Editing John C. Calhoun (section)

==Early life==

John Caldwell Calhoun was born in [[Abbeville County, South Carolina|Abbeville District, South Carolina]] on March 18, 1782. He was the fourth child of Irish-born [[Patrick Calhoun (immigrant)|Patrick Calhoun]] and his wife Martha Caldwell. Patrick's father, also named Patrick, joined the waves of [[Ulster Scots people|Scotch-Irish]] emigration from [[County Donegal]] to southwestern [[Province of Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]]. After the death of the elder Patrick in 1741, the family moved to [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]]. Following the British defeat at the [[Battle of the Monongahela]] in 1755, the family, fearing [[Native Americans in the United States|Indian]] attacks, moved to [[Province of South Carolina|South Carolina]] in 1756.{{sfn|Coit|1950|p=3}}{{sfn|Niven|1988|pp=6–8}} Patrick, a prominent member of the tight-knit [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scotch-Irish community]] on the [[American frontier|frontier]] who worked as surveyor and farmer, was elected to the [[South Carolina General Assembly|South Carolina Legislature]] in 1763 and acquired ownership over [[slave plantation]]s. As a [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]], he stood opposed to the established [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] [[planter class]] based in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]]. Patrick remained neutral in the [[American Revolution]] and opposed [[History of the United States Constitution#Ratification of the Constitution|ratification of the U.S. Constitution]] on grounds of [[states' rights]] and personal liberties. Calhoun would eventually adopt his father's beliefs on states' rights.{{sfn|Wiltse|1944|pp=15–24}}{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=10}}

Young Calhoun showed scholastic talent, and although schools were scarce on the Carolina frontier, he was enrolled briefly in an academy taught by his brother-in-law [[Moses Waddel]]. It stressed the Latin and Greek classics. He continued his studies privately. When his father died, his brothers were away starting business careers, and so the 14-year-old Calhoun took over management of the family farm and five other farms. For four years he simultaneously kept up his reading and his hunting and fishing. The family decided he should continue his education, and so he resumed studies at Waddel's academy after it reopened.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)">{{cite web |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_John_Calhoun.htm |title=John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832) |publisher= United States Senate |access-date=May 7, 2016}}</ref> With financing from his brothers, he went to [[Yale University|Yale College]] in Connecticut in 1802. For the first time in his life, Calhoun encountered serious, advanced, and well-organized intellectual dialogue that could shape his mind. Yale was dominated by President [[Timothy Dwight IV|Timothy Dwight]], a [[Federalist Party|Federalist]] who became his mentor. Dwight's brilliance entranced (and sometimes repelled) Calhoun.

Biographer John Niven says:
{{blockquote|quote=Calhoun admired Dwight's extemporaneous sermons, his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge, and his awesome mastery of the classics, of the tenets of [[Calvinism]], and of [[metaphysics]]. No one, he thought, could explicate the language of [[John Locke]] with such clarity.{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=18}}}}

Dwight repeatedly denounced [[Jeffersonian democracy]], and Calhoun challenged him in class. Dwight could not shake Calhoun's commitment to republicanism. "Young man," retorted Dwight, "your talents are of a high order and might justify you for any station, but I deeply regret that you do not love sound principles better than [[Sophist#Modern usage|sophistry]]—you seem to possess a most unfortunate bias for error."{{sfn|Capers|1960|pp=1–2}} Dwight also expounded on the strategy of [[secession]] from the Union as a legitimate solution for [[New England]]'s disagreements with the national government.{{sfn|Calhoun|Post|1995|p=xii}}{{sfn|Douglas|2009|p= 368}} Calhoun made friends easily, read widely, and was a noted member of the debating society of [[Brothers in Unity]]. He graduated as valedictorian in 1804. He studied law at the nation's first independent law school, [[Litchfield Law School|Tapping Reeve Law School]] in [[Litchfield, Connecticut]], where he worked with [[Tapping Reeve]] and [[James Gould (jurist)|James Gould]]. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807.{{sfn|Wiltse|1944|pp=25–39}}

Biographer [[Margaret Coit]] argues that:
{{blockquote|quote=every principle of secession or states' rights which Calhoun ever voiced can be traced right back to the thinking of intellectual New England&nbsp;... Not the South, not slavery, but Yale College and Litchfield Law School made Calhoun a nullifier&nbsp;... Dwight, Reeve, and Gould could not convince the young patriot from South Carolina as to the desirability of secession, but they left no doubts in his mind as to its legality.{{sfn|Coit|1950|p=42}}}}