John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina. He served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states’ rights in politics. He also served as a member of the U.S. Senate from 1832 to 1844, and later as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Civil War.

About John C. Calhoun in brief

Summary John C. CalhounJohn Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina. He served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states’ rights in politics. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South’s secession from the Union in 1860–1861. In 1832, with only a few months remaining in his second term, Calhoun resigned as vice president and entered the Senate. He sought the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency in 1844 but lost to surprise nominee James K. Polk, who won the general election. He later served as Secretary of State under President John Tyler from 1844 to 1845, and in that role supported the annexation of Texas as a means to extend the slave power and helped to settle the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain. He was one of the \”Great Triumvirate\” or the \”Immortal Trio\” of Congressional leaders, along with his colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Later in his life, he became known as the \”cast-iron man\” for his rigid defense of white Southern beliefs and practices. His concept of republicanism emphasized approval of slavery and minorityStates’ rights as particularly embodied by the South.

He owned dozens of slaves in Fort Hill, South Carolina, and was a prominent leader of the war hawk faction in the House of Representatives. He opposed the Mexican–American War, the Wilmot Proviso, and the Compromise of 1850 before his death in 1850. He had a difficult relationship with Andrew Jackson, primarily because of the Nullification Crisis and the Petticoat affair. His father, also named Patrick Calhoun, had joined the Scotch-Irish immigration movement from County Donegal to southwestern Pennsylvania. After the death of the elder Patrick in 1741, the family moved to southwestern Virginia. Following the defeat of British General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, the Calhoun clan moved to South Carolina in 1756, fearing Indian attacks, fearing an Indian-Irish community on the Southern frontier. He would eventually adopt his father’s states’ right beliefs and adopt his own personal liberties and personal liberties as well. He died in 1850 and was buried in Charleston, S.C., in a plot of land owned by his son-in-law, former South Carolina Gov. John Wilkes Wilkins. He also served as a member of the U.S. Senate from 1832 to 1844, and later as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Civil War, from 1845 to 1847. He wrote a book on the history of the American Revolution, The American Revolution and the American Civil War.