John Caldwell Calhoun

Male

March 18, 1782

March 31, 1850

Abbeville, SC

Long Crane, SC
Pendleton, SC
Washington, District of Columbia

Floride Bonneau Calhoun (January 1811)

John C. Calhoun was born in South Carolina, March 18, 1782. He spent his youth and formative education in South Carolina and moved north to attend Yale, graduating in 1804. Calhoun attended the Litchfield Law School from July 1805-July 1806. He returned to South Carolina where he read law with Henry William DeSaussure, who had written a letter of introduction to Benjamin Tallmadge presenting Calhoun, who intended to study with Reeve. Calhoun was admitted to the bar in 1807.

He was elected a member of the South Carolina state house of representatives for a year 1808-1809, running as a Democratic Republican. In 1810, Calhoun wrote a letter of introduction to Tapping Reeve informing him that William Martin proposed to attend his "much valued" Law School. Calhoun provided character ...information and went on to thank Reeve for the advantages derived from his instruction.

From 1811-1817, Calhoun served in Congress. While there, he supported Speaker of the House Henry Clay in backing an act of war against Great Britain in 1812 along with other southern 'warhawks.' Following the war, aware of how close the country had come to defeat, Calhoun maintained an interest in the military. He sought to maintain a powerful military, opposing troop reductions and helping to establish two more military academies in the country.

President James Monroe appointed Calhoun the Secretary of War, a post he filled from 1817-1825. In 1820, he wrote a letter of witness and traveled to appear in court to support the pension claim of a Litchfield Revolutionary War veteran, Daniel Fenn. As Secretary of War, Calhoun also supported Monroe's plan to resettle all Native Americans west of the Mississippi River, though many refused to go.

Calhoun made his next bold political move in 1824, when he ran in the presidential elections and he was chosen Vice President of the United States under President John Quincy Adams. Calhoun's politics opposed that of Quincy Adams.

Four years later, Calhoun was reelected Vice President of the United States (in 1828) under President Andrew Jackson, serving from March 4, 1825 to December 28, 1832. Calhoun's politics aligned in many ways with Jackson's, and he was able to secure funding to force western relocation of remaining Native American Peoples, the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw People.

Tensions arose in 1831 when Calhoun's wife, Floride, began the "Petticoat War" that divided the Jackson cabinet around a societal scandal. Calhoun clashed with President Jackson and many members of the president's cabinet for over a year. Eventually the impasse was broken by Martin Van Buren, but the damage to Calhoun's relationship with Jackson was permanent.

One of the other major differences the two had, however, was over slavery and the right of states to nullify federal laws. Calhoun believed that states could nullify federal tariffs if they chose. In 1828, he authored an essay titled "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest" in which he argued that states could veto any federal law that encroached on the power of the state. In 1832, this theory was questioned through the Nullification Crisis. Calhoun opposed a protective tariff (called the Tariff of Abominations) that would benefit the industrial North while compromising the slave-holding South. Calhoun was eventually mollified with the creation of the Compromise Tariff by Henry Clay that lowered the tariff. This disagreement encouraged Calhoun to resign from office and pursue a career in the Senate.

Calhoun was reelected to the Senate for a full decade, until stepping down on March 3, 1843. He attempted another presidential bid, but once again failed.

President John Tyler appointed Calhoun the Secretary of State from 1844-1845 but, once again, he was elected to fill a vacancy in the Senate. In these Senate years, Calhoun was an active, important, and controversial figure. He opposed the Mexican-American War, as he believed that an American victory would unbalance the union. Following the war, the extension of slavery was a contested topic and deeply divided the government. This extended to the eventual admission of California as a free state, which Calhoun also opposed.

He served in the Senate until his death in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1850. In his last address to the Senate, a few weeks before his death and already greatly weakened by tuberculosis, Calhoun warned that the unless slavery was permanently and thoroughly protected by the government, the Union could not survive. At the time of his death, census data indicates that 75 individuals were enslaved at Calhoun's plantation, Fort Hill.
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1805-1806

Graduated from Yale College in 1804.

Lawyer; Political Office

South Carolina in 1807

Democrat; Nullifier; Democratic Republican

U.S. Representative (SC) 1811-1818
Secretary of War 1817-1825
Vice-President 1824-1832
U.S. Senator (SC) 1832-1850
Secretary of State 1844-1845

Chairman of the Committee on Finance from 1845-1846.

State Representative (SC) 1808-1809

Litchfield County Bar Association Records, 1805, Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library, Litchfield Historical Society.

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School, Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849, 5.

Calhoun, John C. to Tapping ReeveLitchfield Law School Collection Series 1, Subseries 3, Folder 1. Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library, Litchfield Historical Society

Hatfield, Mark O. Vice Presidents of the United States: John C. Calhoun (1825 - 1832). Reprinted from Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789 - 1993. Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Offices, 1997. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/john_calhoun.pdf

History.com, "John C. Calhoun." http://www.history.com/topics/john-c-calhoun

O'Neall, John Belton. Biographical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of South Carolina, Vol. 1. Reprint Co., 1975.

The Negro In American History, Vol. 3. Ency. Brit. Ed Corp, 1969.

Meigs, William M. The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun. The Neale Publishing Company: New York, 1917.

Salley, A. S. (Alexander Samuel), The Calhoun family of South Carolina,... 1906. Accessed at https://archive.org/details/calhounfamilyofs00lcsall/page/22/mode/2up?q=caldwell January 19, 2024.
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