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    A Disquisition on Government
    A Disquisition on Government
    A Disquisition on Government
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    A Disquisition on Government

    By John C. Calhoun and H. Lee Cheek

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    This volume provides the most economical and textually accurate version of Calhoun’s Disquisition available today. As a treatise, the Disquisition is one of the greatest and most enduring works of American politial thought, and a text of seminal importance to all students of American politics, history, philosophy, and law. In the Disquisition, Calhoun believed he had laid a “solid foundation for political science” through revitalizing popular rule. To complete his theoretical and practical mission, Calhoun attempts to explain the best example of the diffusion of authority and cultivation of liberty: the American Constitution. The fundamental law of the American republic provided, after all, the “interior structure” for regulating the shape and scope of government. As a guide for the states and the general government, the Constitution was also part of the “organism” that limited the centralization of authority and allowed for genuine popular rule; and it was Calhoun’s exposition of the connection between the moral demands of a properly constituted concept of popular rule and the need for practical ordering principles that is articulated in this book.

    Calhoun presents a theory of politics that is both original and in accord with the mainstream of the American political tradition. More than any other thinker of his period, Calhoun sought to explain the enduring qualities of American political thought in light of the troubled world of the mid-nineteenth century. Unlike other theorists who had preceded and would follow Calhoun, both American and European, he did not seek to invent a new mode of philosophical speculation or a “grand theory” for the human sciences. Instead, he attempted to offer a refinement of classical, medieval, and modern notions regarding the relationship between government and the social order. As an effort in philosophical retrenchment, the Disquisition strengthened many pre-existing conceptions regarding political liberty and popular rule within the American regime, while offering such insight with a view toward the future that awaited America. Calhoun’s attempt in the Disquisition to reconcile the good of popular rule with ethical requirements have singular relevance to the many nations in the twenty-first century now engaged, despite the ethnic animosities threatening their destruction, in building post-ideological, civilized political and social orders, especially the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Africa.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSt. Augustines Press
    Release dateAug 15, 2012
    ISBN9781587311864

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      Book preview

      A Disquisition on Government - John C. Calhoun

      self-restraint.

      Introduction

      Background

      John Caldwell Calhoun was born in 1782 near Abbeville, South Carolina. Calhoun’s educational opportunities were limited, albeit advanced by the occasional tutelage offered by his brother-in-law, Reverend Moses Waddel. After his parents’ death and a period of self-education, Calhoun entered Yale College, studying under the arch-Federalist Dr. Timothy Dwight. He proceeded to study law under Judge Tapping Reeve at the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, the most prominent institution devoted to legal training during this period. Returning to his native South Carolina to practice law, a pursuit he considered both dry and laborious, Calhoun was married and served two terms in the South Carolina Legislature until elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1811. As a congressman, Calhoun continued to embody republican principles and acquired the reputation as a moral statesman who regarded republicanism and patriotism as synonymous: he supported the War of 1812; he revised Madison’s original national bank proposal and backed limited internal improvements; and he continued to praise a free economy and a regime founded upon reason and equity that was surrounded by a world of fraud, violence or accident.

      President Monroe asked Calhoun to assume the helm at the War Department in 1817, where he served until 1825. Calhoun was generally considered too philosophical for such a practical post, but he accepted the appointment out of a republican sense of duty. In the course of two terms in office Calhoun completely reorganized and revitalized the War Department and its general staff, resolved its financial problems resulting from the war, and demonstrated a new, more compassionate approach to Native American affairs. Calhoun also began reforming West Point through a new spirit of openness in terms of admissions and administrative procedures. Calhoun has been described as the ablest war secretary the government had before Jefferson Davis in 1853.

      A broad spectrum of supporters encouraged Calhoun’s candidacy for president in 1824 against his fellow cabinet members William H. Crawford and John Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and war hero and newly elected senator, Andrew Jackson. Initially entering the presidential field, Calhoun realized he lacked adequate support and withdrew after Pennsylvania nominated Andrew Jackson. Accepting the vice-presidential nomination, Calhoun was elected by a large majority. The results in the presidential contest between Jackson and Adams were inconclusive in terms of the electoral and popular vote, and the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, where Jackson’s nemesis Clay served as speaker. In an unusual series of events, Clay came to Adams’s aid, with the House vote securing the election for Adams. The president-elect proceeded to appoint Clay as secretary of state. Many Americans considered the supposed arrangement between Clay and Adams a corrupt bargain. Calhoun believed the corrupt bargain had disrupted the balance between preserving liberty and assuming power explicitly reserved to the people; improperly acquired power would doubtless be improperly used, he opined. Calhoun and either Adams or his representative engaged in a pseudonymous debate about the sources of political power.¹ Thereafter, Calhoun began to separate himself from what he considered to be Adams’s abuses of office, and supported General Andrew Jackson in 1828. It was as part of this ticket, later known as the Democratic Party, that Calhoun was elected vice-president in 1828.

      The falling apart of the political union between Calhoun and Jackson is one of the most remarkable events in American politics. Calhoun had hoped Jackson would assume the republican political mantle, but his expectations were not fulfilled. When Jackson decided to seek a second term and selected Martin Van Buren as his vice-presidential candidate, Calhoun became more concerned about the corruptibility of the administration.

      As a result of the dispute with Jackson, Calhoun resigned as vice-president and was elected to the Senate. In an attempt to moderate the crisis posed by tariff-related concerns and the Force Bill in 1832, Calhoun questioned the prospect of preserving the union by force, and not relying on the harmonious aggregate of the States. To this point in his career as a statesman, Calhoun had made few statements regarding slavery. Troubled by the increasing influence of abolitionism and the rise of sectional conflict, Calhoun would devote the remainder of his life to defending his native region and the ideas of the Founders. Retiring from the Senate in 1843, he unsuccessfully pursued the presidency for the last time. In 1844, Calhoun was appointed as secretary of state.

      Returning to the Senate in 1845, Calhoun served as a thoughtful critic of the war with Mexico, and accurately warned that the conflict would encourage disharmony between the North and South. In 1844, Calhoun helped contain a truly revolutionary Bluffton Movement composed of his fellow South Carolinians. Many leading South Carolina politicians threatened drastic responses to a troublesome new tariff and Texas annexation. Calhoun’s success at moderating the conflict demonstrated both his restraint in a crisis situation and his lack of control over the politicians often described as Calhounites due to their intimate ties to the statesman.

      Published after his death, Calhoun’s two treatises on political theory and American constitutionalism, the Disquisition and Discourse, demonstrate his hope that America could avoid the impending conflict. Calhoun’s persistent concern about the unequal treatment of the South would, he feared, lead to increased regional tensions and to civil war. His last years were spent attempting to unify the South and avoid strife. On March 31, 1850, Calhoun died in Washington, D.C. Calhoun’s understanding of restraint within political order, albeit imperfect, remains one of the most important characteristics of his political thought and his achievement as a statesman. In Calhoun’s interpretation, the interposing and amending power of the states implicit in the Constitution could only augment authentic popular rule by allowing for a greater diffusion of authority. Calhoun’s purpose was the preservation of the original balance of authority and the fortification of the American political system against the obstacles it

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