Chapter 37: John C. Calhoun Says the South Must Defend Against Northern Aggression

News of the California admission coincides with John C. Calhoun’s last appearance in the Senate in March 1850.

For over twenty years he has argued that the federal government is prohibited in the Constitution from interfering in the rights of the Sovereign States, and he provokes the failed 1828 Nullification Crisis to try to prove it. From there he goes on to claim that “slavery is a positive good,” and that it provides better conditions than those working in New England’s factories, as well as a chance at Christian salvation for the pagan Africans.

Calhoun is convinced that the Wilmot Proviso signals the North’s intention to prohibit slavery in the west. He intends to address this in a March 4, 1850 speech but is dying from tuberculosis and too frail to speak. That honor goes to another fire-eater, James Mason of Virginia.

His message is stark. It charges the North with intentionally trying to destroy the Southern economy and culture – and warns that Disunion will follow unless Congress acts to avert the aggression.

Before his death, Calhoun sums up his career: “Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility.”