Focus: Historical analysis of John C. Calhoun's political evolution, opportunism, and stances on tariffs, central banking, and federal power.
Contrast: Compares Calhoun with Jefferson and Martin Van Buren, highlighting New York's classical-liberal tradition and skepticism of federal power.
Constitutional Theory: Discussion of nullification, compact theory, and limits of Calhoun's legalistic approach versus Jeffersonian strict constructionism.
Westward Expansion: Covers Texas annexation, Mexican War implications, and the slavery debate including popular sovereignty and related legal contexts.
Calhoun's Motives: Emphasizes how political ambition and pro-slavery outcomes frequently shaped Calhoun’s policy positions.
Investment Relevance: No public companies, tickers, GICS sectors, or investable themes were pitched or analyzed in this discussion.
Market Outlook: No market outlook, economic forecasts, or actionable portfolio guidance were provided; content is historical and political.
Transcript
Welcome back to Radio Rothbard. I'm Ryan McMaken, editor-inchief at the Mises Institute. And joining me today is Patrick Newman. Now Patrick has been associated with the Mises Institute for many years and you may know him best from a lot of his editorial work that he did on uh works by Rothbard especially say his fifth volume to conceived in liberty uh which Patrick reconstructed from unfinished material by Rothbart and I certainly recommend that especially here in uh 2026 which is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. So, we'll be talking a lot about the revolution this year. So, definitely check out uh Patrick's edited volume uh and addition to Conceived in Liberty. But in addition to that, he has a book called Cronyism. And boy, this covers like hundreds of years. I remember the first time I saw this book on a table, Tom Woods was standing there and I saw that it covered what the 17th century to the mid9th century. I mean, I said to Tom, that is a that is a big historical window. Uh, and so I'm I'm amazed that you managed to cover it in only a few hundred uh hundred pages. Well, I guess you got a part two coming out. So, there's even more going into the 20th century. >> Yeah. So, but that's what I want to draw upon today is volume one of your book on cronyism, which basically the whole idea here is we're looking at the many ways that governments have exploited people, their victims. Uh looking at a lot of the the the ways that that government does not function as people imagine, but in fact is a way uh to use state power to extract wealth from the people and give it out to your friends, which is what we think of in terms of cronyism. And of course, this is a long and interesting history um in the United States and of course worldwide. But there's one aspect to that book that I wanted you to have uh that I wanted you to talk about today because we get a lot of people who talk about John C. Calhoun here on uh here at mises.org uh and at the Mises Institute in general. And I have gotten questions because I wrote a book on secession um called Breaking Away that came out in 2022 and people say well why didn't you talk a bunch about John C. Calhoun and there there are reasons for that. Uh I don't consider Calhoun to be much of a secessionist. He died before the civil war happened. So he never actually advocated secession in any meaningful way and didn't have a Jeffersonian view of secession. um it really doesn't fit into the classical liberal libertarian conception of secession as something that is allowed under natural rights and natural law. And when we think about that, sometimes I'm interested when people talk about Calhoun as if he was some sort of libertarian hero um who was carrying on the mantle of Thomas Jefferson and such. And while certainly some aspects of his work fit into that, uh, I wanted to take a more three-dimensional view of Calhoun today, and I think you're the right man for the job on that, Patrick, because when I was reading Cronyism, while the book certainly isn't about Calhoun, uh, as a major character in the book, it provides a very, I think, more evenhanded, more um, dispassionate view of Calhoun, who tends to raise passions in people, people who love him or hate him. People who hate him tend to just attack him on the slavery issue. But when you look at Calhoun and you're just noting his political career, you you you look at a lot of issues related to how he started out as a nationalist. wasn't particularly good on the central banking issue and how political expediency, at least in my reading of it, is what pulls him into the camp of free trade and uh nullification and the sorts of policies that we attribute to him as good things. And this was later in his career. And I would describe uh Calhoun as kind of the opposite of Jefferson. Whereas Jefferson was a brilliant political theorist who was kind of a politician on the side and not a very good one at that. Uh I would say Calhoun was the opposite. Calhoun is like a very savvy, very good politician, very excellent at getting what he wants politically. uh and his political views though seem more to me as something that's adjunct to his political desires. That is he's creating uh what are admittedly very insightful, very brilliant political writings. Uh but they don't they don't seem to come from any particular principles that were well embedded in Calhoun's makeup that he was writing things that supported his political positions and since he was a smart guy, he was very good at that. So I might call him like the anti-Jfferson in terms of just how he functioned as a human. But you you don't have to agree with that really. I just that's just my introduction of Calhoun and you can kind of guess, right? I'm not here to talk about Calhoun's slavery views particularly because that's that's the boring thing that people almost always talk about when they talk about Calhoun. Let's talk more about Calhoun's political career, his views on things like central political power, the spread of slavery in terms of policy, uh, as well as his views of maybe taxes, the bank, and so on. And so, I'm hoping you can just kind of get us started off to give us a picture of what the earlier Calhoun looked like, and maybe what's this world that Calhoun is coming out of. uh that helps us get a better view of who he was and what his motivations were as a politician. >> Yeah. So, um first of all, thanks for having me on, Ryan. It's a pleasure to to to be on Radio Rothbart and and I'm I'm happy to talk about Calhoun and and and what I discussed about him in cronyism, liberty versus power in Early America607 to 1849. So, uh, Calhoun is, as you mentioned, he's he's one of those figures that a lot of libertarians often champion, and he's on the other hand though, you have people who absolutely hate him. He's a very lovehate uh relationship, I guess you could say, uh, across the political spectrum. And uh when when writing cronyism I you know doing research on cronism and reading about American history and all of that I I think the the one word to describe Calhoun is the exact same word I would use to describe James Madison which is opportunist. I think if that is the that I think both of them were very similar in that they ultimately had more big government principles than small government principles and they were sort of at at at their core kind of nationalists but they wanted it to be it was like a pro- southern nationalism and that led them to at various points in their careers kind of take positions that be more consistent with the limit limited government approach not out of any sort of ideological conviction but more just because they weren't in control at the time. So I think James Madison and and and John C. Calhoun are very similar and uh when we we talk about Calhoun it's as you mentioned it's important to talk about his early career because in the 1810s and for part of the 1820s he was a he he was considered a a a big government Republican or a nationalist uh Republican. And so the Republicans uh were the the party that Jefferson had founded. And uh South Carolina in particular was was just a was really the the state in the south that was seen as the most pro- big government. At the constitutional convention, you had federalist Charles Pikney and Charles Coatsworth Pikney. They were very um uh proconstitution. They wanted a stronger government. They supported the North's or Congress's ability to uh pass navigation uh acts and protective tariffs by a simple majority in Congress. Um so that this would be northern um northern supporters of of these measures would be able to pass them in Congress fairly easily so long as Congress didn't touch the slave trade for 20 years. And South Carolina was a prominent place. Uh it's a hotbed of federalism, particularly Hamiltonian federalism in the 1790s. Uh Charles Cozworth Pikney supported Hamilton's assumption of the federal debt. South Carolina supported the the founding of the first bank, the first bank of the United States. And because um uh ownership was was uh concentrated or was ownership uh in the south was concentrated at least in in Charleston. And uh Hamilton supported the Piknney the various various Pikney. He had the whole Pikney clan uh as president in as presidential nominees for the Federalists in 1796 and 1800. and Charles Coatsworth Pikney was the federalist's presidential nominee in 1804 to 180 1804 excuse me and 1808. So uh South Carolina was a considered at least a a federalist stronghold in the south and by the time of the war of 1812 the federalist party is basically uh extinct throughout the country except in in New England and that's not really too much of a victory unfortunately because most of the federalist policies got absorbed by the Jeffersonian Republicans and a new prominent um uh faction in the Republican party was the the Warhawks, right? And these were Republicans that wanted to take uh British Canada in the north and Spanish Florida in the south. So, this was the a new breed of politicians uh a new upandcomers, people whose names uh uh you are they're familiar with them. John Quincy Adams or really we'd say Henry Clay, um John C. Calhoun etc. And John C. Calhoun uh was pro big government at this time. He was pro uh taking British Canada. Um he wanted to expand the United States. He didn't want any British presence in in North America. And he really started his career as an advocate of big government. And we can get into some of these policies and more particular you've mentioned some of them, but after the war he was pro- protective tariffs. He was pro- tariff of 1816. He was pro-chartering uh another central bank after the first bank of the United States, its charter expired in 1811 1811. And he was pro- internal improvement. So he was really pro the entire sort of American system or what became known as the as the American system. So this is an origin story that I think a lot of people don't understand. And once you realize this, it it it it it it allows you to take a different perspective on Calhoun. >> Yes. You mentioned more than once in your text that uh Calhoun had a very uh free and easy relationship with the the constitution uh in terms of you can contrast him with Jackson for example in Jackson's strict constructionist phase and on his support for a second US bank uh how enthusiastic he was about um basically federal highways and canal projects and we We don't see in earlier Calhoun any sign of this idea that this was a person opposed to federal power or growth of the US government. And yet that somehow changes and so why did that change and and when did that happen? Um what was what was the motivation there? >> Right. So the the motivation to put it briefly and then we'll get into it. The motivation for Calhoun's sort of abrupt change, you could say, in the 1820s, is that he was losing political control of his his home state, South Carolina, right? And a big goal of Calhoun throughout his entire political career was he wanted to be president. He never became president. He was vice president um under Adams and then John Quincy Adams and and then Jackson, but he never he never got the top prize, right? So that was always something that he was he he always was um uh sorely uh you know he he never got it. He was he was always um he always missed his his his chance you could say. And so in the 1810s, as I mentioned, Calhoun pretty much supported the entire American system, was protective tariffs for for northerners, uh was pro uh central bank, and he argued that well, it was constitutional. And in cronyism, and this is something that's different from a lot of libertarians, I take the position I take the anti-federalist position that the constitution was a big government document and that a lot of the strict versus broad constructionist um uh positions uh were sort of opportunists. You're trying to work within the existing system because uh you realize well the constitution's it's here to stay. So how are we going to work within this system? But uh Calhoun would argued that well the central bank is constitutional. Congress has the has the right to regulate the money supply through the coinage clause and state states can't uh issue paper money. That's explicitly said in the constitution. So that means they also can't charter state banks. So really we we can only have a national bank and this is the this is the only way that um uh we we we we can uh we can regulate the money uh in banking sphere uh you could say and um so how did Calhoun go from a big government politician first in Congress then as James Monrose Secretary of War uh to he's known more for in libertarian circles uh due to his exposition and protest writing his his the nullification crisis and so on. And the approximate reason was the panic of 1819 which really kind of aggravated some of the economic differences between the north and the south. Right? So it led to this uh what was perceived as a very severe depression even though it really wasn't but people thought it was. So northerners they want protective tariffs. They say here's how we revive industry. we raise tariffs. On the other hand, the south became more anti- tariff or at least they were less willing to acquies in tariffs because the international crisis reduced the demand for southerners um uh export crops and so that lowered their e their prices that they could they could receive for them. And so protective tariffs would aggravate this because it reduces the ability of foreigners to make money uh by selling goods to the United States. So they're going to buy less of our stuff. So South Carolina was one of these southern states that was becoming more and more free trade. And it wasn't actually due to Calhoun and his uh his political faction. It was due to a new senator uh named William Smith. And it was due to a professor at South Carolina College. I believe his name was uh Thomas uh Thomas Cooper. And um so uh both of them were very anti- uh protective tariffs. They were saying uh the tariff of 1816 was a problem. The tariff of 1824 is a problem. They're becoming more free trade, more radical, and they're even becoming more secessionist. Thomas Cooper was sort of, you know, he he he was he was uh he was threatening. who's saying South Carolina should uh should secede uh due to the monopolists up north and you know the North is just able to exploit the South and stuff. And these talks of secession really worried Calhoun. Um because if South Carolina s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec succeeds then well there goes the plan to become president, right? You need south he needed South Carolina to sort of get his campaign uh his campaign uh rolling. I guess you could say get the ball rolling. And so Calhoun kind of sees he senses the political winds and as the 1820s progress he becomes less uh favorable to to protective tariffs. He takes a more free trade stance. And then especially after the uh 1828 tariff of abominations, he he he starts to draft this exposition and protest which we can get into. And it's this famous political document of his where he basically outlines uh a state has a right to secede if it disagrees with a policy that Congress had passed. Um, so it's important to kind put this in context that it was really more of an opportunistic switch to a what is seen as a limited government stance rather than any out of any sort of uh deep deeply held and principled ideological conviction that someone like a like a Jefferson might have. You know, Jefferson I would argue had had held. And a lot of people don't really realize this. They kind of just jump to Calhoun in the late 1820s and they don't really recognize Calhoun in the 1810s or even for that matter Calhoun in the 1830s or 1840s. As I've gotten older because I'm a very elderly man now. Uh my views have changed a little bit in terms of I used to view politics a bit more uh theoretically in terms of hey people they they had views and they stuck to them. uh people had consistent views based on their their evaluation of ideas and such. Uh one thing that sticks out about Calhoun though and about politicians in general what has changed my view is I one should never underestimate the motivations that one has that are motivated just by personal animus toward other people and sometimes just their personal lives could be affected deeply uh by things that have happened to them and that can change their political views in many cases. Uh I I wonder sometimes looking at Calhoun's relationship with Van Burren if that was just a personal problem he had with Van Beern or he just had assigned Van Beern as sort of the figure head of all the things that Calhoun found problematic. What was that relationship there between Van Beern and Calhoun? >> Yeah, it was not a good relationship. And if if if if we were um if we were doing this this radio Rothbart um podcast in the in the you know in the 19th century you couldn't be a fan of both. You had to sort of take your your pick. You're either a fan of Van Beern and um what he was trying to do or you were a fan of you were a fan of Calhoun. And it's a great point you mentioned that politics is very petty. there are personal um uh disagreements or animosities that then lead lead to um differing or or competing political factions. And so Van Beern started out somewhat similar to Calhoun in that you could say he was a sort of a big government politician in the 1810s. he wasn't uh he wasn't as prominent as Calhoun simply because he was more focused in the state of New York whereas Calhoun was already established himself as a politician on the federal level for South Carolina. But what Van Beern realized as as things had kind of developed is that he was a master uh polit, you know, he was a a master political, a political operator and and so on. He wanted to create a new political party that could revive the old Jeffersonian principles, right, that he had viewed as no longer being uh present in the Republican party as it stood by the mid 1820s. So he did work with Calhoun initially when building his political coalition to basically defeat John Quincy Adams in 1828 and and and elect and elect Jackson. But Van Burren was someone who was you could say I I would argue he was more dedicated to the small government position. He was the little magician. So he was always kind of dancing around on certain issues, but the overall thrust of what he was trying to do, I would say, was definitely in the Libertarian direction. And his entire program of of literally creating this new party, the Democratic Party. It's still the same party, but it meant very different things back in the day. Uh was something that Murray Rothbart would consider very heroic. Basically Van Beern's sort of crowning achievement. But him and Calhoun, they uh they did not get along, especially since um it gets into some personal things with Calhoun and and Jackson that we don't need to get into, but uh Van Beerren became Jackson's new vice president. Um whereas Calhoun kind of uh he he he he got shown the door. And uh this became an issue during the nullification crisis which happened shortly after the election of 1832 uh when South Carolina was threatening to you know nullify the uh compromised tariff of 1832 and um the the Van Beern uh faction in Congress had a compromise. It was called the Verplank bill named after Congressman Verplank. uh Julian Siver plank I I think and it was basically promising to lower tariffs to the level that the South Carolina secessionists wanted within two years but it didn't go anywhere because Calhoun didn't want anything to do with Van Beern. He didn't want Van Beern to get the credit. He he he he didn't want the the the New Yorkers to get the credit. So that's how the um nullification crisis basically led to Henry Clay's much more watered down compromise uh bill which was well we'll bring tariffs to the desired level but only in 10 years right so we're going to gradually lower them in 10 years and 10 years anything can happen right um which is exactly what happened after 10 years the wigs then just jacked up tariffs again so anyway um but they did not they did not get along and this became a bigger and bigger issue do once the Democratic Party split in the 1840s over the subject of the annexation of Texas. But so I guess I would say to to sort of wrap up on this point, my favorite politician or the not I don't want to say favorite because that kind of gives a implies a bias, but I think the most significant politician for the libertarian movement in the 19th century, the mid-9th century was was Van Beern, right? I I think his his work in uh creating the Democratic Party, in putting Andrew Jackson in in in in the in the White House, that that led to a a a a dismantling of the American system, which is really the only time that libertarians really managed to significantly reduce the federal government's presence. Uh was it perfect? No. But was it significant? Yes. And I think that uh Calhoun on the other hand was more often than not a thorn in the side of the jonian's uh uh program to dismantle protective tariffs, central banking, internal improvements and other uh big government measures. >> Yes. it what rarely gets mentioned in our circles I think is how there was this great poll if you would um sort of home base of libertarian activity in of all places New York and New Jersey uh in the 19th century which is hard for people to conceive of now but you had some of your best libertarian theorists Grover Cleveland at the end of that at the tail end of that and again as you know none of these guys were like pure Rothbardians or anything like But they were people who were genuinely suspicious of federal power or at least their careers were devoted to breaking down federal power, uh, lower taxes, that sort of thing. And yeah, I agree. I think that more carries on the good parts of the Jeffersonian ideal. And in a book I recently finished editing was uh the struggle for liberty by Ralph Reiko. That's a that's a 10 lecture series on the history of political thought where he doesn't focus on the US but he talks about the US a little bit and he he talks more about William Leget who's part of the New York New Jersey side of things as really carrying on this radical classical liberal uh tradition of being extremely suspicious of government power noticing how government power exploits uh the the losing side of that equation. that in politics you have winners and losers. You have the exploiters and the exploites. Uh normally it's attributed to Calhoun as the one who is the insightful one on that topic. But interestingly Reiko only p only only mentions Calhoun in passing. He gets mentioned he gets questioned in a Q&A at one of these lectures about well what do you think of the Calhoun and Reiko says that Calhoun was part of a separate tradition that he doesn't consider Calhoun to really be part of this classical liberal Jeffersonian lock um liberal exploitation theory tradition that came out of early 19th century France and even earlier in other places that Leot was really the one carrying on that tradition and Calhoun had a more conservative view. Uh he doesn't criticize Calhoun's view on but says that this really isn't the the liberal view that we're talking about here in this lecture series is what Reiko is essentially saying. So there are some uh some insights there but I I'm not sure that it carries on the the Jeffersonian view of things and and I think that takes us to the next topic here is really looking at Calhoun through a Jeffersonian lens. Then you have a very interesting section here where you contrast uh Calhoun's work where he starts to speak up um in his exposition where he starts to talk about the problems with tariffs and is uh this is uh really starting to I think develop some of his later thought in terms of free trade and federal power and that sort of thing. But what you note is that you say quote uh importantly the exposition that is Calhoun's work was far less radical than Jefferson's Kentucky resolutions. So uh Calhoun is here trying to outline why a state should be able to resist federal power. And you're not far less radical than Jefferson on that who in his Kentucky resolution especially uh really had this straight out hardcore nullification position that hey the states get to to determine whether a federal law is constitutional or not. And uh and that he wasn't even as good Calhoun wasn't even as good as the neoanti federalist thought of Cooper. and someone I particularly like John Taylor of Caroline who I think was extremely insightful uh in the late 19th early 20th century on this topic and you're saying is that uh Calhoun's previous support of big government never really went away and quote he never sincerely adhered to strict con constructionism unquote. Uh, and when I was reading that, I I was also thinking to how Calhoun never developed really a principled non-legal view of secession because people come to me, well, why didn't you talk about Calhoun more in your book about secession? First one was, of course, one major reason is the world didn't need another book on southern secessionism and the views on that topic. There's countless books on that. I was looking more at a a broader scope of history, more international view, uh more modern views as well on that. But when I was looking at Calhoun on that and I was looking at Jefferson's view, uh Jefferson had a natural right view of secession was that people have rights and pretty much anyone can can secede. He had no clear outline of who's allowed to secede. 40 years after the Declaration of Independence, uh, Jefferson was still a secessionist and still had pretty free and easy views about, well, maybe a group of states out west will decide to secede. If they do, that's none of my business. Or maybe if some groups of Americans uh get too pro-war, then the anti-war factions should be able to secede. He didn't have any hard and fast rules about who should be able uh to secede. Lock was pretty flexible on that, too. We thought well if you have a group of people that can get together and form some sort of legislature I guess they get to secede. Uh that wasn't something he spent a lot of time developing in detail. But from what I get from Calhoun um and I checked with David Gordon on this was did Calhoun have any vision for anyone being able to secede except a state government? And the answer was no. Is that Calhoun's conception of secession was the states can secede. Can a county within a state sec? Calhoun did not address that issue and appear to not favor that issue at all. And the reason being is that his view of secession was very legally based that he adhered to uh this compact theory of the constitution which I happen to agree with that the constitution was this this compact that where the states came together and created this sort of confederation together and that the states predate the constitution. The opposite of the linkian view. Great. Calhoun's good on that. Uh but it seemed that the idea of secession ended for Calhoun there that a portion of a state couldn't break off. Why? Because there wasn't a compact. The states weren't formed out of a compact. They the states were not sovereign ent or the counties for example or cities within a state were not sovereign entities within a state. So therefore they had no legal right to secede. Calhoun, as far as I can tell, favored no way and no theory in which those groups could secede. And and that's for obvious reasons. You can think, well, why wouldn't a group of slaves where slaves are the majority population in some area of the South, what if they decide to get together and decide to secede? Jefferson being Jefferson probably been like, well, if they do that, I don't know who am I to say don't do that. Um because he just that was kind of Jefferson was I don't know what happens next. let's just see what happens. Uh but Calhoun was a much more uh I he wasn't willing to uh throw caution. He was he was very conservative in his thinking. He would didn't have the heart of a revolutionary like Jefferson did. And so just his view of secession was very very limited from what I can see. And so my reading is that yes, absolutely. I think it makes much more sense to say that Van Buren was carrying on this Jeffersonian tradition and that Calhoun had some elements there, but far far too cautious, far too moderate, far too conservative, far too nationalistic to really be considered the heir of Jefferson in my view. I don't know if you have anything you want to add uh to that. Yeah. So, lot lots of great things that you've you were discussing. Um, so let's let's let's take it from the top. So, I agree with you. I'm glad you you think the uh the the tri-state area or or New York in in New Jersey, let's say. Um, throw in Connecticut, too. But, but, uh, new New York is you could make that argument that New York was the most had really the carried the libertarian tradition throughout American history, right? it was New York and and and then Virginia, but more consistently and for a longer period of time, it it was New York uh with the anti-federalists, a huge uh antifederalist state was was New York and you had Governor George Clinton and uh the Clintonians, no relation to later Clintons, um but the the Clintonians um were very suspicious of federal power. They might not have been let's say free market on the state level but it was still a tradition of localism a distrust of decentralization and um it provided the foundation for some of the uh more radical let's say free market thought not only at the you know for not only the federal level but also the state level. So you had the you had the Clintonians the during the anti-federalist period and also George Clinton he cast the uh tiebreaking vote to to uh to not renew the recharter of the first bank of the United States. So frankly that just he was vice president and so in charge of the and so he was in charge of the Senate then. So anyway, I just always think that needs to get that needs to get mentioned. But you had the you had the Clintonians. Uh then you had the the Van Buranites in in New York in the 1830s, 1840s. Then you had uh the Cleveland de Democrats or the Bourban Democrats, guys like Sam Tilden um and in Grover Cleveland in in the uh the post civil war era. And there's a great book by Robert Kelly called the transatlantic persuasion talking about the this the the the shared let's say classical liberal tradition between uh people in New York as well as people in Great Britain. It was this shared understanding Smithian understanding uh you know Adam Smith wealth of nations uh which say what you will about its value theory and other aspects of economic theory was a huge motivation for Americans a huge inspiration to attack mercandalism and crony capitalism and all that good stuff. Um, so, uh, New York definitely, I I would argue, really kind of carried forth the the libertarian tradition in the in the United States and and William Leot and his his loco focus were sort of the most radical jonians, the most consistent less afair um um, you know, advocates and they were able to push Martin Van at times in a more free market direction, especially during his presidency in getting the independent treasury off off the ground. So definitely um New York I think needs to be uh given its its its just dues and yeah and and and on the other hand Calhoun doesn't really have that tradition. Uh, one of the things I mentioned in his when talking about his exposition and protest is um, uh, why it wasn't really as radical is as Jefferson's uh, Kentucky uh, resolution or the writings of uh, or you know the work of Thomas Cooper or the writings of John Taylor of Caroline is that Calhoun tried to ground his position in the federalist papers. This is an important fact that I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate. In in some free market circles, the Federalist Papers are seen as this this great defense of strict constructionism and oh see the constitution was a limited government document. They argued this in the federalist papers, you know, um, in in Murray Rothbart in conceived in liberty has a great analysis and he says the federalist papers have been divonized, but they were in just they were written to get New York state on board. So guys like Alexander Hamilton said whatever he needed to say to convince his state to join the union, right? But of course, in the 1790s, Alexander Hamilton went against all this stuff. And that's it's one of the early reminders in American politics that just because a politician says something when they're running for office doesn't mean that you'll get it when they're actually in office, right? and um he Calhoun grounded his arguments in the uh federalist papers as opposed to the anti-federalist tradition in the writings of the anti-federalists and and John Taylor of Caroline um who was was a prominent Jeffersonian Republican he was an anti-federalist when he when he started out and he developed his compact theory um after the constitution was passed in response to let's say some of the uh the big government depradation ations that the Hamiltonians were, you know, were trying to um uh engage in in the in the late 1790s. But so by Calhoun doing that, he kind of shunted aside the more radical and more pro de decentralization um tradition of the of the anti-federalists, right? and he was just he was yeah, as you mentioned, he was grounding his his his argument for secession uh in in a in a in a in a in a legal way. And really his argument for secession was he was actually trying to prevent secession. He viewed nullification as a way to stop secession because again his Calhoun's whole goal was he wanted to be president and he can't be president. He had no chance of being president if Cal if South Carolina was no longer in the union. So, in response to people like um uh Senator William Smith and and Professor Thomas Cooper in South Carolina advocating secession, he said, "Okay, let's let's kind of take a step back and let's put up a couple of let's let's work through this nullification doctrine first before we even consider secession." Right? in that that was a very shrewd move on his part that really kind of changed the uh the power dynamics in South Carolina. Uh but a lot of Jeffersonians, guys like John Randolph and some later uh Jacksonians um and so on, they they didn't really trust the exposition in protest. They didn't really think it was sincere. They didn't really trust this doctrine of nullification. uh Jefferson's um uh Jefferson's the authorship of the Kentucky resolutions was not um uh revealed yet at the time and and they especially became worried when uh uh Calhoun came out for nullification and because it was a it was a he secretly drafted the exposition and protest. So they they didn't really view this as a sincere push to um uh reduce this the size and scope of of government. And I think their their suspicions were correct. I I think however um influential it might have been in the future and however important some of Calhoun's political economic analysis may have been in his disquisition on government which he wrote at the at the tail end of his life. It it was not really grounded in any sort of deep ideological ideologically held conviction. It was a very sort of narrow legalistic view and what is going to be best for my own political goals as well as the the power of say South Carolina and in the south more in in in in in more generally. I think as as our final part, let's move on to the issue of westward expansion uh and how it related to the slavery issue. For me, this is the interesting part of the slavery issue is how it affected uh how it worked into westward expansion. I I when I was an economist in Colorado, I uh spent a lot of time just researching regional history, right? And so the the the whole history of the country west of the hundth meridian is in many ways the most interesting part of American history and the way that westward expansion wagged the dog of the United States overall on so many issues uh including slavery. And you can see that here uh when we're talking about oh we need to start adding slave states or should we add free states and how should states come into the union and in what what fashion and that seemed to be a problem also that Calhoun had uh to confront and you had mentioned a few minutes ago the issue of the annexation of Texas uh after that and then of course Calhoun had some views about the annexation of parts of Mexico as well and it seemed that a lot his nationalistic views came through on that. And also I would state I would contend that adding large swats of land to the United States actually just works in general to empower the federal government. And uh you can look at how essentially westward expansion created modern views of the of the federal government in the sense that it was westward expansion that created this this idea that the federal government can own huge portions of land, rule them directly from Congress, hand down federal legislation that tells people how they can live. I mean, we had Congress voting on laws as to who people could marry in Utah and things like that, which was just totally went against the whole idea of the Constitution as uh the anti-federalists and even probably that whole generation imagined it. Will the federal government be passing laws in Congress as to marriage in your local city or town? Sure, why not? And that's what became a thing with westward expansion because Congress was now directly ruling people in Kansas, directly ruling people in Utah because the federal government was essentially seizing this land and ruling it directly and then determining later whether those places could be states. And you can see how that drove a dagger through the compact theory of the US Constitution by creating the impression that the federal government creates states, not the other way around. because it's the federal government that's oh is Kansas a state we'll draw your lines we'll determine what kind of government you have and okay Kansas is a state now with the approval of the US federal government without our approval as it was proven in the case of Utah we can just simply elect to rule you directly for decades and not let you become a state so you can see how it creates this whole uh this massively empowered federal government whether I don't know that Calhoun could have anticipated that and Texas was its own thing when it came in and it came in as a state. Nevertheless, uh he got caught up in this whole idea of determining whether the territories out west get to decide for themselves whether they will be free or whether they will be slave areas. And but before weite quite get into that, can you tell us a little bit about Calhoun's views on Texas specifically? And what was his view of the annexation? Why did he support it? I know he was criticized for maybe pursuing some shady methods of trying to get Texas annexed. I mean, what's that all about? >> Yeah. So, um, a a good good question. So Texas was a huge thorn in let's say the the the Jonian coalition because Texas was this it was part of Mexico then it then it broke away from me uh then it broke away from Mexico and then in the late 1830s and 1840s there was this big movement to bring in uh Texas into into the union and uh it it split apart the issue split apart the Democratic coalition uh uh Van Beern and in in Jackson had had split and the big reason why it it split is it brought up this question of the western expansion of slavery. So really throughout uh some some historians try to say that slavery was always secretly in you know various politicians uh minds when they were arguing for limited government like Thomas Jefferson or John Randolph or Patrick Henry or so on um and and I I don't I don't find those credible. They sometimes made those arguments, but as histo other historians point out, those were sort of like um you know, you're just trying to scare people like use a scare tactic. You didn't genuinely believe that um Congress would do anything against slavery. That changed in the 1830s with the rise of the abolitionist movement and the gradual compensation uh program for the emancipation of slaves uh in the British West Indies. And then the South really started to get worried. That's when you saw a switch away from the slavery is a necessary evil to slavery is a is a positive good um uh argument and this became a big issue with Texas because Texas was a was an in was you know had Texas was pro-slavery and Calhoun favored the annexation of Texas uh because he he was like many other slave interests who who favored bringing Texas into the union because if you bring Texas into the Union, you are going to make it harder for fugitive slaves to escape, say by going to uh to Mexico or um and and there was a lurking paranoia among some southerners that Texas maybe really would become anti-slavery and that's why they wanted to bring it in too. But anyway, slave interests supported bringing Texas into the Union and this was a big um this became a big issue uh with with the Democrats and and then in um the election of 1844 uh James K. Pulk wins and him and the lame duck president uh John Tyler, they're basically able to muscle Texas, the the annexation of Texas through Congress. Calhoun kind of supports some, let's say, um, uh, not so strict constructionist approach to bringing Texas into the Union, which some of his critics point out. And then when you when then when Texas was brought into the Union, it it really kind of brought to the surface this question of uh, the expansion of slavery into into the West and in particular western territories. And so people who were against slavery in the north um the v most of them they didn't want to touch slavery in the south. They just wanted to prevent it from going in out out west, right? Um and they didn't have the best of reasons for that. Uh but anyway, they they wanted to prevent slavery uh from expanding into the west. And this became a big problem after the Mexican war when the United States we were we we basically conquered a huge chunk of of of Mexico. It was a straight war of conquest. And then this question arose as to okay um you know are are these states that are going to be formed out of these territories are they going to have the right to determine whether or not to allow uh slavery? And I know I'm kind of skipping ahead here, but this was the uh doctrine of popular sovereignty that many southerners opposed initially because they didn't want states such as California to be able to declare that their their you know slavery will be illegal there. And and um and and so this was a this was a huge issue that uh sort of highlights you Calhoun's let's say not so consistent uh libertarian principles. Well, Rothbart interestingly uh this is some pointed out to me by David Gordon was uh he has he has some interesting views on this whole process of this debate over slavery in the western uh territories and popular sovereignty. You can find this in his book Strictly Confidential, the private vulkar fund memos of Murray Rothbard. Uh this is edited by David Gordon. Uh and in in this like 50page book review that Murray writes about an American history book that came out at the time, uh he talks about this issue and how the slave the pro-slavery guys, the hardcore pro-slavery guys, uh even though they talked all the time about local control and limiting federal government power, they came down squarely on the side of using the power of the central government to prevent people in these territories from simply ruling themselves on the topic. of slavery, declaring for themselves, well, this is going to be a slavery free government. And some of that conflict created the whole bleeding Kansas phenomenon and and all of that. But yeah, there was this fear, paranoia maybe even that people would move into these territories and just declare themselves non non-slave territories and also that then you wouldn't be able to take your slaves into those territories ever. The Dread Scott decision complicates this significantly. Uh but Rothbard, I think, really gets to the heart of the matter and says, "Look, clearly the popular sovereignty, just people being able to do what they want in these territories, was the correct position, but that national politics had become dictated by this slavery issue where we needed to have the federal government come in and tell people how they're going to live in their states. the federal government will determine the nature of the government in these new territories which isn't very libertarian and isn't really in line with any strict constructionist view of the government as well. But it seems that the the exigacies of wanting to expand slavery um displaced ideas of of local self-government in many of those cases as as Rothbart notes in strictly confidential and uh it seemed that that sort of thing was always at the forefront of Calhoun's thinking. And when I read Calhoun, I'm just I I'm always amazed at how no matter what position he takes, which is couched in a lot of complex terminology and very rigorous theories, it always comes out supporting slavery no matter what. Like it just it's like magic. No, no matter what the issue is. western expansion, annexation of Texas, always always it ends up just just by coincidence coming down on the proslavery. That's why I say I think it was just kind of reverse engineering a lot of these uh uh these books and and essays that he was writing and putting together a lot of these theories which after the fact tended to be very um uh very good in terms of the phenomenon that they they observe and and how he deconstructs them and so on. But it just seemed to me that there was a clear motivation uh there. There was a predetermined outcome of a lot of this writing and the theories that he was putting together. But um in terms of just westward expansion, uh what was his involvement in that? like he he factors into it just in gerally in terms of Rothbart's writing on the topic and in terms of yeah he was he he clearly wanted to limit the ability of the locals to determine the slavery position for themselves and he certainly wanted people to be able to take their slaves into these territories freely. Uh do you know if he had said anything specifically on this? I mean, I know he was concerned about the demographic issue, like in terms of let's not annex too much of Mexico because then you'll get too many Mexicans and they'll be anti-slavery and so on. Um, but what was your just general impression of his views of westward expansion outside the Texas issue? >> Yeah. So, um, he he took a he he he was not a fan of the Mexican war, like the Mexican-American War. I mean, he was a bit worried. he realizing some of the the the issues as you mentioned that could that could arise and how this could not only lead to bringing in you know um uh people from Mexico into the country but also it would lead to this issue. Um and he he this became I mean what happened was he he died before the 1850s. I mean he he died in 1850 before the compromise of 1850. Uh but he was clearly kind of um uh you know partial you'd say encourager of the of the south's position right to be against popular sovereignty and his his views could have changed but given the direction that just American politics progressed in the 1850s it it probably would have would have remained the same but this was a this was a a big concern um uh among um among among the the southern states and and really the Democratic party be by because by that point they were pretty much just a very pro- southern pro- southern party. Um but so the the the just the like the to kind of summarize Calhoun uh Calhoun didn't make it right he didn't he didn't live into the really in the 1850s to kind of comment on some of these some of the debates right the Kansas Nebraska crisis Kansas Nebraska act and then the um Dread Scott Supreme Court decision and of course the uh the the Civil War. Um but he his his his his his view his the positions he argued in the 1830s in the 1840s definitely influenced um uh the South's position in the 1850s. Well, I think we'll go ahead and wrap up with that. We're getting close to an hour on this episode and um I would highly recommend the book Cronyism: Liberty Versus Power in Early America6007 to 1849. That's volume one of a at least two volume work. Um maybe later in career you could add a third volume as time goes on. Uh and so Patrick Newman uh thank you for joining me today. Uh hopefully this provided some information insight for people who are interested on this topic of Calhoun who I just don't think that's enough of a three-dimensional uh analysis when as I say most people hate him or love him and you don't get much more than that. I think when you generally read things about Calhoun. So, thank you for joining me today to talk a little bit more about that. Thank you everyone out there for listening. If you like this sort of thing, make sure and visit the Mises Institute. That's mises.org mises.org. And you can also get our daily email. Click on the top right where it says subscribe. You can also get a weekly email if you don't want daily stuff in your inbox. So, uh, consider all of that. Thanks again. We'll be back next week with more. So, we'll see you then.
A Closer Look at John C. Calhoun
Summary
Transcript
Welcome back to Radio Rothbard. I'm Ryan McMaken, editor-inchief at the Mises Institute. And joining me today is Patrick Newman. Now Patrick has been associated with the Mises Institute for many years and you may know him best from a lot of his editorial work that he did on uh works by Rothbard especially say his fifth volume to conceived in liberty uh which Patrick reconstructed from unfinished material by Rothbart and I certainly recommend that especially here in uh 2026 which is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. So, we'll be talking a lot about the revolution this year. So, definitely check out uh Patrick's edited volume uh and addition to Conceived in Liberty. But in addition to that, he has a book called Cronyism. And boy, this covers like hundreds of years. I remember the first time I saw this book on a table, Tom Woods was standing there and I saw that it covered what the 17th century to the mid9th century. I mean, I said to Tom, that is a that is a big historical window. Uh, and so I'm I'm amazed that you managed to cover it in only a few hundred uh hundred pages. Well, I guess you got a part two coming out. So, there's even more going into the 20th century. >> Yeah. So, but that's what I want to draw upon today is volume one of your book on cronyism, which basically the whole idea here is we're looking at the many ways that governments have exploited people, their victims. Uh looking at a lot of the the the ways that that government does not function as people imagine, but in fact is a way uh to use state power to extract wealth from the people and give it out to your friends, which is what we think of in terms of cronyism. And of course, this is a long and interesting history um in the United States and of course worldwide. But there's one aspect to that book that I wanted you to have uh that I wanted you to talk about today because we get a lot of people who talk about John C. Calhoun here on uh here at mises.org uh and at the Mises Institute in general. And I have gotten questions because I wrote a book on secession um called Breaking Away that came out in 2022 and people say well why didn't you talk a bunch about John C. Calhoun and there there are reasons for that. Uh I don't consider Calhoun to be much of a secessionist. He died before the civil war happened. So he never actually advocated secession in any meaningful way and didn't have a Jeffersonian view of secession. um it really doesn't fit into the classical liberal libertarian conception of secession as something that is allowed under natural rights and natural law. And when we think about that, sometimes I'm interested when people talk about Calhoun as if he was some sort of libertarian hero um who was carrying on the mantle of Thomas Jefferson and such. And while certainly some aspects of his work fit into that, uh, I wanted to take a more three-dimensional view of Calhoun today, and I think you're the right man for the job on that, Patrick, because when I was reading Cronyism, while the book certainly isn't about Calhoun, uh, as a major character in the book, it provides a very, I think, more evenhanded, more um, dispassionate view of Calhoun, who tends to raise passions in people, people who love him or hate him. People who hate him tend to just attack him on the slavery issue. But when you look at Calhoun and you're just noting his political career, you you you look at a lot of issues related to how he started out as a nationalist. wasn't particularly good on the central banking issue and how political expediency, at least in my reading of it, is what pulls him into the camp of free trade and uh nullification and the sorts of policies that we attribute to him as good things. And this was later in his career. And I would describe uh Calhoun as kind of the opposite of Jefferson. Whereas Jefferson was a brilliant political theorist who was kind of a politician on the side and not a very good one at that. Uh I would say Calhoun was the opposite. Calhoun is like a very savvy, very good politician, very excellent at getting what he wants politically. uh and his political views though seem more to me as something that's adjunct to his political desires. That is he's creating uh what are admittedly very insightful, very brilliant political writings. Uh but they don't they don't seem to come from any particular principles that were well embedded in Calhoun's makeup that he was writing things that supported his political positions and since he was a smart guy, he was very good at that. So I might call him like the anti-Jfferson in terms of just how he functioned as a human. But you you don't have to agree with that really. I just that's just my introduction of Calhoun and you can kind of guess, right? I'm not here to talk about Calhoun's slavery views particularly because that's that's the boring thing that people almost always talk about when they talk about Calhoun. Let's talk more about Calhoun's political career, his views on things like central political power, the spread of slavery in terms of policy, uh, as well as his views of maybe taxes, the bank, and so on. And so, I'm hoping you can just kind of get us started off to give us a picture of what the earlier Calhoun looked like, and maybe what's this world that Calhoun is coming out of. uh that helps us get a better view of who he was and what his motivations were as a politician. >> Yeah. So, um first of all, thanks for having me on, Ryan. It's a pleasure to to to be on Radio Rothbart and and I'm I'm happy to talk about Calhoun and and and what I discussed about him in cronyism, liberty versus power in Early America607 to 1849. So, uh, Calhoun is, as you mentioned, he's he's one of those figures that a lot of libertarians often champion, and he's on the other hand though, you have people who absolutely hate him. He's a very lovehate uh relationship, I guess you could say, uh, across the political spectrum. And uh when when writing cronyism I you know doing research on cronism and reading about American history and all of that I I think the the one word to describe Calhoun is the exact same word I would use to describe James Madison which is opportunist. I think if that is the that I think both of them were very similar in that they ultimately had more big government principles than small government principles and they were sort of at at at their core kind of nationalists but they wanted it to be it was like a pro- southern nationalism and that led them to at various points in their careers kind of take positions that be more consistent with the limit limited government approach not out of any sort of ideological conviction but more just because they weren't in control at the time. So I think James Madison and and and John C. Calhoun are very similar and uh when we we talk about Calhoun it's as you mentioned it's important to talk about his early career because in the 1810s and for part of the 1820s he was a he he was considered a a a big government Republican or a nationalist uh Republican. And so the Republicans uh were the the party that Jefferson had founded. And uh South Carolina in particular was was just a was really the the state in the south that was seen as the most pro- big government. At the constitutional convention, you had federalist Charles Pikney and Charles Coatsworth Pikney. They were very um uh proconstitution. They wanted a stronger government. They supported the North's or Congress's ability to uh pass navigation uh acts and protective tariffs by a simple majority in Congress. Um so that this would be northern um northern supporters of of these measures would be able to pass them in Congress fairly easily so long as Congress didn't touch the slave trade for 20 years. And South Carolina was a prominent place. Uh it's a hotbed of federalism, particularly Hamiltonian federalism in the 1790s. Uh Charles Cozworth Pikney supported Hamilton's assumption of the federal debt. South Carolina supported the the founding of the first bank, the first bank of the United States. And because um uh ownership was was uh concentrated or was ownership uh in the south was concentrated at least in in Charleston. And uh Hamilton supported the Piknney the various various Pikney. He had the whole Pikney clan uh as president in as presidential nominees for the Federalists in 1796 and 1800. and Charles Coatsworth Pikney was the federalist's presidential nominee in 1804 to 180 1804 excuse me and 1808. So uh South Carolina was a considered at least a a federalist stronghold in the south and by the time of the war of 1812 the federalist party is basically uh extinct throughout the country except in in New England and that's not really too much of a victory unfortunately because most of the federalist policies got absorbed by the Jeffersonian Republicans and a new prominent um uh faction in the Republican party was the the Warhawks, right? And these were Republicans that wanted to take uh British Canada in the north and Spanish Florida in the south. So, this was the a new breed of politicians uh a new upandcomers, people whose names uh uh you are they're familiar with them. John Quincy Adams or really we'd say Henry Clay, um John C. Calhoun etc. And John C. Calhoun uh was pro big government at this time. He was pro uh taking British Canada. Um he wanted to expand the United States. He didn't want any British presence in in North America. And he really started his career as an advocate of big government. And we can get into some of these policies and more particular you've mentioned some of them, but after the war he was pro- protective tariffs. He was pro- tariff of 1816. He was pro-chartering uh another central bank after the first bank of the United States, its charter expired in 1811 1811. And he was pro- internal improvement. So he was really pro the entire sort of American system or what became known as the as the American system. So this is an origin story that I think a lot of people don't understand. And once you realize this, it it it it it it allows you to take a different perspective on Calhoun. >> Yes. You mentioned more than once in your text that uh Calhoun had a very uh free and easy relationship with the the constitution uh in terms of you can contrast him with Jackson for example in Jackson's strict constructionist phase and on his support for a second US bank uh how enthusiastic he was about um basically federal highways and canal projects and we We don't see in earlier Calhoun any sign of this idea that this was a person opposed to federal power or growth of the US government. And yet that somehow changes and so why did that change and and when did that happen? Um what was what was the motivation there? >> Right. So the the motivation to put it briefly and then we'll get into it. The motivation for Calhoun's sort of abrupt change, you could say, in the 1820s, is that he was losing political control of his his home state, South Carolina, right? And a big goal of Calhoun throughout his entire political career was he wanted to be president. He never became president. He was vice president um under Adams and then John Quincy Adams and and then Jackson, but he never he never got the top prize, right? So that was always something that he was he he always was um uh sorely uh you know he he never got it. He was he was always um he always missed his his his chance you could say. And so in the 1810s, as I mentioned, Calhoun pretty much supported the entire American system, was protective tariffs for for northerners, uh was pro uh central bank, and he argued that well, it was constitutional. And in cronyism, and this is something that's different from a lot of libertarians, I take the position I take the anti-federalist position that the constitution was a big government document and that a lot of the strict versus broad constructionist um uh positions uh were sort of opportunists. You're trying to work within the existing system because uh you realize well the constitution's it's here to stay. So how are we going to work within this system? But uh Calhoun would argued that well the central bank is constitutional. Congress has the has the right to regulate the money supply through the coinage clause and state states can't uh issue paper money. That's explicitly said in the constitution. So that means they also can't charter state banks. So really we we can only have a national bank and this is the this is the only way that um uh we we we we can uh we can regulate the money uh in banking sphere uh you could say and um so how did Calhoun go from a big government politician first in Congress then as James Monrose Secretary of War uh to he's known more for in libertarian circles uh due to his exposition and protest writing his his the nullification crisis and so on. And the approximate reason was the panic of 1819 which really kind of aggravated some of the economic differences between the north and the south. Right? So it led to this uh what was perceived as a very severe depression even though it really wasn't but people thought it was. So northerners they want protective tariffs. They say here's how we revive industry. we raise tariffs. On the other hand, the south became more anti- tariff or at least they were less willing to acquies in tariffs because the international crisis reduced the demand for southerners um uh export crops and so that lowered their e their prices that they could they could receive for them. And so protective tariffs would aggravate this because it reduces the ability of foreigners to make money uh by selling goods to the United States. So they're going to buy less of our stuff. So South Carolina was one of these southern states that was becoming more and more free trade. And it wasn't actually due to Calhoun and his uh his political faction. It was due to a new senator uh named William Smith. And it was due to a professor at South Carolina College. I believe his name was uh Thomas uh Thomas Cooper. And um so uh both of them were very anti- uh protective tariffs. They were saying uh the tariff of 1816 was a problem. The tariff of 1824 is a problem. They're becoming more free trade, more radical, and they're even becoming more secessionist. Thomas Cooper was sort of, you know, he he he was he was uh he was threatening. who's saying South Carolina should uh should secede uh due to the monopolists up north and you know the North is just able to exploit the South and stuff. And these talks of secession really worried Calhoun. Um because if South Carolina s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec s sec succeeds then well there goes the plan to become president, right? You need south he needed South Carolina to sort of get his campaign uh his campaign uh rolling. I guess you could say get the ball rolling. And so Calhoun kind of sees he senses the political winds and as the 1820s progress he becomes less uh favorable to to protective tariffs. He takes a more free trade stance. And then especially after the uh 1828 tariff of abominations, he he he starts to draft this exposition and protest which we can get into. And it's this famous political document of his where he basically outlines uh a state has a right to secede if it disagrees with a policy that Congress had passed. Um, so it's important to kind put this in context that it was really more of an opportunistic switch to a what is seen as a limited government stance rather than any out of any sort of uh deep deeply held and principled ideological conviction that someone like a like a Jefferson might have. You know, Jefferson I would argue had had held. And a lot of people don't really realize this. They kind of just jump to Calhoun in the late 1820s and they don't really recognize Calhoun in the 1810s or even for that matter Calhoun in the 1830s or 1840s. As I've gotten older because I'm a very elderly man now. Uh my views have changed a little bit in terms of I used to view politics a bit more uh theoretically in terms of hey people they they had views and they stuck to them. uh people had consistent views based on their their evaluation of ideas and such. Uh one thing that sticks out about Calhoun though and about politicians in general what has changed my view is I one should never underestimate the motivations that one has that are motivated just by personal animus toward other people and sometimes just their personal lives could be affected deeply uh by things that have happened to them and that can change their political views in many cases. Uh I I wonder sometimes looking at Calhoun's relationship with Van Burren if that was just a personal problem he had with Van Beern or he just had assigned Van Beern as sort of the figure head of all the things that Calhoun found problematic. What was that relationship there between Van Beern and Calhoun? >> Yeah, it was not a good relationship. And if if if if we were um if we were doing this this radio Rothbart um podcast in the in the you know in the 19th century you couldn't be a fan of both. You had to sort of take your your pick. You're either a fan of Van Beern and um what he was trying to do or you were a fan of you were a fan of Calhoun. And it's a great point you mentioned that politics is very petty. there are personal um uh disagreements or animosities that then lead lead to um differing or or competing political factions. And so Van Beern started out somewhat similar to Calhoun in that you could say he was a sort of a big government politician in the 1810s. he wasn't uh he wasn't as prominent as Calhoun simply because he was more focused in the state of New York whereas Calhoun was already established himself as a politician on the federal level for South Carolina. But what Van Beern realized as as things had kind of developed is that he was a master uh polit, you know, he was a a master political, a political operator and and so on. He wanted to create a new political party that could revive the old Jeffersonian principles, right, that he had viewed as no longer being uh present in the Republican party as it stood by the mid 1820s. So he did work with Calhoun initially when building his political coalition to basically defeat John Quincy Adams in 1828 and and and elect and elect Jackson. But Van Burren was someone who was you could say I I would argue he was more dedicated to the small government position. He was the little magician. So he was always kind of dancing around on certain issues, but the overall thrust of what he was trying to do, I would say, was definitely in the Libertarian direction. And his entire program of of literally creating this new party, the Democratic Party. It's still the same party, but it meant very different things back in the day. Uh was something that Murray Rothbart would consider very heroic. Basically Van Beern's sort of crowning achievement. But him and Calhoun, they uh they did not get along, especially since um it gets into some personal things with Calhoun and and Jackson that we don't need to get into, but uh Van Beerren became Jackson's new vice president. Um whereas Calhoun kind of uh he he he he got shown the door. And uh this became an issue during the nullification crisis which happened shortly after the election of 1832 uh when South Carolina was threatening to you know nullify the uh compromised tariff of 1832 and um the the Van Beern uh faction in Congress had a compromise. It was called the Verplank bill named after Congressman Verplank. uh Julian Siver plank I I think and it was basically promising to lower tariffs to the level that the South Carolina secessionists wanted within two years but it didn't go anywhere because Calhoun didn't want anything to do with Van Beern. He didn't want Van Beern to get the credit. He he he he didn't want the the the New Yorkers to get the credit. So that's how the um nullification crisis basically led to Henry Clay's much more watered down compromise uh bill which was well we'll bring tariffs to the desired level but only in 10 years right so we're going to gradually lower them in 10 years and 10 years anything can happen right um which is exactly what happened after 10 years the wigs then just jacked up tariffs again so anyway um but they did not they did not get along and this became a bigger and bigger issue do once the Democratic Party split in the 1840s over the subject of the annexation of Texas. But so I guess I would say to to sort of wrap up on this point, my favorite politician or the not I don't want to say favorite because that kind of gives a implies a bias, but I think the most significant politician for the libertarian movement in the 19th century, the mid-9th century was was Van Beern, right? I I think his his work in uh creating the Democratic Party, in putting Andrew Jackson in in in in the in the White House, that that led to a a a a dismantling of the American system, which is really the only time that libertarians really managed to significantly reduce the federal government's presence. Uh was it perfect? No. But was it significant? Yes. And I think that uh Calhoun on the other hand was more often than not a thorn in the side of the jonian's uh uh program to dismantle protective tariffs, central banking, internal improvements and other uh big government measures. >> Yes. it what rarely gets mentioned in our circles I think is how there was this great poll if you would um sort of home base of libertarian activity in of all places New York and New Jersey uh in the 19th century which is hard for people to conceive of now but you had some of your best libertarian theorists Grover Cleveland at the end of that at the tail end of that and again as you know none of these guys were like pure Rothbardians or anything like But they were people who were genuinely suspicious of federal power or at least their careers were devoted to breaking down federal power, uh, lower taxes, that sort of thing. And yeah, I agree. I think that more carries on the good parts of the Jeffersonian ideal. And in a book I recently finished editing was uh the struggle for liberty by Ralph Reiko. That's a that's a 10 lecture series on the history of political thought where he doesn't focus on the US but he talks about the US a little bit and he he talks more about William Leget who's part of the New York New Jersey side of things as really carrying on this radical classical liberal uh tradition of being extremely suspicious of government power noticing how government power exploits uh the the losing side of that equation. that in politics you have winners and losers. You have the exploiters and the exploites. Uh normally it's attributed to Calhoun as the one who is the insightful one on that topic. But interestingly Reiko only p only only mentions Calhoun in passing. He gets mentioned he gets questioned in a Q&A at one of these lectures about well what do you think of the Calhoun and Reiko says that Calhoun was part of a separate tradition that he doesn't consider Calhoun to really be part of this classical liberal Jeffersonian lock um liberal exploitation theory tradition that came out of early 19th century France and even earlier in other places that Leot was really the one carrying on that tradition and Calhoun had a more conservative view. Uh he doesn't criticize Calhoun's view on but says that this really isn't the the liberal view that we're talking about here in this lecture series is what Reiko is essentially saying. So there are some uh some insights there but I I'm not sure that it carries on the the Jeffersonian view of things and and I think that takes us to the next topic here is really looking at Calhoun through a Jeffersonian lens. Then you have a very interesting section here where you contrast uh Calhoun's work where he starts to speak up um in his exposition where he starts to talk about the problems with tariffs and is uh this is uh really starting to I think develop some of his later thought in terms of free trade and federal power and that sort of thing. But what you note is that you say quote uh importantly the exposition that is Calhoun's work was far less radical than Jefferson's Kentucky resolutions. So uh Calhoun is here trying to outline why a state should be able to resist federal power. And you're not far less radical than Jefferson on that who in his Kentucky resolution especially uh really had this straight out hardcore nullification position that hey the states get to to determine whether a federal law is constitutional or not. And uh and that he wasn't even as good Calhoun wasn't even as good as the neoanti federalist thought of Cooper. and someone I particularly like John Taylor of Caroline who I think was extremely insightful uh in the late 19th early 20th century on this topic and you're saying is that uh Calhoun's previous support of big government never really went away and quote he never sincerely adhered to strict con constructionism unquote. Uh, and when I was reading that, I I was also thinking to how Calhoun never developed really a principled non-legal view of secession because people come to me, well, why didn't you talk about Calhoun more in your book about secession? First one was, of course, one major reason is the world didn't need another book on southern secessionism and the views on that topic. There's countless books on that. I was looking more at a a broader scope of history, more international view, uh more modern views as well on that. But when I was looking at Calhoun on that and I was looking at Jefferson's view, uh Jefferson had a natural right view of secession was that people have rights and pretty much anyone can can secede. He had no clear outline of who's allowed to secede. 40 years after the Declaration of Independence, uh, Jefferson was still a secessionist and still had pretty free and easy views about, well, maybe a group of states out west will decide to secede. If they do, that's none of my business. Or maybe if some groups of Americans uh get too pro-war, then the anti-war factions should be able to secede. He didn't have any hard and fast rules about who should be able uh to secede. Lock was pretty flexible on that, too. We thought well if you have a group of people that can get together and form some sort of legislature I guess they get to secede. Uh that wasn't something he spent a lot of time developing in detail. But from what I get from Calhoun um and I checked with David Gordon on this was did Calhoun have any vision for anyone being able to secede except a state government? And the answer was no. Is that Calhoun's conception of secession was the states can secede. Can a county within a state sec? Calhoun did not address that issue and appear to not favor that issue at all. And the reason being is that his view of secession was very legally based that he adhered to uh this compact theory of the constitution which I happen to agree with that the constitution was this this compact that where the states came together and created this sort of confederation together and that the states predate the constitution. The opposite of the linkian view. Great. Calhoun's good on that. Uh but it seemed that the idea of secession ended for Calhoun there that a portion of a state couldn't break off. Why? Because there wasn't a compact. The states weren't formed out of a compact. They the states were not sovereign ent or the counties for example or cities within a state were not sovereign entities within a state. So therefore they had no legal right to secede. Calhoun, as far as I can tell, favored no way and no theory in which those groups could secede. And and that's for obvious reasons. You can think, well, why wouldn't a group of slaves where slaves are the majority population in some area of the South, what if they decide to get together and decide to secede? Jefferson being Jefferson probably been like, well, if they do that, I don't know who am I to say don't do that. Um because he just that was kind of Jefferson was I don't know what happens next. let's just see what happens. Uh but Calhoun was a much more uh I he wasn't willing to uh throw caution. He was he was very conservative in his thinking. He would didn't have the heart of a revolutionary like Jefferson did. And so just his view of secession was very very limited from what I can see. And so my reading is that yes, absolutely. I think it makes much more sense to say that Van Buren was carrying on this Jeffersonian tradition and that Calhoun had some elements there, but far far too cautious, far too moderate, far too conservative, far too nationalistic to really be considered the heir of Jefferson in my view. I don't know if you have anything you want to add uh to that. Yeah. So, lot lots of great things that you've you were discussing. Um, so let's let's let's take it from the top. So, I agree with you. I'm glad you you think the uh the the tri-state area or or New York in in New Jersey, let's say. Um, throw in Connecticut, too. But, but, uh, new New York is you could make that argument that New York was the most had really the carried the libertarian tradition throughout American history, right? it was New York and and and then Virginia, but more consistently and for a longer period of time, it it was New York uh with the anti-federalists, a huge uh antifederalist state was was New York and you had Governor George Clinton and uh the Clintonians, no relation to later Clintons, um but the the Clintonians um were very suspicious of federal power. They might not have been let's say free market on the state level but it was still a tradition of localism a distrust of decentralization and um it provided the foundation for some of the uh more radical let's say free market thought not only at the you know for not only the federal level but also the state level. So you had the you had the Clintonians the during the anti-federalist period and also George Clinton he cast the uh tiebreaking vote to to uh to not renew the recharter of the first bank of the United States. So frankly that just he was vice president and so in charge of the and so he was in charge of the Senate then. So anyway, I just always think that needs to get that needs to get mentioned. But you had the you had the Clintonians. Uh then you had the the Van Buranites in in New York in the 1830s, 1840s. Then you had uh the Cleveland de Democrats or the Bourban Democrats, guys like Sam Tilden um and in Grover Cleveland in in the uh the post civil war era. And there's a great book by Robert Kelly called the transatlantic persuasion talking about the this the the the shared let's say classical liberal tradition between uh people in New York as well as people in Great Britain. It was this shared understanding Smithian understanding uh you know Adam Smith wealth of nations uh which say what you will about its value theory and other aspects of economic theory was a huge motivation for Americans a huge inspiration to attack mercandalism and crony capitalism and all that good stuff. Um, so, uh, New York definitely, I I would argue, really kind of carried forth the the libertarian tradition in the in the United States and and William Leot and his his loco focus were sort of the most radical jonians, the most consistent less afair um um, you know, advocates and they were able to push Martin Van at times in a more free market direction, especially during his presidency in getting the independent treasury off off the ground. So definitely um New York I think needs to be uh given its its its just dues and yeah and and and on the other hand Calhoun doesn't really have that tradition. Uh, one of the things I mentioned in his when talking about his exposition and protest is um, uh, why it wasn't really as radical is as Jefferson's uh, Kentucky uh, resolution or the writings of uh, or you know the work of Thomas Cooper or the writings of John Taylor of Caroline is that Calhoun tried to ground his position in the federalist papers. This is an important fact that I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate. In in some free market circles, the Federalist Papers are seen as this this great defense of strict constructionism and oh see the constitution was a limited government document. They argued this in the federalist papers, you know, um, in in Murray Rothbart in conceived in liberty has a great analysis and he says the federalist papers have been divonized, but they were in just they were written to get New York state on board. So guys like Alexander Hamilton said whatever he needed to say to convince his state to join the union, right? But of course, in the 1790s, Alexander Hamilton went against all this stuff. And that's it's one of the early reminders in American politics that just because a politician says something when they're running for office doesn't mean that you'll get it when they're actually in office, right? and um he Calhoun grounded his arguments in the uh federalist papers as opposed to the anti-federalist tradition in the writings of the anti-federalists and and John Taylor of Caroline um who was was a prominent Jeffersonian Republican he was an anti-federalist when he when he started out and he developed his compact theory um after the constitution was passed in response to let's say some of the uh the big government depradation ations that the Hamiltonians were, you know, were trying to um uh engage in in the in the late 1790s. But so by Calhoun doing that, he kind of shunted aside the more radical and more pro de decentralization um tradition of the of the anti-federalists, right? and he was just he was yeah, as you mentioned, he was grounding his his his argument for secession uh in in a in a in a in a in a legal way. And really his argument for secession was he was actually trying to prevent secession. He viewed nullification as a way to stop secession because again his Calhoun's whole goal was he wanted to be president and he can't be president. He had no chance of being president if Cal if South Carolina was no longer in the union. So, in response to people like um uh Senator William Smith and and Professor Thomas Cooper in South Carolina advocating secession, he said, "Okay, let's let's kind of take a step back and let's put up a couple of let's let's work through this nullification doctrine first before we even consider secession." Right? in that that was a very shrewd move on his part that really kind of changed the uh the power dynamics in South Carolina. Uh but a lot of Jeffersonians, guys like John Randolph and some later uh Jacksonians um and so on, they they didn't really trust the exposition in protest. They didn't really think it was sincere. They didn't really trust this doctrine of nullification. uh Jefferson's um uh Jefferson's the authorship of the Kentucky resolutions was not um uh revealed yet at the time and and they especially became worried when uh uh Calhoun came out for nullification and because it was a it was a he secretly drafted the exposition and protest. So they they didn't really view this as a sincere push to um uh reduce this the size and scope of of government. And I think their their suspicions were correct. I I think however um influential it might have been in the future and however important some of Calhoun's political economic analysis may have been in his disquisition on government which he wrote at the at the tail end of his life. It it was not really grounded in any sort of deep ideological ideologically held conviction. It was a very sort of narrow legalistic view and what is going to be best for my own political goals as well as the the power of say South Carolina and in the south more in in in in in more generally. I think as as our final part, let's move on to the issue of westward expansion uh and how it related to the slavery issue. For me, this is the interesting part of the slavery issue is how it affected uh how it worked into westward expansion. I I when I was an economist in Colorado, I uh spent a lot of time just researching regional history, right? And so the the the whole history of the country west of the hundth meridian is in many ways the most interesting part of American history and the way that westward expansion wagged the dog of the United States overall on so many issues uh including slavery. And you can see that here uh when we're talking about oh we need to start adding slave states or should we add free states and how should states come into the union and in what what fashion and that seemed to be a problem also that Calhoun had uh to confront and you had mentioned a few minutes ago the issue of the annexation of Texas uh after that and then of course Calhoun had some views about the annexation of parts of Mexico as well and it seemed that a lot his nationalistic views came through on that. And also I would state I would contend that adding large swats of land to the United States actually just works in general to empower the federal government. And uh you can look at how essentially westward expansion created modern views of the of the federal government in the sense that it was westward expansion that created this this idea that the federal government can own huge portions of land, rule them directly from Congress, hand down federal legislation that tells people how they can live. I mean, we had Congress voting on laws as to who people could marry in Utah and things like that, which was just totally went against the whole idea of the Constitution as uh the anti-federalists and even probably that whole generation imagined it. Will the federal government be passing laws in Congress as to marriage in your local city or town? Sure, why not? And that's what became a thing with westward expansion because Congress was now directly ruling people in Kansas, directly ruling people in Utah because the federal government was essentially seizing this land and ruling it directly and then determining later whether those places could be states. And you can see how that drove a dagger through the compact theory of the US Constitution by creating the impression that the federal government creates states, not the other way around. because it's the federal government that's oh is Kansas a state we'll draw your lines we'll determine what kind of government you have and okay Kansas is a state now with the approval of the US federal government without our approval as it was proven in the case of Utah we can just simply elect to rule you directly for decades and not let you become a state so you can see how it creates this whole uh this massively empowered federal government whether I don't know that Calhoun could have anticipated that and Texas was its own thing when it came in and it came in as a state. Nevertheless, uh he got caught up in this whole idea of determining whether the territories out west get to decide for themselves whether they will be free or whether they will be slave areas. And but before weite quite get into that, can you tell us a little bit about Calhoun's views on Texas specifically? And what was his view of the annexation? Why did he support it? I know he was criticized for maybe pursuing some shady methods of trying to get Texas annexed. I mean, what's that all about? >> Yeah. So, um, a a good good question. So Texas was a huge thorn in let's say the the the Jonian coalition because Texas was this it was part of Mexico then it then it broke away from me uh then it broke away from Mexico and then in the late 1830s and 1840s there was this big movement to bring in uh Texas into into the union and uh it it split apart the issue split apart the Democratic coalition uh uh Van Beern and in in Jackson had had split and the big reason why it it split is it brought up this question of the western expansion of slavery. So really throughout uh some some historians try to say that slavery was always secretly in you know various politicians uh minds when they were arguing for limited government like Thomas Jefferson or John Randolph or Patrick Henry or so on um and and I I don't I don't find those credible. They sometimes made those arguments, but as histo other historians point out, those were sort of like um you know, you're just trying to scare people like use a scare tactic. You didn't genuinely believe that um Congress would do anything against slavery. That changed in the 1830s with the rise of the abolitionist movement and the gradual compensation uh program for the emancipation of slaves uh in the British West Indies. And then the South really started to get worried. That's when you saw a switch away from the slavery is a necessary evil to slavery is a is a positive good um uh argument and this became a big issue with Texas because Texas was a was an in was you know had Texas was pro-slavery and Calhoun favored the annexation of Texas uh because he he was like many other slave interests who who favored bringing Texas into the union because if you bring Texas into the Union, you are going to make it harder for fugitive slaves to escape, say by going to uh to Mexico or um and and there was a lurking paranoia among some southerners that Texas maybe really would become anti-slavery and that's why they wanted to bring it in too. But anyway, slave interests supported bringing Texas into the Union and this was a big um this became a big issue uh with with the Democrats and and then in um the election of 1844 uh James K. Pulk wins and him and the lame duck president uh John Tyler, they're basically able to muscle Texas, the the annexation of Texas through Congress. Calhoun kind of supports some, let's say, um, uh, not so strict constructionist approach to bringing Texas into the Union, which some of his critics point out. And then when you when then when Texas was brought into the Union, it it really kind of brought to the surface this question of uh, the expansion of slavery into into the West and in particular western territories. And so people who were against slavery in the north um the v most of them they didn't want to touch slavery in the south. They just wanted to prevent it from going in out out west, right? Um and they didn't have the best of reasons for that. Uh but anyway, they they wanted to prevent slavery uh from expanding into the west. And this became a big problem after the Mexican war when the United States we were we we basically conquered a huge chunk of of of Mexico. It was a straight war of conquest. And then this question arose as to okay um you know are are these states that are going to be formed out of these territories are they going to have the right to determine whether or not to allow uh slavery? And I know I'm kind of skipping ahead here, but this was the uh doctrine of popular sovereignty that many southerners opposed initially because they didn't want states such as California to be able to declare that their their you know slavery will be illegal there. And and um and and so this was a this was a huge issue that uh sort of highlights you Calhoun's let's say not so consistent uh libertarian principles. Well, Rothbart interestingly uh this is some pointed out to me by David Gordon was uh he has he has some interesting views on this whole process of this debate over slavery in the western uh territories and popular sovereignty. You can find this in his book Strictly Confidential, the private vulkar fund memos of Murray Rothbard. Uh this is edited by David Gordon. Uh and in in this like 50page book review that Murray writes about an American history book that came out at the time, uh he talks about this issue and how the slave the pro-slavery guys, the hardcore pro-slavery guys, uh even though they talked all the time about local control and limiting federal government power, they came down squarely on the side of using the power of the central government to prevent people in these territories from simply ruling themselves on the topic. of slavery, declaring for themselves, well, this is going to be a slavery free government. And some of that conflict created the whole bleeding Kansas phenomenon and and all of that. But yeah, there was this fear, paranoia maybe even that people would move into these territories and just declare themselves non non-slave territories and also that then you wouldn't be able to take your slaves into those territories ever. The Dread Scott decision complicates this significantly. Uh but Rothbard, I think, really gets to the heart of the matter and says, "Look, clearly the popular sovereignty, just people being able to do what they want in these territories, was the correct position, but that national politics had become dictated by this slavery issue where we needed to have the federal government come in and tell people how they're going to live in their states. the federal government will determine the nature of the government in these new territories which isn't very libertarian and isn't really in line with any strict constructionist view of the government as well. But it seems that the the exigacies of wanting to expand slavery um displaced ideas of of local self-government in many of those cases as as Rothbart notes in strictly confidential and uh it seemed that that sort of thing was always at the forefront of Calhoun's thinking. And when I read Calhoun, I'm just I I'm always amazed at how no matter what position he takes, which is couched in a lot of complex terminology and very rigorous theories, it always comes out supporting slavery no matter what. Like it just it's like magic. No, no matter what the issue is. western expansion, annexation of Texas, always always it ends up just just by coincidence coming down on the proslavery. That's why I say I think it was just kind of reverse engineering a lot of these uh uh these books and and essays that he was writing and putting together a lot of these theories which after the fact tended to be very um uh very good in terms of the phenomenon that they they observe and and how he deconstructs them and so on. But it just seemed to me that there was a clear motivation uh there. There was a predetermined outcome of a lot of this writing and the theories that he was putting together. But um in terms of just westward expansion, uh what was his involvement in that? like he he factors into it just in gerally in terms of Rothbart's writing on the topic and in terms of yeah he was he he clearly wanted to limit the ability of the locals to determine the slavery position for themselves and he certainly wanted people to be able to take their slaves into these territories freely. Uh do you know if he had said anything specifically on this? I mean, I know he was concerned about the demographic issue, like in terms of let's not annex too much of Mexico because then you'll get too many Mexicans and they'll be anti-slavery and so on. Um, but what was your just general impression of his views of westward expansion outside the Texas issue? >> Yeah. So, um, he he took a he he he was not a fan of the Mexican war, like the Mexican-American War. I mean, he was a bit worried. he realizing some of the the the issues as you mentioned that could that could arise and how this could not only lead to bringing in you know um uh people from Mexico into the country but also it would lead to this issue. Um and he he this became I mean what happened was he he died before the 1850s. I mean he he died in 1850 before the compromise of 1850. Uh but he was clearly kind of um uh you know partial you'd say encourager of the of the south's position right to be against popular sovereignty and his his views could have changed but given the direction that just American politics progressed in the 1850s it it probably would have would have remained the same but this was a this was a a big concern um uh among um among among the the southern states and and really the Democratic party be by because by that point they were pretty much just a very pro- southern pro- southern party. Um but so the the the just the like the to kind of summarize Calhoun uh Calhoun didn't make it right he didn't he didn't live into the really in the 1850s to kind of comment on some of these some of the debates right the Kansas Nebraska crisis Kansas Nebraska act and then the um Dread Scott Supreme Court decision and of course the uh the the Civil War. Um but he his his his his his view his the positions he argued in the 1830s in the 1840s definitely influenced um uh the South's position in the 1850s. Well, I think we'll go ahead and wrap up with that. We're getting close to an hour on this episode and um I would highly recommend the book Cronyism: Liberty Versus Power in Early America6007 to 1849. That's volume one of a at least two volume work. Um maybe later in career you could add a third volume as time goes on. Uh and so Patrick Newman uh thank you for joining me today. Uh hopefully this provided some information insight for people who are interested on this topic of Calhoun who I just don't think that's enough of a three-dimensional uh analysis when as I say most people hate him or love him and you don't get much more than that. I think when you generally read things about Calhoun. So, thank you for joining me today to talk a little bit more about that. Thank you everyone out there for listening. If you like this sort of thing, make sure and visit the Mises Institute. That's mises.org mises.org. And you can also get our daily email. Click on the top right where it says subscribe. You can also get a weekly email if you don't want daily stuff in your inbox. So, uh, consider all of that. Thanks again. We'll be back next week with more. So, we'll see you then.