Реферат: John C Calhoun Essay Research Paper John
effort in the House to build up a strong Army, and after the war he continued to
work for a stronger , military establishment. [Niven 98]
Calhoun entered James Monroe’s Cabinet (1817-1825) as secretary of
war as a nationalist. [Bracelet 87] He became less and less militaristic through
his life. In 1812 he said that, “a war, just and necessary in its origin, wisely and
vigorously carried on, and honorably terminated.” [Niven 208] But in 1846, he
refused to vote for the declaration of war against Mexico. He thought that the
grounds that the President set for this war was wrong and said, “I regard peace
as a positive good, and war as a positive evil.” [Von Holst 107] In 1821, John
Quinsy Adams appraised Calhoun as:
A man of fair and candid mind…of enlarged philosophical views,
and of ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and factional
prejudices more than any other statesman of the Union. [Bartlett
91]
Calhoun was J. Q. Adams’s vice president from 1825-1829 and was elected
vice-president again in 1828 under Andrew Jackson. [Netscape 1] This time in
history is referred to as the Nullification Crisis which refers to the Nullification of
the Tariff of Abominations by South Carolina and the turmoil that it caused.
[Bartlett 102] Calhoun had hoped to run for the presidency after Jackson left the
White House but during Jackson’s first term they had their share of conflicts.
Jackson discovered that Calhoun criticized his invasion of Florida in 1818 and
Jackson blew a fuse. Calhoun began to despise even the sight of Jackson.
[Morris 96] Calhoun anonymously wrote the “South Carolina Exposition” in
response to the Tariff of 1829 or the Tariff of Abominations. He argued that the
state had the right to “nullify” a Federal document, if the state believed that it
3
was unconstitutional. Calhoun believed that the Tariff of 1828 was a direct
attack on the South by depressing the foreign markets for the cotton in the
South. [Niven 180-181] As one author put it: