John Caldwell Calhoun ( ; March 18, 1782 - March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina, and the seventh Vice-President of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for vigorously defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority rights in politics, which he undertakes in the context of defending the Southern white interests of the perceived North threat. He began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and supporter of strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically and he became a leading proponent of state rights, limited government, cancellation, and rejection of high tariffs - he saw North acceptance of these policies as the only way to guard the South in the Union. His convictions and warnings greatly influenced the Southern separation of the Union in 1860-1861.
Calhoun began his political career with elections to the House in 1810. As a prominent leader of the eagle faction, Calhoun strongly supported the War of 1812 to defend America's honor against the breach of British American independence and neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars. He later served as Secretary of War under President James Monroe, and in this position reorganized and modernized the War Department. Calhoun was the presidential candidate in the 1824 election. After failing to get support, he let his name be put forward as a vice presidential candidate. Electoral College chose Calhoun as vice president by a large majority. He served under John Quincy Adams and continued under Andrew Jackson, who defeated Adams in the 1828 election.
Calhoun has a difficult relationship with Jackson primarily because of Nullification Crisis and the affairs of Petticoat. Unlike previous nationalism, Calhoun vigorously backs South Carolina's right to cancel federal tariff laws that he unfairly believes in North Korea's favor, causing him to engage in conflicts with unions like Jackson. In 1832, with only a few months left in his second term, he resigned as vice president and entered the Senate. He sought Democratic nominations for the presidency in 1844, but lost to the surprise nominee James K. Polk, who later became president. Calhoun served as Secretary of State under John Tyler from 1844 to 1845. As Secretary of State, he supported Texas's annexation as a means to expand the power of slaves, and helped settle the Oregon border dispute with Britain. He then returned to the Senate, where he opposed the Mexican-American War, Wilmot Proviso, and Compromise in 1850 before his death in 1850. Calhoun often served as a virtual independent party that varied as needed with Democrats and Whigs.
Later, Calhoun was known as the "iron man" because of his stiff defense of white beliefs and Southern practices. His concept of republicanism emphasizes the agreement on the rights of slavery and minority rights, especially those embodied by the Southern states - he has dozens of slaves in Fort Hill, South Carolina. Calhoun also asserted that slavery, rather than "necessary evil," is "positive goodness", benefiting both slaves and slave owners. To protect minority rights against majority rule, it calls for a concomitant majority in which minorities can sometimes block proposals that feel violated on their freedom. To this end, Calhoun supports state rights and cancellations, in which states can declare invalid and invalidate federal laws they deem unconstitutional. Calhoun was one of the "Great Triumvirates" or "Trio Abadi" leaders of Congress, along with his colleagues at Congressman Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. In 1957, the Senate Committee headed by Senator John F. Kennedy chose Calhoun as one of the five greatest US Senators of all time.
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John Caldwell Calhoun was born in Abbeville, South Carolina on March 18, 1782, the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun (1727-1796) and his wife Martha Caldwell. Patrick's father, also named Patrick Calhoun, has joined the Scotch-Irish immigration movement from County Donegal to southwestern Pennsylvania. After the death of Elder Patrick in 1741, the family moved to southwestern Virginia. Following the defeat of British General Edward Braddock at the Battle of Monongahela in 1755, the family, afraid of the Indian attack, moved to South Carolina in 1756. Patrick Calhoun was a member of the Calhoun clan in the tight Scottish-Irish community in the South. border. He is known as an Indian fighter and ambitious surveyor, farmer, grower and politician, becoming a member of the South Carolina Legislature. As a Presbyterian, he stands against the Charleston-based Anglican elite. He is a Patriot in the American Revolution, and opposes the ratification of the federal Constitution on the basis of state rights and personal freedoms. Calhoun will eventually adopt his father's state rights.
Young Calhoun showed scholastic talent, and though a rare school on the Carolina border, he enrolled briefly at an academy in Appling, Georgia, which was soon shut down. He continued his studies in private. When his father died, his brothers went to start a business career and Calhoun, 14, took over the management of his family farm and five other farms. For four years he continued reading and hunting and fishing. The family decided he should continue his education, and he continued his studies at the Academy after reopening.
With the financing of his brothers, he went to Yale College in Connecticut in 1802. For the first time in his life, Calhoun faced a serious, advanced, and well-organized intellectual dialogue that shaped his mind. Yale is dominated by President Timothy Dwight, a Federalist who became his mentor. The brilliance of Dwight captivated (and sometimes rejected) Calhoun. Biographer John Niven says:
Calhoun admires Dwight's unprepared sermons, his encyclopedic-looking knowledge, and his remarkable mastery of classical works, of Calvinism, and metaphysics. No one, he thought, could explain the language of John Locke so clearly.
Dwight repeatedly denounced Jefferson's democracy, and Calhoun challenged him in class. Dwight can not shake Calhoun's commitment to republicanism. "Young man," Dwight replied, "your talents are very orderly and probably justify you for any station, but I deeply regret you do not love the sound principles more than sophism - you seem to have the most unfortunate bias for error." Dwight also outlined a strategy of secession from the Union as a legitimate solution to New England's disagreement with the national government.
Calhoun made friends easily, read widely, and was a registered member of the public debating the Brother in Unity. He graduated as a valedictorian in 1804. He studied law at the only state law school, Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, where he worked with Tapping Reeve and James Gould. He was accepted in the South Carolina bar in 1807. Biologist Margaret Coit argues that:
every principle of the right of secession or state that Calhoun once declared could be traced back to intellectual New England thinking... Not South, not slavery, but Yale College and Litchfield Law School make Calhoun a nullifier... Dwight, Reeve, and Gould no could convince young South Carolina patriots of separation, but they left no doubt in their minds about their legality.
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Personal life
In January 1811, Calhoun married Floride Bonneau Colhoun, the first cousin after being transferred. She is the daughter of Senator and the rich US lawyer JohnÃ, E. Colhoun, a leader of Charleston's high society. The couple has 10 children over 18: Andrew Pickens Calhoun, Floride Pure Calhoun, Jane Calhoun, Anna Maria Calhoun, Elizabeth Calhoun, Patrick Calhoun, John Caldwell Calhoun Jr., Martha Cornelia Calhoun, James Edward Calhoun, and William Lowndes Calhoun. Three of them, Floride Pure, Jane, and Elizabeth, died in infancy. Calhoun's fourth child, Anna Maria, married Thomas Green Clemson, founder of Clemson University in South Carolina.
Calhoun is not openly religious. He grew up with a Calvinist but was attracted by the Southern Unitarianism varieties that drew Jefferson's attention. Southern Unitarianism is generally less organized than popular varieties in New England. He is generally not outspoken about his religious beliefs. After his marriage, Calhoun and his wife attended the Episcopal Church, where he became a member. In 1821 he became a founding member of the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C.
Historian Merrill Peterson explains Calhoun: "Very serious and heavy, he can never write love poems, although he often tries, because each line begins with 'while'..."
House House of Representatives
War of 1812
With a base between Irish Ireland and Scotch, Calhoun won the election to the House of Representatives in 1810. He soon became the leader of the War Hawks, along with Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky and Congressman South Carolina William Lowndes and Langdon Cheves. Getting rid of the harsh objections of the conservative New England anti-war and Jefferson guerrillas led by John Randolph of Roanoke, they demanded a war against the British to defend the honor and values ​​of the American republic, which had been violated by the British's refusal to recognize shipping rights of America. As a member, and then acting as chairman, of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Calhoun played a leading role in compiling two key documents in the impetus for war, Foreign Relations Reports and War Reports of 1812. Drawing on the linguistic tradition of the Declaration of Independence, the Calhoun committee called for a declaration war in the ringing phrase, denouncing Britain's "lust for power", "unlimited tyranny," and "crazy ambition." Historian James Roark says, "They quarreled with words in the war that were mostly about humiliation and honor." The United States declared war on Britain on June 18, inaugurating the War of 1812. The opening phase involved many disasters for American weapons, as well as the financial crisis when the Treasury could barely pay the bills. The conflict caused economic hardship for America, as the Royal Navy blockaded ports and cut imports, exports and coastal trade. Some of Canada's invasion attempts were a failure, but the United States in 1813 took control of Lake Erie and broke the hostile Indian powers in battles such as the Thames River Battle of Canada in 1813 and the Battle of Horseshoe in Alabama in 1814. The Indians many things, working with England or Spain in opposing American interests.
Calhoun works to increase troop levels, provide funds, speed up logistics, save the currency, and organize trade to help the war effort. A colleague calls him "young Hercules who brings war on his shoulders." The disasters on the battlefield make it double its legislative efforts to overcome the obstructionism of John Randolph, Daniel Webster, and other opponents of war. In December 1814, with Napoleon Bonaparte's troops apparently defeated, and the British invasions in New York and Baltimore were thwarted, British and American diplomats signed the Treaty of Ghent. It called for a return to the borders of 1812 with no gain or loss. Before the agreement reached the Senate for ratification, and even before the news of its signing reached New Orleans, the great British invading forces were completely defeated in January 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans, making national hero General Andrew Jackson. The Americans celebrated what they called the "second war of independence" against Britain. This led to the beginning of the "Good Feelings", an era marked by the Federalist Party's formal breakdown and rising nationalism.
Postwar planning
Despite America's success, mismanagement of the Army during the war made Calhoun sad, and he decided to strengthen and centralize the War Department. The militia had proved himself unreliable during the war and Calhoun saw the need for a permanent and professional military force. In 1816 he called for the establishment of an effective navy, including steam frigates, as well as a standing army of adequate size. The British blockade on the coast has underscored the importance of rapid internal transport; Calhoun proposed a system of "large permanent roads". Blockade has cut imports of manufactured goods, so he stressed the need to encourage more domestic manufacturers, fully aware that the industries are based in the Northeast. Dependence of the old financial system on import duties was destroyed when the blockade cut imports. Calhoun called for an internal tax system that would not collapse from maritime trade depreciation in times of war, as tariffs do. The end of the First Bank charter of the United States has also disrupted the Treasury, so to revive and modernize the economy Calhoun called for a new national bank. A new bank was hired as the Second Bank of the United States by Congress and approved by President James Madison in 1816. Through his proposal, Calhoun stressed the national footing and degraded the rights of secessionalism and the state. Historian Ulrich B. Phillips said that at this stage of Calhoun's career, "The word is often on his lips, and his belief is to promote the national unity he identifies with national power."
Rhetorical style
Regarding his career at the House of Representatives, an observer commented that Calhoun was "the most elegant speaker sitting in the House... His attitude is easy and graceful, his attitude is compelling, and his language is elegant, but above all, he limits himself closely to the subject , which he always understands, and illuminates all who hear. "
His talent for public speaking requires systematic discipline and practice. A critic then notes the sharp distinction between hesitant conversation and fluent style of speech, adding that Calhoun "has carefully cultivated his poor natural voice to make his speech clear, full, and different in speech and while not at all musical, falls with happy in the ears ". Calhoun is "an ultra high intellectual figure". Thus, Calhoun is not known for his charisma. He often looks rude and aggressive with other representatives. But he is a smart intellectual orator and a powerful organizer. Historian Russell Kirk says, "The spirit that burns like the Greek fire at Randolph is burned at Calhoun, too, but it is contained in Iron-Iron Man as in the furnace, and Calhoun's passion shines only through his eyes.No one is more magnificent, more silent. "
John Quincy Adams concluded in 1821 that "Calhoun is an honest and honest thinker of respectable principles, clear and quick understanding, of cold self-possession, enlarged philosophical outlook, and patriotism He is on top of all the parts and prejudices that slander more than any other statesman in this Union I have ever met. "Historian Charles Wiltse noted Calhoun's evolution," Although he is known today especially for his sectionalism, Calhoun is the last of the leaders big politics of his time to take a part position - later than Daniel Webster, slower than Henry Clay, slower than Adams himself. "
Secretary of War and postwar nationalism
In 1817, the sad state of the War Department caused four people to reject an offer from President James Monroe to accept the post of War Secretary before Calhoun finally took over the role. Calhoun served on December 8 and served until 1825. He continued his role as a leading nationalist during the Era of Good Feeling. He proposed a complicated national reform program for infrastructure that he believed would accelerate the modernization of the economy. The first priority is an effective marine, including steam frigates, and in place of both standing troops of adequate size - and in preparation for further emergencies, "large permanent roads", "certain incentives" to produce, and taxation systems internal that will not collapse from the shrinking maritime trade war, such as customs.
After the war ended in 1815, the "Old Republican" in Congress, with their Jefferson ideology for the economy in the federal government, sought to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department. Calhoun's political rivalry with William H. Crawford, Minister of Finance, for his presidential election pursuit in 1824 complicated Calhoun's term as Secretary of War. The general lack of military action after the war meant that the large army, as favored by Calhoun, was no longer considered necessary. The "Radicals", a group of strong state rights advocates Crawford favored most for the presidency in the upcoming election, essentially suspected the big army. Some people allegedly also wanted to block Calhoun presidential aspirations for the election. Thus, on March 2, 1821, Congress passed the Reduction Act, which reduced the number of enlisted soldiers by half, from 11,709 to 5,586, and the number of officer corps by a fifth, from 680 to 540. Calhoun, though worried, offered little protest. Later, in order to provide troops with a more organized command structure, which was severely lacking during the War of 1812, he appointed Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown to a position later known as "Commander General of the United States Army".
As secretary, Calhoun has a responsibility to manage Indian affairs. He promoted a plan, adopted by Monroe in 1825, to preserve the sovereignty of the eastern Indians by relocating them to a western reservation that they could control without interference from the state government. In more than seven years Calhoun oversaw negotiations and ratification of 40 agreements with Indian tribes. Calhoun opposed the Florida invasion launched in 1818 by General Jackson during the First Seminole War, conducted without direct authorization from Calhoun or President Monroe. The United States annexed Florida from Spain in 1819 through the Adams-OnÃÆ's Treaty. A reformist-minded modern thinker, he seeks to institutionalize centralization and efficiency in the Department of India and the Army by building new coastal and frontier forts and building military roads, but Congress either fails to respond to its reforms or responds with hostility. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political competition, and ideological differences led him to create the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824. The bureau's responsibility was to manage contract negotiations, schools and trade with Indians, in addition to handling all expenses and correspondence. about Indian affairs. Thomas McKenney was appointed first bureau chief.
Vice Presidency
the 1824 and 1828 elections and the Adams presidency
Calhoun was originally a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1824. Four other men also sought the presidency: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. Calhoun failed to win the support of the legislature of South Carolina, and his supporters in Pennsylvania decided to abandon his nomination in favor of Jackson, and instead supported him for vice president. Other countries soon followed, and Calhoun therefore allowed himself to be a vice presidential candidate rather than president. The Electoral College chose Calhoun's vice president by a landslide. He won 182 votes out of 261 electoral votes, while five others received the remaining votes. No presidential candidate received a majority in Electoral College, and the election was finally finalized by the House of Representatives, where Adams was declared the winner of Crawford and Jackson, who in the election had led Adams in a vote and general election. After Clay, the House Speaker, was appointed Secretary of State by Adams, Jackson's supporters condemned what they considered to be a corrupt "bargain" between Adams and Clay to give Adams a presidency instead of Clay receiving the post of Secretary of State, the holder who traditionally became the next president. Calhoun also revealed some concerns, which caused friction between him and Adams.
Calhoun also opposed President Adams's plan to send a delegation to observe meetings of South and Central American leaders in Panama, believing that the United States should remain outside of foreign affairs. Calhoun became disillusioned with Adams's high tariff policy and enhanced government centralization through a network of "internal improvements", which he now sees as a threat to state rights. Calhoun wrote a letter to Jackson on June 4, 1826, informing him that he would support Jackson's second campaign for the presidency in 1828. Both had never been close friends. Calhoun never fully trusted Jackson, a frontier and popular war hero, but hoped that his election would bring a reprieve from Adams's anti-country human rights policy. Jackson chose Calhoun as his partner, and together they defeated Adams and his partner, Richard Rush. Calhoun became the second of two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents. The only other person who accomplished this achievement was George Clinton, who served as Vice President from 1805 to 1812 under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
skirt affairs
Early in the reign of Jackson, Floride Calhoun organized the wives of the Cabinet (hence the term "petticoats") against Peggy Eaton, wife of War Secretary John Eaton, and refused to associate with her. They allege that John and Peggy Eaton were involved in the affairs of adultery while he was legally married to his first husband, and that his last behavior was indecent. The allegations of scandal created an unbearable situation for Jackson. The Petticoat event ended a friendly relationship between Calhoun and Jackson.
Jackson sided with the Eatons. He and his late wife Rachel Donelson had experienced a similar political attack originating from their marriage in 1791. Both were married in 1791 without knowing that Rachel's first husband, Lewis Robards, failed to complete the expected divorce. After the divorce was settled, they married legally in 1794, but the episode caused great controversy, and was used against him in the 1828 campaign. Jackson saw an attack on Eaton from political opposition Calhoun, who failed to silence his wife's criticism. Calhoun is widely regarded as the main instigator.
Eaton takes revenge on Calhoun. In 1830, reports appeared accurately stating that Calhoun, as Secretary of War, had supported Jackson's condemnation of his 1818 invasion of Florida. This makes Jackson angry. For no apparent reason, Calhoun asked Eaton to approach Jackson about the possibility of Calhoun issuing a correspondence with Jackson during the Seminole War. Eaton does not do anything. This caused Calhoun to believe that Jackson had approved the issuance of the letters. Calhoun published it in United States Telegraph, a newspaper edited by Calhoun protà © Ã… © gÃÆ' ©, Duff Green. It gives Calhoun the impression of trying to justify himself against the conspiracy to ruin it, and further anger the President.
Finally in the spring of 1831, on the advice of Foreign Minister Martin Van Buren, who, like Jackson, supported the Eatons, Jackson replaced all but one of his cabinet members, limiting Calhoun's influence. Van Buren began the process by resigning as Foreign Minister, facilitating the removal of Jackson against others. Van Buren thereby further supported Jackson, while the rift between President and Calhoun widened. Then, in 1832, Calhoun, as vice president, cast a binding vote against Jackson's nomination of Van Buren as British Minister in a failed bid to end Van Buren's political career. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a loyal supporter of Jackson, later stated that Calhoun had "voted for the Vice President", because Van Buren was able to pass a failed nomination as British Minister and instead get nominated vice president of the Democratic Party in the election of 1832, Jackson wins.
Nullification
Calhoun began to oppose the rise in the tariff of protection, as they generally favored the North more than the South. When he became Vice President in the Adams administration, Jackson's supporters drafted a high tariff law which placed import duties also made in New England. Calhoun has been convinced that the interests of the northeast will reject Tariff 1828, exposing pro-British congressional members New Adams to allege that they are selfishly opposed to a law popular among Jackson's Democrats in western and central Atlantic countries. Southern legislators miscalculated and the so-called "Abomination Fare" was passed and signed into law by President Adams. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation, where he anonymously drafted "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," an essay that rejected the philosophy of centralization and supported the principle of cancellation as a means of preventing the tyranny of the central government.
Calhoun supports the idea of ​​cancellation through the same majority. Freezing is a legal theory that a country has the right to cancel, or cancel, any federal law that is considered unconstitutional. In the words of Calhoun, it is "... the right of the State to place, in a last resort, to capture unconstitutional acts of the General Government, within its bounds." Justification can be traced back to arguments by Jefferson and Madison in writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 against Alien and Sedition Acts. Madison expressed hope that countries would declare unconstitutional acts, while Jefferson explicitly supported the cancellation. Calhoun publicly debates the right of the state to escape the Union, as a last resort to protect its freedom and sovereignty. In his later years, Madison rebuked the supporters of the cancellation, stating that no country has the right to invalidate federal laws.
In "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argues that a state can veto a federal law that transcends the mentioned and enlarged powers over the remaining state power. Meanwhile, President Jackson, generally supports state rights, but opposes cancellation and secession. At Jefferson's Day 1830 dinner at the Queen India Hotel in Jesse Brown, Jackson proposed a toast and stated, "Our federal Union, it must be preserved." Calhoun replied, "Unity, in addition to our freedom, is most precious.Hope we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the state, and distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union." The publication of Calhoun's letter from Seminole in the Telegraph caused his relationship with Jackson to deteriorate, thus contributing to the Nullification crisis. Jackson and Calhoun started an angry correspondence that lasted until Jackson stopped him in July.
On July 14, 1832, Jackson signed the Tariff Act of 1832. It was designed to appease the liberators by lowering rates, but the cancellation in South Carolina remains unsatisfied. On November 24, the South Carolina legislature formally canceled both the 1832 Tariff and 1828 Tariffs, void and void starting February 1, 1833. In response, Jackson sent a US Navy warship to the port of Charleston, and threatened to hang Calhoun or anyone who work to support cancellation or secession. After joining the Senate, Calhoun began working with Clay at a new compromise rate. A government-sponsored bill was introduced by Gulian C. Verplanck's Representative of New York, but it lowered rates more sharply than Clay and other desirable protectionists. Clay succeeded in getting Calhoun to agree to a higher-interest bill in exchange for Clay's opposition to Jackson's military threat and, perhaps, in the hope that he could win some South votes in his next bid for the presidency. On the same day, Congress passed the Force Bill, which empowers the President of the United States to use military force to ensure state compliance with federal law. South Carolina accepted tariffs, but in the last rebellion show, canceled the Force bill. In a Calhoun speech against Force Bill, presented on 5 February 1833, no longer as vice president, he firmly supported the cancellation, at one point said:
Then, why, conferring to the President the vast and unlimited powers provided in this bill? Why allow him to use military force to capture the civil process of the State? But one answer can be given: That, in a contest between the State and the General Government, if the resistance is limited to both sides to the civil process, the State, by its inherent sovereignty, standing on its protected power, will prove also strong in such controversies, and must win over the Federal Government, sustained by delegated and limited authority; and in this answer we have an acknowledgment of the truth of the great principles which the State has contested firmly and nobly.
In Jackson's three-volume biography, James Parton concludes Calhoun's role in the crisis of Nullification: "Calhoun started it, Calhoun continued it." Calhoun stopped him.
Resignation
As tensions got worse, South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Hayne was considered less capable than Calhoun to represent South Carolina in the Senate debate, so by the end of 1832 Hayne resigned to become governor. On December 28, Calhoun resigned as vice president to become a senator, with a voice in the debate. Van Buren has been elected as Jackson's new vice president, meaning Calhoun has less than three months left in his tenure. The South Carolina City Gazette newspaper commented on the change:
It is admitted that the ex-man [Hayne] was wisely pitted against Clay and Webster and, the cancellation of the question, the place of Mr. Calhoun must be ahead with these tough politicians.
Biographer John Niven argues "that these movements are part of a mature plan in which Hayne will detain the angry in the state legislature and Calhoun will defend his ideas, the cancellation, in Washington against the administrative stalwarts and the likes of Daniel Webster , the new apostle of northern nationalism. "Calhoun was the first of two vice presidents to resign, the second being Spiro Agnew in 1973. During his tenure as vice president, he made a record of 31 votes in Congress.
First term in US Senate
When Calhoun took his seat at the Senate on December 29, 1832, his chances of becoming President were deemed poor due to his involvement in the Nullification Crisis, which made him unrelated to the big national parties. After the implementation of the 1833 Compromise Rate, which helped solve the Nullification Crisis, the Nullifier Party, along with other anti-Jackson politicians, formed a coalition known as the Whig Party. Calhoun was occasionally affiliated with Whig, but chose to remain independent virtually because of Whig's promotion of federal subsidized "internal improvements."
From 1833 to 1834, Jackson was involved in the abolition of federal funds from the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War. Calhoun opposed this action, regarded it as an expansion of a dangerous executive power. He called Jackson administration people "smart, cunning, and corrupt politicians, and not fearless soldiers." He accused Jackson of not knowing about financial matters. As proof, he cites the economic panic caused by Nicholas Biddle as a means to stop Jackson from destroying the Bank. On March 28, 1834, Calhoun selected Whig senator with a successful movement to denounce Jackson for his dismissal of the fund. In 1837, he refused to attend the inauguration of Jackson's elected successor, Van Buren, even as other powerful senators who opposed administrations like Webster and Clay witnessed the inauguration. However, by 1837 Calhoun had generally adapted to most of the Democratic policies.
To restore his national status, Calhoun teamed up with Van Buren. Democrats are hostile to national banks, and the country's bankers join the Whig Party. The Democratic substitute, intended to help combat Panic of 1837, is an Independent Treasury system, backed by Calhoun and in effect. Calhoun, like Jackson and Van Buren, attacked financial capitalism and opposed what he saw as encroachment by governments and big business. For this reason, he opposed the nomination of Whig William Henry Harrison in the 1840 presidential election, believing that Harrison would set a high tariff and therefore place an undue burden on the Southern economy. Calhoun resigned from the Senate on March 3, 1843, four years before the end of his term, and returned to Fort Hill to prepare for a Democratic nomination for the presidential election in 1844. He received little support, even from the South, and quit.
Secretary of State
Texas Appointment and Unification
When Harrison died in 1841 after a month in office, Vice President John Tyler succeeded him. Tyler, a former Democrat, was expelled from the Whig Party after vetoing a bill passed by a majority of Whig congresses to re-establish national banks and raise tariffs. He was named Calhoun Secretary of State on 10 April 1844, following the death of Abel P. Upshur in the USS Princeton disaster.
Loss of the Upshur is a severe blow to the Tyler government. When Calhoun was nominated as a substitute for Upshur, the White House advanced well to get an annexation deal with Texas. The State Department's secret negotiations with the Republic of Texas have proceeded despite an explicit threat from the suspicious Mexican government that the unauthorized seizure of the northern district of Coahuila y Tejas would be equivalent to war action. Both negotiations with the Texas envoy and the gathering of support from the US Senate have been spearheaded aggressively by the Upshur Secretary, a strong pro-slavery proponent. Tyler sees his ratification by the Senate as sine qua non to his ambition for the next term in office. Tyler "plans to surround the Whig with the support of the Democratic Party or perhaps create a new party [Democrat] North and Whig Southern dissatisfied."
Calhoun, though as an avid supporter for the Texas acquisition as Upshur, raises political responsibility for Tyler's goals. As the secretary of state, Calhoun's political goal was to see that the presidency was placed in the hands of a southern extremist, which would place an expansion of slavery at the center of national policy.
Tyler and his allies have, since 1843, designed and encouraged national propaganda to promote the annexation of Texas, which undermines the aspirations of Southern slaves about the future of Texas. In contrast, Tyler chose to portray Texas annexation as something that would prove economically viable to the nation as a whole. The further recognition of slavery into the vast expanse of Texas and its suburbs, they argue, will "diffuse" rather than concentrate on regional slavery, ultimately undermining white attachment and dependence on forced labor. This theory is combined with America's rising enthusiasm for Manifest Destiny, a desire to see the social, economic and moral teachings of republicanism spread across the continent. In addition, Tyler states that national security is at stake: If foreign powers - especially Britain - will gain influence in Texas, it will be reduced to UK cotton-producing reserves and base to exert geostrategic influence over North America. Texas may be forced to release slavery, encouraging slave uprisings in adjacent slave countries and deepening sectional conflicts between the interests of free land and slave land. The appointment of Calhoun, with the reputation of the rights of his country in the south - believed by some to be "synonymous with slavery" - threatened to cast doubt on Tyler's carefully made nationalist reputation. Tyler, though ambivalent, felt obliged to register Calhoun as Secretary of State, for Tyler's nearest belief, hastily, offered that position to South Carolinian statesmen immediately after the catastrophe of Princeton. Calhoun will be confirmed by Congress unanimously.
Prior to the arrival of Calhoun in Washington, D.C., Tyler attempted to immediately complete the agreement negotiations. Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, who feared the revenge of the Mexicans, demanded a demonstration of a real US commitment to the security of Texas. When important Texas diplomats failed to appear on schedule, the delay forced Tyler to bring the new Minister of Foreign Affairs directly into the negotiations. The Calhoun secretary was directed to honor the former verbal assertion of the Upshur Secretary about the protection now offered by Calhoun in writing, to provide US military intervention if Mexico used force to hold Texas. Tyler deployed US Navy ships to the Gulf of Mexico and ordered army units mobilized, entirely paid for $ 100,000 from an executive branch's emergency fund. The move put aside the constitutional requirements approved by Congress to take over the war.
On April 22, 1844, Calhoun's Secretary signed an annexation agreement and ten days later sent it to the Senate for consideration in a secret session. Details of agreement negotiations and supporting documents leaked to the media by Senator Benjamin Tappan from Ohio. Tappan, a Democrat, is the opposite of annexation and slavery. The terms of the Tyler-Texas agreement and the release of Calhoun's letter to British ambassador Richard Pakenham expose the annexation campaign as a program to expand and perpetuate slavery. In Pakenham's letter, Calhoun alleged that the institution of slavery contributed to the physical and mental well-being of the Southern slaves. The US Senate was forced to open debate on ratification for public scrutiny, and hopes for its share by the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution were abandoned by government supporters. In associating Texas annexation with the expansion of slavery, Calhoun has alienated many people who may have previously supported the treaty.
On June 8, 1844, after a fierce partisan struggle, the Senate rejected the Tyler-Texas agreement in a 35-16 vote, a margin of more than two to one. Voting mostly took place along party lines: Whigs had opposed it almost unanimously (1-27), while Democrats were divided, but most voted favor (15-8). However, the disclosure of the treaty puts Texas's annexation problem at the 1844 election center.
Selection 1844
At the Democratic Convention in Baltimore, Maryland in May 1844, Calhoun's supporters, with Calhoun present, threatened to launch the process and shifted support to third-party Tyler tickets if delegates failed to produce pro-Texas candidates. The letter of Pakenham Calhoun, and his identification with extremist extremism, removed the presumed Democratic nominee, northerner Martin Van Buren, to denounce annexation. Therefore, Van Buren, who is not widely popular in the South, sees his support from the region paralyzed. As a result, James K. Polk, a pro-Texas Jacksonian and Tennessee politician, won the nomination. Daniel Howe claims that Pakenham Calhoun's letter was a deliberate attempt to influence the election results of 1844, writes:
By identifying Texas with slavery, Calhoun ensured that Van Buren, as a northerner, had to oppose Texas. This, Calhoun correctly predicted, would hurt the New Yorker's chances for a Democratic nomination. Similarly, Carolinian's ingenious strategy ultimately destroys the cause of Texas annexation. Indeed, in that case will produce a brilliant success.
In the general election, Calhoun offered his support to Polk on condition that he backed Texas annexation, opposed Tariff 1842, and dissolved the Washington Globe, the semi-official propaganda body of the Democrat Party led by Francis Preston Blair. He received this guarantee, and enthusiastically endorsed Polk's candidacy. Polk defeats Clay, who opposes annexation. President Lame-duck Tyler organizes a joint House-Senate vote on a passing Texas treaty, requiring only a modest majority. He signed the annexation bill on March 1, With the support of President Polk, the Texas annexation agreement was approved by the Republic of Texas in 1845. A bill to recognize Texas as the 28th state of the Union was signed by Polk on 29 December 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 a vocal against the Mexican-American War. He believed that it would distort the national character by damaging republicism in favor of the empire and by bringing non-white people to the country. (See Ã, § War crimes and political parties.) When Congress declared war on Mexico on May 13, it abstained from vote on size. Calhoun also strongly opposed Wilmot Proviso, a proposal by 1846 by Pennsylvania Representative David Wilmot to ban slavery in all newly acquired territories. The House of Representatives, through the majority of the North, passed the provisions several times. However, the Senate, where non-slave and slave nations have more equal representation, has never escaped.
Oregon border disputes
A major crisis emerged from the Oregon border dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States, due to the growing number of American migrants. This region includes most of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho today. American expansionists use the slogan "54-40 or battle" in reference to the northern boundary coordinates of the Oregon region. The parties compromised, ending the threat of war, dividing the territory in the middle in the 49th parallel, with the British acquiring British Columbia and America receiving Washington and Oregon. Calhoun, together with Polk President and Secretary of State James Buchanan, continued to work on the agreement while he was a senator, and ratified by the 41-14 vote on 18 June 1846.
Compromise Rejection 1850
The compromise of 1850, made by Clay and Stephen A. Douglas, a first Democratic senator from Illinois, was designed to resolve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories gained from Mexico. Many supporters of slavery were against it, and Calhoun helped arrange the preparations for the Nashville Convention, which will meet that summer to discuss the possibility of a Southern separation. Calhoun who almost 68 years has suffered tuberculosis periodically throughout his life. In March 1850, the disease reached a critical stage. For weeks from death and too weak to speak, Calhoun wrote a blistering attack on a compromise that would be his most famous speech. On March 4, a friend, Senator James Mason from Virginia, read the statement. Calhoun asserted the South's right to leave the Union in response to the Northern conquest. He warned that a day of "balance between two parts" was destroyed would be a day not far from division, anarchy, and civil war. Calhoun questioned how Unity might be preserved in light of the conquest by the "stronger" party against the "weaker". He stated that the responsibility for solving the problem was entirely in the North - as a stronger part, to allow the southern minority the same part of government and stop the anxiety. He added:
If you represent a stronger part, can not agree to settle it on the principle of fairness and wide duty, say so; and let the countries that we both represent agree to separate and separate peacefully. If you do not want us to be peaceful, let us know so; and we'll know what to do, when you reduce the question for submission or rejection.
Calhoun died soon after, and although compromise steps finally escaped, Calhoun's notion of state rights drew increasing attention throughout the South. Historian William Barney argues that Calhoun's ideas proved "appealing to the Southern people who are concerned with the preservation of slavery... The Southern Radicals known as the 'Fire-Eaters' push the doctrine of state's rights to its logical extremes by upholding the constitutional right of the state to get away. "
Death and burial
Calhoun died at the Old Capitol boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1850, from tuberculosis, at the age of 68. He was buried in St. Philip in Charleston, South Carolina. During the Civil War, a group of Calhoun's friends were worried about the possibility of desecration of his grave by Federal forces and, at night, moved the coffin to a hiding place under the church ladder. The next night, his coffin was buried in an unmarked grave near the church, where it remained until 1871, when it was again dug and returned to its original place.
After Calhoun died, a colleague suggested that Senator Thomas Hart Benton give a speech in honor of Calhoun on the Senate floor. Benton, a faithful Unionist, refused, saying: "He is not dead, sir - he is not dead, there may be no vitality in his body but in his doctrine."
Calhoun's widow, Floride, died on July 25, 1866, and was buried at St. Joseph's Episcopal Cemetery. Paul in Pendleton, South Carolina, near their children, but separated from her husband.
Political philosophy
Agrarian Republicanism
H. Cheek, Jr., distinguishes between two strands of American republicanism: a puritanical tradition, based in New England, and an agrarian or Southern Atlantic tradition, which Cheech favored by Calhoun. While the New England tradition emphasizes the enforcement of politically-oriented moral and religious norms to secure civil virtue, the South Atlantic tradition relies on decentralized moral and religious orders based on the idea of ​​subsidiarity (or localism). Cheek states that "Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions" (1798), written by Jefferson and Madison, is the cornerstone of Calhoun's republicanism. Calhoun emphasizes the superiority of subsidiarity ---- holding that popular rules are best expressed in almost autonomous local communities while serving as larger units of society.
Slavery
Calhoun leads a pro-slavery faction in the Senate, opposing both total abolitionism and efforts like Wilmot Proviso to limit the expansion of slavery to the western region.
Calhoun's father, Patrick Calhoun, helped shape his son's political views. He was a loyal supporter of slavery who taught his son that social standing depends not only on commitment to the ideal of self-government but also to the possession of a large number of slaves. Developing in a world where slaveholding is a hallmark of civilization, Calhoun sees little reason to question his morality as an adult. He further believes that slavery is implanted in the remaining white whites a code of honor that dulls the disturbing potential of personal gain and cultivates citizenship minds that lie near the core of the republican credo. From that point of view, the expansion of slavery reduced the possibility of social conflict and delayed the decline when money would be the only measure of self-esteem, as it did in New England. Calhoun is thus convinced that slavery is the key to the success of the American dream.
While other Southern politicians have forgiven slavery as a "necessary evil," in a famous speech on the Senate floor on February 6, 1837, Calhoun asserts that slavery is "positive goodness." He acquired this claim for two reasons: white supremacy and paternalism. All the people, Calhoun claims, are governed by an elite group that enjoys the work of a group that is less than extraordinary. Senator William Cabell Rives of Virginia previously called slavery a crime that might be "lesser evil" in some circumstances. Calhoun believes that too many conceded to the abolitionists:
I take a higher place. I would argue that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origins, and are distinguished by color, and other physical, and intellectual, unified, relations now in the wandering countries between them, good crime - positive goodness... I might honestly say that in some countries so much is left for the share of the labor, and so little is required of it, or where there is more attention paid to it in illness or weakness age. Compare his condition with the inhabitants of poorer homes in the more civilized parts of Europe - see the sick, and the old and weak slave, on the one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the supervision of the super masters and mistresses, and compare them with the pitiful and wretched conditions of the poor in poor homes... I hold on to it, that there is never a rich and civilized society where one part of society is not, in essence a fact, living from another.
Calhoun rejected the beliefs of Southern leaders such as Henry Clay that all Americans can approve "opinions and feelings" that slavery is wrong, although they may disagree on the most practical way of responding to the big mistake. Calhoun's constitutional ideas serve as a viable conservative alternative to Northern appeals to democracy, majority rule, and natural rights.
As well as providing intellectual justification of slavery, Calhoun played a central role in designing the overall political strategy of the South. According to Phillips:
Organizations and strategies are widely demanded in the Southern defense, and Calhoun is considered the main source of plans, arguments, and inspirations. The equipment is diverse: to suppress agitation, to praise slaveholding systems; to promote the prosperity and expansion of the white South; to acquire Western alliances; to frame a new government plan with the same majority; to form the Southern block; to warn the North about the dangers of South desperation; to appeal to the North's generosity as indispensable for saving Unity.
Shortly after delivering his speech against the Compromise of 1850, Calhoun predicted the destruction of Union over the issue of slavery. Speaking to Senator Mason, he said:
I am improving the probability of occurrence in twelve years or three presidential terms. You and others your age may live to see it; I will not. The mode to be performed is not very clear; it can be carried in a way that no one is now predicting. But chances are, it will explode in the presidential election.
War crimes and political parties
Calhoun consistently opposed the War with Mexico, arguing that the enlarged military effort would only feed the apprehensive and growing appetite of society for the empire regardless of its constitutional dangers, executive power and patronage, and the saddle of the republic with soaring debts that would disrupt finances and encourage speculation. Calhoun was worried, moreover, that the slave owners of the South would be ostracized from the conquered parts of Mexico, as almost the case with Wilmot Proviso. He argues that war will harm leading to the annexation of all Mexico, which will bring the Mexicans to the country, which he considers lacking in moral and intellectual terms. He said, in a speech on January 4, 1848:
We made a big mistake, sir, when we think everyone is able to govern themselves. We are eager to force a free government for all; and I see that it has been urged in a very respectable quarter, that the mission of this country is to spread civil and religious freedom over the whole world, and especially above this continent. That was a big mistake. Nobody but those who progress to a very high moral and intellectual level are able, in a civilized state, to maintain a free government; and among those so purified, very few, indeed, have the good fortune to form a viable constitution.
Anti-slavery of the North condemns war as a southern conspiracy to expand slavery; Calhoun in turn is considered a secret Yankees to destroy the South. In 1847 he decided the Union was threatened by a truly corrupt party system. He believes that in their passions for office, patronage and spoils, politicians in the North are fighting for anti-slavery votes, especially during the presidential campaign, and politicians in slave countries sacrificed the South's right in an attempt to pacify their party's northern wings.. Thus, an important first step in a successful South rights assertion must be to remove all party ties. In 1848-49, Calhoun tried to give substance to his call for Southern unity. He is the driving force behind the drafting and publication of "Address of the Southern Delegation in Congress, for Their Constituents." It alleges the North's violation of South's constitutional rights, then warns Southern voters to expect forcible forced slaves in the near future, followed by a complete conquest by an unholy alliance of the North and an unprincipled blackhead. The white man will flee and the South will "become a permanent residence of chaos, anarchy, poverty, misery, and misery." Only a fast and persistent Southern white union can prevent such catastrophes. Such unity will bring the North to its senses or lay the foundation for an independent South. But the spirit of unity is still strong in the region and less than 40% of Southern Congress members sign the address, and only one Whig.
Many South Africans believe in his warnings and read every political news from the North as further proof of plans for the destruction of the southern white way of life. The climax came a decade after Calhoun's death with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which led to the South Carolina secession, followed by six other Southern nations. They formed a new Confederate State, which, in accordance with Calhoun's theory, had no organized political party.
Partial sync
Calhoun's fundamental concern for protecting the diversity of minority interests is expressed in his major contribution to political science - the idea of ​​a concomitant majority in different groups of numerical majority. The overwhelming majority is a system in which minorities are allowed to exercise some kind of veto over the majority of actions that are believed to infringe minority rights.
According to the principle of numerical majority, the will of more citizens should always rule, regardless of the burden on minorities. Such a principle tends toward the consolidation of power in which the interests of an absolute majority always prevail over minorities. Calhoun believes that the great achievement of the American constitution is in examining the tyranny of the numerical majority through institutional procedures that require a concurrent majority, so that every important interest in society must approve of government action. To secure the concurrent majority, those with a numerical majority must compromise with minority interests. The concurrent majority requires the unanimous consent of all the major interests in a community, which is the only sure way to prevent the tyranny of the majority. This idea supports the doctrine of Calhoun's interposition or cancellation, in which the state government can refuse to uphold or comply with Federal government policies that threaten the vital interests of the states.
Historian Richard Hofstadter (1948) emphasizes that Calhoun's conception of a minority is very different from that of a century a century later:
Not a bit is [Calhoun] concerned about minority rights because they are primarily interested in modern liberal minds - the right of dissidents to express unorthodox opinions, from individual consciousness to the State, at least of all ethnic minorities. Basically he is not interested in any minority that is not a small minority. The majority at the same time itself is a device with no relevance to the protection of dissent, designed to protect certain interests of power... it is a minority right rather than the right [minority] that he really proposes to protect.
Unlike Jefferson, Calhoun rejects economic, social, or political alignment, claiming that true equality can not be achieved if all classes are given equal rights and responsibilities. Conversely, to ensure true prosperity, stronger groups are needed to provide protection and care for the weaker. This means that the two groups should not be equal before the law. For Calhoun, "protection" (sequence) is more important than freedom. An individual's right is something to be acquired, not something given by nature or God. Calhoun is concerned with protecting the interests of the Southern States (which he identifies with the interests of their slaughter elite) as a distinct and beleaguered minority among members of the federal Union; the idea of ​​a simultaneous majority as the protection of minority rights has received acceptance in American political thought. Political scientist Malcolm Jewell argues, "The decision-making process in this country is similar to" the temporary majority "John Calhoun: A large number of groups both within and outside the government must, in practice, approve every major policy."
Calhoun's idea of ​​a concomitant majority is depicted in A Disquisition on Government . The Disquisition is a 100 page essay on Calhoun's definitive and comprehensive idea of ​​government, which he worked on intermittently for six years to complete in 1849. It systematically presents his argument that numerical majority in any government would normally impose despotism upon minorities except for some means designed to secure the consent of all classes, sections, and interests and, alike, that innate human innocence will demean the government in a democracy.
Country sovereignty and "Calhoun Doctrine"
In the 1840s, tig
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