Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/113

 CALHOUN.

CALHOUN.

CALHOUN, John Caldwell, statesman, was born in Abbeville district, S. C, March 18, 1782; son of Patrick and Martha (Caldwell) Calhoun. Patrick came to America with his fatlier. James Calhoun, when six years old. They left Ireland

in 1731, located in Pennsylva- nia, removed to the banks of the Kanawa in Vir- ginia and after Braddock's de- feat, being ■fiii OC.P cALHouAj MAAjsioAi. driven by the

Indians, he with his sons settled in South Caro- lina in 1756 and established Calhoun settlement in what became Abbeville district. The Cal- houns and Caldwells were both of the Presby terian faith. His father was a surveyor by pro- fession. He was prepared for college at the. academy of his brother-in-law. Dr. Waddell, a Presbyterian clergyman, and in 1802 entered Yale college, where he was graduated with distinc- tion in 1804. He studied in a law office in Charleston. S. C, and was graduated at the law school, Litchfield, Conn. He was admitted to the bar in 1807, and practised his profession at Abbeville, S. C, where he soon rose to the first grade of professional eminence. In 1808 he was elected to the state legislature, and an address which he made to the people of the district of Abbeville, denouncing the British outrages upon the United States frigate Chesapeake, resulted in his election as a representative to the 12th Congress, where he took his seat, Nov. 4, 1811, and was named by Speaker Clay for second place upon the committee on foreign relations. The genius of Calhoun admirably fitted him to act as a leader in the crisis through which the country was then passing. The threatening clouds of war had long shadowed the councils of the na- tion; the Congress had been divided for three or four years in regard to the policy to be pursued in dealing with Great Britain, and it was owing to his attitude on this question that, at the first meeting of the committee on foreign relations, Mr. Calhoun was chosen chairman, a position which, next to that of speaker, was the most im- portant in the house of representatives. On Nov. 29, 1811, the committee submitted its report, embodying six resolutions in favor of declaring war with Great Britain, Mr. Callioun having written the report, one clause of which read: "The period has arrived when, in the opinion of j'our committee, it is the .sacred duty of Congress to call forth the patriotism of the country," and on Dec. 12, 1811, Mr. Calhoun made his first speech in Congress, defending the resolutions, refuting the arguments of John

Randolph, the dissentient member of the com- mittee, and declaring '" a sense of national in- ferioritj' the greatest of political evils."' He recommended the embargo of sixty days laid u}X)n all shipping by President Madison, and earnestly advocated the repeal of the non- importation act, the increase of the navy, the tariff of 1816, the bank biU and the building of a system of canals and post roads, and of other internal improvements, which would have, in his opinion, the effect of nationalizing the Union. In 1817 he was appointed secretary of M-ar by President Monroe, and he served through both terms, his conduct of the war department evincing his administrative capacity. In 1824 Mr. Calhoun's name was mentioned as a possi- ble candidate for the presidency, but the promi- nence of General Jackson, the opposition candi- date, whose war exploits were fresh in the minds of a gratified nation, induced the friends of Mr. Calhoun to place his name upon the list as a vice-presidential candidate, and upon his election as vice-president he removed liLs family to Pendleton district in South Carolina, where his wife had inherited an estate known as Fort HiU, and here he resided until his death. During the administration of John Quincy Adams, Mr. Calhoun, though prevented by his office from being an active, was an indirect supporter of the- opposition, and upon the nomination of General Jackson as President in 1828 he was placed on the same ticket as vice-president. He became the head of the Free Trade party, which was at this time acquiring prominence, the cotton states universally being in favor of that policy, and the manufacturing .states as persistently op- posed to it. In the STimmer of 1828 he embodied what afterwards became known as the doctrine of nullification, or state rights, in an elaborate paper, which, being put into the hands of a com- mittee of the South Carolina legislature, was ordered to be printed, and became known as "The South Carolina exposition." He claimed that each state of the Union had the power to decide for it.self in respect to the constitution- ality of any federal law, and to resist its enforce- ment within the state if the people regarded it as unconstitutional. He apprehended more dan- ger to the Union from consolidation of power than from assertion of state rights. These proposed measures were brought to the notice of the United States senate by Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, and opposed bj- Mr. Webster in what became an historic debate. In the meantime, disclosures made to President Jackson about the part taken by Mr. Calhoun in the matter of the Seminole war while in President Monroe's cabinet, led to Mr. Calhoun's resignation from the vice-presidency to take the seat in the senate