John c calhoun biography book

In June of 2020, the city of Charleston, SC, took down the statue of the state's most famous political leader, John C. Calhoun. Though one of the leading political minds of the 19th century, Calhoun is better known today for his energetic defense of slavery.

Against growing attacks by abolitionists, Calhoun argued that the South's peculiar institution wasn't just a regrettable necessity which would be too expensive or too dangerous to end. Calhoun went on the offensive, saying that slavery was the best social and economic relationship for both master and slave and a boon to republican society -- "a positive good."

And Calhoun's push for South Carolina to reject federal laws that it didn't like and oppose, by force if necessary, the national government's power to implement these laws in the state became the Nullification Crisis that prefigured the Civil War by thirty years.

Bartlett doesn't flinch from this aspect of Calhoun's reputation