"John C. Calhoun: The man who Started the Civil War" Topic

"John C. Calhoun, the South's recognized intellectual and political leader from the 1820s until his death in 1850, devoted much of his remarkable intellectual energy to defending slavery. He developed a two-point defense. One was a political theory that the rights of a minority section — in particular, the South — needed special protecting in the federal union. The second was an argument that presented slavery as an institution that benefited all involved.

Calhoun's commitment to those two points and his efforts to develop them to the fullest would assign him a unique role in American history as the moral, political, and spiritual voice of Southern separatism. Despite the fact that he never wanted the South to break away from the United States as it would a decade after his death, his words and life's work made him the father of secession. In a very real way, he started the American Civil War.

Born in 1782 in upcountry South Carolina, Calhoun grew up during the boom in the area's cotton economy. The son of a successful farmer who served in public office, Calhoun went to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1801 to attend Yale College. After graduating, he attended the Litchfield Law School, also in Connecticut, and studied under Tapping Reeve, an outspoken supporter of a strong federal government. Seven years after Calhoun's initial departure from South Carolina, he returned home, where he soon inherited his father's substantial land and slave holdings and won election to the U.S. Congress in 1810.

Ironically, when Calhoun, the future champion of states' rights and secession, arrived in Washington, he was an ardent federalist like his former law professor. He aligned himself with the federalist faction of the Republican party led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky. He also became a prominent member of the party's War Hawk faction, which pushed President James Madison's administration to fight the War of 1812, the nation's second war with Great Britain. When the fighting ended in 1815, Calhoun championed a protective national tariff on imports, a measure he hoped would foster both Southern and Northern industrial development. After the War of 1812, Congress began to consider improving the young republic's infrastructure. Calhoun enthusiastically supported plans to spend federal money, urging Congress to ‘bind the Republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals…. Let us conquer space…. We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.'…"
More here
link

Ammicalement
Armand

The man who Started the Civil War

And for that, may he burn in hell forever.

Absolving Lincoln in lieu of John C. Calhoun is thankfully one attempt to rewrite history that will not survive the test of time. We may not like the other way people live or believe but that isn't an invitation to convert them to our thinking, inflict harm upon them to gain compliance or deny them the freewill to live the way they want.

Interesting that he was "aligned with the federalist faction of the Republican party" in 1812 when the Republican party didn't even exist for another 40+ years. In fact the Republicn party didn't exist until after Calhoun was dead.

> Absolving Lincoln in lieu of John C. Calhoun is thankfully one attempt to rewrite history that will not survive the test of time. We may not like the other way people live or believe but that isn't an invitation to convert them to our thinking, inflict harm upon them to gain compliance or deny them the freewill to live the way they want.

Did you write all of that with a straight face?

The Pennisular War in 15mm. Man I would accept your point if the South had not imposed the Fugitive Slave acts on the North. That shows clearly what the Genteel Masters (to use GOT terms) thought about letting other people live as they wish.

I see Calhoun as a tragic figure. A powerful intellect, perhaps one of the strongest in american history, who slaved his mind to a unworthy goal, the defense of chattel slavery as a cultural right.

Anyway both of you are wrong. The Civil War was started by the Fire-Eaters, and it is an eternal shame for this country that in the pursuit of national reconciliation after the war, they were not hanged. Indeed some of them went on to have quite ok to good careers in business and politics.Those where the criminals and they should had died a criminals death.

Did you write all of that with a straight face?

If he did, he's definitely swallowed the Moonlight and Magnolias myth hook, line, and sinker. And he's not the only TMPer who has.

I have no problem with them thinking slavery was good and great. Whatever, people can believe what they want. The broadness of the movement of slaves escaping, the size of the underground railroad, and slave revolts all point the lie of their beliefs.

What I have a big issue with is their pretensions of innocence and victim-hood in the events that led to the war. The Fugitive Slave acts were aggression, bringing the slavers whip into sleepy New England towns. They cannot claim innocence of that. If the Genteel Masters were incompetent in keeping their "property" in the South, they had no moral right to come seeking it in places that had abolished slavery for decades. Maybe they should had funded a more competent police force to prevent "theft", or their "property" running away. And that was part and parcel of the process that led to civil war.

Anyway good riddance. The Acts made the civil war possible, and they imposed them, so they got what they had sought.

"Did you write all of that with a straight face?"

Such a witty retort, but I suppose treating such matters with a light heart passes for humor in some circles. I won't bother to inquire as to your position on the slaughter of American Indians as I can likely draw my own conclusion of your support.

You are either a master at deadpan or truly believe that last sentence about letting others live the way they want to live is not totally bogus when referring to slave holding.

it was not slave holding for them. It was private "property". Property got no rights. Or something along those lines. Well they went after their "property" and kicked a hornets nest.

@Dynaman8789,

Much of the world's problems result from people trying to tell someone else how to live (like your assertion). We don't have to support slavery or pretend it is economically justified, but committing/condoning violence to force your belief on someone else doesn't give you any moral high ground. How you miss that disconnect is astonishing.

Perhaps the South should not have fired first then?

Or are you going to say the union fired the first shot now too?

Much of the world's problems result from people trying to tell someone else how to live (like your assertion).

You mean, like, enslaving another human being and forcing him to work by torturing him? Control doesn't get much more total than that.

Much of the worlds problems arise from nightmarish lifestyles and people that say none of our concern (like your assertion). Ofcourse the South made it the Norths concern with the fugitive slave acts.

How you miss that disconnect is astonishing.

And how you miss YOUR OWN disconnect is even more astonishing.

"Perhaps the South should not have fired first then?

Or are you going to say the union fired the first shot now too?"

Nope, not saying that. Surely you aren't arguing the first shot is the real and only cause for the war? But back to the discussion… I don't think many of you are giving it enough consideration: was it all worth 700,000 dead and thousands of amputees?

Remember, ending slavery didn't happen in a vacuum. Going around killing and burning homes to prove you're right, isn't convincing. Slavery is wrong but fighting a wrong with another wrong doesn't then make you any better of a person. I know jpatten2 would disagree with that view as he pounds his chest, but I won't threaten violence to convince him of the error of his ways. See the difference?

I know we may not see eye to eye with every point but can we agree there was perhaps a better way than hundreds of thousands of dead Americans and generations of animosity?

There was a better way and the CSA is entirely to blame for it not being done. I think I'm done here so feel free to have the last word.

ThePeninsularWarin15mm

Sure there was a better way. The South staying in the USA and deciding to accept a gradual compensated emancipation plan. Hell even something like the Golden Law in Brazil. But no, they decided on another way. It was they that broke off first. Not the USA.

You delude yourself if you think the CSA would had stayed at peace long with the USA. Your 700000 would had died anyway as the CSA would try to impose some interstate version of the fugitive slave act on the USA. As long as the USA was anti-slavery, and the separation of the South would had meant the end of slavery in the north where it was left over, thousands of slaves would try to escape North, as they did during the Civil War. And anyway war would had happened over the border states. The South I remind you invaded some of them.

The thought that the very same people behind the hideous fugitive slave acts would just stand there and let their "peculiar" institution whittle away via the underground railroad is ludicrous. From the moment the South tied its independence to the perpetuation of slavery, war was inevitable. The slave system could not survive with a free North, now not bound by the chains of southern influence in goverment or the fugitive slave act. They would either have to force the USA to return escaped slaves, or they would have to open the slave trade again. War was inevitable from the moment that the South decided to leave politics within the framework of the US. Calhoun did help fray that framework, and in that sense does bear responsibility.

Slavery could had ended peacefully, and in manner that would had cushioned the shock for the South. The South decided to put out that option. Lincoln, that most unfairly attacked of people, was willing to let the south keep slavery as long as it gave up the expansion to the West. Hell he was even willing to keep some form of the fugitive slave acts. That was the best deal the south could get in light of the fact that it did not lord over the USA as it had done from 1800 to 1850. They turned it down. They first said, well we do not like the game anymore since we do not control it. They, they, they.

So go on telling your Lost Cause fairy-tales. History stands judge. The South could had helped end slavery in a way that would had been less traumatic for the country. It decided to leave the country and keep the slave system, instead of taking some brave decisions or acting like a bloody adult. The Slave System would not survive absent some way of forcing the US to return escaped slaves, or a return to the slave trade. War was inevitable. Lincoln offered them the best deal the North could and they turned it down in a pique of resentment for not ruling over the rest of the US like they had done from 1800-1850. They were not innocent, they were not magnanimous, and they damn well were not blameless.

As for was it worth it? That can be only answered by the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, Black and White, who shed their blood in the cause of Union and Abolition.

A better question is whether the whole CSA enterprise was worth it for the majority of the southerners. Was it worth leaving the US and risking war mainly to maintain the institution of slavery? Yes I know it was for most of them over states rights, but the main right in question was the expansion and maintenance of slavery. So was it worth going to war over the right to maintain and expand the institution of slavery on North America and Mexico?

Was it worth leaving a country they had dominated for 50-60 years, just because that dominance had come to an end and they would have to accommodate the new majority, just as North England had to accommodate the South in the past? Were 700.000 dead worth the plantations of Virginia and Georgia? Where they worth the Fugitive Slave Acts? Were they worth the expansion of slavery into the West? Were they worth the mad schemes of Fire Eaters for a slave empire in Mexico and the Caribbean? Was it worth killing people in Kansas and Missouri in the name of slavery? Those people where not killed in the name of any states rights. They were killed over slavery, simple as that. They were killed long before Fort Sumter.

The slavers started it ThePennisularWarin15mm. From Bloody Kansas and Missouri. You tell me if it was worth it for the rest of the south.

You tell me.

"I know jpatten2 would disagree with that view as he pounds his chest, but I won't threaten violence to convince him of the error of his ways. See the difference?"

Would you do that if jpattern2 was raping a woman in front of you because it is his "property"? Would you do that if he was grabbing the woman's children and selling them off because it is his "property"?Would you do that if jpattern2 demanded with a court order that you ride out with him and hunt down a human being because it was his "property"? These are not abstract questions, but the very soul of the matter.

I know jpatten2 would disagree with that view as he pounds his chest, but I won't threaten violence to convince him of the error of his ways. See the difference?

Pounding my chest? Well, bless your little heart!

I have never, and would never, threatened violence to convince someone of the error of his or her ways. Not even you.

I haven't even been in a fistfight since the 9th grade. The school bully started that one, and he lost.

Kind of like the South lost the Civil War.

Might doesn't make right. But I recognize that sometimes might is needed to right a wrong.

KTravlos has said everything else that needs to be said on the subject.

The British did successfully end slavery without insurrection. Whether that was possible in the US given the nature of Southern society is difficult to say. Reading Kevin Phillip's "The Cousin's War" suggests not.

Calhoun's legacy is still effecting of all places Minneapolis. In 1817 as Secretary of War in 1817 he ordered the establishing of Ft Snelling at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

One of the lakes in Minneapolis was named in his honour by the survey team and this was subsequently adopted by the city. In view of his legacy they have been calls for the lake to be renamed:

link

link

What surprises me, as a transplant to the US is the degree to which the Civil War remains a living influence on the Southern States. As William Faulkener put it:

"It's all now you see. Yesterday wont be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed even a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim." ― Intruder in the Dust

Faulkner doesn't seem to be held in as high regard now as in years past, but I still crack open The Reivers or Light In August or The Bear when the mood strikes.

And he was absolutely right that, "It's all now you see," still, for many in the South (and sympathizers elsewhere).

It's funny, prior to moving to the states I spent about twelve months reading a lot of American literature and commentary; Wolfe, Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Melville, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Faulkener, and H. L. Menchken. Of all these authors the latter two have made the biggest impression on me.

Let me pile a bit more. In many ways the Lost Cause is very similar to the Nippon Kaigi organisation in Japan (read up on it, it is important after the last election, it will be the reason the PRC and USA will become very good friends).

Fundamentally both organisations reject mainstream history of their political models (CSA and Imperial Japan during the 1930S-1940s period). Both have their own historiography and refuse outside views. Both see their model states as virtuous, even benevolent powers, that were legally and morally justified in all they did. Both reject any attribution of negativity to their culture-actions.

Both believe that had their models succeeded in their goals the world would be better.

In the case of the Lost Cause there is this belief that an independent CSA would have an excellent relationship with the USA, and would abolish slavery.

I have already nobbed to some of the reasons why the CSA would have had a terrible relationship to the USA, and probably had to fight a war early on. There are more

If war does not happen in 1861, it might in 1862 due to the border states issue and expansion to the west. If not in 1862 than in 1864 either due to the victory in the US election of a hardliner (Lincoln would lose), or due to CSA invasion of Mexico. If not 1864, then 1868-1870 is another date of possible war as the Fire-Eaters might decide to take advantage of the collapse of the Spanish monarchy to take over Cuba. If not then then at some point in the 1870s when Virginia and Georgia, or Arkansas decide to secede because they do not consider slavery worth it anymore or want to be able to tap the protectionist US market. In all probability the CSA would never let that happen and a civil war, and USA intervention, are likely.

On the second question the CSA would have a hard time abolishing slavery and surviving.

1) It could not abolish slavery legally, nor could any state. That was a none-amendable clause. You would have to abolish the CSA first, have a constitutional convention and re-invent the state. If there was a constitutional convention, that would probably mean the loss of at least 2, if not more states. So no CSA goverment would have an incentive to risk it.

2) Slavery made money. The Slavery practiced in the south by the 1860s was well connected to the world capitalist system. As long as they had slaves their cotton industry could compete with the Indian and Egyptian ones (both of which used large amounts of de facto slaves). Abolishing slavery made no economic sense.

3) By the 1860s thanks to Calhoun and his imitators, slavery was seen as a cultural good more than a economic one. Here is the thing with culture. It takes a lot of damn work to change it. Mali had slavery up to 2010 (or something), legally. Because it was considered a key part of Mali culture. For these Genteel Masters slavery was a key cultural characteristic. It was part and parcel of their identity. They would not abolish it if it even did not make sense economically.

No, Slavery would had ended with either the re-conquest of the CSA by the USA after a CSA civil war, when parts of Georgia, Arkansas and Virginia tried to secede , or by a treaty after such a war. Your 700000 would had died anyway.