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His full name was John Caldwell Calhoun and he was born on March 18, 1782 in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun, an Irish immigrant from County Donegal, and his wife Martha Caldwell. With his brothers' financial support, he graduated from Yale College in 1804 and studied law at the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807. In 1811 he married Floride Bonneau, a first cousin once removed. The couple had 10 children over a span of 18 years, 3 of whom died in infancy.
Calhoun was described as high-strung and as a brilliant intellectual orator and strong organizer. With a base among the Irish, Calhoun won his first election to Congress in 1810 where he became a leader of the "War Hawks," along with Speaker Henry Clay. On June 3, 1812, Calhoun's committee called for a declaration of war against the British. When the War of 1812 was declared, Calhoun labored to raise troop and provide funds to aid the war effort. Disasters on the battlefield let to the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. The mismanagement of the Army for most of the war upset Calhoun, and he resolved to strengthen the War Department so it would never fail again.
In 1817, President James Monroe appointed Calhoun Secretary of War, where he served until 1825. Calhoun's first priority was an effective navy, including steam frigates, and a standing army of adequate size. He also wanted a system of taxation which would not be subject to collapse by a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade like customs duties. Calhoun's political ambitions as well as those of William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, over pursuit of the presidency in 1824 complicated Calhoun's tenure as War Secretary.
Calhoun originally was a candidate for President in the election of 1824. After failing to win the endorsement of the South Carolina legislature, he decided to be a candidate for Vice President. Although no presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College and the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives, the Electoral College elected Calhoun vice president by a landslide. Calhoun served four years under John Quincy Adams, and then, in 1828, won re-election as Vice President running with Andrew Jackson. He became the first of two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents.
Under Andrew Jackson's administration, Calhoun developed a rift over policy with the president. Calhoun opposed an increase in the protective tariff. Jackson devised high tariff legislation that placed burdensome duties on selected New England imports. When the so-called "Tariff of Abominations" passed, a frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation protest the tariff. Calhoun proposed the doctrine of nullification, the right of a state to refuse to follow a federal law which it believed to be unconstitutional. He traced the notion back to arguments by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who had proposed that states could nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Jackson believed that nullification threatened the Union. By February 1831, the break between Calhoun and Jackson was irreconcilable. More problems arose when Calhoun's wife Floride organized Cabinet wives against Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John Eaton. This became known as the "Petticoat affair". Jackson saw attacks on Eaton really being about Calhoun's enmity and he forced the resignation of his cabinet. Calhoun became the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office, doing so on December 28, 1832.
When the South Carolina legislature declared Jackson's tariffs to be unconstitutional, Calhoun formed a political party in South Carolina called the Nullifier Party. In response to this, Congress passed the Force Bill, which empowered the President to use military power to force states to obey all federal laws. Jackson sent US Navy warships to Charleston harbor, and even talked of hanging Calhoun. Tensions finally cooled after both sides agreed to the Compromise Tariff of 1833, a proposal by Senator Henry Clay.
In the election of 1832, Calhoun ran for the Senate rather than continue as Vice President. After the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was implemented, the Nullifier Party, along with other anti-Jackson factions, formed a coalition known as the Whig Party. Calhoun sided with the Whigs until he broke with Whig Senator Daniel Webster over the issue of slavery. Calhoun led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate in the 1830s and 1840s, opposing both abolitionism and attempts to limit the expansion of slavery into the western territories. He was a major advocate of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which required law enforcement officials in free states to return escaped slaves. In a famous speech in the Senate on February 6, 1837, Calhoun argued that slavery was a "positive good." He said that all societies are ruled by an elite group which enjoys the fruits of the labor of a less-privileged group. He said:
"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 slave-holding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good... 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... 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."
Calhoun served as Secretary of State from April 1, 1844 to March 10, 1845 in the administration of John Tyler before returning to the Senate. By this point in time, Tyler had alienated his party, the Whigs, and he was unable to attract support from his former party, the Democrats. Tyler had ambitions for his own election to the Presidency, but he lacked a base of support. He saw annexation of Texas as his pathway to achieve that. Tyler's Secretary of State was Daniel Webster, a New Englander who was not supportive of annexation. Tyler knew he would need a Secretary of State who supported his agenda for Texas. After Webster finished his work on the Webster-Ashburton treaty with the British treaty, Tyler asked for and received Webster's resignation. He named Hugh S. Legaré of South Carolina as an interim successor.
Tyler replaced other officeholders, replacing them with pro-annexation supporters. Tyler embarked on a nationwide tour in the spring of 1843. He received a positive reception on the tour. But while he was on the tour he learned of the death of Legaré, which caused him to cancel the rest of the tour. Tyler then appointed Abel P. Upshur, a popular Secretary of the Navy and a close adviser, as his new Secretary of State. Tyler and Upshur began discrete negotiations with the Texas government, promising military protection from Mexico in exchange for agreement to annexation. Upshur spread rumors about possible British interest in Texas, hoping to get support from Northern voters for the annexation of Texas. By January 1844 Upshur told the Texas government that he had a large majority of senators in favor of an annexation treaty.
Tyler's plans received a further setback when a tragic event occurred aboard a ceremonial cruise down the Potomac River on the newly built USS Princeton on February 28, 1844. There were 400 guests on board, including Tyler and his cabinet, as was the world's largest naval gun, the "Peacemaker." The gun was ceremoniously fired several times in the afternoon to the delight of onlookers. Several hours later, Captain Robert F. Stockton was convinced by the crowd to fire one more shot. The gun malfunctioned and an explosion ensued. Tyler was unhurt, having remained safely below deck, but a number of others were killed instantly, including Secretary of State Upshur.
Tyler appointed former Vice President John C. Calhoun in early March 1844 as his Secretary of State. According to Tyler's close friend, Virginia Representative Henry A. Wise, Wise on his own initiative made the offer to Calhoun on behalf of Tyler, and Calhoun accepted. When Wise told Tyler what he had done, Tyler was angry but felt that the action had to stand. Calhoun was a leading advocate of slavery, and his attempts to get an annexation treaty passed increased resistance from abolitionists.
When the text of the treaty became public, it was met with political opposition from the Whigs, who opposed anything that might enhance Tyler's status. Mexico announced that it would view annexation as a hostile act by the United States. Both Clay and Van Buren, the respective frontrunners for the Whig and Democratic nominations, came out against annexation. Tyler knew that the treaty was unlikely to pass ratification in the Senate in April 1844.
The Whig-controlled Senate rejected the treaty by a vote of 16–35 in June 1844. Tyler considered a run as a third party candidate, but former President Andrew Jackson, a staunch supporter of annexation, persuaded Democratic Party Candidate James K. Polk to welcome Tyler back into the party. Tyler dropped out of the race in August and endorsed Polk for the presidency. Polk's narrow victory over Clay in the November election spelled the end of Calhoun's tenure as Secretary of State. However, before leaving office, in late February 1845, the House approved a joint resolution offering annexation to Texas by a substantial margin. The Senate approved the resolution by a 27–25 majority, and three days before the end of his term, Tyler signed the bill into law, paving the way for Texas to join the Union. After some debate, Texas accepted the terms and entered the union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state.
Calhoun returned to the Senate in 1845. When war with Mexico broke out, Calhoun was consistently opposed to the war. Anti-slavery Northerners denounced the war as a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery while Calhoun saw it as a conspiracy of Yankees to destroy the South.
By March of 1850, when the Compromise of 1850 was being debated, Calhoun was quite ill. He had suffered periodic bouts of tuberculosis throughout his life. In March 1850, the disease reached a critical stage. Weeks from death and too feeble to speak, Calhoun wrote a scathing speech attacking the compromise. On March 4, his friend, Senator James Mason of Virginia, read the remarks into the Senate record.
Calhoun died at his boarding house in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1850 from tuberculosis at the age of 68. He was interred at the St. Philip's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina in the section for non-members.