John C. Calhoun: Father of Secession

The American Civil War was an extremely important event in the history of the United States of America. There were many causes, but one of the most influential figures in bringing about the war is John Calhoun. During his nineteenth century tenure as United States Senator from South Carolina, statesman John Caldwell Calhoun developed and set forth what came to be the Southern position about the nature of the Union. His steadfast effort for the Southern cause made him the voice of Southern separatism. Although he died a decade before the American Civil War, his revolutionary work led the nation closer to a civil war, causing him to be known as the father of secession.

John Calhoun’s early political career was quite diverse. He was elected to Congress in 1810 as a Federalist—meaning he favored a strong central government—and in 1817, he became President John Monroe’s Secretary of State, a position he did not take lightly. He was determined to strengthen the nation’s military, and he was quite successful. Calhoun used the success he achieved as Secretary of State to became the Vice President under John Quincy Adams, an ardent Federalist, in 1824. At the same time, however, the Southern States began to favor a more anti-federal government. Not wanting to alienate his fellow Southerners, Calhoun switched sides in time for the election of 1828. He became the vice presidential candidate under Andrew Jackson, and the ticket won. 

On May 19, 1828, the United States Congress passed a protective tariff called the Tariff of 1828. Before the tariff was passed, imported European products were much cheaper than those of the northern United States, and the tariff was to protect the North from having to compete with these European goods by imposing a tax on them. This tariff, however, greatly harmed many Southerners, as it increased the price of nearly every purchase they made. Also, the importation of British goods was reduced as a result of the tariff, meaning British merchants had difficulty paying for cotton they imported from the South. In short, they were forced to pay more money for the products they needed, while not receiving as much money for the products they made. Seeing that the tariff profited the North at the expense of the South, the Southerners dubbed it the Tariff of Abominations. 

In South Carolina, the protest against the Tariff of Abominations was particularly strong, leading John Calhoun to write an essay titled “South Carolina Exposition and Protest.” In it, he declared the Tariff of 1828 to be “unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive.” He argued that if the federal government passed an act that was considered unconstitutional, states had the right to declare it null and void, and that such a declaration would cease the operation of the law within the state. The federal government would then be required to either make an amendment to the Constitution or repeal the act. If they did not do so, the state would have the right to secede. When, much to the dismay of angry Southerners, a new protective tariff was adopted by Congress 1832, Calhoun helped the South Carolina state legislature draft an official Ordinance of Nullification. The resolution declared that the state would not enforce the tariff, meaning the federal government had no jurisdiction in South Carolina on that issue. 

When Andrew Jackson refused to accept South Carolina’s rebellious resolution, the Nullification Crisis of 1832 was born. Calhoun resigned the office of vice president to assume a place in the Senate, where he zealously protested the tariff, and became the chief rival of his former running mate. Jackson, who was furious with Calhoun, mobilized federal troops for use against South Carolina. Congress passed the Force Bill, which granted the Federal government the right to use military power to force South Carolina to abide by the tariff. Disaster seemed inevitable, until Henry Clay, “the Great Compromiser,” authored a new tariff, which Jackson signed, that promised to phase out the Tariff of 1832 over several years, leaving a revenue tariff. South Carolina suspended the Nullification Ordinance, but as a final act of defiance, it nullified the Force Bill. 

War had been averted, for a time, but the crisis intensified tension between the North and the South. One South Carolinian said, “It is useless and impracticable to disguise the fact that the South is a permanent minority, and that there is a sectional majority against it—a majority of different views and interest and little common sympathy.” A breaking up of the Union was imminent, as the sectional differences had grown too great to ignore. Many, including statesman Daniel Webster, worried that the only way for such a breakup to occur would be a bloody war. The immediate results of the tariff controversy for Calhoun included his emergence as the leading voice of the South. As one historian noted, he developed “a political philosophy to limit the federal government’s power and thus protect the minority agrarian South and its institution of slavery.”

John Calhoun’s advocacy of states’ rights made him the leading voice of the South, but his defense of slavery was equally important. Those in the North viewed slavery as an absolute evil, and many in the South did not necessarily think it was moral, but John Calhoun justified slavery for a number of reasons. First, he believed that slavery was crucial to the Southern way of life, and that without it, the economy would falter. In the end, however, Calhoun believed that blacks were necessarily inferior to whites. “There is no instance of any civilized colored race of any shade being found equal to the establishment and maintenance of free government,” he maintained. Also, according to Calhoun, slavery actually benefited black people. He said that never before had the black race, “from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.” John Calhoun brought about a shift in thinking in the South by saying that slavery was a “positive good.” In a famous speech he gave on the Senate floor on February 6, 1837, Calhoun stated his case. 

Moreover, because of his doctrine of nullification, Calhoun believed that states could deny the federal government any control over slavery in those states. Therefore, though the political climate was becoming more anti-slavery, Southern slaveholding states would be able maintain its institution. Simply put, the minority South would be able to defend its interests from the majority North. This idea, called “concurrent majority,” was one of Calhoun’s significant contributions. Thus, Southern slaveholders also began to believe that slavery was a positive good, and that the Federal government did not have the right to regulate it. These ideas on slavery and states’ rights came to define the “Southern position” on the nature of the Union.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Within two months, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas followed. Eventually, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina would secede as well, making the Confederate States of America, whose President was Jefferson Davis. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was determined to preserve the Union, and the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. Though eleven states seceded, most states remained loyal to the Union. They were California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Not all of these states completely supported the Union cause—Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were border states—but none of them seceded. On April 9, 1865, after the bloodiest war America had ever seen, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union. There were roughly 1,154,984 total casualties. The President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated five days after the end of the war. 

Although the war officially began in 1861, it can be argued that it actually started decades earlier. Though Calhoun died in 1850, his ideas lived on. “He is not dead,” said a United States Senator. “There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines.” When the South seceded, it did so because primarily because of its views on states’ rights and slavery. John Calhoun’s ideas on those issues defined the Southern position, formed the bedrock for the establishment of the Confederacy, and were critical in bringing the nation to the brink of a Civil War.

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