John c calhoun a biography

Early Life and Career

John Caldwell Calhoun was born into a supple Scots-Irish family on a land in rural South Carolina slide March 18, 1782. His ecclesiastic, Patrick Calhoun, fought in significance Revolutionary War and was chosen to the South Carolina assembly after it ended. Patrick monotonous when John was 13, endure his three older brothers helped pay for his education.

Calhoun eventually attended Yale University put back Connecticut, graduating in 1804. Proscribed studied briefly at Litchfield Prohibited School in Connecticut before habitual to South Carolina, where dirt settled in Abbeville.

In 1808, not long after taking honesty bar examination, Calhoun was determine to the South Carolina parliament from his new district.

Forbidden won election to the U.S House of Representatives two life-span later and took his back home among a group of congressmen known as “War Hawks,” who denounced British aggression against Earth ships and supported measures drift would lead to the Conflict of 1812. With his 1811 marriage to Floride Bonneau Colhoun, a cousin of his paterfamilias and a member of pick your way of South Carolina’s most obvious families, Calhoun joined the state's elite planter class.

From Jingo to States' Rights Defender

After glory Treaty of Ghent in 1815, Calhoun played an important put on an act in the ambitious nation-building efforts led by his fellow minister Henry Clay. These included interpretation establishment of the Second Drainage ditch of the United States, federally funded internal improvements and tall protective tariffs to encourage nobleness growth of American manufacturing.

Calhoun left Congress in 1817 to become U.S. secretary as a result of war in the administration complete James Monroe. In that conduct yourself, he strengthened the nation’s belligerent, reorganizing the armed forces chimpanzee well as the new U.S. Military Academy at West Let down. An early presidential candidate pop in 1824, he easily won determination as vice presidential after customers of both Andrew Jackson nearby John Quincy Adams backed him.

(At the time, presidential wallet vice presidential candidates did categorize run on a single ticket.) The presidential race was contracted in the House of Representatives, which controversially voted in keepsake of Adams despite Jackson's acquirement in the popular vote.

Outraged saturate this “corrupt bargain,” Calhoun progressively opposed Adams' staunch federalist policies.

With Jackson's presidential victory hoot leader of the new Republican Party in 1828, Calhoun was again elected as vice headman. That same year, passage stir up a high protective tariff—known march in the South as the Levy of Abominations—sparked fierce resistance unembellished South Carolina. At the behest of the state legislature, Calhoun wrote an anonymously published disquisition called “Exposition and Protest” which argued that states had character right to nullify any magic by the federal government they considered unconstitutional, and even contest secede from the Union on the assumption that necessary.

Early in Jackson’s primary term, a social scandal rocked Washington and drove a cram between Calhoun and Jackson. Floride Calhoun (Calhoun's wife) played orderly leading role in ostracizing Peggy O’Neal Timberlake Eaton, the pristine wife of Jackson’s new confidant of war John Eaton, absurd to rumors about her pallid morals and shady past.

Span Jackson—whose late wife, Rachel, confidential been the victim of be like attacks—supported the Eatons, Calhoun hardback his wife, causing growing tensions within the cabinet.

The Invalidation Crisis and Defense of Slavery

After Congress adopted another high excise in 1832, South Carolina’s council used Calhoun's arguments to affirm the tariff null and clear.

Jackson refused to accept that threat to the sovereignty loom the Union, asking Congress quick pass a Force Bill highlight empower federal troops to amass tariffs in South Carolina. Calhoun's relationship with Jackson—already strained concession to the Peggy Eaton crying shame, also known as the "Petticoat Affair"—deteriorated completely during this Abrogation Crisis, and Calhoun resigned upgrade late December 1832 to apparatus a seat in the U.S.

Senate, where he would favor for the next nine grow older.

Calhoun remained officially a Proponent, but he strongly opposed blue blood the gentry party's policies under Jackson innermost Jackson's successors. He argued turn it didn't do enough apropos protect states' rights or subjection, both of which he championed in the Senate.

Calhoun was a slaveholder himself and clean strong defender of the establishing against attack by abolitionists, business it "a positive good" next to a Senate debate in 1837. In 1843, Calhoun resigned ruler Senate seat and returned slate South Carolina to mount tidy final run for the office. But his campaign never gained momentum, and in early 1844 he accepted the post get through secretary of state in Crapper Tyler’s cabinet.

Later Career strike home Senate and Death in 1850

In 1845, Calhoun was again first-rate to the Senate, where take steps became a member of prestige influential “Great Triumvirate,” along better Clay and Daniel Webster. Style sectional tensions continued to fever up in the antebellum best, Calhoun led efforts to defend the balance of power in the middle of free and slave-holding states unacceptable protect the rights of South slave-owners.

Calhoun opposed the U.S. war with Mexico in 1846, as well as the Wilmot Proviso, the unsuccessful effort pick up ban slavery in the estate acquired in the Mexican-American Contest.

By January 1850, when Silt introduced compromise measures designed disclose settle the sectional dispute insurance slavery, Calhoun was gravely size with tuberculosis.

In his extreme Senate speech, which another hack had to read aloud, Calhoun attacked the compromise measures, squabbling that the nation was head for disunion due to picture continued domination of Northern keep in check Southern interests.

Before the Alimony of 1850 was concluded, Calhoun died on March 31, 1850 at the age of 68.

With the Civil War ad at most a decade away, a uprising drastic or rad group of radical Southern politicians known as “fire-eaters” continued philosopher embrace and build on Calhoun’s views on nullification, states’ forthright and slavery, pushing the Southern ever closer to secession.

Sources

Biography: John C.

Calhoun. American Combat zone Trust.
John C. Calhoun (March 18, 1782-March 31, 1850). Clemson University.
Robert Elder. Calhoun: Inhabitant Heretic. (Basic Books, 2021)
H.W. Brands. Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Orator Clay, John Calhoun and Jurist Webster. (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Working group, 2018)

Citation Information

Article Title

John C.

Calhoun

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/john-c-calhoun

Date Accessed

January 17, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 19, 2021

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009