Editing John C. Calhoun (section)

==Vice presidency (1825–1832)==
===1824 and 1828 elections and Adams presidency===
[[File:Fort Hill (Clemson, SC) Historic Marker.JPG|thumb|upright|State historic marker at [[Fort Hill (Clemson, South Carolina)|Fort Hill]], Calhoun's home from 1825 until his death in 1850|alt=Large cast embossed concrete or metal panel atop a metal post. Embossing gives dates of other senators and politicians as well as Calhoun's son-in-law.]]
Calhoun was initially a candidate for [[President of the United States]] in the [[1824 United States presidential election|election of 1824]]. Four other men also sought the presidency: Andrew Jackson, Adams, Crawford, and Henry Clay. Calhoun failed to win the endorsement of the South Carolina legislature, and his supporters in Pennsylvania decided to abandon his candidacy in favor of Jackson's, and instead supported him for vice president. Other states soon followed, and Calhoun therefore allowed himself to become a candidate for [[Vice President of the United States|vice president]] rather than president.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Hogan |first= Margaret A. |url=http://millercenter.org/president/biography/jqadams-campaigns-and-elections |title=John Quincy Adams: Campaigns and Elections |publisher=[[Miller Center of Public Affairs|University of Virginia Miller Center]] |access-date=January 3, 2016}}</ref> The [[U.S. Electoral College|Electoral College]] elected Calhoun vice president by a landslide on December 1, 1824. He won 182 of 261 electoral votes, while five other men received the remaining votes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/scores.html |title=U.S. Electoral College: Historical Election Results |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration |access-date=January 31, 2017}}</ref> No presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College, and the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives, where Adams was declared the winner over Crawford and Jackson, who in the election had led Adams in both popular vote and electoral vote. After Clay, the Speaker of the House, was appointed Secretary of State by Adams, Jackson's supporters denounced what they considered a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay to give Adams the presidency in exchange for Clay receiving the office of Secretary of State, the holder of which had traditionally become the next president. Calhoun also expressed some concerns, which caused friction between him and Adams.<ref name="Roesch, James Rutledge">{{cite web |url=http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/john-c-calhoun-and-states-rights/ |author=Roesch, James Rutledge. |date=August 25, 2015 |title=John C. Calhoun and "State's Rights" |publisher=The Abbeville Review |access-date=April 26, 2016}}</ref>

Calhoun also opposed President Adams' plan to send a delegation to observe a meeting of South and Central American leaders in [[Panama]], believing that the United States should stay out of foreign affairs. Calhoun became disillusioned with Adams' high tariff policies and increased centralization of government through a network of "internal improvements", which he now saw as a threat to the rights of the states. Calhoun wrote to Jackson on June 4, 1826, informing him that he would support Jackson's second campaign for the presidency in [[1828 United States presidential election|1828]]. The two were never particularly close friends. Calhoun never fully trusted Jackson, a frontiersman and popular war hero, but hoped that his election would bring some reprieve from Adams's anti-states' rights policies.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" /> Jackson selected Calhoun as his running mate, and together they defeated Adams and his running mate [[Richard Rush]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://millercenter.org/president/biography/jqadams-campaigns-and-elections |title=John Quincy Adams: Campaigns and Elections |publisher=University of Virginia Miller Center |access-date=August 4, 2016}}</ref> Calhoun thus became the second of two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents. The only other man who accomplished this feat was [[George Clinton (vice president)|George Clinton]], who served as vice president from 1805 to 1812 under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm |title=Vice President of the United States (President of the Senate): The Individuals |publisher=United States Senate |access-date=May 1, 2016}}</ref>

During the election, Jackson's aide [[James Alexander Hamilton]] attempted a rapprochement between Jackson and Crawford, whom Jackson resented owing partially to the belief that it was he, not Calhoun, who had opposed the invasion of Florida. Hamilton spoke about this prospect with Governor [[John Forsyth (Georgia)|John Forsyth]] of Georgia, who acted as a mediator between the Jackson campaign and Crawford. Forsyth wrote a letter back to Hamilton in which he claimed that Crawford had stated to him that it was Calhoun, not Crawford, who had supported censuring Jackson for his invasion of Florida. Knowing that the letter could destroy the partnership between Jackson and Calhoun, Hamilton and fellow Jackson aide [[William Berkeley Lewis|William B. Lewis]] allowed it to remain in Hamilton's possession without informing Jackson or the public of its existence.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=241}}

===Petticoat affair===
{{main|Petticoat affair}}
Early in Jackson's administration, Calhoun's wife Floride Bonneau Calhoun organized Cabinet wives (hence the term "petticoats") against [[Peggy Eaton]], wife of Secretary of War [[John Eaton (politician)|John Eaton]], and refused to associate with her. They alleged that John and Peggy Eaton had engaged in an adulterous affair while she was still legally married to her first husband, and that her recent behavior was unladylike. The allegations of scandal created an intolerable situation for Jackson. The Petticoat affair ended friendly relations between Calhoun and Jackson.{{sfn|Marszalek|2000|p=84}}

Jackson sided with the Eatons. He and his late wife [[Rachel Jackson|Rachel Donelson]] had undergone similar political attacks stemming from their marriage in 1791. The two had married in 1791 not knowing that Rachel's first husband, Lewis Robards, had failed to finalize the expected divorce. Once the divorce was finalized, they married legally in 1794, but the episode caused a major controversy, and was used against him in the 1828 campaign. Jackson saw attacks on Eaton stemming ultimately from the political opposition of Calhoun, who had failed to silence his wife's criticisms. The Calhouns were widely regarded as the chief instigators.<ref name="Floride Bonneau Colhoun Calhoun" /><ref>{{cite news|url=http://thehermitage.com/learn/andrew-jackson/family/rachel/ |title=Rachel Jackson |newspaper=The Hermitage |access-date=August 17, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817072639/http://thehermitage.com/learn/andrew-jackson/family/rachel/ |archive-date=August 17, 2016 }}</ref> Jackson, who loved to personalize disputes,{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=14–15}} also saw the Petticoat affair as a direct challenge to his authority, because it involved lower-ranking executive officials and their wives seeming to contest his ability to choose whomever he wanted for his cabinet.{{sfn|Bates|2015|p=315}} Secretary of State [[Martin Van Buren]], a widower, took Jackson's side and defended the Eatons.{{sfn|McKellar|1942|p=151}} Van Buren was a northerner and a supporter of the 1828 tariff (which Calhoun bitterly opposed). Calhoun and Van Buren were the main contenders for the vice-presidential nomination in the ensuing election, and the nominee would then presumably be the party's choice to succeed Jackson.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=243}} That Van Buren sided with the Eatons, in addition to disagreements between Jackson and Calhoun on other issues, mainly the [[Nullification Crisis]], marked him as Calhoun's likely vice presidential successor.{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=337–339}}

Some historians, including Jackson biographers Richard B. Latner and [[Robert V. Remini]], believe that the hostility towards the Eatons was rooted less in questions of proper behavior than in politics. Eaton had been in favor of the Tariff of Abominations. He was also politically close to Van Buren. Calhoun may have wanted to expel Eaton from the cabinet as a way of boosting his anti-tariff agenda and increasing his standing in the Democratic Party. Many cabinet members were Southern and could be expected to sympathize with such concerns, especially Treasury Secretary [[Samuel D. Ingham]], who was allied with Calhoun and believed that he, not Van Buren, should succeed Jackson as president.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=243}}

In 1830, reports had emerged accurately stating that Calhoun, as Secretary of War, had favored censuring Jackson for his 1818 invasion of Florida. These infuriated Jackson.{{sfn|Cheathem|2008|p=29}} Eventually, Lewis decided to reveal the existence of Forsyth's letter, and on April 30, Crawford wrote a second letter, this time to Forsyth, repeating the charge Forsyth represented him as having previously made. Jackson received the letter on May 12, which confirmed his suspicions. He claimed that Calhoun had "betrayed" him.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=242–243}} Eaton took his revenge on Calhoun. For reasons unclear, Calhoun asked Eaton to approach Jackson about the possibility of Calhoun publishing his correspondence with Jackson at the time of the Seminole War. Eaton did nothing, leading Calhoun to believe that Jackson had approved the publication of the letters.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=306–307}} Calhoun published them in the ''United States Telegraph,'' a newspaper edited by a Calhoun protégé, [[Duff Green]].<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)"/> This gave the appearance of Calhoun trying to justify himself against a conspiracy to damage him and further enraged the President.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=306–307}}

Finally in the spring of 1831, at the suggestion of Van Buren, who, like Jackson, supported the Eatons, Jackson replaced all but one of his Cabinet members, thereby limiting Calhoun's influence. Van Buren began the process by resigning as Secretary of State, facilitating Jackson's removal of others. Van Buren thereby grew in favor with Jackson, while the rift between the President and Calhoun was widened.{{sfn|Marszalek|2000|p=121}} Later, in 1832, Calhoun, as vice president, cast a tie-breaking vote against Jackson's nomination of Van Buren as [[United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom|Minister to Great Britain]] in a failed attempt to end Van Buren's political career. Missouri Senator [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]], a staunch supporter of Jackson, then stated that Calhoun had "elected a Vice President", as Van Buren was able to move past his failed nomination as Minister to Great Britain and instead gain the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nomination in the [[1832 United States presidential election|1832 election]], in which he and Jackson were victorious.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />

===Nullification===
{{See also|Nullification (U.S. Constitution)|Nullification Crisis}}
Calhoun had begun to oppose increases in protective tariffs, as they generally benefited Northerners more than Southerners. While he was vice president in the Adams administration, Jackson's supporters devised a high tariff legislation that placed duties on imports that were also made in New England. Calhoun had been assured that the northeastern interests would reject the [[Tariff of Abominations|Tariff of 1828]], exposing pro-Adams New England congressmen to charges that they selfishly opposed legislation popular among [[Jacksonian democracy|Jacksonian Democrats]] in the west and mid-Atlantic States. The Southern legislators miscalculated and the so-called "Tariff of Abominations" passed and was signed into law by President Adams. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation, where he anonymously composed ''[[South Carolina Exposition and Protest]]'', an essay rejecting the centralization philosophy and supporting the principle of nullification as a means to prevent a tyranny of a central government.{{sfn|Niven|1988|pp=158–161}}

Calhoun supported the idea of nullification through a [[concurrent majority]]. Nullification is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law it deems unconstitutional. In Calhoun's words, it is "the right of a State to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government, within its limits".{{sfn|Crallé|1888|p=96}} Nullification can be traced back to arguments by Jefferson and Madison in writing the [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]] of 1798 against the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]]. Madison expressed the hope that the states would declare the acts unconstitutional, while Jefferson explicitly endorsed nullification.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/virginia-and-kentucky-resolutions/ |title = Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798) |publisher = Bill of Rights Institute |access-date = January 6, 2016 }}</ref> Calhoun openly argued for a state's right to secede from the Union, as a last resort to protect its liberty and sovereignty. In his later years, Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law.{{sfn|Rutland|1997|pp=248–249}}

In "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any federal law that went beyond the enumerated powers and encroached upon the residual powers of the State.{{sfn|Calhoun|1992|pp=348–349}} President Jackson, meanwhile, generally supported states' rights, but opposed nullification and secession. At the 1830 [[Jefferson–Jackson Day|Jefferson Day]] dinner at Jesse Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, Jackson proposed a toast and proclaimed, "Our federal Union, it must be preserved."{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=173}} Calhoun replied, "The Union, next to our liberty, the most dear. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union."{{sfn|Brands|2005|p=446}} Calhoun's publication of letters from the Seminole War in the ''Telegraph'' caused his relationship with Jackson to deteriorate further, thus contributing to the nullification crisis. Jackson and Calhoun began an angry correspondence that lasted until Jackson stopped it in July.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />

Jackson supported a revision to tariff rates known as the [[Tariff of 1832]]. It was designed to placate the nullifiers by lowering tariff rates. Written by Treasury Secretary [[Louis McLane]], the bill lowered duties from 45% to 27%. In May, Representative John Quincy Adams introduced a slightly revised version of the bill, which Jackson accepted. It passed Congress on July 9 and was signed by the president on July 14. The bill failed to satisfy extremists on either side.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=358–360}} In October, the South Carolina legislature voted to call a convention to nullify the tariffs.{{sfn|Howe|2007|p=402}} On November 24, the South Carolina Nullification Convention passed an ordinance nullifying both the Tariff of 1832 and the Tariff of 1828 and threatening to secede if the federal government attempted to enforce the tariffs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp |title=South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832 |publisher=The Avalon Project |access-date=August 22, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819073235/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp |archive-date=August 19, 2016 }}</ref>{{sfn|Howe|2007|p=405}} In response, Jackson sent [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] warships to [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] harbor, and threatened to hang Calhoun or any man who worked to support nullification or secession.{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=404–406}} After joining the Senate, Calhoun began to work with Clay on a new [[Tariff of 1833|compromise tariff]]. A bill sponsored by the administration had been introduced by Representative [[Gulian C. Verplanck]] of New York, but it lowered rates more sharply than Clay and other protectionists desired. Clay managed to get Calhoun to agree to a bill with higher rates in exchange for Clay's opposition to Jackson's military threats and, perhaps, with the hope that he could win some Southern votes in his next bid for the presidency.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=38}} On the same day, Congress passed the [[Force Bill]], which empowered the President of the United States to use military force to ensure state compliance with federal law. South Carolina accepted the tariff, but in a final show of defiance, nullified the Force Bill.{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=406–410}} In Calhoun's speech against the Force Bill, delivered on February 5, 1833, no longer as vice president, he strongly endorsed nullification, at one point saying:
{{blockquote|Why, then, confer on the President the extensive and unlimited powers provided in this bill? Why authorize him to use military force to arrest the civil process of the State? But one answer can be given: That, in a contest between the State and the General Government, if the resistance be limited on both sides to the civil process, the State, by its inherent sovereignty, standing upon its reserved powers, will prove too powerful in such a controversy, and must triumph over the Federal Government, sustained by its delegated and limited authority; and in this answer we have an acknowledgment of the truth of those great principles for which the State has so firmly and nobly contended.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.umsl.edu/virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/perspectives/documents/calhoun01.html |title=John C Calhoun: Against the Force Bill |last=Calhoun |first=John C. |publisher=University of Missouri |access-date=May 17, 2016 |archive-date=June 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624084451/http://www.umsl.edu/virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/perspectives/documents/calhoun01.html }}</ref>}}

In his three-volume biography of Jackson, [[James Parton]] summed up Calhoun's role in the Nullification crisis: "Calhoun began it. Calhoun continued it. Calhoun stopped it."{{sfn|Parton|1860|p=447}}

===Resignation===
As tensions over nullification escalated, South Carolina Senator [[Robert Y. Hayne]] was considered less capable than Calhoun to represent South Carolina in the Senate debates, so in late 1832 Hayne resigned to become governor; Calhoun resigned as vice president, and the South Carolina legislature elected Calhoun to fill Hayne's Senate seat. Van Buren had already been elected as Jackson's new vice president, meaning that Calhoun had less than three months left on his term anyway.{{sfn|Phillips|1929|pp=411–419}} The South Carolina newspaper ''City Gazette'' commented on the change:
{{blockquote|It is admitted that the former gentleman [Hayne] is injudiciously pitted against Clay and Webster and, nullification out of the question, Mr. Calhoun's place should be in front with these formidable politicians.{{sfn|Jervey|1909|p=315}}}}

Biographer John Niven argues "that these moves were part of a well-thought-out plan whereby Hayne would restrain the hotheads in the state legislature and Calhoun would defend his brainchild, nullification, in Washington against administration stalwarts and the likes of Daniel Webster, the new apostle of northern nationalism."{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=192}} As vice president, Calhoun cast a then-record 31 [[List of tie-breaking votes cast by the vice president of the United States|tie-breaking votes in the Senate]], the most of any vice president in their capacity as Senate president until vice president [[Kamala Harris]] surpassed it in 2023.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/VPTies.pdf |title=Senate.gov: VPTies.pdf |access-date=April 3, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Vice President Harris breaks record for casting the most tie-breaking votes |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/president-harris-breaks-record-casting-tie-breaking-votes-rcna123999 |website=NBC News |date=December 5, 2023 |access-date=December 5, 2023}}</ref>