My Amazon Review of Robert Elder's "Calhoun: American Heretic"

 

 Slavery’s Theoretician

 

John C. Calhoun was brilliant and was one of America’s most dominant politicians for nearly four decades serving as congressman, senator, vice-president under two presidents, Secretary of War, Secretary of State and sought the presidency on several occasions. Unfortunately, he used much of his brilliance in cause of slavery. Baylor University history professor Robert Elder tells the story of his life with nuance and great detail. Unfortunately for the lay reader it 656-page length is a bit much.

 

Calhoun was born in 1782 in South Carolina’s up-country and was inculcated in his slave-oriented society. Unlike most of his brethren he goes north to Yale for his education and after returning to South Carolina he becomes one of the state’s leading politicians. After his election to Congress in 1810 be joins forces with Henry Clay to become a leader in the war hawk faction that leads the U.S. into the War of 1812.

 

His alliance with Clay continues after the war and he becomes an initial supporter of Clay’s American System. He supports the establishment of a national bank, the tariff, and a program of internal improvements. However, the coming of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 he breaks with Clay as the fight over tariffs becomes a proxy war over slavery. By 1832 he triggers the Nullification Crisis where South Carolina sought to overturn the Tariff of 1828. It almost came to war, but Clay came up with a compromise.

 

Calhoun believed the United States to be a compact of sovereign states with each or with a substantial minority having the right to nullify federal legislation. He called his theory “concurrent majority”. He basically sought a minority veto over policy. To be sure part of it was based in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 authored by Madison and Jefferson in opposition to federal power. That theory was expounded 160 years later by civil rights activist Lani Guinier was nominated to be an assistant attorney general under Bill Clinton. She supported a minority veto over majoritarian rule. Calhoun was pro-union, but only on southern terms.

 

Calhoun viewed slavery as a positive good. To him it guaranteed equality among whites thereby dampening the class struggle between white factory workers and their employers. After all South Carolina was way ahead of the rest of the country in promoting universal suffrage for white males. In a way he was a Jacksonian ahead of his times.

 

To Calhoun America’s original sin was not slavery, but rather the “all men are created equal” line in the Declaration of Independence. This completely undercut his support of slavery and further although Elder does not mention it the preamble to the Constitution begins with “We the people...” not “We the states…”

 

As an international statesman Calhoun had a hand in drafting the Monroe Doctrine in 1820 and avoided war with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory in 1845. He actually opposed the Mexican War because he believed President Polk usurped the power of Congress in declaring a state of war existed between the U.S. and Mexico. Further his free trade ideas became conventional wisdom in the second half of the 20th century.

 

Elder goes into great deal about Calhoun’s family life. His wife Floride and her dozen pregnancies and his relationship with his daughter Anna who became his intellectual confidante. The last a rarity in that era. The reader will learn much about America and Calhoun in this book, but I caution it is long.

For the full Amazon URL see: Slavery's Theoretician (amazon.com)

 

My Amazon Review of H.W. Brands' "Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster"

When Giants Roamed the Halls of Congress

University of Texas history professor H.W. Brands has written a biography of the three giants who dominated Congress in the first half of the 19^th Century, namely Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster. All three were great intellects and orators who had a common dislike, for different reasons, of President Andrew Jackson.

Clay comes on the scene in 1811 where in his first term he becomes Speaker of the House. He and Calhoun would join together as the leading “war hawks” and push Madison into war against England. They would later split over the issues of tariffs, slavery and most important, the preservation of the Union. Clay would become the author of the American System based on protective tariffs, internal improvements and a national bank which made him the true heir to Alexander Hamilton. In 1820 he would put together the Missouri Compromise which delayed the ultimate reckoning of the slavery issue and thereby allowed the continued development of a growing America.

Calhoun, who served as vice-president to both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, quite a feat in its own right, became the tribune of the South. He fought tariffs, championed slavery and the ability of states to nullify federal laws they opposed which offered the theoretical basis for secession.

Webster had a brilliant career as a lawyer where he was victorious in such major Supreme Court cases as McCulloch v. Maryland, Dartmouth College and Gibbons v. Ogden. Although he is most remembered for his “Union, now and forever” speech in his Reply to Hayne, he supported New England secession during the War of 1812.

In 1850 all three of them, now all over 70, came together in the great debate over the admission of California into the Union as a free state, the treatment of fugitive slaves and the extension of slavery into the New Mexico Territory. The end result of the debate was yet another successful Clay compromise. And it was here where Webster in order to save the Union bent over backwards against his abolitionist constituency, on the issues of fugitive slaves and slavery in the New Mexico Territory, to agree with Clay. Oh to be in the Senate Gallery to hear the debate. The next best thing is reading Brands’ account. All three would be dead within two years.

Brands brings to life these three great personalities as they dominated the Congress for 40 years. It is history at its best. I only wish our current Congress had at least one Clay or a Webster and unfortunately too much of the nullification spirit of John Calhoun is alive and well in both parties today.

The full Amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JBQPK21E3ID1/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

President Trump: A New Age of Jackson?

President Trump, I never thought I would be saying it, but here we are. President Trump's inaugural address was not that of a traditional Republican; it was Jacksonian in style and substance with a flat out attack on the D.C. establishment of both parties. It was protectionist and nationalist. Gone was the outspoken internationalism of President Obama. He was speaking to his base, and unlike former inaugurals it was more a campaign speech than being broad and unifying. But then again Andrew Jackson's inaugural was far from unifying and it signaled a new age. 

The one fly in the Jacksonian ointment is that the new administration is populated with billionaires and Wall Street types. Whether this administration delivers to its populist base remains to be seen. Furthermore if Trump is going to govern the way he campaigned the stock market will be littered with a series of disappointments.

Nevertheless my best guess is that in four years time his fervent supporters will be disappointed and his critics worst fears will not be realized. Meantime I won't be surprised to see a foreign policy crisis emerge within his first 100 days. Stay tuned.

Reversals of Fortune

With the polls now indicating a tight race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a far cry from the blowout predicted for Clinton two months ago, the focus will now turn to the July conventions. Where in early April it appeared that the Republicans were on the road to suicide, it now appears that the Democratic Convention will be far more raucous. To the chagrin of the Clinton's, it now appears that Bernie is a bitter-ender. After all Bernie Sanders, despite his Jewish background, is really a member of The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage. Simply put, Bernie is looking for a fight. My guess as the Republicans line up for Trump, the Democrats will make their Nevada convention look like a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

The other reversal of fortune is that while the Obama Administration was busy in taking Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democratic Party, off the $20 bill a new Jacksonian was on the rise in the person Donald Trump. Recall that Jackson was the richest man in Tennessee, believed in democracy for white Americans only, supported the "tariff of abominations," removed the Cherokee Nation from Georgia and Tennessee and though his foreign policy was isolationist he believed that when attacked the U.S. should use the full might of its military to defeat the attacker. This sounds awfully like The Donald.

I know it is early and there will be more reversals, but we are living in an extraordinary political year where the two leading candidates are disliked by a majority of voters, myself included. To mix metaphors batten down the hatches and fasten your seat belts!