John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun traversed the spectrum of antebellum American politics during his influential career. From 1825 to 1829, he served as John Quincy Adams’s vice president but helped defeat him in the next presidential election as Andrew Jackson’s running mate. A fervent nationalist during the War of 1812 (1812–15), Calhoun was champi-oning states’ rights by the 1830s.

Calhoun’s white supremacist ideology justified slavery as essential to the Southern economy. While representing South Carolina in the U.S. Senate
(1833–43; 1845–50), he advanced the doctrine of nullification as a bulwark against future antislavery legislation, asserting that states had the right to nullify any federal acts they considered unconstitu-tional. During negotiations over the Compromise of 1850, Calhoun warned that admitting Oregon and California as free states would upset the balance of power in Congress, prompting slave-holding states to secede. Although he dreaded that prospect, his ideas helped bring it about.