John C. Calhoun's importance as a statesman has naturally stood in the
way of his recognition as a writer, and in like manner his reputation as
an orator has overshadowed his just claims to be considered our most
original political thinker. The six volumes of his collected works,
which unfortunately do not embrace his still inaccessible private
correspondence, are certainly not exhilarating or attractive reading;
but they are unique in the literature of America, if not of the world,
as models of passionless logical analysis. Whether passionless logical
analysis is ever an essential quality of true literature, is a matter on
which opinions will differ; but until the question is settled in the
negative, Calhoun's claims to be considered a writer of marked force and
originality cannot be ignored. It is true that circumstances have
invalidated much of his political teaching, and that it was always
negative and destructive rather than positive and constructive; it is
true also that much of the interest attaching to his works is historical
rather than literary in character: but when all allowances are made, it
will be found that the 'Disquisition on Government' must still be
regarded as the most remarkable political treatise our country has
produced, and that the position of its author as the head of a school of
political thought is commanding, and in a way unassailable.
The precise character of Calhoun's political philosophy, the keynote of
which was the necessity and means of defending the rights of minorities,
cannot be understood without a brief glance at his political career. His
birth in 1782 just after the Revolution, and in South Carolina, gave
him the opportunity to share in the victory that the West and the far
South won over the Virginians, headed by Madison. His training at Yale
gave a nationalistic bias to his early career, and determined that
search for the _via media_ between consolidation and anarchy which
resulted in the doctrine of nullification. His service in Congress and
as Secretary of War under Monroe gave him a practical training in
affairs that was not without influence in qualifying his tendency to
indulge in doctrinaire speculation. His service as Vice-President
afforded the leisure and his break with Jackson the occasion, for his
close study of the Constitution, to discover how the South might
preserve slavery and yet continue in the Union. Finally, his position
as a non-aristocratic leader of a body of aristocrats, and his
Scotch-Irish birth and training, gave a peculiar strenuousness to his
support of slavery, which is of course the corner-stone of his political
philosophy; and determined his reliance upon logic rather than upon an
appeal to the passions as the best means of inculcating his teaching and
of establishing his policy. His political treatises, 'A Discourse on
Government' and 'On the Constitution and Government of the United
States,' written just before his death in 1850; his pamphlets like the
'South Carolina Exposition' and the 'Address to the People of South
Carolina'; and the great speeches delivered in the Senate from 1832 to
the end of his term, especially those in which he defended against
Webster the doctrine of nullification, could have emanated only from an
up-country South-Carolinian who had inherited the mantle of Jefferson,
and had sat at the feet of John Taylor of Carolina and of John Randolph
of Roanoke. Calhoun was, then, the logical outcome of his environment
and his training; he was the fearless and honest representative of his
people and section; and he was the master from whom rash disciples like
Jefferson Davis broke away, when they found that logical analysis of the
Constitution was a poor prop for slavery against the rising tide of
civilization.
As a thinker Calhoun is remarkable for great powers of analysis and
exposition. As a writer he is chiefly noted for the even dignity and
general serviceableness of his style. He writes well, but rather like a
logician than like an inspired orator. He has not the stateliness of
Webster, and is devoid of the power of arousing enthusiasm. The splendor
of Burke's imagination is utterly beyond him, as is also the
epigrammatic brilliance of John Randolph,--from whom, however, he took
not a few lessons in constitutional interpretation. Indeed, it must be
confessed that for all his clearness and subtlety of intellect as a
thinker, Calhoun is as a writer distinctly heavy. In this as in many
other respects he reminds us of the Romans, to whom he was continually
referring. Like them he is conspicuous for strength of practical
intellect; like them he is lacking in sublimity, charm, and nobility. It
follows then that Calhoun will rarely be resorted to as a model of
eloquence, but that he will continue to be read both on account of the
substantial additions he made to political philosophy, and of the
interesting exposition he gave of theories and ideas once potent in the
nation's history.
[Illustration: J. C. CALHOUN.]
Notwithstanding the bitterness of accusation brought against him, he was
not a traitor nor a man given over to selfish ambition, as Dr. von
Holst, his most competent biographer and critic, has clearly shown.
Calhoun believed both in slavery and in the Union, and tried to maintain
a balance between the two, because he thought that only in this way
could his section maintain its prestige or even its existence. He
failed, as any other man would have done; and we find him, like
Cassandra, a prophet whom we cannot love. But he did prophesy truly as
to the fate of the South; and in the course of his strenuous labors to
divert the ruin he saw impending, he gave to the world the most masterly
analysis of the rights of the minority and of the best methods of
securing them that has yet come from the pen of a publicist.
[Illustration: Signature: W. P. Trent]