THE AGE OF DREAMS, PORTENTS, AND DESTINY
HENRY CLAY, DANIEL WEBSTER, AND JOHN C. CALHOUN’S TRANSFORMING EXPANSIONIST AMBITIONS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1850
Master’s Thesis
North American Studies Leiden University Iris Meines S1218964
Date: 24 January 2021 Supervisor: Dr. D.A. Pargas
Acknowledgements
Writing a thesis in a period like this was not an easy task. I started studying American Studies in February 2020, a month before Leiden University had to close its doors and switch to online classes. I think I had five or six weeks of classes before The Netherlands decided to lockdown the country. It is indeed hard to live, chill, eat, sleep, study and write in just one room for months. Nevertheless, I have pulled it off and I have written my thesis. Moreover, I had a lot of fun writing it. I would like to thank a few persons who have given me lots of support while writing my thesis.
I would like to thank Dr. Giles Scott-Smith, who introduced me to the subject of expansionism and helped me writing my paper on the annexation of Texas in the first semester. Without him, this thesis would never have been written.
I would also like to thank Dr. Damian Pargas, who supervised this thesis. I want to thank him for the quick meetings, for answering his e-mails really fast and for enlightening me with new information and insights. Thank you for being enthusiastic about this subject and for making me even more enthusiastic because of that.
I would like to thank my roommates Buddie, Kayleigh and (not really a roommate) Ids, for listening to me when I needed to whine about this thesis, for dragging me to the library to study together and for the fun evenings we have had the past couple of months.
Lastly, I would like to thank Gijs, who had to listen to my long talks about expansionism, my obsession with dead politicians and who has learned a lot about American history the past couple of months. I hope you liked it (and still like me).
Abstract
The United States transformed into a continental empire in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, continental expansion was always met with public and political resistance, which eventually led to the Civil War in 1861. Historians generally argue that Americans embraced an expansionist ambition, however, this thesis questions that. The main critique is that most historians fail to give a more nuanced research on expansionism. It is impossible to argue that Americans either supported or opposed expansionism. Moreover, the aim of this study is to show that there were at least three movements of expansionism visible in the United States by analyzing three politicians who defined a large part of American politics in the first half of the nineteenth century, namely Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster.
By analyzing the transformation of the expansionist ambitions of those three politicians, who each represented one of the movements, this thesis shows the nuance of expansionism in the United States. This thesis will analyze four vital moments in the expansionist history of the United States, namely the Missouri Crisis, the Annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War and the Compromise of 1850. Both Clay, Calhoun and Webster were politically active during these four events. This thesis will not only show how and why the expansionist ambitions of these three politicians changed between 1820 and 1850, but it also argues how each politician represented a different movement of expansionism and why this is important when studying expansionism in the United States.
On the basis of the analysis in this thesis, it can be concluded that Americans did not embrace expansionist ambitions unconditionally. American did not simply oppose or support continental expansion. Even those who claimed that it was God’s will to expand to the rest of the continent had their conditions. Expansionist ambitions in the nineteenth century were subjected to social conditions, such as the debates over slavery and the sectional tensions between the North and the South. For Clay, Calhoun and Webster, exactly these issues influenced their personal expansionist ambitions.
Keywords: expansionism, slavery, continental expansion, sectional tensions, United States,
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 5
2. Antebellum Expansionism ... 11
3. The American Great Triumvirate ... 16
4. Expansionist Case Studies ... 22
4.1. The Missouri Crisis ... 22
4.2. The Annexation of Texas ... 28
4.3. The Mexican-American War ... 36
4.4. The Compromise of 1850 ... 42
5. Conclusion ... 49
6. Bibliography ... 54
6.1. Primary Sources ... 54
1. Introduction
“[…] but I think there is a pretty strong expectation, that something vigorous should be attempted by Congress to stop the war. This, I suppose, can only be done by a concert of action, on the part of persons not easily brought together. If you [Webster], & Mr Calhoun, & Mr Clay could agree upon any thing, it might be carried through.”1
The first half of the nineteenth century is seen as the period in which the young American nation transformed from a small union into a large continental empire. Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the first grand addition to the American Union, marked the start of an age of expansion. In the words of Norman Graebner, “Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana had implied that the United States would become a great continental power”.2 In the following years, the
young republic would add several parts of continental territory to the Union, eventually controlling the North American continent up to the borders with Canada and borders reaching from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Although it took the United States less than fifty years to expand to the rest of the continent, it had never been an easy quest. The issue of expansion came with heated public and political debates, eventually leading to the dissolvement of the Union with the start of the Civil War in 1861.
Whether this expansionist ambition and America’s Manifest Destiny were embraced generally in the Union in the nineteenth century is questionable. Although the term Manifest Destiny was only coined in the 1840s, the American expansionist desire had already long been present. Graebner claims that the foundations of this expansionist ambition had been formed in the first half of the century.3 William Goetzman claims something similar, arguing that “it was only a heightened and more self-conscious expression of what had existed since the birth of the Republic and before that in the colonial experience”.4 Though several historians argue that expansion was generally embraced in the United States, other historians doubt this. Frederick Merk argues that the idea of Manifest Destiny was not nationally embraced. He concludes that “from the outset Manifest Destiny – vast in program, in its sense of continentalism – was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude.
1 Daniel Webster to Edward Everett, 11 February 1848, in The Papers of Daniel Webster, vol. 6 (Hanover, NH:
University Press of New England, 1984), 270-271.
2 Norman Graebner, Empire on the Pacific: a study in American continental expansion (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio,
1983), 2.
3 Ibid.
4 William Goetzmann, When the eagle screamed: the romantic horizon in American diplomacy, 1800-1860 (New
The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit”.5 Arthur Schlesinger agrees, pointing at the
fact that territorial expansion was always met with resistance. He concludes that “the imperial dream had encountered consistent indifference and recurrent resistance through American history. Imperialism was never a broadly based, popular mass movement.”6 In fact, Manifest Destiny divided the nation completely. Manifest Destiny itself was not particularly controversial in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, the issue of slavery was rather connected to the idea of Manifest Destiny, which was far more controversial than Manifest Destiny. It becomes evident that in this thesis, the discussion of whether the United States should continentally expand or not, will mostly be connected to the possible expansion of slavery.
The idea of Manifest Destiny and the possible expansion of slavery has been met with serious resistance in the first half of the nineteenth century. When Missouri requested the admission into the Union as a slave state in 1819, this was met with political discussion. The admission of Missouri would create an unbalance in the Union, in favor of slave states. Northerners believed a restriction on slavery in the new state would be fair, however, Southerners believed a state had the right to decide that of itself. The Missouri Compromise saved the Union, allowing Missouri to enter as a slave state, with Maine joining the Union as a free state, to keep the balance. Also, new states above the southern border of Missouri were restricted from slavery. This compromise stood solidly until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
Before the Kansas-Nebraska Act several vital events related to the expansion of the Union took place. In 1836, the independent Republic of Texas requested to be admitted into the Union. Only in 1845, Texas was officially admitted as a slave state, the request being postponed for 9 years due to political debates over expansion. The admission of Texas started the Mexican-American War, in which the Union took control over the southwest of the continent. This war was fulfilling for the Manifest Destiny Democrats; however, it ignited new debates over whether slavery should be allowed in the new territories. One of these territories would become the future state of California, but not without resistance. Politicians debated for a few months over what the status of the new territories should be. Eventually, the Compromise of 1850 allowed California to enter the Union as a free state, where the territories of Utah and New
5 Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1995), 212.
Mexico could vote whether slavery would be allowed or not, angering Southern slaveholders. Lastly, the Fugitive Slave Act was ratified, which ignited resistance from the Northern states.
These events that happened between 1819 and 1850 show that, as claimed in this introduction, continental expansion was always met with resistance, either from the North or the South. Still, as shown in the beginning of this section, several historians claim that the expansionist ambition was generally embraced in the Union. In this thesis I will explore this claim, focusing on the four expansionist events named in the prior section. To review these expansionist ambitions, I will look at three important politicians who played a vital role in the political debates related to these expansionist events, namely Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster. This trio is also known as The Great Triumvirate, due to the fact that these three men defined a large part of national politics in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Evidently, these three men do not represent completely whether there was a national expansionist ambition in the United States. However, they did in fact represent different visions on expansionism. It is important to note that it would be unnuanced to say that there was or was not a national ambition for expansion. It was much more complicated than that and historians have undermined the role of Manifest Destiny and slavery in relation to expansionism. It is important to note that this thesis will not analyze the views of Manifest Destiny of these three politicians, but rather whether Manifest Destiny should entail the expansion of slaver or not. There were several reasons to be pro-expansionist or anti-expansionist and these reasons influenced the decision making of politicians, either publicly or privately. In other words, there were three movements observable within expansionist thinking and Clay, Calhoun and Webster each represented one of those three movements. Webster, a New Englander and Northerner, represented a firm and steady anti-slavery and anti-expansionist vision. Contrary to Webster, South Carolinian Calhoun embodied the Southern vision, which was slavery and only pro-expansionism if it was beneficial to the South. Clay, a Kentuckian from the border region, represented an anti-slavery ideology and was mostly anti-expansionist to protect the Union. By analyzing these three politicians, an analysis of those three movements can be made too. How and why did the expansionist beliefs and aspirations of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun transform between 1820 and 1850?
To answer this question, this thesis will be a qualitative research and contains a comparative analysis of three politicians. A comparative research his significant for this subject, because by showing the differences between these three politicians, it can be concluded that there were indeed several kinds of expansionism in antebellum United States. Moreover, this will be a
literary research. To perform such research, this thesis will put emphasis on primary sources. However, it will also use secondary sources to support the primary sources in this research. It is important to focus on original sources, because to answer this question, a personal view on the subject of expansion is necessary of all three politicians. It is not my intention to use the views of other historians to create my argument. However, it will be necessary to use their scholarly works to fill in the gaps in my own research. Because this research is actually criticizing the fact that most historians believe that Americans either supported expansionism or not, it is important to use primary sources. By using those kind of sources it is possible to create my own argument on whether Americans embraced expansionism in nineteenth century United States.
For each politician, several primary sources are available that will reveal information about their expansionist ambitions, how they really thought about the expansionist events that happened between 1819 and 1850 and their reasons and arguments for their political decisions. For Clay, Webster and Calhoun there are volumes of papers available which contain legal papers, diplomatic papers and correspondence, such as The Papers of Henry Clay, The Papers
of Daniel Webster and The Papers of John C. Calhoun. These sources will be used to find
personal letters from each politician, as well as full texts of speeches. Moreover, the editors of these editions have written down remarks from the debates in Congress, which will be used as well. Lastly, these Papers contain historical facts given by the editors, which will also be used for the historical context. For this thesis, the letters in these volumes have been used to determine what kind of view each politician had on expansionism. These editions have been published in the second half of the twentieth century. Usually, it can be possible that there is a difference between the public and private image of these politicians. Therefore, it is important to approach sources like these carefully. However, it appears that for all three politicians the private correspondence was comparable with their public image. In their correspondence they had more freedom to say what they truly believed, depending on who they were writing to. Publicly, this could be a different case, because their political views could perhaps not match with their political ambitions.
To answer the research question, it is important to research their public image as well. The the archives of the United States Senate and Congress, such as the Congressional Globe and the Annals of Congress, hold several speeches and transcripts of debates held between 1819 and 1850. These are literal transcripts of debates held in Congress. Especially these sources were hard to use, because there was no simple way to find the information you needed. It
contains thousands of pages. These transcripts are used to find personal remarks from each politician on several subjects. Sometimes several speeches in Congress have not been printed in the Papers editions of each politicians, but they can be found in either the Congressional
Globe or the Annals of Congress. Lastly, sometimes speeches seem to be available online only,
for which several websites will be used to refer to the original sources. For this research, I approached the public speeches carefully as well, but what was interesting was that all three politicians seemed very honest in their speeches, especially because they did not try to hide their emotions. By reading their words, you could understand the fear, frustration and despair. Moreover, their speeches and remarks in Congress were comparable with their private views which became clear by reading their correspondence. If there had been a big difference between both, it would have been hard to determine whether they embraced expansionism or not and to what extent.
The amount of sources for each politician surely differs from each other. It seemed that for Calhoun it was the easiest to find sources. The amount of volumes of his correspondence was definitely more than for Clay or Webster. Moreover, Calhoun was a very outspoken politician, and might have been a quite controversial politician as well. He gave several speeches on issues like slavery and expansion. Likewise, for Clay there were many sources available as well. As The Great Compromiser he has been present during grand debates, while working on a solution on the background. He had to give many speeches, because he had to defend his plans more than once. For Webster it was the hardest to find interesting sources. His correspondence contained less information, he was not as involved as Clay and Calhoun and he was less outspoken on the subjects that have been researched in this thesis.
The secondary sources will be used in this thesis to support results found in the primary sources, such as biographies like The Great Triumvirate by Merill Peterson and biographies on Clay and Webster by Robert Remini. Also, it is important to use secondary sources to create a larger framework of the historical events and how historians have viewed these events. Moreover, secondary sources will be used to determine the positions of historians in the debate of whether expansionist ambitions were generally embraced in nineteenth century America or not. It is important to note that some original sources seem to be unavailable. However, both Remini and Peterson do give information on the views of all three politicians. These observations will be used to analyze the transforming ambitions of Clay, Calhoun and Webster. In general, some other secondary sources will be used to provide information on the three
politicians. Although it sometimes does not represent an original quote, it does provide information on the views of Clay, Calhoun and Webster.
This thesis is divided into three sections. In the first section of this thesis a literary review will be made to reveal the state of the field in this discussion. Historians do not always agree with each other on whether the people of the United States generally embraced the expansionist ambitions. Also, historians are still discussing whether this continental expansion can be seen as the beginning of the so-called American empire. Second, there will be a chapter on Clay, Calhoun and Webster. In this section, each politician’s personal beliefs and ambitions will be explored. I will dive deeper in their personal and political background, which is important because it can be helpful to determine why these politicians made certain decisions in the future. Besides, to explore the transformation of their expansionist aspirations, it is important to understand what their beliefs were at the beginning of their political career. This will be done by using both primary and secondary sources. Subsequently, the third chapter is divided in the four expansionist events, namely the Missouri Crisis, the annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War and the Compromise of 1850. For each event I will explore how the expansionist ambitions were met with resistance, why there was resistance and where Clay, Calhoun and Webster stood in these debates. Lastly, I will answer the question how and why the expansionist beliefs of Clay, Calhoun and Webster transformed between 1820 and 1850.
2. Antebellum Expansionism
Relating to the topic of expansionist ambitions of the United States, two relevant questions have been discussed by historians. Firstly, the question whether the United States can be seen as an empire or not plays an important role in the historical debate. Historians do not agree with each other whether the United States fit into the description of the definition of an empire. Second, can continental expansion be seen as imperialism and the first steps to building a global empire? If so, to what extent did Americans embrace these expansionist ambitions? For Americans, there were generally three reasons to advocate western expansion on the continent. First, some believed that expansion would lead to commercial benefits. Second, Americans argued that expansion was necessary for national security and protected the Union against European threats. Third, there was a nationalist ideology that advocated westward expansion. However, as stated before, most historians have barely given thought to find some nuance in their researches on expansionism in the United States. Historians have mostly focused on the reasons why Americans wanted to expand, but they barely emphasized on why Americans did not want to expand. They have failed to recognize at least three movements of expansionist thinking, namely those that Clay, Calhoun and Webster represented.
From the birth of the nation, the United States had always been drawn to the western territories on the continent. Especially in the beginning of the 1800s, after the purchase of Louisiana in 1803 opened new doors, many Americans moved westwards, inhabiting new lands. Graebner argues that the purchase of Louisiana “had implied that the United States would become a great continental power”.7 As Michael Morrison claims, expansion was part of the
American character and desirable.8 Historian Thomas McCormick agrees with both Morrison
and Johannsen, arguing that from its birth the United States had always had a focus on the colonization of North America.9 All political decisions that had been made relating to expansion
were consciously decided. He concludes that the United States had always been an empire.10
Daniel Immerwahr agrees with McCormick, adding that “the United States was no longer a
7 Graebner, Empire on the Pacific, 2.
8 Michael A. Morrison, “Westward The Curse of Empire: Texas Annexation and the American Whig Party”, Journal of the Early Republic 10, no. 2 (1990), 229.
9 Thomas McCormick, “From Old Empire to New: The Changing Dynamics and Tactics of American Empire” in Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State ed. by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco
A. Scarano (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 64.
union of states alone but amalgam of states and territories, which it has been ever since.”11 Still, McCormick contends that the United States had been established after a war against an empire, namely the British empire. Therefore, it was a product of an anti-colonial war, where anti-imperialism was part of its character as well.12 Whether or not you can call it an empire, Americans had three reasons to support westward expansion.
Historians agree that expansionist aspirations were mostly formed out of economic benefits. Graebner claims that the pursuit of a commercial empire played a determining factor in the growth of the United States.13 Americans expected that territorial expansion would lead to economic progress.14 This is understandable, as the neo-mercantilist policy in the United States, which prefers exports over imports, fit the idea of commercial expansion. Historian Rush Welter elaborates on the commercial argument, stating that for the North, there was a deep interest in manufacturing and marketing cotton, where the South had an even deeper interest in the extension and protection of slavery.15 The desire for an American empire is linked to the
idea of commercial expansion. Several historians claim that the commercial expansion on the continent is the beginning of what would become an American empire. Historian William Earl Weeks argues that commercial expansionism was not only an economic necessity, but “it would serve as the primary means to Americanize the world”.16
A second reason why Americans aspired an expansionist agenda was national security and the threat of European influence, whether these threats were real or imaginary.17 Though historians believe that commercial interests played an important role in the expansionist ambitions of antebellum United States, Welter notes that this did not create an aggressive policy on the continent.18 Defeating the British empire on American grounds did not mean that British influence completely disappeared on the continent. The British were still present in what is now Canada, but were also feared to have possible influence in Mexico, a young state bordering to the southwest of the United States. National security was a significant subject in American politics in the beginning of the nineteenth century. William Weeks connects the importance of
11 Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2019), 383.
12 McCormick, “From Old Empire to New,” 63. 13 Graebner, Empire on the Pacific, 3.
14 Rush Welter, The Mind of America, 1820-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), 67. 15 Ibid., 66.
16 William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire. American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 490.
17 Welter, The Mind of America, 41. 18 Ibid., 67.
national security to continental expansion. Weeks also references to Thomas Jeffersons’s claim that republicanism could only be safe if it existed everywhere.19 Ironically, expansion would create the exact opposite.
Jefferson once claimed that the British were the United States’ only natural enemy and these hostile attitudes towards the British Empire stayed present during the nineteenth century. It is rather debatable whether there were real British plans to interfere on the continent, however, some Americans, especially in the South, seriously considered the British as a problem. Some historians, such as Paul Varg, argue that Anglophobia did play a minor role in the expansionist agenda, but Sam Haynes does not agree.20 Anxieties did shape American politics. Haynes claims that the British were regarded as a commercial power, which Americans wished to challenge.21 Also, since abolishing slavery in their territories, the British were hit with an economic blow – British threats carried abolitionism with them. Logically, because the Union’s Achilles heel was slavery.22 Anglophobia could have united the Union, writes Haynes, however,
coupled with slavery, it created sectional tensions.23
The third reason for Americans to support continental expansion was the idea that they were destined to spread Americanism over the continent. Welter argues that American expansion “found expression in a grandiose vision of American liberty overspreading the accessible world”.24 He later acknowledges that ““Manifest Destiny” was the ultimate
expression of the Americans’ most vigorous hopes for raising the rest of the world to their own level.”25 However, some historians do not believe there was an American ambition to create a
global empire. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argues that even though political figures called the nation an empire, the word empire itself is irrelevant, because they never expected to have a nation that would stretch from one coast to another.26
Americans thought they were destined to expand to the rest of the continent. This Manifest Destiny, a term that was first coined in the 1840s, was a justification especially used in the first half of the nineteenth century. As stated before, “Manifest Destiny was the ultimate
19 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, 492.
20 Sam Haynes, “Anglophobia and the Annexation of Texas: The Quest for National Security” in Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism ed. Robert Johannsen, Sam Haynes et al. (College Station: Texas
A&M University Press: 1997), 116.
21 Ibid., 118. 22 Ibid., 124. 23 Ibid., 118.
24 Welter, The Mind of America, 41. 25 Ibid., 66.
expression of the Americans’ most vigorous hopes for raising the rest of the world to their own level”.27 As Graebner argues, a great number had rejoiced in the importance of a Manifest
Destiny: “For them the mission of American is synonymous with a will to dominate, to play the part of a new Rome, to make the next hundred years the American century”.28 It is unnuanced
to argue whether there was a Manifest Destiny or not. Subsequently, to argue whether there was a Manifest Destiny that was generally embraced is complicated, because, as William Weeks claims, there was not one Manifest Destiny, but several Manifest Destinies.29
However, there were Americans who did not embrace expansionist aspirations. Interestingly, where some Americans used republicanism as their justification for an expansionist agenda, others used republicanism as their justification against an expansionist agenda. Amy Greenberg writes that “extended territory was incompatible with a good, virtuous, republican government”.30 Some Americans were really not interested in creating an empire.
They pointed to the history books, arguing that in history most big empires, such as the Roman Empire, eventually fell because of its constant expansionist ambition and it could simply not endure.31 Lyon Rathbun adds that the opposition of expansionism would prefer to “cultivate the
inner resources of the Republic instead of pursuing empire”.32 Extension would lead to inner
damage or as James Monroe once said: Republics could not expand without self-destruction.33 Indeed, expansion in the United States never went easily.
Thus, Americans did not support expansionism unconditionally. There were too many differences, politically and regionally, which will become clear in the next chapters when examining several expansionist events in the first half of the nineteenth century. By researching Clay, Calhoun and Webster, this thesis will bring nuance to the discussion, contrary to the historians who have not done so. In this thesis, it appears that slavery was deeply connected to whether Americans supported expansionism or not. It was not expansion itself, but especially the consequence of expansion, because connected to the continental expansion of the United States, was the expansion of slavery as well. This thesis will show how there were different
27 Welter, The Mind of America, 66. 28 Graeber, Empire on the Pacific, 32.
29 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, 492.
30 Amy Greenberg, ““Time’s Noblest Empire is the Last”. Texas Annexation in the Presumed Course of American
Empire”, in Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution ed. by Eric Schlereth and Sam Haynes (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015), 146.
31 Mark Joy, American Expansion, 1783-1860: A Manifest Destiny? (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2003), 62. 32 Lyon Rathbun, “The Debate over Annexing Texas and the Emergence of Manifest Destiny”, Rhetoric and Public
Affairs 4, no. 3 (2011), 459.
movements in expansionist thinking. Some believed in a rapid expansion, some believed in a controlled expansion. Some believed in expansion because it benefited their region, some did not believe in expansion because it threatened their region. Manifest Destiny did not unite Americans, “but instead divided the nation over what such acquisitions meant for the domestic politics of slavery and for the explicit goal of retaining the United States as a white nation”.34
34 Paul Frymer, Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion (Princeton:
3. The American Great Triumvirate
In the decades preceding the Civil War, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun defined American politics. The three statesmen dominated the Senate and the House of Representatives for several years. All three were very different. Daniel Webster was a Northern Federalist from New England, Henry Clay was a National Republican from Kentucky and John Calhoun was a Southern nationalist from South Carolina. They all entered American national politics just before the War of 1812, each with very dissimilar aspirations and views. They would stay involved until their deaths in the 1850s and in approximately forty years, their views would constantly be affected by the American expansionist aspirations, shaping their political views.
Of the three men that will be studied in this thesis, Daniel Webster was probably the least outspoken of all three. Born a son of a farmer in 1782 in New Hampshire, Webster was a typical New England politician. After graduating from Dartmouth College, Webster studied law and became a prominent attorney in New Hampshire. He had always been a supporter of the Federalist Party, and he would stay close to their vision during his political career. Webster definitely opposed the War of 1812 against the British empire, claiming that it would be destructive to the commercial development of the Union. In 1807 Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act was passed, blocking exports from American ports and imports from British ports. This was especially destructive for Webster’s beloved New England.35 He did not want something
like that again because of a war. Also, a war against the British would make them an ally of tyrannical France, which Webster did not support. In a speech in 1812, now famous as the Rockingham Memorial, Webster argued that such a war could lead to secession.36 As an opponent of the war, Webster was elected into the House of Representatives in 1813 as a Federalist, which officially started his political career.
Federalists accused pro-war politicians that the underlying reason of this war was expansionism. However, there was no widespread ambition to take the region of Canada. Webster was also convinced that the War Hawks had some expansionist aspirations. In a letter to Charles March in 1813 Webster wrote: “I am fully of opinion, that the Administration now looks forward to its own certain downfall, unless it can have peace. But if it does make peace, it will have all the West &c in arms agt it.”37 Though it is not completely clear, however, it
35 Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster. The Man and His Time (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997), 94. 36 Ibid., 100.
37 Daniel Webster to Charles March, 28 June 1813, in The Papers of Daniel Webster, vol. 1, ed. Charles M. Wiltse
seems that Webster opposed expansion as the justification of the war of 1812. Already in the beginning of his career, Webster showed the first signs of his anti-expansionist thinking. In the end, the British did lose control over the Northwestern territories, where mostly Native Americans had been living, and the treaty of Ghent also opened new doors for immigrants to the Spanish regions of Florida. Historian Peter Parish writes that “Eastern anxiety about the character and future growth of the West had been part of American history since colonial and Revolutionary days.”38
In 1817, Webster left the House of Representatives and continued to practice law. Webster had many successes in especially constitutional cases, which gave him the nickname ‘Defender of the Constitution’. During his career, which lasted until his death in 1852, Webster defended more than 200 cases. It is important to note that Webster especially studied the United States Constitution and most of his cases determined whether something was unconstitutional or not. This obsession with the Constitution would affect Webster’s future decisions and visions, also in terms of expansionism. Though Webster was not an official politician between 1817 and 1823, he was still politically involved. For example, during the Missouri Crisis in 1819, Webster spoke out about slavery and the admittance of new states to the Union in a Memorial to the Congress. In 1822, Webster ran for the House of Representatives and in 1823, he officially returned to American politics. From then until his death in 1852, Webster would stay politically active, playing decisive roles during the expansionist debates in the following years, with the help of the Constitution. He fiercely represented a antislavery and anti-expansionist attitude during his career.
A political colleague of Webster who would eventually become one of his rivals in Congress was John Calhoun. Calhoun was born in 1782 in South Carolina as the son of a farmer, planter and a local politician. His father never was a Patriot and he opposed the ratification of the federal Constitution, because he believed in states’ rights. Although John Calhoun eventually became a nullifier in the middle of his political career, he was actually a nationalist in the beginning of his career. Growing up in South Carolina there were not many educational facilities, however, Calhoun took the opportunity to study at an academy in Appling.39 After a few months this academy was closed and Calhoun had to study privately at home. In 1802, Calhoun got the chance to study at Yale and he graduated in 1804. Here he met Timothy
38 Peter Parish, “Daniel Webster, New England, and the West”, The Journal of American History 54, no. 3
(December 1967), 524.
Dwight, President of Yale, who tried to persuade Calhoun into Federalism, but failed.40 After Yale, Calhoun studied law at Tapping Reeve Law School and eventually was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1807.
In 1810, Calhoun was elected into the House of Representatives. Together with Henry Clay, as part of the War Hawks, Calhoun supported the War of 1812 against the British Empire. Calhoun believed that the raids by the British in the United States could only be stopped with a war. For Calhoun, it was important to bind the sections in the Union together.41 The war was of national interest, writes John G. Grove, and “Calhoun called upon all citizens to support the war effort regardless of personal stake or opinion, was duty-bound “to promote the prosperity of the republic.””42 This way, Calhoun tried to create public sentiment for the war. Opposite to what Federalists such as Webster claimed, Calhoun did not support the War of 1812 because of the so-called ambition to expand the Union. In fact, in the 1810s, Calhoun was convinced that expansion would be a terrible danger to the Union and could lead to disunion.43 Calhoun feared
that a bigger nation would mean that there would be no sympathy for each other, because there was no social intercourse possible between all sections. Moreover, the bigger the nation would grow, the more personal interests would be developed.44 In 1817, Calhoun was appointed
Secretary of War in the Monroe Administration and Calhoun worked hard to protect the Union. As a nationalist, Calhoun promoted internal improvements, such as the development of infrastructure by building roads and canals, to connect different sections and promote social intercourse with each other, all for binding the Union together.
However, in the 1820s, Calhoun started to develop sectionalist ambitions, starting to attack policies he had supported himself. Gerald Capers argues that in one way, this had to do with Calhoun’s personal ambitions, stating that Calhoun had presidential ambitions from the beginning of his political career.45 In 1821, when Calhoun wanted to run for President, he did not get the nationalist support he expected, which could have created resentment towards the nationalist wing of American politics. It is also important to note that Calhoun vigorously worked towards his personal ambitions, believing that his own methods to preserve the Union
40 Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union, 18.
41 John G. Grove, “Binding the Republic together: the early political thought of John C. Calhoun,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 115, no. 2 (April 2014), 102.
42 Ibid., 103. 43 Ibid., 110. 44 Ibid.
45 Gerald Capers, “A Reconsideration of John C. Calhoun’s Transition from Nationalism to Nullification,” The Journal of Southern History 14, no. 1 (February 1948), 35.
were always the right methods.46 This means that Calhoun might have switched from nationalism to sectionalism because he then believed that was the right method. Moreover, Capers argues that Calhoun might have “privately decided that his nationalistic support did not benefit the South and the Union.”47 In the end, Calhoun transformed from a nationalist into a sectionalist and supported nullification in the 1830s, until the end of his political career in the 1850s, which affected his decisions during the expansionist debates. This behavior was closely related to his expansionist movement, which would sway around just like Calhoun himself. It was part of Calhoun’s character to pursue what was in his interest, or in the interest of the South. Unlike his contemporaries Webster and Calhoun, Henry Clay was very outspoken about expansionism in the beginning of his career. Clay was born in 1777 in Virginia, a son in a planter family. His father passed away when Clay was four years old, leaving him his first two slaves.48 When his mother remarried, the family moved west to Kentucky to continue planting, however, Clay stayed behind in Virginia and started a clerkship at the Virginia Court of Chancery. During his clerkship, Clay met George Whythe, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who was intrigued by Clay’s writing talent and he appointed Clay as his secretary.49 It was Whythe who first taught Clay about the idea that the United States could be
the nation that could spread the idea of freedom around the world. Whythe arranged a position for Clay with Robert Brooke, the Virginia Attorney General.50 During his stay in Richmond, Clay developed new political ideas. He never abandoned his nationalistic views, but he was intrigued with states’ rights philosophy of James Madison.51 Brooke tutored Clay and in 1797
Clay was admitted to the Virginia Bar.
A few years later, Clay moved to Kentucky to be closer to his family. Because he was already admitted to the Virginia Bar, Clay soon got a license to practice law in Kentucky as well. He built his own plantation and owned more than fifty slaves. While practicing law, Clay also started to teach in 1805 at the first university west of the Appalachian, Transylvania University. As most Kentuckians, Clay was a member of the Democratic Republican Party and committed to local politics. In 1803, he was chosen as a member of the House of Representatives of Kentucky, where he proposed the gradual emancipation of slaves, even though Clay himself was a slaveowner. This shows that Clay was willing to choose an 46 Capers, “A Reconsideration of John C. Calhoun’s Transition”, 35.
47 Ibid., 42.
48 Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay. Statesman for the Union (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 5. 49 Ibid., 9.
50 Ibid., 12. 51 Ibid., 13.
antislavery side in the political discussion. His political career developed quickly when he was chosen to fill the seat of Senator Buckner Thrustonis in the Senate in 1810. Clay’s expansionist ambitions quickly became apparent.
As a Senator, Clay was significantly fierce on the British attacks on American ships and soon became a part of the so-called War Hawks, advocating a war against the British Empire to stop this humiliation. Clay was a Senator for just a short period of time. He disliked the rules in the Senate, and instead was elected for a seat in the House later in 1810. Clay was chosen to become the Speaker of the House and became the leader of the War Harks in the House. In a debate over conflicts between British and American ships in 1810, Clay stated: “No man in the nation wants peace more than I; but I prefer the troubled ocean of war, demanded by the honor and independence of the country, with all its calamities and desolation, to the tranquil and putrescent pool of ignominious peace.52 He continued: “but if with neither, and we are forced into a selection of our enemy, then am I for war with Britain, because I believe her prior in aggression, and her injuries and insults to us were atrocious in character.”53 This politician was
a nationalist who wanted to protect its country’s independence and honor and he would do so for the rest of his career. Clay would stay in the House until 1824, with some interruptions.
During his time in the House, Clay also advocated the annexation of Florida from the Spanish, and eventually played an important role during the Missouri Crisis in 1819. In the beginning of this political career Clay was an outspoken expansionist. Historian Thomas Jones contends, writing that Clay worked vigorously for the acquisition of Texas and the movement into East Florida and the Northwest.54 One of Clay’s most ambitious plans was the idea that the United States should become a hemispheric empire.55 According to Jones, Clay developed this premature plan between 1816 and 1824. Even though the first sectional tensions over expansion became apparent during the Missouri Crisis, Clay did not step away from his expansionist ambitions and he still believed that expansion would not hurt the Union in any way. This becomes clear, because together with President John Quincy Adams, Clay had tried several times to purchase Texas in the 1820s, believing the United States had the rightful claim to Texas after the Louisiana Purchase in 1804.56
52 Annals of Congress, 11th Cong., 2nd Sess., 579. 53 Ibid.
54 Thomas B. Jones, “Henry Clay and continental expansion, 1820-1844,” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 73, no. 3 (July, 1975), 242.
55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 250.
Clay would stay active in American politics until his death in 1852 and in the thirty years between the Missouri Crisis and his death, Clay would slowly transform his political and expansionist ambitions. Clay would never abandon his expansionist aspirations, however, he did recognize the dangers of expansion to the harmony of the Union. This was the core of his expansionist thinking and the movement he represented in the nineteenth century. During his career, Clay would run into several events where he had to choose between his nationalistic sentiment to preserve the Union and his expansionist desires to create a bigger American nation. Clay earned the nickname The Great Compromiser for his hard work of always finding the middle ground in political and expansionist cases.
4. Expansionist Case Studies
4.1. The Missouri Crisis
It was no surprise that when the Missouri Territory first applied for statehood in 1817 it would become the subject of a heated debate between the North and the South, which would eventually last until 1820. Prior to the Missouri crisis, the territory of Illinois applied for statehood. This territory was part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which stated that slavery would be prohibited in new states in the Ohio Valley. Similar to Missouri, many settlers in the Illinois territory were slaveholders and hoped that Illinois would be admitted to the Union as a slave state, which sparked debates. Nevertheless, Illinois was admitted as a free state, as agreed in the Northwest Ordinance. However, there was no such agreement for the territory of Missouri and the debates over whether Missouri would be admitted as a free state or a slave state almost broke the Union in two.
The issue in the debates over Missouri was not expansion per se. Both Northerners and Southerners did mostly advocate expansion at the end of the 1810s and the beginning of the 1820s. Although the War of 1812 did bind the Union together and created some nationalistic sentiment, both the North and the South still had a different character. In 1817, Missouri applied for statehood and this was problematic because of several reasons. First, the admittance of Missouri would disturb the balance between slave states and free states in the United States and, naturally, the balance in Congress. This balance was important, because both the North and the South had trust issues with each other, accusing each other of pursuing their own self-interest, a balance would keep the Union together.57 If Missouri would be admitted to the Union, then another state should be created to keep the balance undisturbed. Second, most Northerners resisted the expansion of slavery, allowing Missouri to be admitted as a slave state would be problematic to the North.
One of the issues on the table during the Missouri debates was the expansion of slavery in the Union. Northerners were not against slavery in general, but they were against the existence of slavery everywhere.58 This resistance against the extension of slavery
foreshadowed the future tensions between the North and the South. This Northern hostility to
57 Merill Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press USA,
1988), 59.
58 Padraig Riley, Slavery and the Democratic Conscience: Political Life in Jeffersonian America (Philadelphia:
slavery developed in a hostility to Southern dominance. Padraig Riley contends that the “Missouri Crisis indicated the potential influence of antislavery nationalism, but it also confined the ongoing political power of slaveholders in the American nation-state.”59 The difference in character between the North and South can be traced back to their visions during the Missouri debates. Riley argues that the North believed they lived in a Nation where slavery existed, however, they hoped that federal power would control its western advance.60 Contrary to the North, the South believed they lived in a nation where slavery existed and claimed that the federal government should not interfere with slavery. They argued they should be able to control slavery on their own terms.61 The South would continue to defend states’ rights during the debates over Missouri.
To find a solution, the New York Representative James Tallmadge Jr. proposed an amendment for the Missouri Crisis, proposing that the introduction of new slaves in Missouri would be prohibited and demanded the emancipation of slaves in Missouri at the age of twenty-five. This way Missouri would eventually become a free state.62 According to Remini, this
clause made the matter worse.63 Southerners did not agree, arguing that slavery was already
prohibited north of the Ohio River, and would now also be prohibited in the area of the Louisiana purchase.64 Tallmadge’s amendment passed the House, but it failed in the Senate.65 Nevertheless, in 1820 probably one of the most famous compromises in American history was reached. In 1820, not only Missouri wanted to be admitted to the United States, but Maine as well.66 Now there was an opening to not disturb the balance of free and slave states in the Union.
The request of Maine to be admitted as a state in the Union was immediately picked up by Henry Clay, speaker of the House at that time. Clay was aware of the sectional tensions that sparked because of the Missouri Crisis: “It is a most unhappy question, awakening sectional feelings, and exasperating them to the highest degree.”67 He compared the situation to Vermont
and Kentucky, one free state and one slave state, both admitted to the Union at the same time. Clay believed that there could be a solution that would both be beneficial to the South and
59 Riley, Slavery and the Democratic Conscience, 204. 60 Ibid., 208.
61 Ibid.
62 Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 59. 63 Remini, Clay, 172.
64 Remini, Webster, 168.
65 Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 59.
66 David Heidler and Jeanne Heidler, Manifest Destiny (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003), 47.
67 Henry Clay to Adam Beatty, 22 January 1820, in The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 2, ed. James F. Hopkins
North, temporarily taking away the tensions between both sections. Although Clay was anti-slavery, he allowed the expansion of the institution in Missouri, because he believed it was a temporary thing that would eventually be eliminated by a growing demand of free labor.68 This is important, because Clay resisted continental expansion if it meant that slavery would expand as well. This was the core of Clay’s expansionist thinking. If Clay allowed the institution to expand, he was convinced it would actually disappear in the end. Eventually, the bill for Maine and Missouri was adopted in February 1820, but the next day an amendment was added which prohibited slavery above the 36°30’ north latitude, except in Missouri. This amendment was important, because Northerners saw the Maine-Missouri bill as a pro-Southern bill, however, now slavery would have a geographical border, which was something Northerners could certainly agree with. Eventually, the bill and the amendment passed in both houses and was signed by President Monroe in March that same year. For Webster, Clay and Calhoun at this time during the Missouri Crisis, it was most significant that the Union should not be dissolved, no matter what.
Of these three politicians, Webster was the only one who was not active as a politician during the debates over Missouri. Webster was involved in the Northern movement. Webster, and many New Englanders with him, preferred future restrictions on the institution of slavery. This was one of the key elements of Webster’s representation until his death. He was invited to a meeting in the State House in December 1819, where he made such an impression on the matter that he became the chair of a committee that would draw up the Memorial to the
Congress of the United States on the subject of restraining the increase of Slavery.69 In this
Memorial, Webster specifically argued in legal terms. Webster argued that the federal
government indeed had the right to prohibit slavery in new states – Southern politicians believed that a new state should be able to decide for themselves whether they wanted to prohibit slavery or not.70 In the Memorial, it said that the prohibition of slavery “would seem to be as much within its power of legislation, as any other ordinary act of local policy.”71
However, although Webster and his committee mostly argued against slavery in legal terms, they denounced the system as well: “If the progress of this great evil is ever to be arrested, it
68 Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 61. 69 Remini, Webster, 169.
70 Daniel Webster, George Blake, et al., Memorial to the Congress of the United States on the subject of restraining the increase of Slavery in New States to be admitted into the Union (Boston: Sewell, Phelps, Printer,
1819), 3.
seems to the undersigned that this is the time to arrest it.”72 Lastly, they pointed to Missouri and
the role of the government, and argued that “if its [Missouri] extensive and fertile fields shall be opened as a market for Slaves, the Government will seem to become a party to a traffic which, in so many acts, through so many years, it has denounced as impolitic, unchristian, inhuman.73 Although Webster was not an active politician at this time, his public opinion on the Missouri question was clear: slavery must not be expanded to new territories.
Like Webster and Clay, John Calhoun did fear disunion in the 1810s. As stated before, Calhoun was a nationalist in the 1810s, advocating internal improvements to bind the different sections together. In February, 1817, Calhoun gave a speech on the internal improvements of the country. He argued that expansion had its advantages, but for Calhoun it was problematic as well, because it would distance the sections even further.74 Calhoun believed that only if expansion was combined with internal improvements, it could be beneficial to the nation.75 If not, he argued, “it exposes us to the greatest of all calamities, next to the loss of liberty, and even to that in its consequence – disunion.”76 This political discourse of Calhoun developed to
be his core argument during the Missouri Crisis. Naturally, the sectional tensions that sparked during the Crisis were far from convenient to Calhoun. Contrary to Webster and Clay, Calhoun, as a Southern man, begrudged the possible prohibition of slavery in the new state of Missouri and argued that Tallmadge’s proposal was a danger to the American nation.77 There is not a lot of information about Calhoun’s thoughts on the Missouri Compromise, as he did not really write about it. However, John Quincy Adams discussed the Missouri Compromise with Calhoun and wrote about it in his diary. In February 1820, Adams wrote that he had a conversation with Calhoun and asked him about the slave question in Congress. Adams writes that Calhoun said that “he did not think it would produce a dissolution of the Union, but if it should the South would be from necessity compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive with Great Britain.”78 Though Calhoun believed in preserving the Union, he was clear
on the matter that if the Union should be dissolved, he would choose the South. This is important
72 Webster, Memorial, 3. 73 Ibid., 21.
74 Zoltan Vajda, “Complicated Sympathies: John C. Calhoun’s Sentimental Union and the South”, The South Carolina Historical Magazine 114, no. 3 (July, 2013), 218.
75 John C. Calhoun, “On Internal Improvements” (speech, Washington D.C., February 8, 1817), in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 1, ed. Robert L. Meriwether (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959), 401. 76 Ibid.
77 Vajda, “Complicated Sympathies”, 219.
78 John Quincy Adams, John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, 24 February 1820, Massachusetts Historical Society,
to remember, because even as a nationalist, Calhoun would eventually always choose the South if he had to, which represented his expansionist thinking in the following years of his career. Although an amendment was passed in both Houses in 1820, this did not mean that the Missouri Crisis was over. Because Missouri would be admitted to the United States as a state, the territory had to write its own state Constitution. It was expected that Missouri’s state Constitution would be republican and not in conflict with the United States Constitution, however, Missouri included a clause that argued that the state could enact laws to forbid ‘free negroes’ from entering the state.79 This would be in conflict with the United States Constitution
and Congressmen immediately called for the repeal of the Missouri Comprise. Remini writes that this second Missouri Crisis probably was even more dangerous to the harmony of the Union than the first crisis.80 Moreover, he contends that most historians tend to forget that there even was a Second Missouri Compromise. Whereas the First Missouri Compromise was mostly Clay’s work, the Second Missouri Compromise is where Clay really earned his nickname The Great Compromiser.
Clay had to find a middle ground between proslavery Southerners and antislavery restrictionist Northerners. Although this sounded like an impossible task, Clay was the right man to do this, since he gained respect from both sides.81 The South was agitated that Northerners demanded extra conditions to the admittance of Missouri. Moreover, the South argued that Missouri was already a state, thus attaching further conditions was not an option. However, no one actually knew whether Missouri was actually a state or a territory now. Clay wrote that when he got there he “found the members from the Slave States, and some from others, in despair. All efforts had been tried & failed to reconcile the parties.”82 Clay tried to
convince Northerners that the extra offending clause was not an obstacle, because legislators in Missouri would be bound to the United States Constitution anyway. He emphasized on the consequences for the Union of blocking Missouri’s admission as a state.83 Finally, Clay created a proposition in which Missouri would be admitted on the same footing as other states and Missouri would never enact laws that would deprive the rights that were protected by the United States Constitution of citizens from any state. Most politicians were done with the issue, also knowing the consequences of not admitting Missouri as a state. This Second Compromise 79 Remini, Clay, 185.
80 Ibid., 191. 81 Ibid., 190.
82 Henry Clay to William S. Woods, 16 July 1835, in The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 8, ed. Robert Seager
(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 787.
passed in Congress and on August 10, 1821 President Monroe officially declared Missouri a state.
4.2. The Annexation of Texas
The annexation of Texas was a rather different situation than the Missouri Crisis. First, the admittance of Texas as a state in the Union took almost a decade, whereas the Missouri Crisis lasted for approximately two years. Second, another important difference was the fact that Texas, originally a province of Mexico, was an independent republic when it requested to be admitted as a state in the Union, whereas Missouri was a territory settled by Americans. Lastly, the debates over the annexation of Texas divided the Union even more than it did during the Missouri Crisis and opened the road to secession in the 1860s. The debate over the annexation of Texas reflected different political perspectives on expansionism. Several historians argue that the annexation of Texas was a crucial moment in American history. In his book, historian Matthew Karp states that scholars see the annexation as a “triumph of expansionist ‘manifest destiny’.”84 Also, he argues that it also had been identified as a tactic by the Democratic Party
to gain votes.85 Moreover, Karp himself claims that the annexation of Texas was a win for Southern politicians, who tried to protect and expand the institution of slavery. The North accused the South of protecting the institution of slavery during the Missouri Crisis and during the debates over the annexation of Texas this was again an important issue.
Texas had been of interest of the United States before its request to be admitted to the Union in 1836. There have been several attempts in the 1820s to purchase Texas from Mexico, but these attempts failed. One of the politicians who was seriously interested in Texas was Henry Clay. Clay was convinced that the United States could claim Texas, because of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.86 Historian Thomas Jones writes that Clay worked “vigorously for
the acquisition of Texas.”87 In 1825, Clay, together with President John Quincy Adams, tried
to purchase Texas, but the request was declined. Just like Calhoun and Webster did Clay see the sectional tensions that sparked during the Missouri debates, but Clay did not give up on his expansionist ambitions yet.88 Together with Clay, Calhoun supported an expansionist agenda at the end of the 1820s. It must be stated that although Clay and Calhoun had been advocates of nationalism and binding the Union together for years, now Clay and Calhoun slowly started to drift away from each other.
84 Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American foreign policy (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2016), 82.
85 Ibid.
86 Jones, “Henry Clay and continental expansion”, 250. 87 Ibid, 242.
Calhoun’s nationalist ambitions started to change at the end of the 1820s, now the Vice President of Adams, when a discussion about tariffs in the Union sparked a heated debate between especially South Carolina and the North. From this moment on, Calhoun would slightly shift to the Southern section of the country, instead of the Union as a whole. The new tariffs, proposed by the federal government in 1824, created new sectional tensions. Southerners believed that the tariffs were meant to protect Northern manufacturers, at the expense of the South.89 Although Calhoun did support the federal tariffs in the beginning, he now started to change his vision. Because of his personal political ambitions, Calhoun did not want to lose the support of his Southern friends.90 Calhoun was aware of the seriousness of the tariffs, and wrote that he considered it “by far the most dangerous question that has ever sprung up under our system.”91 However, he was part of the administration that proposed a tariff in 1828 that became
known as the ‘Tariff of Abominations’ by Southern opponents, which passed in Congress.92 In
a letter to Littleton Tazewell he assured that the Union “is deep and steady to the South”.93
However, his home state South Carolina actually started discussing secession and he desperately wanted to avoid this at that moment.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected as president and when he appointed Calhoun as his Vice President, Southerners hoped he would repeal the tariffs. However, he failed to do so and this damaged the relationship between Jackson and Calhoun. Calhoun anonymously developed the theory of nullification by publishing a pamphlet called South Carolina Exposition
and Protest, which argued that a state has the right to nullify a federal law.94 Calhoun wrote that “imposing duties on imports – not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others – is unconstitutional, unequal and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the country.”95 In 1831, Calhoun published his Fort
Hill address, making his support for nullification public. In this address he argued that he
solemnly believed that state rights were“the only solid foundation of our system, and of the
89 Lacy K. Ford, “Republican Ideology in a Slave Society: The Political Economy of John C. Calhoun,” The Journal of Southern History 54, no. 3 (August 1988), 419.
90 Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 193.
91 John C. Calhoun to Duff Green, 1 July 1828, in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 10, ed. Clyde Wilson
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), 392.
92 John Grove, “Calhoun and Conservative Reform,” American Political Thought 4, no. 2 (Spring 2015), 207. 93 John C. Calhoun to Littleton Tazewell, 9 November 1827, in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 10, ed.
Clyde Wilson (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), 312
94 Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 169.
95 John C. Calhoun, “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” December 1828, South Carolina State Library.
