“And the war came.”
Calhoun, Douglass, Lincoln
“What have I, or those I represent, to
do with your national independence?”
(Political Science 110EB)
John C. Calhoun
• 1782-1850
• "the Union, next to our liberty, the
most dear."
• From South Carolina, endorsed SC’s
position in nullification crisis.
• Federal gov’t becoming tyrannical,
infringing on Const’l rights of the states
• Champion of the South, states’ rights in
Senate, 1st half 19th C. Major figure in
antebellum Democratic party
– VP Under J.Q. Adams, Jackson; Sec. of
War under Monroe
“Slavery a Positive Good” – Feb. 6, 1837
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John C. Calhoun
• Strong states’ rights
– “The subject [slavery] is beyond the jurisdiction of
Congress - they have no right to touch it in any shape or
form, or to make it the subject of deliberation or
discussion. . . .”
• Exactly what powers were and were not ceded to the Federal
government in the Constitution?
• Right to secession
• People in non-slave states soon “will have been taught to
hate the people and institutions of nearly one-half of this
Union, with a hatred more deadly than one hostile nation
ever entertained towards another. It is easy to see the end.
By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we
must become, finally, two people.”
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John C. Calhoun
• Southern partisan:
– “We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions.”
– The South feels that the federal government is a tool of the
Northern, anti-slave faction. They see it as hostile and
oppressive.
• Slavery: something for everyone
• For (elite) whites: freedom from labor leads to greater
accomplishments:
– “there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in
which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact,
live on the labor of the other.”
• (While other figures also believed in the supremacy of whites, it did
not play as central a role in their vision of power & government)
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John C. Calhoun
• Slavery: something for everyone
• For (elite) whites: freedom from labor leads to
greater accomplishments:
– “there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized
society in which one portion of the community did
not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.”
• While other figures also believed in the supremacy of
whites, it did not play as central a role in their vision of
power & government
• White racial solidarity served to conceal the real class
divisions between plantation-owning, slaveholding whites
and small, non-slaveholding white farmers/citizens.
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John C. Calhoun
• Benefits of slavery to slaves:
– “Never before has the black race of Central Africa,
from the dawn of history to the present day, attained
a condition so civilized and so improved, not only
physically, but morally and intellectually.”
• “in few countries so much is left to the share of
the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or
where there is more kind attention paid to him in
sickness or infirmities of age.”
– Better than being an industrial laborer, a more gentle,
paternal form of power
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John C. Calhoun
• Thus, slavery stabilizes society:
• “There is and always has been in an advanced
stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict
between labor and capital. The condition of
society in the South exempts us from the
disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict;
and which explains why it is that the political
condition of the slaveholding States has been so
much more stable and quiet than that of the
North. . . .”
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Frederick Douglass
• ~1818-1895
• Born a slave
– Escaped on 3rd attempt, 1838
• Abolitionist & supporter of
women’s suffrage
• Supported Irish home rule,
but still popular in Britain
• Active in Reconstruction
politics
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Frederick Douglass
• “Why am I called upon to speak here to-day?
What have I, or those I represent, to do with your
national independence? Are the great principles
of political freedom and of natural justice,
embodied in that Declaration of Independence,
extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon
to bring our humble offering to the national altar,
and to confess the benefits and express devout
gratitude for the blessings resulting from your
independence to us?”
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• “The character and conduct of this nation
never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of
July! Whether we turn to the declarations of
the past, or to the professions of the present,
the conduct of the nation seems equally
hideous and revolting. America is false to the
past, false to the present, and solemnly binds
herself to be false to the future.”
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The Humanity of Slaves
• “Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves
acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their
government. They acknowledge it when they
punish disobedience on the part of the slave.
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of
Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no
matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the
punishment of death; while only two of the same
crimes will subject a white man to the like
punishment. What is this but the
acknowledgement that the slave is a moral,
intellectual and responsible being?”
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• “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all
other days in the year, the gross injustice and
cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him,
your celebration is a sham”
• “The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY
DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its
purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the
gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.”
– Slavery a betrayal of American beliefs
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A note on terminology
• ‘Black’ vs. ‘African-American’ (power and
words)
– While the preferred term is today AfricanAmerican, the point is that black people at the
time we are discussing were deliberately excluded
from the American political community.
– When discussing the historical injustice of racial
relations in the US, it seems inappropriate to
pretend that people of African descent were not
excluded from the political community
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Abraham Lincoln
• 1809-1865
• Main themes:
– Equality the defining
characteristic of American
thought
– National identity prioritized over
state identity
– US points beyond itself to
something higher
– The law and American political
institutions make political
freedom and equality possible
• Union politically inseparable from
freedom
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Secession
• Nov. 6, 1860: Lincoln elected
• December 20, 1860: South Carolina secedes
– By February 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas join it to form the
Confederacy, later joined by Virginia, Arkansas,
North Carolina, and Tennessee
• March 4, 1861: Lincoln inaugurated
• April 12, 1861: South attacks & takes Fort
Sumter, war begins
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First Inaugural
• Contract & Covenant:
– ““All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional
rights be maintained”
– No one can name “a single instance in which a plainly
written provision of the Constitution has ever been
denied.”
• Even if the Constitution were only a contract (it’s not),
one party cannot unilaterally exit a contract
– The question is one of definitive interpretation:
• “May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery
in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.”
– Power over the meaning of the law
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First Inaugural
• Major themes: Secession is bad because it
– Breaks a contract
– Does violence to the nation
– Is anti-democratic
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First Inaugural
• Likewise, the Constitution is silent on “the
only substantial dispute” facing the country;
that “One section of the country believes
slavery is right, and ought to be extended,
while the other believes that it is wrong, and
ought not be extended.”
– How is this dispute to be resolved?
– The black letter of the law can’t fix this, it is a
matter of persuasion & argument (politics)
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First Inaugural
• But the Union is not a contract, it is a single,
national people
• “The Union is much older than the Constitution…
finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for
ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was
‘to form a more perfect union.’
• But if the destruction of the Union, by one, or by
a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the
Union is less perfect than before the Constitution,
having lost the vital element of perpetuity.”
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First Inaugural
• Secession anti-democratic
• “Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the
majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in
some form, is all that is left.”
– The choices are between despotism, democracy,
or anarchy
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First Inaugural
• The Union is bound by a shared history and belief
• “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but
friends. We must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
streching from every battle-field, and patriot
grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they
will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
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