John C Calhoun's Last Speech Summary

Four years after the Wilmot Proviso was denied of passage in the Senate, Southerner, John C Calhoun delivered a speech to congress. Calhoun spoke to congress about the addition of California to the US. Because of values of Manifest Destiny, it was in a way a dream of the US to add California. However, according to Calhoun, it had be a slave state. He wanted this because he was a southerner and the more slave states there were, the better. Also, as he says in source B, that if t California was to be added as a free state, then the balance, or “equilibrium”, would be thrown off in the Union. There would be more free states than slave states. In order to keep the balance, he advocated California to be a slave state. Conflicts between parts of government over slavery, like Wilmot and Calhoun, only continued the schism in the nation and set the US on the path of the Civil War.

The compromise of 1850 was a settlement on a series of issues plaguing the unity of the states. The primary issue to address was the institution of slavery, which was causing much dissension between the north and the south. Additional items to be addressed were territory issues and to prevent secession by the south. Henry Clay stepped forward to present a compromise, which had Congress in an eight-month discussion known as the “Great Debate”. As a result of the proposal, there were strong oppositions. One outspoken person who opposed the proposal was John C Calhoun. Calhoun was an intellectual southern politician, political philosopher and a proponent to the protection of Southern interests. He was an advocate for states’ rights and

Correspondingly, there was the quarrel over state versus federal rights. States felt they didn’t have any say if they disliked a federal law. So when all these compromises came about concerning slavery in the West, people wanted to be able to nullify federal laws. To nullify is to cancel, and in this case to cancel a federal law. People like John C. Calhoun fought for this right along with many others. However, the federal government felt this was not necessary, therefore, some states threatened to secede.

The north was becoming increasingly industrialized while the south was still mainly agricultural. Congress passed a tariff that benefitted the producers of cloth, mostly north, however it shrunk the demand for southern raw cotton. The south were infuriated and looked to Vice President, John C. Calhoun, for support against the "tariff of abomination." Calhoun supported the first tariff, however, if he ever wanted a future political career he needed to rethink his position. Calhoun proposed the idea that the power of states should be greater than the federal. South Carolina then believed they had the right to nullify the tariff. Jackson who did not approve of nullification threatened to send troops in. He also forced Calhoun into resigning his position. Meanwhile, South Carolina threatened to secede the union. Jackson was granted a bill from congress to enact and send troops in, however, Henry Clay revised the tariff before armed confrontation was

During the late 1820s, John C. Calhoun believed that the tariff of 1816 was responsible for the decline of the South Carolina economy. Calhoun believed that if he developed the Theory of Nullification people in his home state would view him differently. The Theory of Nullification is the idea that states (unions) have the rights to void any law that is created by the government that is seen unconstitutional. States are the foundation of the Union, so they have the power to refuse any unconstitutional laws, and really states usually have the final say. What really caused the Nullification Crisis were many series of Protective Tariffs. Protective Tariffs are taxes placed on imported goods that are from foreign countries and their duty is to raise the price of foreign goods, making them less attractive to consumers protecting them from foreign competition such as; The Tariff of 1816 that placed a 20-25 percent tax on foreign goods, The Tariff of 1824 which placed a 35 percent duty on imported iron, wool, hemp, and cotton, finally the Tariff of 1828 which is also known as the Tariff of Abominations it was the third protective tariff and increased taxes to almost 50 percent.

Calhoun bluntly states in his opening sentence he knew that if something was not done about the abolition of slavery it would end in disunion. He claims to have tried to agitate both parties toward some kind of resolve but to no avail. He then asks Congress the pressing question: “How can the Union be preserved?”

In document A , Lincoln's speech to Congress, he states, " I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies...", Lincoln one of the union and the South to become one, but by abolishing slavery, it created many states to be angry, so it wasn't really bringing people together at all. " resolved, that the United States are to cooperate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery..." Lincoln realize that it would cause tension between states, that he needed them to cooperate. " the federal government would find its highest interest in such a measure as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation." Lincoln gave evidence from the federal government stating that this is the easiest, and best way to preserve the Union.

Just as Northerners saw flaws in the Constitution, Southerners viewed it not to be perfect as well. President James Buchanan, a northern man with southern sympathies clarified, “As sovereign states, they and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them” (Document G). However, In Doc B, an anonymous writer defends the state’s rights that the constitution should protect slavery where it exists. The union will fall apart unless these rights are protected.

Economic policies and the Northern threatening of removing the backbone of the south economy, slaves, created the important factor that would lead to the Civil War. For example, the North and South developed distinctly different economic systems: the North with a large factory and industrial base and the South with an agricultural economy. In the 1820s, during the presidential rule of Andrew Jackson, congress passed the Black Tariff or Tariff of Abominations which greatly increased the price of foreign goods flooding into the country for the purpose of protecting factories in the North and raising money for new infrastructure to be built. Individuals in the South were furious at this act because it deflated the price of agricultural goods while creating massive wealth for the northern workers. This tariff enraged John C. Calhoun from South Carolina as he threatened secession from the USA. Thus, this tariff first established the idea of succession in the public mind. The economic crisis, also known as the Nullification Crisis, prompted the first ripple that would eventually cause the Civil War because it greatly revealed the huge divide between the North and South. This act caused the South the feel threatened and abused by the controlling North and the government, so they….. Furthermore, the economic divide in the South astonii ally placed around 12% of the wealth in the hands of the 1% while leaving only 7.6% in the bottom 40%. This economic inequality in the South caused many of the citizens of

John Calhoun started off his career in politics as a supporter of a strong national government and protective tariffs. He became Jackson’s vice president in 1828, and supported Jackson in nationalism and the American system. However, a bitter feud between Jackson and Calhoun emerged. As Secretary of War back in 1818 for President Monroe, Calhoun wanted to punish Jackson for the incursion into Florida that he lead, and Calhoun had every right too; Jackson disobeyed the orders he was given! Jackson despised Calhoun because of that and Calhoun realized that he was slowly losing favor with Jackson. He had hopes of succeeding Jackson as president but Van Buren seemed to have a better chance of being the next successor.

Calhoun's fundamental enterprise was to defend the institution of slavery. To do so, he first had to overturn the principles of the American Founding. He started with the Declaration of Independence, arguing that the proposition all men are created equal as now understood, has become the most false and dangerous of all political errors. Thus Calhoun transformed the

Lincoln had said that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Douglas as cited by Dudley and Chalberg 155). However, with popular sovereignty in place, the federal government doesn’t have to fight over slavery as the states are the decision makers. Douglas has a quote stating that “laws and institutions which would be well adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited to the mining regions of California”. What this means is a law passed in Illinois cannot become a blanket law that applies seamlessly to the whole country(Douglas as cited by Dudley and Chalberg 155). He goes on to explain that the founding father’s realized with a republic as large as the Union, there must a large amount of specific laws for specific areas. He then makes the statement that “the various states were not allowed to complain of, much less interfere with, the policy of their neighbors”, which means that one state cannot infringe upon another with it’s laws (Douglas as cited by Dudley and Chalberg 155). Another interesting quote of Stephen Douglas is as

Since the Northern and Southern branches of each denomination had already separated from each other without horrific consequence, and since they had managed to remain peaceful in the years since, the South began to look at secession as actually being a feasible possibility. John C. Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina, called for a dual presidency for the United States, with an executive leader in both the North and the South. To complicate matters, however, in the years between 1845 and 1861, the division between the North and South began to grow thanks to the lack of interaction between them. With no social intercourse between the two groups, each side began to imagine the worst of the other. As David Potter says, they “reacted to a distorted mental image of the other: the North to an image of a Southern world of lascivious and sadistic slavedrivers; the South to an image of a Northern world of cunning Yankee traders and of rabid abolitionists plotting slave insurrections.” There no longer was a face to be put with the people they had once called their brethren.

A second issue that would spark tensions between the states that eventually would lead to war was the argument of states’ rights. The South would vigorously argue throughout the years before the war that the federal government’s authority was not above that of each individual state. (Mcpherson 25) This would mean the federal government was in violation of what the founding fathers created it to do. Many historians believe that this response was elicited by the fact that the Northern population was growing so quickly that it would soon have control of the federal government. Before 1860 many of the presidents that had been elected were pro-south or they were indeed from the south. (Mcpherson 35) With the north

Eisenhower’s last speech was based on telling America the risks of moving forward with the military industrial complex. The military industrial complex is an agreement which allows private companies to produce and sell weapons to the U.S. government. Eisenhower talks about how he was worried about spending too much money on the weapons from private companies since he came into office. Eisenhower is weary about the sudden increase of the military industry and thinks that it could help America but at the same time could harm them. He thinks it could be dangerous to quickly become reliable on the new technology and advancements in war industry and spend too much money on these items. In the end, Eisenhower wishes well to the authorities coming