John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) Statesman and political philosopher, was Vice-President (1825-32) of the United States and a leading champion of Southern rights.

He was born near Abbeville, S.C., on Mar. 18, 1782. The son of a slave-holding up-country farmer, Calhoun was educated at Moses Waddell's Log College in Georgia and at Yale University and studied law under Tapping Reeve at Litchfield, Conn. Admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807, Calhoun served in the state legislature from 1809 to 1811 and in Congress from 1811. As a Congressman, he was a prominent War Hawk, a term designating a group of young nationalists who urged war with England to vindicate American national honor. Appointed (1817) secretary of war in the cabinet of James Monroe, Calhoun supported the "American System," which called for full use of federal power to nurture American industry through a protective tariff and to promote commerce through a federally chartered Bank of the United States and through federally financed road, canal, and harbor construction. ~ Vice President ~ A man of great ambition, Calhoun sought to succeed Monroe as president in 1824. After losing a bid for support in Pennsylvania to Andrew Jackson, however, he withdrew to run for the vice-presidency with endorsement from Jacksonians in the South and West and from the followers of John Quincy Adams in the Northeast. At the time of his election as vice-president (and Adams's as president) in 1824, Calhoun was not identified with the "States Rights" position advocated by Southern conservatives. His views on federal power, however, were undergoing a transformation inspired in part by the expansion of cotton cultivation, dependent upon slavery, into South Carolina. No longer persuaded that the interests of the South could be served by an active federal government fostering commerce and industry, Calhoun repudiated the American System and broke with the Adams administration. In 1828, he secretly authored the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, which asserted that a state had the power of "Nullification" over any federal law it deemed unconstitutional.    Supporting Andrew Jackson's presidential candidacy in 1828, Calhoun was reelected to the vice-presidency. His efforts to dominate the Jackson administration were frustrated by Jackson's refusal to endorse an extreme state rights position. Calhoun's role in the ostracization of Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John H. Eaton, and the disclosure of Calhoun's support many years before for censure of Jackson's actions in the invasion of Florida, further weakened his position. After Jackson opposed South Carolina's efforts to nullify the tariff of 1832, Calhoun resigned from the vice-presidency. ~ Senator ~ Serving (1842-43, 1845-50) in the Senate, Calhoun was a powerful spokesman for slavery and Southern rights until his death. He secured passage of the "Gag Rules" that forbade discussion of slavery on the floor of Congress. Serving briefly as secretary of state (1844-45) under John Tyler, he engineered the controversial annexation of Texas. He spent the remainder of his career defending the right of slavery to expand into federal territories and predicting disunion and civil war if that right were not respected. He opposed the Compromise of 1850 on the ground that it did not recognize that right. Calhoun died on Mar. 31, 1850. He was a man of great intellectual accomplishments, and his writings in defense of the rights of the South as a minority region within the Union are a significant contribution to American political theory

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Portrait (top): John Caldwell Calhoun by Henry F. Darby (1829 - 1897); Oil on canvas, 1858 ca. Portrait (middle): John Caldwell Calhoun (Monroe Administration) by John Wesley Jarvis; Oil on canvas, date unknown. Author: Alfred A. Cave; contributing: Ronald W. McGranahan. Bibliography: Calhoun, John C., The Papers of John C. Calhoun, 15 vols., ed. by Robert L. Meriwether and C. N. Wilson (1959-83); Capers, Gerald M., John C. Calhoun, Opportunist (1960); Coit, Margaret L., John C. Calhoun (1950; repr. 1977); Current, Richard N., John C. Calhoun (1963); Feidel, Frank, and May, Ernest, eds., The Career of John C. Calhoun (1988); Niven, John, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (1988); Peterson, Merrill D., The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1988); Thomas, John L., ed., John C. Calhoun: A Profile (1968); Wiltse, Charles M., John Calhoun, 3 vols. (1944-1951).