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John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)
Born in South Carolina, John C. Calhoun attended Yale College. There he studied with President Timothy Dwight, who advocated that New England secede from the United States rather than remain in a union that permitted slavery. Although Calhoun disagreed with Dwight on many issues, establishing better protection for minority rights became his lifelong quest.
Calhoun attended the Tapping Reeve Law School in Connecticut and was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807. He soon entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1810. He joined the War Hawks in Congress and was active in organizing preparations for the War of 1812. His experience in organizing military preparations and reforming the army and navy led President James Monroe to name him Secretary of War in 1817.
Calhoun initially sought the presidency in the 1824 election, but when it became clear he would not win he focused his efforts on the vice presidency. He was the running mate of both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and although they divided the vote for president, Calhoun was elected vice president by a majority of the electoral college. He served one term under Adams, then jumped to Jackson’s presidential ticket for the next election. Jackson’s victory in 1828 gave Calhoun a second term as vice president. Once again, he found himself opposed to the President’s policies. This time, he chose to resign three months before his term ended, which allowed him to take his seat as a newly-elected Senator in December 1832 rather than wait for his term as Vice President to expire the following March. He cast 31 tie-breaking votes as Vice President, a record that lasted until Kamala Harris broke it in 2023.
Calhoun continued to serve in the Senate until 1843, when he resigned to run for president. When that effort failed, he accepted an appointment as Secretary of State for one year. He returned to the Senate in 1845, where he served until he died in 1850.
Disquisition on Government (1848)
Calhoun believed that constitutional democracy was flawed because it allowed a majority to trample on the interests of minorities. While popular suffrage was the most important check on government, it did not protect all major interest groups against adverse legislative action. Calhoun promoted the doctrine of concurrent majorities, which allowed interest groups to veto policies that they believed would harm their group. This was accomplished through the interposition of what Calhoun called a constitutional “organism,” the key feature of his political theory. Calhoun did not specify exactly which interest groups would be entitled to a veto, but undoubtedly one of them was plantation owners (who owned slaves). In the absence of such an organism, Calhoun promoted the doctrine of nullification, under which individual states could refuse to enforce federal policies (such as the tariff) whenever they believed those policies would harm their interests.
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