John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography

John Niven presents a straightforward and well researched book on the life of John C. Calhoun who was one of the most influential people in the antebellum period. Calhoun represented the last of the Jeffersonian states rights politicians who clung to the virtues of small government in a chaning time. While that is often lost in his views on slavery it is important to remember as Niven points out that his arguments were not rooted in race but in keeping government small and protecting the farmer. He was against many internal improvements, against the tariff, against the national bank, against many of the things that expanded government power vis a vis the state. He was considered a member of the great triumvirate who with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster debated the great issues of the day and worked out the compromises that prevented Civil War from happening sooner. (See Merrill Peterson's book the Great Triumvirate). I think Nevin has it correct that despite this image of three great men representing sections of the country it was far from true particularly for Calhoun who was never the dominant statesman of the South (although he was the dominant representative for South Carolina). Calhoun would serve as a vice president, secretary of state, senate, house, and secretary of war during his tenure in politics. While always trying he was never able to achieve the presidency due his fractious support. He was easily a national name but his scattered support across many states was never the majority in those states. In many cases he was defeated by the patronage machines that were coming into existence and would be the norm following the Civil War. He had as many enemies as he did allies and his hatred of the Jackson/Van Buren group isolated him within that party. Many other books on the subject have asserted Calhoun to be a radical and I think Niven has it right that in the context of his time he was not a radical but was expressing the dying viewpoint as new political parties were forming in the early years of the Civil War leaving Calhoun on the outside. He was always remembered for the modernization of the War department and many of the things he created from inspector general to a modern supply system and health system would be utilized by both sides in the civil war and are still in use today in much the same form. Overall this is well written, straight to the point and while it can be dry it is well worth the read. Although I did not spend much time on it I should mention that Niven spends a lot of time on Calhouns family, financial and personal problems and how he separates them from his time in office.

In his opening remarks John Niven makes the promise that he would not undertake psychoanalysis of John C.Calhoun, Much to his credit, he is true to his word. What Niven has delivered is an eminently readable and straightforward account of South Carolina's greatest political figure. We forget all that he did: senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president, in a distinguished career that began in the early days of Madison's presidency and concluded during the Taylor-Fillmore administration, a span of nearly four decades.Niven's disclaimer, however, is telling. There is a tendency to use Calhoun's career as a sort of national inkblot. For constitutional scholars and ideologues of many stripes Calhoun's writings survive as either the last great stand of states rights or as a subversive manifesto for the tragic secession that would follow. For politicians and observers of human behavior, Calhoun is either the consummate patriot or his own worst enemy. From the data Niven provides, it can be said that while Calhoun may have been eccentric, he was not crazy. Everyone born in primitive eighteenth century America survived with a history, and Calhoun, born in 1782, was no exception. His family and his colony shared a history of terrible suffering at the hands of the British [those were Calhoun's people slaughtered in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot."] Calhoun himself was orphaned as a young teen and appears to have spent a studious but lonely existence until he studied law at Yale under the famous Timothy Dwight. Calhoun arrived home with his diploma just in time to ride a wave of strong Carolina resistance against the Virginia-New York axis that seemed to control presidential elections. This handsome, passionate, articulate favorite son soon found himself elected to Congress where he naturally became a leading advocate of war against the hated British. On June 18, 1812, Calhoun and other hawks got their war, but the thoughtful Calhoun quickly ascertained that the United States was woefully unprepared. Calhoun regretted his impetuousness, and nothing would absolve his guilt for this nasty war. Calhoun would do penance for his sins by serving as Secretary of War under Monroe. Niven commends him for an outstanding tenure during which Calhoun reformed the army's purchasing policies, developed stronger defense outposts in the west, and crafted an almost enlightened Indian policy. An ambitious man, Calhoun not unreasonably expected his War Department success to catapult him toward bigger and better things.But here one of the major themes of the book emerges: Calhoun was an unlucky politician. It was his bad fortune to reach his prime concurrently with an unusually large class of outstanding statesmen: Henry Clay, William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, to name a few. While he could console himself with the role of "everybody's favorite second" in the 1824 election, that convoluted contest left him