John C. Calhoun: The Starter of the Civil War
If one person could be called the instigator of the Civil War, it was John C. Calhoun -- Unknown.
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. Slavery was the foundation of the antebellum South. More than any other characteristic, it defined Southern social, political, and cultural life. It also unified the South as a section distinct from the rest of the nation. 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. John C. 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.
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 hom...
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... American political thought -- if only for this irony: while he fought to protect the Southern minority's rights and interests from the Northern majority, he felt free to subordinate the rights of the African American minority to the interests of the South's white majority. After Calhoun's death on March 31, 1850, one of his greatest foes, U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, sternly rebuked an associate who suggested that he honor Calhoun with a eulogy in Congress. "He is not dead, sir -- he is not dead," remarked Benton, a staunch Unionist. "There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines. (Addressed to John C. Calhoun pg. 347 409)" A decade later, a bloody civil war would prove Benton was right.
Bibliography
www.en.wikipedia.org
www.bioguide.congress.gov
Wiltse pg. 1,944 vol. 1
Addressed to John C. Calhoun pg. 347 409
The United States began to dissatisfy some of its citizens and so the concerns of sectionalism, or the split of the country began to arise. There was a continuous riff between the south and the north over a few issues, a major one being slavery. The south argued that the slaves were necessary to support the southern economy. According to document A, the south were angry that the north was creating taxes that hurt the southern economy, thus increasing the need for slavery since they had to make up for the expense of the taxes. The south felt that the north was able...
In Apostles of Disunion, Dew presents compelling documentation that the issue of slavery was indeed the ultimate cause for the Civil War. This book provided a great deal of insight as to why the South feared the abolition of slavery as they did. In reading the letters and speeches of the secession commissioners, it was clear that each of them were making passionate pleas to all of the slave states in an effort to put a stop to the North’s, and specifically Lincoln’s, push for the abolishment of slavery. There should be no question that slavery had everything to do with being the cause for the Civil War. In the words of Dew, “To put it quite simply, slavery and race were absolutely critical elements in the coming of the war” (81). This was an excellent book, easy to read, and very enlightening.
Perhaps the three most influential men in the pre-Civil War era were Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. These men all died nearly a decade before the civil war began, but they didn’t know how much they would effect it. States’ rights was a very controversial issue, and one which had strong opposition and radical proposals coming from both sides. John C. Calhoun was in favor of giving states the power to nullify laws that they saw unconstitutional, and he presented this theory in his “Doctrine of Nullification”. Daniel Webster strongly disagreed with this proposal and showed this by giving powerful support to President Jackson in resisting the attempt by South Carolina to nullify the ‘tariff of abominations’, as they called it; a shipping tax passed in 1828 that they saw as unfairly favoring the industrial North. Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, didn’t seem to be partisan either way, and, although he was a Whig, always came up with a way to please both sides of any argument.
Abraham Lincoln was an intricate yet prosperous person, shown through his movement from poverty to politics. Lincoln was born to poverty in Kentucky in 1809 and settled in Illinois at the age fifteen. He was captain of the militia in Illinois during the Black Hawk War of 1832 and served four terms as a Whig in the state legislature and in Congress, from 1847 to 1849. Lincoln strayed away from politics for a little while to return to law but his interest rekindled as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act .
John Calhoun, a representative from South Carolina, also played a large roll in the congressional debates in the early 1800's. A fierce nationalist and former warhawk, he was much in favor of the Tariff of 1816. He believed that the South's future lay in the hands of manufacturing of cotton and other such products. With England trying to crush these industries, he saw the tariff as a helpful resource for his region. He later changed his position, opposing the tariff as he came to believe that the tariff only benefited the wealthy factory owners of the North, and did little to help the South. He looked out for the best interest of his state and the other states of the South.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected as president of the United States of America, the repercussions of which led to civil war. However it was not only Lincoln’s election that led to civil war but also the slavery debate between the northern and southern states and the state of the economy in the United States. Together with the election of Lincoln these caused a split, both politically and ideologically, between the North and South states which manifested into what is now refereed to as the American Civil War.
The existence of slavery was the central element of the conflict of the north and south. Other problems existed that led to this succession but none were as big as the slavery issue. The only way to avoid the war was to abolish slavery, but this was not able to be done because slavery is what kept the south running. When the south seceded it was said by Abraham Lincoln that “ a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” Because slavery formed two opposing societies and slavery could never be abolished, the civil war was inevitable. These were all the reasons why the south seceded from the union, this succession was eminent and there was no plausible way to avoid it.
Eventually slavery did die out and the southern states were once again apart of the union, but not without a civil war. Ultimately the North and South’s differences could not be resolved through anything other than a Civil War. These causes, as well as others, left the South no other viable option, in their eyes, than to secede from the union, leading to the Civil War. Political, societal, and philosophical conflicts combined with one another to form the ultimate disagreement over slavery between the two regions. All in all, admitting a disproportionate amount of free states to slave states into the union, preventing slavery from expanding, and President Lincoln’s election were significant factors that lead to the secession of the southern states in 1860 and 1861.
The Southern and Northern states varied on many issues, which eventually led them to the Civil War. There were deep economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South. These differences stemmed from the interpretation of the United States Constitution on both sides. In the end, all of these disagreements about the rights of states led to the Civil War. There were reasons other than slavery for the South?s secession. The manifestations of division in America were many: utopian communities, conflicts over public space, backlash against immigrants, urban riots, black protest, and Indian resistance (Norton 234). America was a divided land in need reform with the South in the most need. The South relied heavily on agriculture, as opposed to the North, which was highly populated and an industrialized society. The South grew cotton, which was its main cash crop and many Southerners knew that heavy reliance on slave labor would hurt the South eventually, but their warnings were not heeded. The South was based on a totalitarian system.
What started as a war to prevent the South from seceding quickly turned into a war against slavery following President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. At the start of the Civil War, both Union and Confederate sides believed that they would had a quick and decisive victory. The North’s population and industry was vastly greater than the South’s, but the South had superior military leadership, a large white population that was united against invading Union armies and a hope that France or Britain would intervene on their behalf.
Tensions between the North and South had grown steadily since the anti slavery movement in 1830. Several compromises between the North and South regarding slavery had been passed such as the Nebraska-Kansas and the Missouri act; but this did little to relieve the strain. The election of President Lincoln in 1861 proved to be the boiling point for the South, and secession followed. This eventually sparked the civil war; which was viewed differently by the North and the South. The Northern goal was to keep the Union intact while the Southern goal was to separate from the Union. Southern leaders gave convincing arguments to justify secession. Exploring documents from South Carolina’s secession ordinance and a speech from the Georgia assembly speech will explain how the Southern leaders justify the secession from the United States.
The majority of speculations regarding the causes of the American Civil War are in some relation to slavery. While slavery was a factor in the disagreements that led to the Civil War, it was not the solitary or primary cause. There were three other, larger causes that contributed more directly to the beginning of the secession of the southern states and, eventually, the start of the war. Those three causes included economic and social divergence amongst the North and South, state versus national rights, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Each of these causes involved slavery in some way, but were not exclusively based upon slavery.
While slavery wasn’t the primary cause of the Civil War, it can be considered to be the main cause, as apart from the Revenue Act, states’ rights were directly related to the Emancipation Proclamation and the public outcry it generated in the South. According to Lincoln, “.…slavery could destroy the nation. A house divided against itself cannot stand." Additionally, he believed “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free" (Grabowski and Schlesinger 1). Thus, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act, which would ultimately help to provide additional funding for the Civil War, and would be the first federal income-tax in
The Civil war was associated with succession and slavery, all factors which this dispute entailed. The start of this conflict lied in the territorial expansion which put Americans against one another when debating whether the new states should be slaves states or not. This had questioned the power of the Federal government in comparison to states’ rights, which put the unity of the U.S.A as a nation at risk. With a vast majority of land acquired including the Louisiana Purchase, it was difficult to decide whether slavery should spread further west or not. To determine if slavery should continue or be abolished, the Civil War happened. In Document A “Civil War Trust: Civil War in 4 Minutes ‘Coming of the Civil War’ ” it is stated ‘You have abolition and abolition is what is going to start fueling this war.’ ” The Union always faced problems against slavery, and it was expected there will be a War regarding this matter. The significance of this is the
Marmor, Theodore R. The Career of John C. Calhoun: Politician, Social Critic, Political Philosopher. New York: Garland, 1988.