Editing John C. Calhoun (section)

==Political philosophy==
{{Conservatism US|intellectuals}}
===Agrarian republicanism===
{{See also|Agrarianism}}
Historian Lee{{nbsp}}H. Cheek Jr. characterizes Calhoun's American [[republicanism]] as within the South Atlantic tradition, as opposed to the [[Puritans|Puritan]] tradition. While the New England–based puritan tradition stressed a politically centralized enforcement of moral and religious norms to secure [[civic virtue]], the South Atlantic tradition relied on a decentralized moral and religious order based on the idea of [[subsidiarity]] (or localism). Cheek considers the 1798 [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]], written by Jefferson and Madison, the cornerstone of Calhoun's republicanism. Calhoun believed that popular rule is best expressed in local communities that are nearly autonomous while serving as units of a larger society.{{sfn|Cheek|2004| p= 8}}

===Slavery===
[[File:G.P.A. Healy's portrait of John C. Calhoun, Charleston City Hall IMG 4589.JPG|thumb|[[George Peter Alexander Healy|George Peter Alexander Healy's]] 1851 painting of Calhoun at City Hall in [[Charleston, South Carolina]]|alt=Full profile, black suit with white ruffled shirt. Hand on chest with fingers spread out, soft look.]]Calhoun led the [[pro-slavery]] faction in the Senate, opposing both total [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionism]] and attempts such as the [[Wilmot Proviso]] to limit the expansion of slavery into the western territories.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />

Calhoun's father, Patrick Calhoun, was a staunch supporter of slavery who taught his son that social standing depended not merely on a commitment to the ideal of popular self-government, but also on the ownership of a substantial number of slaves. Flourishing in a world in which slaveholding was a hallmark of civilization, Calhoun saw little reason to question its morality as an adult.{{sfn|Bartlett|1994| p= 218}} He believed that slavery instilled in white people a code of honor that fostered civic-mindedness. From Calhoun's standpoint, the expansion of slavery decreased the likelihood for social conflict and postponed the decay of when money would become the only measure of self-worth, as he believed had happened in New England. Calhoun was firmly convinced that slavery was the key to the success of the [[American Dream|American dream]].{{sfn|Bartlett|1994| p= 228}}

Whereas other Southern politicians had excused slavery as a "necessary evil", in a famous [[:s:Slavery a Positive Good|speech on the Senate floor]] on February 6, 1837, Calhoun asserted that slavery was a "positive good".<ref name="what he said" /> He rooted this claim on three grounds: [[white supremacy]], [[paternalism]] and [[capitalism]]. All societies, Calhoun claimed, are ruled by an elite group that enjoys the fruits of the labor of a less-exceptional group. Senator [[William Cabell Rives]] of Virginia had earlier referred to slavery as an evil that might become a "lesser evil" in some circumstances. Calhoun believed that conceded too much to the abolitionists:{{sfn|Bartlett|1994|p=227}}

{{blockquote|quote=I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good&nbsp;... I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe—look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse&nbsp;... I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.{{sfn|Calhoun|1837|p=34}}}}

Calhoun's treatment of his own slaves includes an incident in 1831, when his slave Alick ran away when threatened with a severe whipping. Calhoun wrote to his second cousin and brother-in-law, asking him to keep a lookout for Alick, and if he was taken, to have him "severely whipped" and sent back.<ref>Letter to James Edward Calhoun, August 27, 1831, [https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof00calhrich ''Correspondence of John C. Calhoun''], Historical Manuscripts Commission (1899), p. 301.</ref> In a letter to Alick's captor, Calhoun wrote:

{{blockquote|quote=I am glad to hear that Alick has been apprehended and am much obliged to you for paying the expense of apprehending him . . . . He ran away for no other cause, but to avoid a correction for some misconduct, and as I am desirous to prevent a repetition, I wish you to have him lodged in Jail for one week, to be fed on bread and water and to employ some one for me to give him 30 lashes well laid on, at the end of the time.<ref>Letter to Armistead Burt of September 1, 1831, [https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof00calhrich ''Correspondence of John C. Calhoun''], Historical Manuscripts Commission (1899), pp. 301-02.</ref>}}

Calhoun rejected the belief of Southern leaders, such as Henry Clay, that all Americans could agree on the "opinion and feeling" that slavery was wrong, although they might disagree on the most practicable way to respond to that great wrong. Calhoun's constitutional ideas acted as a viable conservative alternative to Northern appeals to democracy, majority rule, and natural rights.{{sfn|Ford|1988|pp=405–424}}

As well as providing an intellectual justification of slavery, Calhoun played a central role in devising the South's overall political strategy. According to historian Ulrich B. Phillips, <blockquote>[Calhoun's] devices were manifold: to suppress agitation, to praise the slaveholding system; to promote white Southern prosperity and expansion; to procure a Western alliance; to frame a fresh plan of government by concurrent majorities; to form a Southern bloc; to warn the North of the dangers of Southern desperation; to appeal for Northern magnanimity as indispensable for the saving of the Union.{{sfn|Phillips|1929|p=416}}</blockquote>

Shortly after delivering his speech against the Compromise of 1850, Calhoun predicted the destruction of the Union over the slavery issue. Speaking to Senator Mason, he said:

{{blockquote|I fix its probable occurrence within twelve years or three presidential terms. You and others of your age will probably live to see it; I shall not. The mode by which it will be done is not so clear; it may be brought about in a manner that no one now foresees. But the probability is, it will explode in a presidential election.{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=1}}}}

===Opposition to the War with Mexico===
[[File:Fort Hill.jpg|thumb|Calhoun's home, [[Fort Hill (Clemson)|Fort Hill]], on the grounds that became part of [[Clemson University]], in [[Clemson, South Carolina]]|alt=Large, classic style white house surrounded by lots of greenery.]]
Calhoun was consistently opposed to the War with Mexico, arguing that an enlarged military effort would only feed the alarming and growing lust of the public for empire regardless of its constitutional dangers, bloat executive powers and patronage, and saddle the republic with a soaring debt that would disrupt finances and encourage speculation. Calhoun feared, moreover, that Southern slave owners would be shut out of any conquered Mexican territories, as nearly happened with the Wilmot Proviso. He argued that the war would detrimentally lead to the annexation of all of Mexico, which would bring Mexicans into the country, whom he considered deficient in moral and intellectual terms. He said, in a speech on January 4, 1848:

{{blockquote|style=overflow:inherit;=|quote=We make a great mistake, sir, when we suppose that all people are capable of self-government. We are anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been urged in a very respectable quarter, that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake. None but people advanced to a very high state of moral and intellectual improvement are capable, in a civilized state, of maintaining free government; and amongst those who are so purified, very few, indeed, have had the good fortune of forming a constitution capable of endurance.{{sfn|Calhoun|1999|p=68}}}}

Calhoun argued that a war for territory was morally wrong and felt that the Polk administration had been too aggressive in trying to force a war.{{sfn|Coit|1950|pp=339–441}} Anti-slavery Northerners denounced the war as a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery; Calhoun in turn perceived a connivance of Yankees to destroy the South. By 1847 he decided the Union was threatened by a totally corrupt [[Second Party System|party system]]. He believed that in their lust for office, patronage and [[spoils system|spoils]], politicians in the North pandered to the anti-slavery vote, especially during presidential campaigns, and politicians in the slave states sacrificed Southern rights in an effort to placate the Northern wings of their parties. Thus, the essential first step in any successful assertion of Southern rights had to be the jettisoning of all party ties. In 1848–49, Calhoun tried to give substance to his call for Southern unity. He was the driving force behind the drafting and publication of the "Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress, to Their Constituents".{{sfn|Durham|2008|p=104}} It alleged Northern violations of the constitutional rights of the South, then warned Southern voters to expect forced emancipation of slaves in the near future, followed by their complete subjugation by an unholy alliance of unprincipled Northerners and blacks. Whites would flee and the South would "become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness".{{sfn|Calhoun|1870|p=311}} Only the immediate and unflinching unity of Southern whites could prevent such a disaster. Such unity would either bring the North to its senses or lay the foundation for an independent South. But the spirit of union was still strong in the region and fewer than 40% of the Southern congressmen signed the address, and only one Whig.{{sfn|Bartlett|1994}}

Many Southerners believed his warnings and read every political news story from the North as further evidence of the planned destruction of the white southern way of life. The climax came a decade after Calhoun's death with the election of Republican [[Abraham Lincoln]] in [[1860 United States presidential election|1860]], which led to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states. They formed the new [[Confederate States of America|Confederate States]], which, in accordance with Calhoun's theory, did not have any organized political parties.{{sfn|Perman|2012|p=11}}

===Concurrent majority===
[[File:JohnCCalhoun.jpeg|thumb|upright|Undated photograph of Calhoun|alt=Full profile in oval frame, black scarf under quilted sweater, right arm draped over chair arm holding rim of hat. Austere look.]]
Calhoun's basic concern for protecting the diversity of minority interests is expressed in his chief contribution to political science—the idea of a [[concurrent majority]] across different groups as distinguished from a numerical majority.{{sfn|Ford|1994|pp=19–58}} A concurrent majority is a system in which a minority group is permitted to exercise a sort of veto power over actions of a majority that are believed to infringe upon the minority's rights.{{sfn|Cheek|2004|p=146}}

According to the principle of a numerical majority, the will of the more numerous citizens should always rule, regardless of the burdens on the minority. Such a principle tends toward a consolidation of power in which the interests of the absolute majority always prevail over those of the minority. Calhoun believed that the great achievement of the American constitution was in checking the tyranny of a numerical majority through institutional procedures that required a concurrent majority, such that each important interest must consent to the actions of government. To secure a concurrent majority, those interests that have a numerical majority must compromise with the interests that are in the minority. A concurrent majority requires a unanimous consent of all the major interests in a community, which is the only sure way of preventing [[tyranny of the majority]]. This idea supported Calhoun's doctrine of interposition or nullification, in which the state governments could refuse to enforce or comply with a policy of the Federal government that threatened the vital interests of the states.<ref>{{cite web |last = Kirk |first = Russell |url = http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/john-c-calhoun-vindicated |title = John C. Calhoun Vindicated |publisher = The Abbeville Institute |date = March 17, 2015 |access-date = May 18, 2016 }}</ref>

Historian [[Richard Hofstadter]] (1948) emphasizes that Calhoun's conception of minority was very different from the minorities of a century later:

{{blockquote|style=overflow:inherit;=|quote=Not in the slightest was [Calhoun] concerned with minority rights as they are chiefly of interest to the modern liberal mind—the rights of dissenters to express unorthodox opinions, of the individual conscience against the State, least of all of ethnic minorities. At bottom he was not interested in any minority that was not a propertied minority. The concurrent majority itself was a device without relevance to the protection of dissent, designed to protect a vested interest of considerable power&nbsp;... it was minority privileges rather than [minority] rights that he really proposed to protect.{{sfn|Hofstadter|2011|pp=90–91}}}}

Unlike Jefferson, Calhoun rejected attempts at economic, social, or political leveling, claiming that true equality could not be achieved if all classes were given equal rights and responsibilities. Rather, to ensure true prosperity, it was necessary for a stronger group to provide protection and care for the weaker one. This meant that the two groups should not be equal before the law. For Calhoun, "protection" (order) was more important than freedom. Individual rights were something to be earned, not something bestowed by nature or God.<ref name="John C. Calhoun: He Started the Civil War" /> Calhoun was concerned with protecting the interests of the Southern States (which he identified with the interests of their slaveholding elites) as a distinct and beleaguered minority among the members of the federal Union; his idea of a concurrent majority as a protection for minority rights has gained some acceptance in American political thought.{{sfn|Baskin|1969|pp=49–65}}{{sfn|Kateb |1969 |pp=583–605}} Political scientist Malcolm Jewell argues, "The decision-making process in this country resembles John Calhoun's 'concurrent majority': A large number of groups both within and outside the government must, in practice, approve any major policy."{{sfn|Jewell|2015|p=2}}

Calhoun's ideas on the concurrent majority are illustrated in ''[[A Disquisition on Government]]''. The ''Disquisition'' is a 100-page essay on Calhoun's definitive and comprehensive ideas on government, which he worked on intermittently for six years until its 1849 completion.{{sfn|Bartlett|1994| pp= 351–355}} It systematically presents his arguments that a numerical majority in any government will typically impose a despotism over a minority unless some way is devised to secure the assent of all classes, sections, and interests and, similarly, that innate human depravity would debase government in a democracy.{{sfn|Freehling|1965|pp=25–42}}

===State sovereignty and the "Calhoun Doctrine"===
In the 1840s three interpretations of the constitutional powers of Congress to deal with slavery in territories emerged: the "free-soil doctrine," the "[[Popular sovereignty in the United States|popular sovereignty]] position," and the "Calhoun doctrine". The Free Soilers stated that Congress had the power to outlaw slavery in the territories. The popular sovereignty position argued that the voters living there should decide. The Calhoun doctrine said that neither Congress nor the citizens of the territories could outlaw slavery in the territories.{{sfn|Fehrenbacher|1981|pp= 64–65}}

In what historian Robert R. Russell calls the "Calhoun Doctrine", Calhoun argued that the Federal Government's role in the territories was only that of the trustee or agent of the several sovereign states: it was obliged not to discriminate among the states and hence was incapable of forbidding the bringing into any territory of anything that was legal property in any state. Calhoun argued that citizens from every state had the right to take their property to any territory. Congress and local voters, he asserted, had no authority to place restrictions on slavery in the territories.{{sfn|Russell|1966|pp=466–486}} In a February 1847 speech before the Senate, Calhoun declared that "the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, in to any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination and would therefore be a violation of the Constitution". Enslavers therefore had a fundamental right to take their property wherever they wished.{{sfn|Baptist|2014|p=331}} As constitutional historian [[Hermann Eduard von Holst|Hermann von Holst]] noted, "Calhoun's doctrine made it a solemn constitutional duty of the United States government and of the American people to act as if the existence or non-existence of slavery in the Territories did not concern them in the least."{{sfn|von Holst|1883|p=312}} The Calhoun Doctrine was opposed by the Free Soil forces, which merged into the new [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] around 1854.{{sfn|Foner|1995|p= 178}} Chief Justice [[Roger B. Taney]] used Calhoun's arguments in his decision in the 1857 Supreme Court case ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]],'' in which he ruled that the federal government could not prohibit slavery in any of the territories.