John Caldwell Calhoun died in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1850 and was buried in St. Phillips Churchyard in Charleston. In 1957, United States Senators honored Calhoun as one of the five greatest senators of all time, but who was he really and what influence did he have?

Born March 18, 1782 in South Carolina, Calhoun was educated at Yale College. He began his political career as an ardent nationalist, supporting the War of 1812 and the tariffs of 1816 and 1820. The underlying motive of his political philosophy was to protect the great American principles of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". From 1808 to 1810 an economic recession hit the United States and Calhoun realized that British policies were ruining the economy.

They had been blockading shipping, especially US cargo vessels, from sailing to Napoleonic Europe, with which Britain had long been at war. This was causing great hardship to American businesses and led to a severe economic depression in the USA between 1808 and 1810, so the British were still posing a major threat to the American people.

From their forts in US territory, they attacked America at Leopard and Chesapeake. During this time period, Calhoun was serving his first session in Congress. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, appointed Calhoun for second place on the foreign affairs committee. Calhoun shared the opinion of the majority of the committee in supporting war with England.

John Randolph, the leader of the opposition, argued that America couldn't win another war with Britain, thinking that the slaves would revolt, join the British, and help them. However, Calhoun saw things differently. In a report to Congress he stated that America must defend "that proud spirit of liberty which sustained our fathers." On June 18, 1812, President Madison signed a bill declaring war against England.

It was felt that Canada, with a large population of expatriate Americans, as well as British and French settlers, needed to be invaded and conquered in order to strengthen the US position, but the inhabitants of these northern territories were opposed to such an idea, and, to American surprise, sided with the British. Neither did Britain looked favourably on such a war, because their military resources were already stretched.

U.S. forces were woefully unprepared, however, and hopes of conquering Canada collapsed in the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. Attacks on Canada were uncoordinated and all failed. General William Hull surrendered Detroit to the British on August, 1812. American troops lost the Battle of Queenston Heights in October, and American forces withdrew along Lake Champlain in late November without seriously engaging the enemy.

By 1814 the US faced complete defeat, because the British, having defeated Napoleon, began to transfer large numbers of ships and experienced troops to America. They were well on top in the late summer of 1814, and on August 24 marched into Washington, D.C. burning most of the public buildings.

President Madison fled into the countryside. British forces then attacked Baltimore but were repelled after the American defence of Fort McHenry. This courageous incident inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words of "The Defence of Fort Henry" published 1814 in the Baltimore Patriot. This poem was changed in October 1914 to "The Star Spangled Banner," and Congress made it the national anthem in 1931.

The most decisive battle of this war, however, was fought on the Chalmette plantation, outside New Orleans by General Andrew Jackson, against an army of ten-thousand crack British troops, which outnumbered his own forces by more than two to one. Never has such an army fought under the Stars and Stripes than Jackson's force at the Battle of New Orleans.

Regular U.S. Army units fought alongside New Orleans militia, black former Haitian slaves fighting as free men of colour, Kentucky and Tennessee frontiersmen armed with deadly long rifles, and a colorful band of Jean Lafitte's outlaws - four thousand men in all.

The tenacity and bravery of these men was as incredible as the British stupidity in the way they mounted their attacks, and the battle ended with over two thousard British dead or wounded while the US casualties numbered eight dead and thirteen wounded. This battle took place on January 8, 1815, with neither side aware that a peace treaty had already been signed in Ghent, Belgium, on December 24, 1814, between the two warring countries.

The war had ended inconclusively, with the US in dire financial straits and the unrepentant Canadians still happily living under British rule, but the trade routes had opened up again and the US economy began slowly but surely to mend, though unrest was never far away.

Calhoun served in South Carolina's legislature and was elected to the United States House of Representatives serving three terms. He was secretary of war under President James Monroe from 1817 to 1825 and ran for president himself in the 1824 election, eventually withdrawing in favour of Andrew Jackson and running for vice president instead, unopposed.

Calhoun was vice president in 1824 under John Quincy Adams and was re-elected in 1828 under Andrew Jackson, who favored the Tariff of 1828 that Calhoun vehemently opposed. This led to Calhoun's resignation in 1832, the only vice president ever to resign, and all because he supported slavery

The war had been very hard on America, and afterwards the country was in debt and had needed to raise money. Tariffs were introduced in 1816 and 1820, protecting northern states' manufactured products from international competition within the United States. However many blamed the south's depression on the tariffs because they believed they tariffs reduced European consumption of cotton.

These tariffs clearly favored the North but Calhoun was undaunted by the negative opinions of the South he represented. He favored the Tariffs of 1816 because he believed the revenue generated was for the good of the whole country and the union of states in general. His opinion changed, however when more tariffs were added in 1824 and 1828. At that time, the cotton prices barely covered the cost of making it, crippling the southern economy. The north-favoring tariffs were still being enforced, and Vice President Calhoun even went so far as to call the 1828 one the "tariff of abomination".

He also felt it favored industrialization, and was trying to get the south to abolish slavery, a sacred institution to the southerners. Slavery's abolition would force working class whites to accept low pay that would effectively kill off the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that all white men now enjoyed.

This may seem extremely racist now but at that time it was commonly accepted that blacks were inferior to whites, both in the northern states as well as the southern ones. Calhoun wrote his famous "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," in which he stated that the tariff of 1828 was unconstitutional. He exclaimed, "Irresponsible power is inconsistent with liberty."

He was vehement in his protection of slavery because he lost faith in the majority rule of the national government. He felt that sectionalists were ruling the government and would make laws favorable to one section of the country over another. This led him to become an advocate for states' rights. Once he did not believe that the national government would protect the liberty of the South, he was forced into a situation where the South would have to take care of itself with individual states given more power.

In fact President Andrew Jackson said that Calhoun's attitude was paramount to treason and threatened to hang him and his followers. They thought anarchy would prevail if each state made it's own laws, but Calhoun in fact wanted to avoid disunion. He believed that the south should "only think of secession in the last extremity."

On the surface John Calhoun's political philosophy may seem contradictory. He did switch from being a supporter of nationalism to a man who wanted to give states a huge amount of individual power, but his reasoning was sound in the view of those he represented. There is little doubt that the American civil war came about because the southern states felt that they were being unjustly treated and therefore wanted independence, but perhaps the situation was only exacerbated by John C Calhoun.

Though in some respects almost a founding father of the country, he was nonetheless a man of deeply ingrained traditional beliefs where slavery and the south were concerned. So much so that his political expounding of these beliefs had the opposite of their intended effect, pushing the country closer to internal conflict instead of away from it. If any one man has responsibility for the bloodiest internal conflict America has ever known then perhaps the buck stops squarely at his feet.

History tells the story of a man committed to serving the interests of those he represented and indeed of 'all' Americans. Strange to think today that his dismissal of slave rights in the equation - natural enough for him - was to prove the most damning omission of all. Even great men go wrong sometimes.

Copyright © 2002 Tony Leather
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About the Author

Tony Leather is a UK writer who has been published widely around the world, both in print and online. Only writing seriously for about four years now, he hopes to establish a name and reputation as a writer, and even one day earn a living from it. He appreciates comment from readers about his work, and can be contacted at tony@stables.worldonline.co.uk (Your comments here will also be sent to him.)

Images
Top: African-Americans and the Old West, B.David Schwartz Library, Long Island University.
Middle: A Frozen Lover Comes to Woo, Puck, Dec. 24, 1888.

Note: For an article on John C. Calhoun's last appearance in the Senate in 1850, please see the Kudzu Monthly for October, 2001 Lost Cause column.