The utmost guarantee against possible abuses of power was provided by the fact that the Constitution could only be amended only by (at least) three quarters of the states. So if a state believed the federal government was violating the terms of the national charter, it had the right to interpose itself between its people and the federal government to provide protection from tyranny. To do this, Calhoun developed two major ideas that are perhaps his greatest legacy: the concepts of state interposition and concurrent majority. second time, on February 15, 1847, he delivered a speech in the Senate in which he denounced the Proviso and summoned the South to repudiate compromise and stand upon her rights. Its direct and immediate object, as it concerns the withdrawing member, is the dissolution of the association or union. No system can be more efficient to rear up a moneyed aristocracy. And the linchpin of Calhoun’s analyses was always the power of the individual state as a contracting party to, and real “dominus” of, the federal pact. It turned out that Calhoun was late in publicly promoting his commitment to federalism. Speech, in reply to Mr. Simmons, on his Resolutions. This document divided American political history into “before” and “after”: before the Exposition the South lacked leadership, “regional awareness,” and an articulated constitutional doctrine defending its political, economic and social place in the Union. Congressional Globe v.16. The first part presented the country’s budget in strictly economic terms: the South, with a relatively small population, and the country’s principal exporter, was exploited by the North through having to pay exorbitant sums in order to protect New England industry and support the federal government. Calhoun’s thought on constitutional and political theory developed systematically in the course of his fight against the laws that introduced the tariffs. He also contradicted his own earlier distaste for those who dabbled in constitutional interpretation. He shared the prevailing prejudices of the day — held in both the North and South — that black people were mentally, physically, and morally inferior to whites. Secession is a withdrawal from the Union; a separation from partners, and, as far as depends on the member withdrawing, a dissolution of the partnership. “I am a Southern man and a slaveholder . Slavery was an essential condition of Calhoun’s second major contribution to American political thought — the concept of the concurrent majority. É grátis para se registrar e ofertar em trabalhos. “The [federal supremacy] clause is declaratory … it vests no new power whatever in the government, or in any of its departments”; the article, actually, does not maintain anything, not even the supremacy of the federal government, which “results from the nature of the relation between the federal government, and those of the several States, and their respective constitutions and laws.” In fact, when a Constitution and a common government are formed, the authority of these, within the limits of the delegated powers, must, of necessity, be supreme, in reference to their respective separate constitutions and governments. Speech made at the Meeting of the Citizens of Charleston, Tuesday evening, March 9, 1847; a. Still, Calhoun deserves a prominent place in the history of American political thought — if only for this irony: while he fought to protect the Southern minority’s rights and interests from the Northern majority, he felt free to subordinate the rights of the African American minority to the interests of the South’s white majority. In essence, a “pre-political” right of secession exists, shading over into the right of revolution; there are no significant differences on this point between Webster, Calhoun, Jackson, and the entire American tradition. As a great political realist, he maintained that historical experience had amply shown that “power can only be restrained by power, and not by reason and justice; and that all restrictions on authority, unsustained by an equal antagonist power, must forever prove wholly inefficient in practice.” The states alone could wield this power, and the remedy available to them was interposition: each state’s right separately to judge whether a federal intervention violated the Constitution. How do we create a person’s profile? Everyone interested in the overall design of the Constitution ratified by the several States in 1788 should read this book. In Calhoun’s view, slavery benefited black people. The son of a successful farmer who served in public office, Calhoun went to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1801 to attend Yale College. The super-majority has the right to accept a different, more energetic, and powerful agent for managing common affairs. Calhoun had become the chosen mouthpiece for Southern rights. During the 1830s and 1840s, the growth of the Northern abolition movement and attempts by Northern politicians to push the federal government to act against slavery confirmed for Calhoun that the North intended to exercise its power as a majority to the detriment of Southern interests. On the surface, the Missouri Compromise seemed to heal the sectional breach that slavery had created. The collusion between big government and big business, which was squeezing the South dry, could only be blocked by opposing a centralized governmental apparatus able to define its own powers. ‘Our fate as a people is bound up in the question.’. In a veritable theoretical and constitutional escalation, the South sought security for its society and culture through various political stances. He suggested a state should first call a convention to consider any federal action in question. Thomas Hart Benton (March 14, 1782 – April 10, 1858), nicknamed "Old Bullion", was a United States Senator from Missouri.A member of the Democratic Party, he was an architect and champion of westward expansion by the United States, a cause that became known as Manifest Destiny.Benton served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms. In the House, Calhoun distinguished himself as one of the "War Hawks" who supported President James Madison's efforts to declare war on Britain in 1812. Calhoun, in his Discourse on the Government and Constitution of the United States, published posthumously and largely incomplete, justified his interpretation of the Constitution as a contract between the states by referring back to the constitutional text and the work of the Constitutional Convention. This unequal distribution between exported wealth and political representation underlay all injustices deriving from federal taxation: “the very acts of Congress … give them [Northern producers] the means … to command the industry of the rest of the Union.” Southern consumers, due to protectionism, paid exorbitant prices for the goods they consumed. Essays raising the question of whether the United States has become simply too large for self-government and should be divided into a number of Unions of States as Jefferson thought it should. It also unified the South as a section distinct from the rest of the nation. The most important constitutional provision against the abuse of power by an exceedingly powerful majority is “modern federalism,” i.e., the distribution of powers between state and federal governments. Kurt Weill, German-born composer (The Threepenny Opera). This home was built in 1957 and last sold on 2/29/2008 for $69,318. James Powell Calhoun: Birthdate: March 16, 1847: Death: Immediate Family: Son of Henry Calhoun and Mary Jane Calhoun Brother of John Wesley Calhoun. Even if the Constitution is a contract, it has the characteristics of a political pact; this in turn creates a series of political obligations clearly distinguishable from merely contractual ones. The second was an argument that presented slavery as an institution that benefited all involved.