John C. Calhoun

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Calhoun, John C. (1782–1850), politician and states'‐rights champion.For over a generation John Caldwell Calhoun dominated politics both in his native South Carolina and the entire South, and exerted a powerful national influence. Born near Abbeville on the South Carolina frontier, Calhoun graduated from Yale in 1804, entered the bar in 1807, served in the state legislature, and in 1810 was elected to Congress. Marriage to his cousin Floride in 1811 brought him a large plantation. Early in his congressional career Calhoun exhibited strong nationalism, ranking as a leading “war hawk,” supporting the War of 1812 and thereafter advocating federal internal improvements, a national bank, and the protective tariff of 1816. As James Monroe's secretary of war (1817–1825), Calhoun reorganized and modernized the department. By the time he served as vice president (under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson), Calhoun had shifted to a states' right position. His influential South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828), an attack on the tariff of 1818, argued that protective tariffs were unconstitutional, and that states retained their sovereignty when they entered the Union. The rise of anti‐slavery sentiment and northern voting power profoundly influenced his thinking; realizing that white southerners lacked the votes to override the North, he hoped to find a mechanism to preserve southern rights and interests within the Union. His theories of nullification and state interposition offered a third path between unconditional unionists and secessionists. During the Nullification Crisis of 1828–1833, Calhoun resigned the vice presidency (1832) and took a seat in the U.S. Senate to advocate his state's views. Briefly serving as secretary of state under John Tyler (1844–1845), Calhoun helped secure the annexation of Texas as a slave state. Returning to the Senate in 1845, he vigorously opposed the Compromise of 1850, seeing it as a thinly veiled attack on slaveholders, and came ominously close to advocating secession in the days preceding his death.
See also Bank of the United States, First and Second; Civil War: Causes; Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of State; Federal Government, Legislative Branch: Senate; Slavery: Development and Expansion of Slavery; Texas Republic and Annexation.

Bibliography

Robert L. Meriwether and Clyde Wilson, eds., The Papers of John C. Calhoun, 23 vols. to date, 1959–.
John Niven , John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union, 1988.

Eric H. Walther

Calhoun, John C. (1782–1850), congressman, secretary of war, vice president, senator, and secretary of state.When James Monroe appointed Congressman John C. Calhoun secretary of war in 1817, the South Carolinian discovered a department mired in financial irresponsibility and managerial incompetence. Calhoun eliminated economic waste, initiated a series of coastal defenses, tightened the army command structure, and improved the curriculum at West Point. He continued the standing policy of negotiating treaties for Indian land and Indian removal, and sent out expeditions to explore the country's vast western expanse. Calhoun, however, struggled to get along with his generals, especially the headstrong Andrew Jackson.

Government retrenchment due to the Panic of 1819 sidetracked many of his initiatives, eliminating his improved transportation system. In 1820 to avoid the disastrous impact of a huge cut in the army, Calhoun proposed his ingenious Expandable Army Plan. The reduction would come among privates; officer and noncommissioned officer strength would remain. In crisis, the army could expand by recruiting privates to serve under experienced leadership. A penurious Congress rejected the scheme. The South Carolinian was, however, able to implement another of his plans, the prohibition of the recruitment of blacks into the U.S. Army, an order that remained in effect from 1820 until the Civil War.

When Calhoun left office in 1825, he had accomplished much less than he had desired. However, he had restored some fiscal responsibility and some order to a department found in chaos. Though better known for his later political career, Calhoun was an influential secretary of war.
[See also African Americans in the Military; Army, U.S.: 1783–1865.]

Bibliography

Charles M. Wiltse , John C. Calhoun, 3 vols. 1944–51.
Irving H. Bartlett , John C. Calhoun, A Biography, 1993.

Trenton E. Hizer