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John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer and proponent of a strong federal government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views shifted, and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, null…
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culture · Vice President of the United States from 1825 to 1832 · politician · lawyer · diplomat · writer · jurist · vice president · also John C. Calhoun, John Caldwell Calhoun, John Calhoun, Calhoun
Born 18 March 1782 · Died 31 March 1850 · Q207191
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“s right to secede from the Union, as a last resort to protect its liberty and sovereignty. In his later years, Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law. In”
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Index-Journal: John C. Calhoun dismissing early because of water leak - Index-Journal
Public attention spiked: 5,150 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.1× the usual 1,007, with 0 article edits.
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insider.si.edu: John C. Calhoun; a profile edited by John L. Thomas
The New York Times: John C. Calhoun
The city councilors of Savannah, Georgia, voted unanimously to remove his name from Calhoun Square
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Following a unanimous vote by the Charleston City Council to relocate the monument
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During the George Floyd protests in South Carolina, the monument was vandalized with signs and spray paint, with calls from the public demanding its removal, causing the city of Charleston to erect a chain-link fence aro
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The Washington Post: John C. Calhoun was extreme even for his time
That the university's Calhoun College would be renamed to honor Grace Hopper, a pioneering computer programmer, mathematician and Navy rear admiral who graduated from Yale
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Charleston's city council deferred a proposal to put a plaque on the statue that would have stated his white-supremacist views
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To be honored with a portrait in Senate Reception Room
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A five-member "special" committee, led by Senator John F
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The state of South Carolina gave a statue of Calhoun to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol
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Standing atop a column base at a total of 115 feet as well as fenced in to deter attackers
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At the height of the Jim Crow era, white segregationists erected a monument to Calhoun in Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina; the base was within easy reach and the local black population defaced it
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Which led to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states
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Died 1850-03-31.
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“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.”
“The neighboring tribes are becoming daily less warlike, and more helpless and dependent on us … [T]hey have, in a great measure, ceased to be an object of terror, and have become that of commiseration.”
“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”
“With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black, and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious, and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.”
“I am a Southern man and a slaveholder. A kind and merciful one, I trust, and none the worse for being a slaveholder. I say, for one, I would rather meet any extremity upon earth than give up one inch of our equality, one inch of what belongs to us as members of this republic! What! Acknowledged inferiority! The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledged inferiority!”
“Protection and patriotism are reciprocal.”
“The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.”
“The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.”
Career landmark: United States senator (1849–1850).
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“the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, in to any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination and would therefore be a violation of the Constitution”
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Career landmark: United States senator (1847–1849).
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Following the resignation of Daniel Elliott Huger
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Career landmark: United States senator (1845–1847).
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After fierce partisan struggles, the Senate rejected the Tyler–Texas treaty by a vote of 16–35, a margin of more than two-to-one
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Secretary Calhoun signed the treaty of annexation and ten days later delivered it to the Senate for consideration in secret session
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Career landmark: United States Secretary of State (1844–1845).
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Four years before the expiration of his term, and returned to Fort Hill to prepare an attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the 1844 presidential election
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After a month in office, Vice President John Tyler succeeded him
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Career landmark: United States senator (1841–1843).
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Rebelled against their transporters on the La Amistad slave ship
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Career landmark: United States senator (1839–1841).
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Calhoun asserted that slavery was a "positive good"
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Refused to attend the inauguration of Jackson's chosen successor, Van Buren, even as other powerful senators who opposed the administration, such as Webster and Clay, did witness the inauguration
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“Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”
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Career landmark: United States senator (1837–1839).
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Career landmark: United States senator (1835–1837).
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Calhoun voted with the Whig senators on a successful motion to censure Jackson for his removal of the funds
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No longer as vice president, he strongly endorsed nullification, at one point saying:
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Career landmark: United States senator (1833–1835).
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His chances of becoming president were considered poor due to his involvement in the Nullification Crisis, which left him without connections to a major national party
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With only a few months remaining in his second term, Calhoun resigned as vice president and was elected to the Senate
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Calhoun, as vice president, cast a tie-breaking vote against Jackson's nomination of Van Buren as Minister to Great Britain in a failed attempt to end Van Buren's political career
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Career landmark: United States senator (1832–1833).
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When his slave Alick ran away when threatened with a severe whipping
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Reports had emerged accurately stating that Calhoun, as Secretary of War, had favored censuring Jackson for his 1818 invasion of Florida
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Informing him that he would support Jackson's second campaign for the presidency in 1828
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“s second campaign for the presidency in 1828. The two were never particularly close friends. Calhoun never fully trusted Jackson, a frontiersman and popular war hero, but hoped that his election would bring some reprieve from Adams”
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Career landmark: Vice President of the United States (1825–1832).
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To preserve the sovereignty of eastern Indians by relocating them to western reservations they could control without interference from state governments
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Congress passed the Reduction Act, which reduced the number of enlisted men of the army by half, from 11,709 to 5,586, and the number of the officer corps by a fifth, from 680 to 540
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Became a founding member of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D
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That "Calhoun is a man of fair and candid mind, of honorable principles, of clear and quick understanding, of cool self-possession, of enlarged philosophical views, and ardent patriotism
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By General Jackson during the First Seminole War, which was done without direct authorization from Calhoun or President Monroe, and in private with other cabinet members, advocated censuring of Jackson as punishment
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Career landmark: United States Secretary of War (1817–1825).
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Surveyors sent by Secretary of War Calhoun to map the area around Fort Snelling named the largest lake in what became Minneapolis, Minnesota, for him
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The deplorable state of the War Department led four men to decline offers from President James Monroe to accept the office of Secretary of War before Calhoun finally assumed the role
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Called for building an effective navy, including steam frigates, as well as a standing army of adequate size
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The "Old Republicans" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for an economy in the federal government, sought to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department
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The British were thwarted in their invasions of New York and Baltimore, but Napoleon capitulated, meaning America would now face formidable British reinforcements consisting of units previously committed to Europe if the
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And broke the power of hostile Indians in battles such as the 1813 Battle of the Thames in Canada and the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama
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Career landmark: United States representative (1811–1817).
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Born 1782-03-18.
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the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, in to any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination and would therefore be a violation of the Constitution
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