Editing John C. Calhoun (section)

==Secretary of War and postwar nationalism==
[[File:JCCalhoun-1822.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Charles Bird King]]'s 1822 portrait of Calhoun at the age of 40|alt=oil painting, 3/4 left side profile, with tied white bow tie scarf and dark blazer with gold buttons. Clean shaven, brown hair, long sideburns]]

In 1817, the deplorable state of the War Department led four men to decline offers from President [[James Monroe]] to accept the office of [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] before Calhoun finally assumed the role. Calhoun took office on December 8 and served until 1825.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" /> He continued his role as a leading nationalist during the Era of Good Feelings. He proposed an elaborate program of national reforms to the infrastructure that he believed would speed up economic modernization. His priority was an effective navy, including steam frigates, and in the second place a standing army of adequate size—and as further preparation for an emergency, "great permanent roads", "a certain encouragement" to manufacturers, and a system of internal taxation that would not collapse from a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade, like customs duties.{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=54}}

A reform-minded modernizer, Calhoun attempted to institute centralization and efficiency in the Indian Department and in the Army by establishing new coastal and frontier fortifications and building military roads, but Congress either failed to respond to his reforms or responded with hostility. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political rivalries, and ideological differences spurred him to create the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] in 1824.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />{{sfn|Belko|2004|pp=170–197}} [[Thomas McKenney]] was appointed as its first head.

As secretary, Calhoun had responsibility for the management of Indian affairs. He promoted a plan, adopted by Monroe in 1825, to preserve the sovereignty of eastern Indians by [[Indian removal|relocating]] them to western reservations they could control without interference from state governments.{{sfn|Satz|1974|pp=2–7}} In over seven years Calhoun supervised the negotiation and ratification of 40 treaties with Indian tribes.{{sfn|Prucha|1997|p=155}} Calhoun opposed the invasion of [[Spanish Florida]] launched in 1818 by General Jackson during the [[First Seminole War]], which was done without direct authorization from Calhoun or President Monroe, and in private with other cabinet members, advocated censuring of Jackson as punishment. Calhoun claimed that Jackson had begun a war against Spain in violation of the Constitution and, that he had contradicted Calhoun's explicit orders in doing so. Specific official instructions not to invade Florida or attack the Spanish were not issued by the administration.{{sfn|Remini|1977|p=366}} However, Calhoun supported the [[Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident|execution of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister]], two British soldiers living in Florida who were accused of inciting the Seminole to make war against the United States. Calhoun accused the British of being involved in "wickedness, corruption, and barbarity at which the heart sickens and which in this enlightened age it ought not scarcely to be believed that a Christian nation would have participated". He added that he hoped the executions of Arbuthnot and Ambrister would deter the British and any other nations "who by false promises delude and excite an Indian tribe to all the deeds of savage war".{{sfn|Remini|1977|pp=358–359}} The United States annexed Florida from Spain in 1819 through the [[Adams–Onís Treaty]].<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />

Calhoun's tenure as Secretary of War witnessed the outbreak of the [[Missouri Compromise|Missouri crisis]] in December 1818, when a petition arrived from Missouri settlers seeking admission into the Union as a slave state. In response, Representative [[James Tallmadge Jr.]] of New York proposed two amendments to the bill designed to restrict the spread of slavery into what would become the new state. These amendments touched off an intense debate between North and South that had some talking openly of disunion. In February 1820, Calhoun predicted to Secretary of State [[John Quincy Adams]], a New Englander, that the Missouri issue "would not produce a dissolution" of the Union. "But if it should," Calhoun went on, "the South would of necessity be compelled to form an alliance with...Great Britain." "I said that would be returning to the colonial state," Adams recalled saying afterward. According to Adams, "He said, yes, pretty much, but it would be forced upon them."{{sfn|Baptist|2014|pp=154–156}}

After the war ended in 1815 the "[[Old Republicans]]" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for an economy in the federal government, sought to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department. Calhoun's political rivalry with [[William H. Crawford]], the Secretary of the Treasury, over the pursuit of the presidency in the 1824 election, complicated Calhoun's tenure as War Secretary. The general lack of military action following the war meant that a large army, such as that preferred by Calhoun, was no longer considered necessary. The "Radicals", a group of strong states' rights supporters who mostly favored Crawford for president in the coming election, were inherently suspicious of large armies. Some allegedly also wanted to hinder Calhoun's presidential aspirations for that election.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" /> Thus, on March 2, 1821, Congress passed the Reduction Act, which reduced the number of enlisted men of the army by half, from 11,709 to 5,586, and the number of the officer corps by a fifth, from 680 to 540. Calhoun, though concerned, offered little protest. Later, to provide the army with a more organized command structure, which had been severely lacking during the War of 1812, he appointed Major General [[Jacob Brown (general)|Jacob Brown]] to a position that would later become known as "[[Commanding General of the United States Army]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.history.army.mil/books/amh-v1/ch07.htm |title=7: Toward a Professional Army |publisher=United States Army |access-date=August 11, 2016 |archive-date=July 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727203727/http://www.history.army.mil/books/amh-v1/ch07.htm }}</ref>