Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
When John C. Calhoun first arrived on the political stage, he was a Nationalist. He believed in a protectionist tariff, internal improvements, and a strong Union.
"When Calhoun entered the presidential race in 1821, he ran on a record for arch-nationalism unexcelled even by that of Henry Clay. As the Kentuckian's lieutenant among the War Hawks, he had introduced the bill for the declaration of war in 1812, reporting it in his capacity as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. His labors as leader of the administration forces in the war Congresses led Alexander J. Dallas to single him out as the 'Young Hercules Who Had Carried the War on His Shoulders.' Striving for national self-sufficiency both to prevent defeat in the third war with England that he believed certain and to avoid the equal danger of disunion sentiment as manifested in the Hartford Convention, he took the lead in the enactment of the nationalistic legislation of the Era of Good Feeling which Clay later named and claimed as the American System. Specifically, he drew up and introduced in Congress both the bill chartering the Second Bank of the United States and the companion 'Bonus Bill' providing federal funds for internal improvements. At a crucial point in the discussion of the Tariff of 1816, he was called in hastily to speak in its behalf, and he argued spiritedly for its protective features as a national necessity. Later, as Secretary of War, he advocated an expensive program of national defense, which the economy drive led by William H. Crawford during the Panic of 1819 eventually doomed to defeat.
"His views on the Constitution at this time were as broad as the program which he advocated. 'I am no advocate for refined arguments on the Constitution' he said in his speech on the Bonus Bill in 1817. 'The instrument was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on. It ought to be construed with plain, good sense.' In 1823 he wrote that 'the Supreme Court of the Union performs the highest functions under our system. It is the mediator between sovereigns, the State and General Governments, and [draws] the actual line, which separates their authority.' A year later he told the son of Alexander Hamilton that he had a 'clear conviction, after much reflection and an entire knowledge and familiarity with the history of our country and the working of our Government that his [the elder Hamilton's] policy as developed by the measures of Washington's administration, is the only true policy for this country.'
"In the same spirit he refused to take alarm at the Tallmadge amendment to exclude slavery from Missouri. He accepted the ensuing compromise with full satisfaction and threw all of his influence against the efforts of the Crawford faction to answer the Tallmadge attack by forming a separate southern party. 'We of the South ought not to assent easily to the belief,' he argued, 'that there is a conspiracy either against our property or just weight in the Union. ... Nothing would lead more directly to disunion with all of its horrors. ... If we, from such a belief, systematically oppose the North, they must from necessity resort to a similar opposition to us.' This, then, was the younger Calhoun whom [John Quincy] Adams characterized as 'above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted.'" [Gerald M. Capers, "A Reconsideration of John C. Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification," The Journal of Southern History, Vol XIV, No. 1, February, 1948, pp. 39-40]
"Ironically, when Calhoun, the future champion of states' rights and secession, arrived in Washington, he was an ardent federalist like his former law professor. He aligned himself with the federalist faction of the Republican party led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky. He also became a prominent member of the party's War Hawk faction, which pushed President James Madison's administration to fight the War of 1812, the nation's second war with Great Britain. When the fighting ended in 1815, Calhoun championed a protective national tariff on imports, a measure he hoped would foster both Southern and Northern industrial development.
"After the War of 1812, Congress began to consider improving the young republic's infrastructure. Calhoun enthusiastically supported plans to spend federal money, urging Congress to 'bind the Republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals. ... Let us conquer space. ... We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.'" [Ethan S. Rafuse, "He Started the Civil War," Civil War Times, Vol XLI, No. 5, October, 2002, p. 24]
Calhoun's letters to Gen. Joseph G. Swift show the ardent nationalist:
"No party ought to rise in this country but what is identified with the old democratick [sic] Republican party, with the late war, and the measures of policy which grew out of it, or in other words the present administration. With all of them I have ever, and as I believe them to be founded in truth, wanted ever to be identified. Our standard then must be erected by those, whose Union with the Republican party cannot be questioned, and we must rally as far as practicable the supporters of the late war and advocates of an enlightened system of national policy. Now of the sound materials connected with their general positions, there is an abundance in your great state." [John C. Calhoun to Joseph G. Swift, 29 Apr 1823]
"I have read your several communications with much pleasure, and instruction. New York and Penna. combined form the true basis of the general administration, and there are few things which I have more desired, than to see the former assume her just weight in the Union. The period, I hope, is now not far distant, when that will be the fact. I see distinctly the commencement of a new order of things with you. The younger class of politicians must regenerate the State. It is full time that the intriguers should go down forever; and those who know and expect the just interest of the State and the Union gain the permanent ascendancy. In the meantime, you cannot do better, than to act with the sound and honest Democracy of Penna. Such a junction would present a truly substantial foundation on which to rear a system of policy, national, durable and prosperous. Fortunately for the Union those States comprehend within them all of the great interests of the Nation, commerce, and Navigation, agriculture and manufacture, and are consequently deeply interested in all of the measures necessary to protect or enlarge them. If they act wisely for themselves, they must act wisely for the Union. Virginia, tho' sound in principle, and interested from her position in a liberal policy, will not sustain the system, which the State of the world and our present growth require." [John C. Calhoun to Joseph G. Swift, 10 May 1823]
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
It concerns Calhoun's thinking regarding slavery's place in the South and the South's place in the Union.
__________________ 'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
Sorry to impose on..well, someone/anyone here....I'm ignorant of Calhoun. I've heard the name, I just haven't gotten to 'where' he is in all this. Was he initially federally oriented and then became more of a states rights proponent? Obviously, I've got some reading to do, but a quick synopsis would be helpful to me.
ewc - Interesting 'archive' post; thanks for linking.
Calhoun- a brilliant statesman, he was an extreme nationalist who became an extreme States Right advocate and slavery apologist. (And I don't mean the least bit that he apologized for slavery.)
__________________ 'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
Calhoun was from western South Carolina. Graduated from Yale (of all places!) and law school in CT. He served as a Senator, Secretary of War, Vice President and Secretary of State in a public career that extended from just before the war of 1812 until his death in 1850. During the War of 1812, he was a "war hawk" allied with Henry Clay of Kentucky and supported certain tariffs and federal funding of "public improvements" as they were then known, a nationalistic position.
After serving as Secretary of War in the administration of Monroe, by the mid-1820's he was moving away from that position but was elected Vice President during the presidency of JQ Adams (1825-29). He broke with Adams, an extreme nationist, and aligned himself with and became vice president again during the first term of Andrew Jackson (1829-33). However, he broke with Jackson over a number of issues, both personal and public, including Jackson's failure to reduce tariffs. Van Buren became VP for Jackson's second term and succeeded Jackson as president.
In 1830, he secretly authored a paper that served as the theoretical basis for nullification. When the fact of his authorship became public, it effectively ended his chances for the presidency. However, during the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, he was effectively a moderate (at least by South Carolina standards). Unlike some who truly wanted to secede, Calhoun's goal was to use the threat of nullification to negotiate an end to protective tariffs (and northern threats to slavery). He and Henry Clay brokered such a deal in 1833, ending the crisis.
He served as Secretary of State toward the end of the administration of John Tyler (1841-45) -- a Virginia Whig who had been read out of the party by Henry Clay -- during which period Texas was admitted to the Union. Calhoun caused quite a stir and nearly scuttled the deal by writing and releasing correspondence advocating annexation as strengthening slavery.
He opposed the "omnibus" form of the Compromise of 1850 but died before Zachary Taylor died and the Stephen Douglas-engineered form was worked out.
Brilliant, intellectual, forbidding, scowling on the Senate floor, his oratorical style was logical and compelling but lacked the grace, flair and wit of Clay. A man of little humor but by all accounts he was a good and easy conversationalist and well liked.
Shortly before his death in 1850, he predicted that a civil war would occur in 10 to 12 years, probably as the result of a presidential election.
Calhoun, Clay and Daniel Webster are the "Great Triumvirate" that (together with Jackson) define the period from 1812-50.
Not really known for sure. Probably a combination of factors.
First, the nationalism created by the War of 1812 faded over time after the war ended. The tariffs and internal improvements were in part war measures to fund expenses, build transportation networks that might be of use for military movements, and protect domestic war-related industries. His increasing distaste for tariffs and improvements between 1815 and 1825 was not unusual. Calhoun would have argued that he did not change his views -- the War and changing circumstances made the difference. By 1825 it was no longer necessary, for example, to protect "fledgling" industries because they were no longer fledgling.
Second, part of the motivation may have been pressure from constituents. Calhoun was a "conservative" (my term) in SC in the mid- '20s and under some pressure from radicals.
Third, I think he increasingly saw federal power as a threat to SC. In addition to the tariff issue, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and other rows about slavery made Calhoun aware of the destructive potential of the slavery issue early on. There is evidence that Calhoun formulated his position on Nullification both as a lever to help SC's position on tariffs and with an eye to a future showdown on slavery.
Circa 1831 was the point of no return. At that point, he had no choice but to reveal his position on Nullification -- the South Carolina train was leaving the station, and he either had to get on or not. He knew in his heart that he was basically signing his own death warrant as a presidential candidate, and there is evidence that it caused him a good deal of anguish.
Elsewhere, we have talked about where we'd like to have been a fly on the wall during the Civil War. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the Senate during one of the great debates among Calhoun, Clay and Webster.
What were the reasons why Calhoun moved away from his earlier nationalism?
Cedarstripper
This is just my opinion, but I suspect it was the slow dawning of realization of the inequality in the union. His final speech to the senate not too long before he left this mortal sphere is a plea to the northern states to reconsider the way things had been heading.
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