Calhoun: American Heretic

John C. Calhoun is among the many most infamous and enigmatic figures in American political historical past. First elected to Congress in 1810, Calhoun went on to function secretary of struggle and vp. However he’s maybe most recognized for arguing in favor of slavery as a “constructive good” and for his well-known doctrine of “state interposition,” which laid the groundwork for the South to secede from the Union—and arguably set the nation on target for civil struggle.

Calhoun has catapulted again into the general public eye in recent times, as some observers linked the pressure of radical politics he developed to the ways and extremism of the trendy Far Proper, and as protests over racial injustice have targeted on his legacy. On this revelatory biographical research, historian Robert Elder reveals that Calhoun is much more broadly vital than these occasions recommend, and that his story is essential for understanding the political local weather during which we discover ourselves immediately. By excising Calhoun from the mainstream of American historical past, he argues, now we have been left with a distorted understanding of our previous and no technique to clarify our current.