For the second time in 30 years, a Vice-President of the United States, a native of the South, had written an anonymous brief against the administration of which he was a part.
Calhoun’s manifesto followed the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions written by Thomas Jefferson and his chief lieutenant, James Madison, which had insisted that the states could determine the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Along with Clay and Daniel Webster, Calhoun was one of the legendary “Great Triumvirate” of 19th-century Presidential contenders who dominated the U.S. Senate. Of the three, he was the one with the fewest personal vices—Clay was a gambler, while Webster not only freely imbibed but took bribes to represent the interests of the Second Bank of the United States.
But, for all their private failures, Clay and Webster strove to keep the Union together, while as a sectional spokesman Calhoun not only formulated a doctrine that eventually tore the nation asunder but was the guiding light of a group of politicians that took up the cudgels of states rights after his death in 1850.
In fact, the entire elaborate theory of states rights that he advocated would be used more than a century later, when Southern politicians launched protests against Supreme Court decisions on civil rights.
With the South ending up on the wrong side of history in both cases, many historians have looked askance at Calhoun’s legacy, even as they acknowledge his extraordinary mind. In The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, Richard Hofstadter styled the South Carolinian “The Marx of the Master Class” and delivered a potent witticism at his expense:
Along with Clay and Daniel Webster, Calhoun was one of the legendary “Great Triumvirate” of 19th-century Presidential contenders who dominated the U.S. Senate. Of the three, he was the one with the fewest personal vices—Clay was a gambler, while Webster not only freely imbibed but took bribes to represent the interests of the Second Bank of the United States.
But, for all their private failures, Clay and Webster strove to keep the Union together, while as a sectional spokesman Calhoun not only formulated a doctrine that eventually tore the nation asunder but was the guiding light of a group of politicians that took up the cudgels of states rights after his death in 1850.
In fact, the entire elaborate theory of states rights that he advocated would be used more than a century later, when Southern politicians launched protests against Supreme Court decisions on civil rights.
With the South ending up on the wrong side of history in both cases, many historians have looked askance at Calhoun’s legacy, even as they acknowledge his extraordinary mind. In The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, Richard Hofstadter styled the South Carolinian “The Marx of the Master Class” and delivered a potent witticism at his expense:
“There is no record that he ever read or tried to write poetry, although there is a traditional gibe to the effect that he once began a poem with ‘Whereas,’ and stopped.”
In The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, William W. Freehling may have been even more pungent than Hofstadter, contrasting Calhoun with the hot-headed Jackson: “The terror of Calhoun was his shattering mind. He seized onto careless commonplaces, squeezing them in that vise of a mentality, turning living creeds into arcane absurdities.”
Both the anonymous nature of Exposition and Protest and the stated rationale for its states-rights doctrine—i.e., a means to avoid secession--testify to Calhoun’s delicate political dilemma. In certain ways, even he did not appreciate the volatile environment in which he found himself.
Calhoun’s position was far less enviable than it was in 1824, when he became the acceptable second choice of the two factions supporting the principal contenders for the Presidency, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He had joined the Adams administration after the contest ended up being decided in the House of Representatives.
But halfway through his term, disgusted at what he perceived as the “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay by which Adams gained the Presidency as well as the program of taxpayer-supported internal improvements pushed by Adams and Clay, Calhoun made overtures about supporting the candidacy of Andrew Jackson in the 1828 election.
That switch of allegiance was all the more surprising considering their past history. Six years before, Jackson had caused an international incident in Florida by a) executing two British subjects for inciting Indian attacks against the United States and b) attacking Pensacola and seizing two Spanish forts.
In The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, William W. Freehling may have been even more pungent than Hofstadter, contrasting Calhoun with the hot-headed Jackson: “The terror of Calhoun was his shattering mind. He seized onto careless commonplaces, squeezing them in that vise of a mentality, turning living creeds into arcane absurdities.”
Both the anonymous nature of Exposition and Protest and the stated rationale for its states-rights doctrine—i.e., a means to avoid secession--testify to Calhoun’s delicate political dilemma. In certain ways, even he did not appreciate the volatile environment in which he found himself.
Calhoun’s position was far less enviable than it was in 1824, when he became the acceptable second choice of the two factions supporting the principal contenders for the Presidency, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He had joined the Adams administration after the contest ended up being decided in the House of Representatives.
But halfway through his term, disgusted at what he perceived as the “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay by which Adams gained the Presidency as well as the program of taxpayer-supported internal improvements pushed by Adams and Clay, Calhoun made overtures about supporting the candidacy of Andrew Jackson in the 1828 election.
That switch of allegiance was all the more surprising considering their past history. Six years before, Jackson had caused an international incident in Florida by a) executing two British subjects for inciting Indian attacks against the United States and b) attacking Pensacola and seizing two Spanish forts.
Then-Secretary of War Calhoun led nearly the entire Cabinet in wanting to repudiate Jackson’s actions. The one exception was Secretary of State Adams, who argued with the Spanish authorities that if they couldn’t police Florida, they ought to cede it to a nation that could. The subsequent Adams-Onis Treaty not only was a major annexation for the U.S., then, but saved Jackson’s career.
That background made the Calhoun-Jackson relationship at best ambivalent. Other matters would come up in the first year of Calhoun’s Vice-Presidency under Jackson that would embitter the two men, notably including Calhoun’s authorship of Exposition and Protest.
The difficulty Calhoun faced is one that politicians with national ambitions have struggled with from the beginning of the republic: how to achieve leadership of the Congress without losing one’s own base.
In Calhoun’s case, his home state had howled earlier that year at the Tariff of Abominations signed into law earlier that year by Adams. The plantation aristocracy, which was experiencing real economic pain, was beside itself at the thought that the high tariff—passed for the benefit of the New England states—would lead British trading partners to seek other markets, given the high price of American tobacco. Some in the state even pressed for an end to the Union.
If the state yielded to these radicals, Calhoun argued, it would only cost Jackson the election, he argued. Better to wait until after the inauguration, he advised, when a triumphant and sympathetic new President would produce “a better order” in which the duties would be lowered.
Calhoun argued that the "whole system of legislation imposing duties on imports,--not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others,--is unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the Country."
Looking back to the original ratification process of the Constitution, he called for concurrent majorities to pass legislation—and for the right of a state to declare null and void within its borders federal legislation that was deemed unconstitutional or inimical to the state’s image.
Though his authorship remained officially anonymous, both Jackson and Martin Van Buren—the “Little Magician” from New York who had done so much to create the new Democratic Party around Jackson—became aware of his hand.
That background made the Calhoun-Jackson relationship at best ambivalent. Other matters would come up in the first year of Calhoun’s Vice-Presidency under Jackson that would embitter the two men, notably including Calhoun’s authorship of Exposition and Protest.
The difficulty Calhoun faced is one that politicians with national ambitions have struggled with from the beginning of the republic: how to achieve leadership of the Congress without losing one’s own base.
In Calhoun’s case, his home state had howled earlier that year at the Tariff of Abominations signed into law earlier that year by Adams. The plantation aristocracy, which was experiencing real economic pain, was beside itself at the thought that the high tariff—passed for the benefit of the New England states—would lead British trading partners to seek other markets, given the high price of American tobacco. Some in the state even pressed for an end to the Union.
If the state yielded to these radicals, Calhoun argued, it would only cost Jackson the election, he argued. Better to wait until after the inauguration, he advised, when a triumphant and sympathetic new President would produce “a better order” in which the duties would be lowered.
Calhoun argued that the "whole system of legislation imposing duties on imports,--not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others,--is unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the Country."
Looking back to the original ratification process of the Constitution, he called for concurrent majorities to pass legislation—and for the right of a state to declare null and void within its borders federal legislation that was deemed unconstitutional or inimical to the state’s image.
Though his authorship remained officially anonymous, both Jackson and Martin Van Buren—the “Little Magician” from New York who had done so much to create the new Democratic Party around Jackson—became aware of his hand.
The clash between the President and Vice-President became public in 1830, and before the next election was held, Calhoun had resigned—the first Vice-President to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment