Calhoun: American Heretic, Elder - B +

                  "Fame and infamy attached themselves to Calhoun early in his life and have persisted since his death in 1850." He was born in 1782 to a Scotch-Irish family from Ulster in the Carolina backcountry. His father had arrived there in the 1750's, and by the end of the war in 1783, he owned 16 slaves and 2100 acres of land. Patrick Calhoun taught his son to despise Britain, and to believe in individual liberty and limited government. He received a classical education at his brother-in-law's academy before enrolling at Yale. He was already a Jeffersonian when he reached Connecticut. He  found himself in a very Federalist environment, one critical of chattel slavery. He studied law at a private school in Litchfield, returned to South Carolina to read the law in 1806, and opened his own office in his home county of Abbeville after passing the bar. After the invention of the cotton gin, all of South Carolina, including what was now known as the upcountry, experienced a boom that united the state economically, and confirmed its reliance on slave labor. He was elected to the state legislature in 1808 and the US Congress in 1810. The following year, he married a wealthy cousin, Floride Colhoun. Once in Washington, he very quickly came to everyone's attention with his analytical and articulate exposition  of the need to prepare for war with the UK. Although there were trade issues between the two countries, it was Britain's continuing impressment of naturalized American citizens that rankled the most. He was the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee when war was declared in the spring of 1812. Although the war and its concluding treaty were, at best, a draw, Jackson's victory at New Orleans led many to consider it a triumph over the British. 

                  In the post-war era, Jeffersonian orthodoxies about the fear of standing armies and centralized government were shunted aside as the nation looked to expand, grow and dominate the continent. After championing bills to advance the nation, Calhoun left Congress and accepted Monroe's offer to be Sect. of War. He modernized and efficiently managed the government's largest department. He navigated through Andrew Jackson's unauthorized attack on the Spanish in Florida and a major recession in the 1820's. During the debates over the Missouri Compromise, Calhoun mused to his good friend and colleague, John Quincy Adams, that the law protected property rights and for he and other slaveowners, their slaves were their property. He also acknowledged the potential for the controversy over the extension of slavery to the west to sunder the union. He aspired to higher office and "as 1824 approached, there were few figures on the national stage who could legitimately claim to have a larger hand in the progress and prospects of American civilization than Secretary of War Calhoun." He won the Vice Presidency in an electoral landslide, while Adams eked out a victory in Congress, over Jackson. Long a nationalist, he began to fear the growing power of the North and started to think about a state's right to veto federal action. A tariff that favored the North and that he believed would impoverish the South moved him further away from the center. He suggested that state conventions, not legislatures, could 'nullify' federal laws detrimental to their state, and that that action could lead to necessary amendments to the Constitution. "While other states' rights advocates saw only a choice between domination by the federal government or disunion, Calhoun worked creatively, almost desperately, to find the resources for a solution within the system itself." 

                       1828 saw Calhoun returned as VP, with Andrew Jackson the new president. At the annual party celebrating Jefferson's birthday in 1830, the most famous exchange of toasts in American history took place. The President offered, "Our union, it must be preserved." Calhoun's reply included, "may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States..." Soon thereafter, and particularly at the encouragement of Sec. of State Van Buren, Jackson broke with Calhoun. A national debate on nullification, or interposition, propelled by continuing tariff contretemps,  saw Calhoun, quoting extensively from Jefferson's Virginia Resolutions, double down on his position. In 1832, Calhoun resigned and was appointed to the Senate by the SC legislature, which declared the Tariff of 1828 nullified. A historic debate between Webster and Calhoun about the nature of the union followed and most agreed that Calhoun's "compact" concept among sovereign states prevailed. In the end, SC repealed its nullification bill. 

                  The role of slavery in the world came under attack in the 1830's when Great Britain emancipated the empire's slaves and the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed. The abolitionists initiated the first direct mail campaign against the peculiar institution. "Slavery was part of who he was, a generational atrocity woven so seamlessly into the fabric of his identity that he could not imagine himself, his family, or the South without it. So, he defended it." He led the fight against a proposal to emancipate the slaves in DC and argued that slavery was a "positive good" that enhanced the wealth of America and its white population, while raising up the lives of those from Africa. Throughout his long career, though, he did not argue for disunion. He believed in the Constitution.

                   In the spring of 1844, Pres. Tyler appointed him Sec. of State.  He served a year, but was unable to annex Texas or finish a peace treaty with Britain over the Oregon border. He returned to the Senate.  Throughout the war with Mexico, he attempted to rein in Polk's more aggressive ambitions, vehemently opposing a proposed annexation of the entire country. He opposed Wilmot's proposal to ban slavery in New Mexico and California. Beginning in 1848, tuberculosis began to ravage his lungs. The following year, California requested admission with a clause in its constitution prohibiting slavery and provoking a great national debate. Throughout the South, secession was considered. A compromise was offered by Henry Clay, also dying of tuberculosis. Calhoun's final speech was read to the Senate by a colleague on March 4, 1850. He spoke against disunion, but asked for an equalization of power between the free and slave states. If the North was not willing to share power, it should let the South peaceably go. He died later that month.

                   This excellent biography has been acclaimed by  historians and journalists alike. Calhoun was clearly an incredibly complex and brilliant man. His prodigious talents place him in the pantheon of Senate greats, alongside his contemporaries, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. His articulation of the theory of the union as a compact between sovereign states was believed by many in the first half of the 19th century. The flaw, of course, was his reliance on slavery as the foundation of that belief. The idea died with the Confederacy. It is worth remembering that Shelby Foote stated that before the Civil War, the common phraseology was that the United Stares "are."After the war, it became  the United States "is."