The dominant powers in American discourse today have succeeded in confining the South to a dark little corner of history labeled “Slavery and Treason.” This is already governing the public sphere of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. Such an approach not only libels the South, it is a fatal distortion of American history in general, and, I dare say, even of African-American history. The old Radical Republican propaganda that portrays John C. Calhoun as a scheming fanatic who brought on civil war by his determination to spread slavery has re-emerged. A little over a half century ago, the historiographical picture was quite different. Margaret Coit’s admiring biography won a Pulitzer Prize.[1] A leading expert on the subject wrote that Calhoun understood the mysteries of banking and money better than anyone else at the time.[2] Numerous scholars, mostly of a liberal and progressive disposition, praised Calhoun’s concurrent majority as a brilliant and useful concept.[3]A United States Senate Committee chaired by John F. Kennedy named Calhoun one of the five greatest Senators of all time.
One is tempted to conclude that historical knowledge is not cumulative, and to agree with Orwell that he who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future. Certainly the present discourse reflects not historical judgment but a political/ideological agenda.
The South Was Right!
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In the Jacksonian era, so-called, I have learned that one must not only look for political bias, one must look for comic book versions of history. One noted historian of the period, who has appeared often on television as a savant, once asked me to verify a quotation about Henry Clay often attributed to Calhoun. Calhoun is supposed to have said “I don’t like Clay. He is a bad man, an imposter, a creator of wicked schemes. I wouldn’t speak to him, but, by God, I love him.” You don’t have to spend much time with Calhoun to understand that both the language and the opinion are phony. With much work I found the probable origin of the quotation. It seems to have come from a dubious anecdote spread by one Henry Wikoff, a social butterfly who claimed to know everybody of importance.[4] I provided the historian in question with three authentic remarks by Calhoun about Clay, all more interesting than the spurious one. When the book was published I found the same phony material used. I assume because it fits in with his imaginary version of the times that the author wished to portray.
This same writer, in another very well-received book, vividly describes John C. Calhoun grinding his teeth in chagrin because he has been out-witted by Martin Van Buren. How could he possibly know this? What possible benefit to historical understanding is conveyed? Martin Van Buren may have considered politics as a game of wits between different personalities, but Calhoun did not. Historians relentlessly purvey the charge, originating in demagoguery of the times, that Calhoun’s actions are explained by his thwarted ambition to be President. Does such ambition describe a man who broke with President Jackson over a matter of honour, resigned as Vice-President to defend his State, opposed Jackson without joining the opposition party that wanted to claim him, and raised a lonely voice against the Mexican War that threatened his popularity in the South and even in South Carolina? Calhoun understood the American political system better than most, and he knew perfectly well in the last twenty years of his life that he could never be President, and did not much care. If supporters wanted to keep his name out there, that was good, because it enhanced his weight in matters that he did care about.[5]
Calhoun was a major figure very near the pinnacle of American statecraft for forty years. His influence, though never dominant, even in the South, was Union-wide. It was largely moral and intellectual and extended to many more subjects than the sectional conflict. This is why ambitious politicians of all parties hated him and attempted to reduce his standing by cheap ridicule which some historians continue to retail.[6] Several writers have put forth the proposition that a statesman differs from a politician in that a statesman perceives the long-range consequences of actions, lays out for a society its real alternatives, and, though he usually goes unheard, warns of future dangers. By this rule, Calhoun was indeed a statesman. All politicians and many historians imagine that nothing exists higher than a politician.
Hamiltonu2019s Curse: ...
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In an article in a collection in honour of Eugene Genovese I briefly described Calhoun’s knowledge and statesmanship in regard to economics.[7] A perceptive reviewer was kind enough to say that the article “plowed new ground by the acre.”[8] So far, nobody has appeared to plant the ground, and perhaps they never will.
This is my opportunity to do the same for Calhoun on diplomacy and war, where his wisdom, I think, will prove him to have been prophetic. He played a significant role in American diplomacy and war through his entire forty-year career, although a standard diplomatic history of the United States devotes only a few lines to him in passing. His acts and words in regard to war are significant, and, since Calhoun is in many ways a definitive Southerner, will help us understand an aspect of the Southern mind.
