John Caldwell Calhoun, a statesman of Irish Presbyterian descent, was born in Abbeville County, South Carolina, March 18, 1782; studied at Yale, and became a successful lawyer. In congress he supported the measures which led to the war of 1812–15 with Great Britain, and promoted the protective tariff. In 1817 he joined Monroe’s cabinet as Secretary of War, and did good work in reorganising the war department. He was vice-president under John Q. Adams (1825–29), and then under Jackson. In 1829 he declared that a state can nullify unconstitutional laws; and his “Address to the People of South Carolina” (1831), set forth his theory of state rights. On the passing by South Carolina in 1832 of the nullification ordinance he resigned the vice-presidency, and entered the senate, becoming a leader of the states-rights movement, and a champion of the interests of the slave-holding states. In 1844, as Secretary of State, he signed a treaty annexing Texas; but once more in the senate, he strenuously opposed the war of 1846–47 with Mexico. He died at Washington, March 31, 1850. He, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster were, “the great triumvirate” of American political orators. See the Life by R. S. Jenkins (1851); his collected works (6 vols. 1853–54), with a Life by Crallé; and H. von Holst’s “John C. Calhoun” (1882).

Personal

  His character was marked and decided, not prematurely exhibiting its peculiarities, yet formed and perfected at an early age. He was firm and prompt, manly and independent. His sentiments were noble and elevated, and everything mean or grovelling was foreign to his nature. He was easy in his manners, and affable and dignified. His attachments were warm and enduring; he did not manifest his affection with enthusiastic fervor, but with deep earnestness and sincerity…. As a citizen, he was without blemish; he wronged no one; and there were no ugly spots on his character to dim the brilliancy of his public career. His social qualities were endearing, and his conversational powers fascinating in the extreme. He loved to talk with the young; he was especially animated and instructive when engaged in conversation with them, and scarcely ever failed to inspire a sincere attachment in the breast of those who listened to him.

  Even we, who knew him only in his gaunt and sad decline, can easily imagine that at twenty-six he must have been an engaging, attractive man. Like most of his race, he was rather slender, but very erect, with a good deal of dignity and some grace in his carriage and demeanor. His eyes were always remarkably fine and brilliant. He had a well-developed and strongly set nose, cheek-bones high, and cheeks rather sunken. His mouth was large, and could never have been a comely feature. His early portraits show his hair erect on his forehead, as we all remember it, unlike Jackson, whose hair at forty still fell low over his forehead. His voice could never have been melodious, but it was always powerful. At every period of his life, his manners, when in company with his inferiors in age or standing, were extremely agreeable, even fascinating.

  Life is not only “stranger than fiction,” but frequently also more tragical than any tragedy ever conceived by the most fervid imagination. Often in these tragedies of life there is not one drop of blood to make us shudder, nor a single event to compel the tears into the eye. A man endowed with an intellect far above the average, impelled by a high-soaring ambition, untainted by any petty or ignoble passion, and guided by a character of sterling firmness and more than common purity, yet, with fatal illusion, devoting all his mental powers, all his moral energy and the whole force of his iron will to the service of a doomed and unholy cause, and at last sinking into the grave in the very moment when, under the weight of the top-stone, the towering pillars of the temple of his impure idol are rent to their very base,—can anything more tragical be conceived?

  Mr. Calhoun was to me the guiding star in the political firmament and I was honored by him with such confidence as made our intercourse not only instructive, but of enduring love.

  During a long and active life; amid fierce differences of thought on questions of grave and of burning interest, his strong views were never withheld, nor were the honesty and sincerity of his convictions ever questioned, and the widest dissent from his opinions was ever attended with the knowledge of the sincerity and the purity in which they were entertained, and with an appreciation of the force, with which they were maintained.

  He was a man of bold temper, of intense earnestness, and of deep convictions,—convictions so strong as to have “all the force of passions.” Such a man must needs antagonize where he could not convince. But in the retirement of home and among friends and neighbors other and more attractive elements appear…. He seldom quoted books or the opinions of others. A rapid reader, he would absorb the congenial thoughts of an author and reject whatever did not assimilate with his own mental habits. His mind always seemed to work from within, by spontaneous impulse, not by external influences, either educational, social, or political. It drove on its rapid way like some mighty automatic engine, without friction, without noise, apparently without ever stopping for fuel or water. Its own ardor generated heat enough to sustain the rapid motion. No other mind has ever appeared to me so original, so full, so self-reliant. Others I have since met of more culture and more learning; but the streams that flowed from their lips, however copious, always suggested a well-filled reservoir.

Oratory

  The eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner in which he exhibited his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intellectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustrations, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his manner.

  Speaking with aggressive aspect, flashing eye, rapid action and enunciation, unadorned argument, eccentricity of judgment, unbounded love of rule; impatient, precipitate in ambition, kind in temper; with conception, perception, and demonstration, quick and clear; with logical precision arguing paradoxes, and carrying home conviction beyond rhetorical illustration; his own impressions so intense, as to discredit, scarcely to listen to any other suggestions.

  Although Calhoun was an orator who cannot be overlooked in any account of American oratory his mind was of the order that belongs preëminently to statecraft. He made great speeches, but they were great in the closeness of their reasoning and the plainness of their propositions, coupled at times with an impassioned delivery, oftener with a severity and dignity of manner which men respected, but over which they did not go wild with enthusiasm nor drift far from their well-formed judgments. Accepting his premises it was difficult to escape from the conclusions of his rigid logic. Whatever the sense of the speaker’s profound sincerity and earnestness could accomplish was secured by the unfaltering devotion to his convictions and his unwavering persistence in imparting them to those who could not help listening with respect, though they might be far from accepting the legitimate results of his processes.

General

  Few men have exerted a more powerful and controlling sway over the opinions of vast masses of men, than Mr. Calhoun, for his views on several topics coincided with those of the great majority of the Southern people; and he was known to be inflexibly honest and true, and eminently reliable. No man of his faith ever doubted that leader any more than his creed. As a statesman, he was full of forecast, acute in judgment, and comprehensive in his general views. He was eminently conservative in many things, and by precept and example, recommended “masterly inactivity” as preferable to mere impulsive and effervescent movements.

  The style of John C. Calhoun was terse and condensed, and his eloquence, though sometimes impassioned, was always severe. He had great skill as a dialectician and remarkable power of analysis, and his works will have permanent place in American literature.

  Mr. Calhoun was a debater of signal power, none being his equal upon the floor of the Senate, except Webster and Clay. It was his lot to take part in the affairs of the country for many years, and it was always a prominent part. He was earnestly devoted to what he believed to be for the prosperity of his State and section. His love for the Union, and fealty to it, was subordinate to his allegiance to his State. Much might be written concerning the influence of his teachings upon the subsequent history of the country, but it would extend this brief sketch beyond its intended limits, and would be, even then, unsatisfactory to those who might desire to make a careful study of the subject.

  Calhoun, from his mistaken point of view, was as loyal to the idea of Right as was Webster; his private character was higher, and his public career less open to charges of selfish ambition. In ability he was undoubtedly inferior to the great Massachusetts statesman, but among all the politicians and orators of the Southern States he was easily the leader.

  He had known that his end was near, and, as a dying bequest to the Union that he loved, had spent a few months that other men would have devoted to rest, in composing his “Disquisition on Government,” and his “Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.” Of these two treatises it will be sufficient to say, that they are in many respects the most remarkable political documents the student of American history is called upon to read. He must read them if he wishes to get a full and well-rounded view of Calhoun’s constitutional theories, although it is at once plain that all their important points are covered in the better known speeches. It is to the “Disquisition” that we must go for the famous praise of the Constitution of Poland, as well as for the fullest explanation of the doctrine of the concurrent majority. The reader must, however, be warned that it is not safe to approach these books unless he has thoroughly disabused his mind of the notion that sovereignty can really be divided and a government founded on compact. If one start with these notions in one’s head, the sure grip of Calhoun’s logic will end by making one a nullifier or a lunatic.