different places, streets, and schools were named after Calhoun. Some, such as
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...
(1832)
and
Jackson County, Kansas
Jackson County is a county in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Holton. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 13,232. The county, first named Calhoun County for pro-slavery South Carolina Senato ...
(1859), were subsequently renamed. The "
Immortal Trio" (Calhoun,
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary o ...
, and
Henry Clay
Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...
) were memorialized with streets in Uptown
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
.
In June 2020,
Clemson University
Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...
removed John C. Calhoun's name from Clemson University Calhoun Honors College, renaming it to Clemson University Honors College. This action was taken in response to a petition which was supported by NFL stars
DeAndre Hopkins
DeAndre Rashaun Hopkins (born June 6, 1992), nicknamed "DHop" and "Nuk", is an American professional American football, football wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Cle ...
and
Deshaun Watson who are Clemson University alumni.
Against the backdrop of the
George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...
, University chairman Smyth McKissick said that "we must recognize there are central figures in Clemson's history whose ideals, beliefs and actions do not represent the university's core values of respect and diversity".
The Confederate government honored Calhoun on a 1¢
postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...
, which was printed in 1862 but was never officially released.
In 1887, at the height of the Jim Crow era, white segregationists erected a monument to Calhoun in
Marion Square in
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...
; the base was within easy reach and the local black population defaced it. Finally, it was replaced in 1896 standing atop a column base at a total of 115 feet as well as fenced in to deter attackers. It continued as a target of vandalism regardless. The statue has been a topic of debate for a long time. In 2017, Charleston's city council deferred a proposal to put a plaque on the statue that would have stated his
white-supremacist views. It was No. 5 on the
Make It Right Project
Make or MAKE may refer to:
* ''Make'' (magazine), a tech DIY periodical
*Make (software), a software build tool
*Make, Botswana, in the Kalahari Desert of Africa
*Make Architects
Make Architects is an international architecture practice headquar ...
's 2018 list of the 10 Confederate monuments it most wanted removed. The Make It Right Project organized a protest at the monument on May 16, 2019. The monument was removed on June 24, 2020, following a unanimous vote by the Charleston City Council to relocate the monument.
In 1910, the state of South Carolina gave a
statue of Calhoun to the
National Statuary Hall Collection
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old Hal ...
in the
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the United States Congress, the United States Congress, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, federal g ...
.
Also in the Capitol, there is an 1896 bust of Calhoun in the
U.S. Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection, and he is one of the "Famous Five" former members originally selected by the Senate in 1957 to be honored with a portrait in
Senate Reception Room.
In 1817, surveyors sent by Secretary of War Calhoun to map the area around
Fort Snelling
Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The military site was initially named Fort Saint An ...
named the largest lake in what became
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
, for him. Two centuries later, the city of Minneapolis
renamed the lake with the
Dakota language
The Dakota language ( or ), also referred to as Dakhóta, is a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota people of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, commonly known in English as the Sioux. Dakota is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Lak ...
name
Bde Maka Ska
Bde Maka Ska ( , previously named Lake Calhoun) is the largest lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and part of the city's Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway#Paths_around_lakes, Chain of Lakes. Surrounded by city park land and circled b ...
, meaning "White Earth Lake" or "White Banks Lake". The Calhoun-Isles Community Band in the
Uptown district of Minneapolis changed its name to City of Lakes Community Band in November 2018, to distance itself from Calhoun's pro-slavery legacy, following the renaming of the lake.
Calhoun Square and
Calhoun Beach Club, both in Minneapolis, announced name changes, and the road around the lake was renamed Bde Maka Ska Parkway. In 2022, the city councilors of
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Brita ...
, voted unanimously to remove his name from
Calhoun Square.
Film and television
Calhoun was portrayed by
Arliss Howard in the 1997 film ''
Amistad''. The film depicts the controversy and legal battle surrounding the status of slaves who in 1839 rebelled against their transporters on the ''
La Amistad'' slave ship.
Historical reputation
Calhoun was despised by Jackson and his supporters for his alleged attempts to subvert the unity of the nation for his own political gain. On his deathbed, Jackson regretted that he had not had Calhoun executed for treason. "My country," he declared, "would have sustained me in the act, and his fate would have been a warning to traitors in all time to come." Even after his death, Calhoun's reputation among Jacksonians remained poor. They disparaged him by portraying him as a man thirsty for power, who when he failed to attain it, sought to tear down his country with him.
According to Parton, writing in 1860:
Writing more than thirty years after Calhoun's death,
James G. Blaine portrayed him as a mix of personal integrity and wrongheaded ideology:
Charles E. Merriam said Calhoun should rank as one of America's strongest political theorists of the first half of the 19th century, with reasoning that was keen and strong, but also narrow and cramped.
Calhoun is often remembered for his defense of minority rights, in the context of defending white Southern interests from perceived Northern threats, by use of the "concurrent majority". He is also noted and criticized for his strong defense of slavery. These positions played an enormous role in influencing Southern secessionist leaders by strengthening the trend of sectionalism, thus contributing to the Civil War.
Biographer
Irving Bartlett wrote:
Calhoun has been held in regard by some
Lost Cause of the Confederacy
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, known simply as the Lost Cause, is an American pseudohistory, pseudohistorical and historical negationist myth that argues the cause of the Confederate States of America, Confederate States during the America ...
historians, who hold a romanticized view of the
antebellum South
The ''Antebellum'' South era (from ) was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practic ...
ern way of life and its cause during the Civil War. Historians such as Charles M. Wiltse and
Margaret Coit have, in their writings, portrayed Calhoun as a sympathetic or heroic figure.
John Niven paints a portrait of Calhoun that is both sympathetic and tragic. He says that Calhoun's ambition and personal desires "were often thwarted by lesser men than he". Niven identifies Calhoun as a "driven man and a tragic figure". He argues that Calhoun was motivated by the near-disaster of the War of 1812, of which he was a "thoughtless advocate," to work towards fighting for the freedoms and securities of the white Southern people against any kind of threat. Ultimately, Niven says, he "would overcompensate and in the end would more than any other individual destroy the culture he sought to preserve, perpetuating for several generations the very insecurity that had shaped his public career".
In 1957, a five-member "special" committee, led by Senator
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
, selected Calhoun as one of the five senators to enter the newly created senatorial pantheon "hall of fame". This "hall of fame" was established to fill five vacant portrait spaces in the Senate Reception Room.
Recently, Calhoun's reputation has suffered particularly due to his defense of slavery.
The racially motivated
Charleston church shooting
An Anti-Black racism, anti-black mass shooting and hate crime occurred on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed, and one was injured, during a Bible study (Christianity), Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist ...
in South Carolina in June 2015 reinvigorated demands for the removal of monuments dedicated to prominent pro-slavery and Confederate States figures. That month, the monument to Calhoun in Charleston was found vandalized, with spray-painted denunciations of Calhoun as a racist and a defender of slavery. Later, in 2020, during the
George Floyd protests in South Carolina, the monument was vandalized with signs and spray paint, with calls from the public demanding its removal, causing the city of Charleston to erect a chain-link fence around the statue to prevent the public from accessing it, before announcing on June 23, 2020, that the statue would be removed.
In response to decades of requests,
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
President
Peter Salovey
Peter Salovey (; born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and former academic administrator. He served as the 23rd president of Yale University from 2013 to 2024. He previously served as provost of Yale University from 2008 ...
announced in 2017 that the university's
Calhoun College
Grace Hopper College is a residential college of Yale University, opened in 1933 as one of the original eight undergraduate residential colleges endowed by Edward Harkness. It was originally named Calhoun College after US Vice President Jo ...
would be renamed to honor
Grace Hopper
Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of mach ...
, a pioneering computer programmer, mathematician and
Navy
A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...
rear admiral who graduated from Yale.
Calhoun is commemorated elsewhere on the campus, including the exterior of
Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edwa ...
, a prominent campus landmark, as one of Yale's "Eight Worthies".
See also
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List of places named for John C. Calhoun
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USS ''JohnC. Calhoun''
Image: John C. Calhoun Portrait at the South Carolina State House
References
Bibliography
Biographies
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External links
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John C. Calhoun: A Resource Guidefrom the Library of Congress
– Timeline, quotes, & contemporaries, via
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
* Other images via
The College of New Jersey
The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is a public university in Ewing Township, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Established in 1855 as the New Jersey State Normal School, TCNJ was the first normal school, ...
John C. CalhounBirthplace of Calhoun Historical Marker
The Law Offices of John C. Calhoun Monument
Disquisition on Government and other papers by John Calhoun.John C. Calhoun Papers at Clemson University's Special Collections Library2015 petition to Charleston City Council to change the name of Calhoun Street
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Calhoun, John C
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