CALHOUN, John Caldwell, statesman, born in Abbeville district, South
Carolina, 18 March, 1782; died in Washington, District of Columbia, 31 March,
1850. His grandfather, James Calhoun, immigrated from Donegal, Ireland, to
Pennsylvania in 1733, bringing with him a family of children, of whom Patrick
Calhoun was one, a boy six years old. The family removed to western Virginia,
again moved farther south, and in 1756 established the "Calhoun settlement" in
the upper part of South Carolina. This was near the frontier of the Cherokee
Indians; conflicts between them and the whites were frequent and bloody, and the
Calhoun family suffered severe loss. Patrick Calhoun was distinguished for his
undaunted courage and perseverance in these struggles, and was placed in command
of provincial rangers raised for the defense of the frontier. His resolute and
active character gave him credit among his people, and he was called to
important service during the revolutionary war, in support of American
independence. By profession he was a surveyor, and gained success by his skill.
He was a man of studious and thoughtful habits, and well versed in English
literature. His father was a Presbyterian, and he adhered to the religion of his
fathers. In 1770 he married Martha Caldwell, a native of Virginia, daughter of
an Irish Presbyterian immigrant, whose family was devoted to the American cause,
and some of whom were badly treated by the Tories. By heredity, John Caldwell
Calhoun was therefore entitled to manhood from his race, to vigorous convictions
in faith, and to patriotic devotion to liberty and right. He was early taught to
read the Bible, and trained in Calvinistic doctrines; and it is said that he was
also devoted to history and metaphysics, but was compelled to desist from study
because of impaired health.
His father was a member for many years, during and after the revolution, of
the legislature of his state, and his counsels made a deep impression on his
son, though he died when the latter was thirteen years of age. The son
remembered hearing the father say that "that government was best which allowed
the largest amount of individual liberty compatible with social order," and that
the improvements in political science would consist in throwing off many
restraints then deemed necessary to all organized society. Until Mr. Calhoun was
ready for College, he was under the instruction of his brother-in-law, the Rev.
Dr. Waddell, a Presbyterian clergyman, and went to Yale in 1802. He evinced
great originality of thought, devotion to study, and a lofty ambition, which won
him the honors of his class, and the prophetic approval of President Dwight in
the declaration, after an earnest dispute with him on the rightful source of
political power, that he would reach the greatest eminence in life, and might
attain the presidency. He studied law with H. W. Desaussure, of South Carolina,
for a time, but was graduated at Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to
the bar in 1807. He took part in a meeting of the people denouncing the British
outrage on the frigate "Chesapeake," and was soon elected to the legislature,
and entered the house of representatives in November, 1811, in his thirtieth
year. Few men were better trained for the career before him. Simple and sincere
in his tastes, habits, and manners, strict and pure in his morals, and
incorruptible in his integrity, severe and logical in his style, analytic in his
studies, and thorough in his investigations, with a genius to perceive and
comprehend the Massachusetts of elements that entered into the solution of the
problems of our political life, and with a capacity for philosophic
generalization of principles unequalled by any contemporary, he began,
continued, and ended his life, in the manifestation of the highest qualities for
debate, for disquisitions upon constitutional government and free institutions,
for discussions on foreign relations, for the investigation of political and
social economy, and for the conduct with ability of the general affairs and even
for the details of departmental administration.
When Calhoun entered congress, war with Great Britain was imminent. He was a
member of the committee on foreign affairs. He drew a report which placed before
the country the issue of war, or submission to wrong. He urged a declaration of
war, and upheld the cause of his country with an eloquence that inspired
patriotic enthusiasm, and with a logical force that gave fortitude and zeal to
the army and navy as well as to the people. At the close of the war in 1815 the
country was confronted with questions of currency, finance, commercial policy,
and internal development, which offered to the genius of Calhoun fruitful
subjects for his original and patriotic study. He pressed upon congress the bank
bill, the tariff of 1816, and a system of roads and canals. On these questions
he afterward modified his views very greatly, but defended his real consistency
of thought, under the appearance of inconsistency, by saying that the remedies
proper for one condition of things were improper for others. A question arose in
the discussion of the act to carry into effect the treaty of peace, as to the
relation of the treaty-making authority to the powers of congress. He maintained
the supremacy of the treaty power: that it prevailed over a law of congress; and
that congress was bound to pass a law to carry a treaty into effect. The
celebrated William Pinckney, then in the zenith of his fame, declared that Mr.
Calhoun had brought into the debate "the strong power of genius from a higher
sphere than that of argument." Its power was undoubted, though the truth of his
theory may well be questioned.
In 1817 Mr. Monroe called Mr. Calhoun to the war department, which he filled
until 1825. In this new field he won real fame; to this day the department, by
the testimony of recent secretaries, feels the impress of his genius for
organization and for the methodical adjustment of the functions of its various
branches to each other and to its head. In his report to congress in 1823 he
truly said that in a large disbursement of public money through a great number
of disbursing agents, there had been no defalcation nor loss of a cent to the
government" that he had reduced the expenses of the army from $451 to $287 per
man, with no loss of efficiency or comfort. He organized the department by a
bill that he drew for the purpose ; and, under rules prescribed by him,
introduced order and accountability in every branch of service, and established
a system that has survived, in a large degree, to this day. Mr. Clay, in his
eulogy on Mr. Calhoun, said : "Such was the high estimate I formed of his
transcendent talents, that if, at the end of his service in the executive
department under Mr. Monroe's administration, the duties of which he performed
with such signal ability, he had been called to the highest office in the
government, I should have felt perfectly assured that, under his auspices, the
honor, the prosperity, and the glory of our country would have been safely
placed. During his service in the department, contention arose between him and
General Jackson as to the conduct of the latter in the Seminole war, which was
the chief cause of the breach between them during Jackson's administration.
In 1824 there were four candidates for the presidency, which resulted in the
election of John Q. Adams by the house of representatives. A large majority
elected Mr. Calhoun vice-president. His vice-presidency marks the beginning of
Mr. Calhoun's life as a constitutional statesman. He said in 1837: "The station,
from its leisure, gave me a good opportunity to study the genius of the
prominent measure of the day, called then the American system, by which I
profited." From that time he by profound study mastered the principles of our
constitutional system, and may be said to have founded a school of political
philosophy, of which the doctrines are maintained in his speeches, reports, and
public writings. Mr. Clay's American system, to which Mr. Calhoun referred, was
in full success. The bank, the protective policy, the internal improvement
system, and the "general welfare" rule for constitutional construction, composed
this celebrated policy. In 1828 General Jackson was elected president and Mr.
Calhoun re-elected vice-president. The Jackson administration was the period
during which the Democratic Party under Jackson and the Whig party under Clay
were organized for their great struggle for ascendancy.
Mr. Calhoun took from the beginning the most prominent part in the attitude
assumed by South Carolina against the protective system, which had reached its
climax in the tariff law of i828. In December, 1828, he drew up the
"Exposition," which, with amendments, was adopted by the legislature of South
Carolina; also an address, 26 July, 1831, on the relations of the states to the
general government; also a report for the legislature in November, 1831; also an
address to the people of the state at the close of that session; also a letter
to Governor Hamilton oi1 state interposition, 28 August, 1832; also an address
to the people of the United States by the convention of South Carolina in
November, 1832. In these papers he maintained the doctrine of state
interposition, or "nullification." During Jackson's first term9 the influence of
Mr. Van Buren became paramount with the president, and the alienation between
the latter and Mr. Calhoun became irreconcilable. Mr. Van Buren was elected
vice-president in/8320 The South Carolina convention in November, 1832, passed
the ordinance nullifying the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832, and Mr. Calhoun was
elected to the senate and took his seat in December. having resigned the
vice-presidency. He appeared as the champion of his state, and defender of its
ordinance of nullification, standing alone, but firm and undaunted. Both parties
were opposed to him, and the administration menacingly see A man of less
intellect or less courage would have shrunk from the conflict. But he was
courageous in conviction, and fearless of personal consequences. He gave up the
second and surrendered all hope of the first office in the country, to defend
his state in her solitary attitude of opposition to the protective policy. The
president's proclamation of November, 1832, was followed by the proposed "force
bill." Mr. Calhoun, in February, 1833, made an elaborate speech against it. To
this Mr. Webster replied with great fullness upon certain resolutions proposed
by Mr. Calhoun on the general question, whereupon Mr. Calhoun called up his
resolutions, and made, 26 February, 1833, a speech of extraordinary force, to
which Mr. Webster never replied. The issue in this debate of the giants was on
the first resolution, as follows:
"That the people of the several states comprising these United States are
united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each state
acceded, as a separate and sovereign community, each binding itself by its own
particular ratification; and that the union, of which the said compact is the
bond, is a union between the states ratifying the same."
Mr. Webster denied the "compact" theory, and is said to have made use of much
of the materials gathered by Judge Story in the preparation of the first volume
of his commentaries on the constitution, published in 1833. Almost all of the
Democratic Party, and many of the Whigs, held that the constitution was a
compact, but denied the right of nullification by a state; and some of these
denied the right of secession to a state, holding the indissolubility of the
union of these states because bound by a perpetual compact. They admitted Mr.
Calhoun's premise of "compact," but denied his conclusions. Mr. Webster denied
his premise, and therefore his conclusion. Many, also, who believed in the right
of secession, denied the right of nullification. Mr. Calhoun stood, therefore,
alone in the senate, main-raining the premise of a "constitutional compact." and
his conclusion of the right of a state to nullify a law while remaining in the
union, or to secede from the union entirely. The true nature of the doctrine of
nullification was this : 1. It was claimed as a remedy within the union,
reserved to the state according to the constitution ; a remedy for evils in the
union; and to save, but not to dissolve, it. 2. It was claimed for the state, as
a party to the compact, to declare when it was violated, and to pronounce void
an unconstitutional law ; not to annul a valid law, but to declare void an
unconstitutional law. 3. Its effect was (as claimed) to make wholly inoperative
the law so declared void, because unconstitutional, within the state, and it
seems that the United States should, according to the doctrine, thereupon
suspend its operation elsewhere, and appeal to the states to amend the
constitution by a new grant of power to make valid the law so de-dared void by
the state. 4. This declaration of nullity of a law could not be made by the
government of a state, but only by a convention of its people; that is, that the
people of a state in convention, which had ratified in convention the
constitution originally, should have power-to declare unconstitutional an act
done by the government created by that constitution. The genius Of Mr. Calhoun
was equal to the plausible and powerful support of this theory, which, however
inconclusive from his premise of the constitutional compact, can not impair the
truth of that premise, which, with transcendent ability and accurate historic
research, he established on an impregnable foundation. The discussion had
valuable results. Mr. Clay introduced his "compromise tariff" of 1833, which was
passed before the session closed, with the support of Mr. Calhoun. It provided
for a gradual reduction of duties during ten years, after which duties should be
laid on a revenue basis. This issue ended, the re-charter of the bank of the
United States, and the removal of the deposits there from by President Jackson,
and the general question of currency, became prominent. Executive patronage also
came into the debates of the last term of President Jackson: On all these
questions Mr. Calhoun acted with the Whig party. He preferred the bank of the
United States to what was called the "pet bank system" of the executive. He
condemned what he deemed executive usurpation, and denounced the influence of
patronage as tending to the organization of parties upon the principle "of the
cohesive power of public plunder." He claimed to belong to neither party, but to
lead the band of "state-rights" men, whose course was directed by principle, and
not by the motives of party triumph or personal ambition. He took no part in the
presidential election of 1836; but on the accession of Mr. Van Buren to the
presidency, and in the extra session called by him in 1837, to consider the
financial panic of that year, he took ground for a total separation of the
government from a bank or banks, favored the constitutional treasury plan, and
acted generally with the Democratic Party. General Harrison was elected
president in 1840, but died 4 April, 1841, and was succeeded by Vice-President
John Tyler. An extra session of congress was called in the summer of 1841, when
the struggle of Mr. Clay for the restoration of his American system--including a
bank, protective tariff, internal improvements, and a distribution of the
proceeds of the public lands--brought on a memorable discussion, in which Mr.
Calhoun was a leader, and facile princeps, of the Democratic Party. If the
student of our history will consult the speeches of Mr. Calhoun in the senate,
on the bank question generally, and on currency, from 1837 till 1842, he will
find how thorough his analysis of these abstruse questions was, and how broad
were his generalizations of principles. When the tariff question came up again
in 1842, the compromise of 1833 was rudely overthrown, and the protective system
placed in the ascendent.
Mr. Calhoun discussed the question in several able speeches, but delivered
one 5 August, 1842. of comprehensive force, in which he discriminated with
analytic precision between a revenue and a protective duty, holding a tariff for
revenue only to be constitutional and right. He discussed the question of wages,
and closed his speech with an animation not to be forgotten by one, who heard
him utter these sentences: "The great popular party is already rallied almost en
masse around the banner which is leading the party to its final triumph. The few
that still lag will soon be rallied under its ample folds. On that banner is
inscribed: Free trade ; low duties; no debt • separation from banks ; economy ;
retrenchment, and strict adherence to the constitution. Victory in such a cause
will be great and glorious ; and long will it perpetuate the liberty and
prosperity of the country." The hostility of President Tyler to the American
system made its restoration during his administration only partial; but
questions of deeper import came before the country, from which results of great
consequence have followed. Mr. Tyler had frequently resorted to the veto power
to defeat Mr. Clay's measures. Mr. Clay proposed an amendment of the
constitution for the abrogation of the veto power, and on 28 February, 1842, Mr.
Calhoun delivered a speech against this proposition, he vindicated and sustained
the veto as an essential part of "the beautiful and profound system established
by the constitution." The proposition never came to a vote.
In February, 1844, the unfortunate explosion of a gun on the deck of the
"Princeton," near Washington, robbed the country of two members of President
Tyler's cabinet. Mr. Calhoun, who had ceased to be senator, in March, 1843,
filled the vacancy in the state department occasioned by the death of Judge
Upshur. The new secretary considered two questions of great importance. At that
time the union had no Pacific population, California had not been acquired, and
Oregon was not yet within our grasp. Great Brit-din had an adverse claim to
Oregon. Our title rested on discovery and the French treaty of 1803. Access to
it there was none but by sea around Cape Horn or across the isthmus. Mr. Calhoun
vindicated our rights in a diplomatic correspondence upon grounds on which it
was finally adjusted by treaty in 1846. In his speech on the Oregon question, 16
March, 1846, he spoke of the physical elements of civilization--steam and
electricity. As to the latter (when the telegraph was in its infancy) with
wonderful prevision he said: "Magic wires are stretching themselves in all
directions over the earth, and, when their mystic meshes shall have been united
and perfected, our globe itself will become endowed with sensitiveness, so that
whatever touches on any one point will be instantly felt on every other." Again"
"Peace is pre-eminently our policy. Providence has given us an inheritance
stretching across the entire continent from ocean to ocean. Our great mission,
as a people, is to occupy this vast domain; to replenish it with an intelligent,
virtuous, and industrious population" to convert the forests into cultivated
fields" to drain the swamps and morasses, and cover them with rich harvests; to
build up cities, towns, and villages in every direction, and to unite the whole
by the most rapid intercourse between all the parts. Secure peace, and time,
under the guidance of a sagacious and cautious policy, 'a wise and masterly
inactivity,' will speedily accomplish the whole. War can make us great; but let
it never be forgotten that peace only can make us both great and free."
Another question, the annexation of Texas, occupied his mind, and gave full
scope to his fertile genius. To our internal concerns it was as important as to
our foreign relations. It can only be fully comprehended by considering the
slavery question, with which it became involved in the act of annexation and in
its consequences. In the federal convention of 1787 the diversity of industries
growing up in states where slavery did and did not exist was clearly foreseen.
This difference was marked by the terms northern and southern, slaveholding and
non-slaveholding, commercial and agricultural states. The well-known antipathy
of people, among whom slavery does not exist, to that form of labor gave rise to
strong feelings in the northern states for its abolition. Among southern people
there was much of regret that it had ever been established; but how to deal with
it was to them a practical question for their most serious consideration. As has
been well said, "We had the wolf by the ears--to hold on, was a great evil. to
let go, who could estimate the consequences?" It was important as a question of
property, but of far greater moment as a social and political problem. What
relations, social and political, should exist between these diverse races, when
both were free and equal in citizenship? One thing the south felt most strongly.
The solution of this difficult problem should be left to those who were
personally interested in the continuance of slavery~ and involved in the
consequences of its abolition. Accordingly, the federal constitution left it,
for the states to deal with, threw around it interstate guarantees, and put it
beyond the reach of the federal government. Without these guarantees, the union
could not have been formed. The two sections watched their respective growth in
population, and their settlement of our territories, as bearing on their related
powers in the federal government. The north had a large majority in the house of
representatives, and in the electoral College. In the senate, by a species of
common law, an equilibrium was maintained between the sections, one free state
being admitted with one slave state for nearly fifty years of our history. In
1820-'1 the Missouri agitation arose, which was quieted for the moment by an
agreement that no state should be admitted north of lat. 36° 30' which allowed
slavery, while south of that line they might be admitted with or without
slavery, as the people of the state should decide.
Many constitutional lawyers always denied the constitutionality of this
Missouri compromise, though it is said Mr. Calhoun admitted its
constitutionality, when applied to the territories, but not as to a state. With
a senate equally divided between the sections, the southern states felt secure
against action hostile to slavery by the government. But the equilibrium of the
sections in that body being overthrown, they would be subject to the will of a
northern majority in both houses, limited only by its interpretation of its
constitutional power over slavery. In 1835, Texas, peopled by emigrants from the
union, but chiefly from the southern states, carrying their slaves with them,
won its independence at San Jacinto, which was acknowledged by the United States
in 1836. The territory had once been ours; its people were of our own flesh and
blood; emigration pressed into its fields from the south; the government of
Great Britain was threatening to keep Texas independent, and, by procuring the
abolition of slavery there, to operate to stop slavery extension toward the
southwest, and place an abolition frontier upon the borders of Louisiana and
Arkansas. Mr. Calhoun was too sagacious not to see the hostile policy of
England. In a series of papers he exposed the scheme, and negotiated a treaty
with Texas for her incorporation into the union. The treaty failed, but the
annexation of Texas became a pivotal question in the presidential election of
1844, and Mr. Polk was elected chiefly upon that issue. Many people looked upon
it as an increase of the slave power in the union, but the admission of Texas
was made subject, as to any new states to be formed out of it, to the provisions
of the Missouri compromise. Mr. Calhoun was elected to the senate on retiring
from the state department, and did all he could for the peaceable adjustment of
the Oregon question, and also to prevent war with Mexico. He deprecated the war
with Mexico, and in strong terms de-elated it was unnecessary. When it was
finally determined on, he was greatly disturbed, and pre-dieted evils, which
even he could not see. He said : "It has dropped a curtain between the present
and the future, which to me is impenetrable; and, for the first time since I
have been in public life, I am unable to see the future. It has closed the first
volume of our political history under the constitution, and opened the second,
and no mortal can tell what will be written in it." In his speech on the
"three-million bill "(9 February, 1847) he explained that what constituted this
"impenetrable curtain" was the acquisition of territory as the result of the
war, and the slavery question, which would be involved in the legislation
respecting it. The slavery question, during the administrations of Jackson and
Van Buren, had been agitated in many forms. Abolition petitions had poured in
upon congress, and the power of congress had been invoked to prevent the
transmission through the mails of abolition documents. On this point Mr. Calhoun
differed with President Jackson ; the former maintaining in an able report
(February, 1836) that the mail could not be the instrument for incendiary
purposes against the laws of the states, but that congress had no power to
decide what should be transmitted and what not, without state action.
Soon after the Mexican war began, the acquisition of territory from Mexico
was strongly insisted on; and at once the anti-slavery party proposed what was
known as the Wihnot proviso, by which it was declared that slavery should never
be allowed in any Mexican territory acquired by treaty. The agitation convulsed
the country. On 19 February, 1847, Mr. Calhoun set forth his views in certain
resolutions, of which the substance is in the first two: "That the territories
of the United States belong to the several states composing the union, and are
held by them as their joint and common property; that congress, as the joint
agent and representative of the states of the union, has no right to make any
law or do any act whatever that shall, directly or by its effects, make any
discrimination between the states of this union by which any of them shall be
deprived of its full and equal right in any territory of the United States
acquired or to be acquired." Chief-Justice Taney, delivering the opinion of the
court, held the same doctrine in the Dred Scott decision in 1857, in which six
of the nine judges concurred. The agitation continued until the session of
1849-'50, when the compromise measures were proposed and passed. Mr. Calhoun
made his last speech (read for him by Senator Mason, of Virginia) upon this
subject, March, 1850. With the exception of a few remarks made afterward in
reply to Mr. Foote and to Mr. Webster, he never again addressed the senate.
In the last years of his life he prepared two works, the one "A Disquisition
on Government," and the other "A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of
the United States," both comprehended in a volume of 400 pages. These methodical
treatises on the science of government and the federal constitution place him in
the highest position among original thinkers upon political philosophy. In
estimating Mr. Calhoun's position absolutely and relatively, he is liable to a
less favorable verdict than his merits demand. He represented a southern state,
defended her slave institutions, belonged to a minority section, and his views
have been condemned by the majority section of the country. The newspaper and
periodical press, therefore, will deny him the pre-eminence which we claim for
him as a broad and philosophic statesman, as a constitutional lawyer, and as a
leader of thought in the field of political philosophy. His fame results from
the possession of an ardent, sincere, and intense soul which gave impulse and
motive to a mind endowed with extraordinary analytic force, acute and subtle in
its insight, fertile in suggestion, full of resources, careful, laborious, and
profound in research and comprehensive in its deduction of general principles.
He had a large imagination, though he displayed little fancy. His vigorous,
compact, and clean-cleaving logic put the objects of his creative power into
sharply defined shapes, arranged in perspicuous order, with a severe, trenchant,
and condensed rhetoric.
In his reply on 10 March, 1838, to Mr. Clay's personal attack he seems to
have defined his own characteristics while he denied them to his great opponent.
He said: " I cannot retort on the senator the charge of being metaphysical. I
cannot accuse him of possessing the powers of analysis and generalization, those
higher faculties of the mind (called metaphysical by those who do not possess
them) which decompose and resolve into their elements the complex masses of
ideas that exist in the world of mind, as chemistry does the bodies that
surround us in the material world, and without which these deep and hidden
causes which are in constant action and producing such mighty changes in the
condition of society would operate unseen and undetected .... Throughout the
whole of my service I have never followed events, but have taken my stand in
advance, openly and freely avowing my opinions on all questions, and leaving it
to time and experience to condemn or approve my course." He believed the
constitution to be a "beautiful and profound system," and the union under it an
inestimable blessing. His " Disquisition " and "Discourse" were devoted to
showing how the true philosophy of government was realized in that constitution.
An epitome of his philosophy may be attempted, though it will fail to do it
justice. He believed in the rights of the individual man, for whose benefit
society and government exist--" society being primary, to preserve and perfect
our race; and government secondary and subordinate, to preserve and perfect
society. Both are, however, necessary to the existence and well-being of our
race and equally of divine ordination." But government ordained to protect.may,
if not guarded, be made a means of oppression. " That by which this is
prevented, by whatever name called, is what is meant by constitution ....
Constitution stands to government as government stands to society ....
Constitution is the contrivance of man, while government is of divine
ordination. Man is left to perfect what the wisdom of the Infinite ordained as
necessary to preserve the race." He then takes up the question, How shall
government be constituted so as by its own organism to resist the tendency to
abuse of power ? The first device is the responsibility of rulers through
suffrage to the ruled under proper guards and with sufficient enlightenment of
the voters to understand their rights and their duty. This secures those who
elect against abuse by those who are elected. But this is far from all that is
needed. When society is homogeneous in interests this may suffice, for it
insures a control of no man's right by any other than himself and those who have
common interest with him. But where, as is generally the case, society has
diverse and inimical interests, then suffrage is no security, for each
representative speaks the will of each constituency, and constituencies, through
representation, may war on each other, and the majority interests may devour
those of the minority through their representatives. Suffrage thus only
transfers the propensity to abuse power from constituencies to representatives,
and despotism is secured through that suffrage which was devised to prevent it.
The remedy for this evil is to be found in such an organism as will give to each
of the diverse interests a separate voice and permit the majority of each to
speak in a separate branch of the organism, and not take the voice of the
majority of the whole community as the only expression of the people's will. To
do the last bases government on the numerical or absolute majority" to do the
first is to base it on the "concurrent constitutional majority." The latter is a
government of the whole people; the former only of a majority of them. This
principle is illustrated by all the so-called checks and balances in all
constitutional governments, and by the concurrent majority of numbers in the
house of representatives and of states in the senate in our own federal system.
This principle, established with scientific precision, is the fruitful source of
all of Mr. Calhoun's doctrines. His vindication of the veto power was against
the claim for the numerical majority. His nullification was the requirement of
the concurrent majority of the several states to a law of doubtful
constitutionality. His proposed amendment of the constitution by a dual
executive, through which each section would have a distinct representation, was
an application of the same principle ; and his intense opposition to the
admission of California, by which the senate was to be controlled by a northern
majority, was his protest against the overthrow of the concurrent consent of the
south, through an equipoised senate, to the legislative action of congress. Mr.
Calhoun saw the south in a minority in all branches of the government, and he
desired, by giving to the south a concurrent and distinct voice in the organism
of our system to secure her against invasion of her rights by a hostile
majority, and thus to make her safe in the union. When the abolition party was
small in numbers and weak in organization, and public men treated its menaces
with contempt, Mr. Calhoun saw the cloud like a man's hand which was to
overspread our political heavens. His prophetic eye saw the danger and his voice
proclaimed it. In looking at the growth of the abolition feeling in 1836, he
predicted that Mr. Webster "would, however reluctant, be compelled to yield to
that doctrine or be driven into obscurity." He said, further: "Be assured that
emancipation itself would not satisfy these fanatics. That gained, the next step
would be to raise the Negroes to a social and political equality with the
whites." In 1849 he wrote the "Address to the People of the South," and, with a
precision that is startling, drew the following picture of the results of
abolition: " If it [emancipation] ever should be effected, it will be through
the agency of the federal government, controlled by the dominant power of the
northern states of the confederacy against the resistance and struggle of the
southern. It can then only be ef-fected by the prostration of the white race,
and that would necessarily engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between
them and the north; but the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the
south and the people of the north. Owing their emancipation to them, they would
regard them as friends, guardians, and patrons, and centre accordingly all their
sympathy in them. The people of the north would not fail to reciprocate, and to
favor them instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings, and
impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not; stop at emancipation.
Another step would be taken, to raise them to a political and social equality
with their former owners by giving them the right of voting and holding public
offices under the federal government .... But when once raised to an equality
they would become the fast political associates of the north, acting and voting
with them on all questions, and by this political union between them holding the
south in complete subjection. The blacks and the profligate whites that might
unite with them would become the principal recipients of federal offices and
patronage, and would in consequence be raised above the whites in the south in
the political and social scale. We would, in a word, change conditions with
them--a degradation greater than has ever yet fallen to the lot of a free and
enlightened people, and one from which we could not escape but by fleeing the
homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our former
slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and
wretchedness."
The estimate we have placed upon the genius of this remarkable man is
confirmed by the touching tributes of his great rivals at the time of his death.
Henry Clay, after paying a tribute to his private character and to his
patriotism and public honor, said: "He possessed an elevated genius of the
highest order. In felicity of generalization of the subjects of which his mind
treated I have seen him surpassed by no one, and the charm and captivat-ing
influence of his colloquial powers have been felt by all who have conversed with
him." Daniel Webster, his chief competitor in constitutional debate, said: " He
was a man of undoubted genius and of commanding talent. All the country and all
the world admit that .... I think there is not one of us but felt, when he last
addressed us 1"rom his seat in the senate, his form still erect, with clear
tones, and an impressive and, I may say, an imposing manner, who did not feel
that he might imagine that we saw before us a senator of Rome when Rome survived
.... He had the basis, the indispensable basis of all high character, and that
was unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor, and character. If he had
aspirations, they were high and honorable and noble Firm in his pur- pose,
perfectly patriotic and honest, aside from that large regard for that species of
distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit of the
republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive or selfish feeling." Mr.
Everett once said: " Calhoun, Clay, Webster! I name them in alphabetical order.
What other precedence can be assigned them?" Clay the great leader, Webster the
great orator, Calhoun the great thinker. John Stuart Mill speaks of the great
ability of his posthumous work, and of its author as "a man who has displayed
powers as a speculative political thinker superior to any who has appeared in
American polities since the authors of ' The Federalist.'" It has been said that
Calhoun labored to destroy the Union, that he might be the chief of a southern
confederacy because he could not be president of the Union. The writer remembers
an interview that he witnessed between Calhoun and a friend within a month of
his death, when the hopes and strifes of his ambition were soon, as he knew, to
be laid in the grave. The friend asked him if nothing could be done to save the
Union. "Will not the Missouri compromise do it?" He replied, the light in his
great eyes expressing an intense solemnity of feeling that can never be
forgotten, "With my constitutional objections I could not vote for it, but I
would acquiesce in it to save this Union!"
Mr. Calhoun in his private life as husband, father, friend, neighbor, and
citizen, was pure, upright, sincere, honest, and beyond reproach. He was simple
and unpretending in manners, rigid and strict in his morals, temperate and
discreet in his habits; genial, earnest, and fascinating in conversation, and
magnanimous in his public and private relations. He was beloved by his family
and friends, honored and almost idolized by his state, and died as he had lived,
respected and revered for his genius and his honorable life by his
contemporaries of all parties. He was stainless in private and public life, as a
man. a patriot, and a philosopher, and his fame is a noble heritage to his
country and to mankind. The view on page 500 represents the summer residence and
office of Mr. Calhoun at Fort Hill, to which during his career many men of
distinction repaired to enjoy his society and his liberal hospitality. Calhoun's
works were collected and edited by Richard K. Cralle (6 vols., New York,
1853-'4).
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