Robert Elder

An excellent biography of John C. Calhoun and his legacy on American political thought, especially in terms of the "concurrent majority" and that while he may have gone back and forth on positions, his staunchest defenses were to preserve slavery because he felt if the southern slave states were kept satisfied, the Union would be preserved (and yet via nullification and disunion planted the seeds for secession and the Civil War). I was also struck by Calhoun's sheer ambition tempered by the pride that he need *not* campaign for president (although he clearly wanted it and thought he was the best for the job). A weighty biography, which makes sense to cover a noted historical orator who wrote extensive letters.

I am a graduate of Clemson University, so I spent four years on Calhoun's old Fort Hill but don't recall much about his legacy from then (admittedly, student lore says either going inside the house or reading the text on the statue of Thomas Green Clemson before graduating will doom you to never matriculate). It was fascinating to read this while recalling the very grounds described and trying to envision where the old slave quarters were, for example. I also hadn't realized Thomas Green Clemson was a northerner who married in, so that was new for me. The university has done a better job in recent years about acknowledging the history they sit on, but it wasn't until (frankly, close to or after publication time I would assume) recently that they stripped Calhoun's name from the Honor College. The final chapters grapple with this, Calhoun's ongoing legacy into the 21st century. The concurrent majority is a useful idea for protecting the interests of a minority, but he used it to argue for protecting the southern interest in what he perceived to be the "benevolence" of a slave society.… (meer)