Calhoun: American Heretic

About the Book

John C. Calhoun's ghost still haunts America today. First elected to congress in 1810, Calhoun served as secretary of war during the war of 1812, and then as vice-president under two very different presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. It was during his time as Jackson's vice president that he crafted his famous doctrine of "state interposition," which laid the groundwork for the south to secede from the union -- and arguably set the nation on course for civil war.

Other accounts of Calhoun have portrayed him as a backward-looking traditionalist -- he was, after all, an outspoken apologist for slavery, which he defended as a "positive good." But he was also an extremely complex thinker, and thoroughly engaged in the modern world. He espoused many ideas that resonate strongly with popular currents today: an impatience for the spectacle and shallowness of politics, a concern about the alliance between wealth and power in government, and a skepticism about the United States' ability to spread its style of democracy throughout the world.

Calhoun has catapulted back into the public eye in recent years, as the tensions he navigated and inflamed in his own time have surfaced once again. In 2015, a monument to him in Charleston, South Carolina became a flashpoint after a white supremacist murdered nine African-Americans in a nearby church. And numerous commentators have since argued that Calhoun's retrograde ideas are at the root of the modern GOP's problems with race.

Bringing together Calhoun's life, his intellectual contributions -- both good and bad -- and his legacy, Robert Elder's book is a revelatory reconsideration of the antebellum South we thought we knew.

About the Author :
Robert Elder is an assistant professor of history at Baylor University, where his research focuses on the American South, and the author of The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the American South, 1790-1860. He holds a PhD from Emory University and lives in Waco, Texas.

Review :
"A timely and thought-provoking biography of the South Carolina statesman whose doctrines and debates set the stage for the Civil War. In the course of his chronicle, Mr. Elder traces how Calhoun's thinking continues to influence American society today....[A] much-needed biography."--Wall Street Journal "An illuminating account of the life of the notorious white supremacist as well as his complex afterlife in American political culture....In his lucid book about this complex and contradictory figure, Robert Elder wisely refrains from assigning Calhoun to a stationary spot along the political spectrum....[A] valuable book."
--New York Times Book Review "There are some biographies which are almost impossible to write....John Caldwell Calhoun is one of those difficult subjects, something which the Baylor University historian Robert Elder acknowledges in the title of his new Calhoun biography....Still, Elder has the decency of compassion and never underestimates or burlesques Calhoun."--The New Criterion "This well-researched book offers a definitive account of Calhoun."--Library Journal "A forcefully argued case for placing Calhoun at the center of any honest account of America's tangled past."--Kirkus "Because he was slavery's most eloquent defender as well as a founding father of the Confederacy, it's been difficult for scholars to come to terms with John C. Calhoun's foundational role in America's political and social development. This engrossing biography reveals how the United States and one of its most prominent intellectuals grew in tandem during the first half of the nineteenth century. As much as we might like to forget Calhoun, Elder reveals just how short the path from his America to our own actually is."--Amy S. Greenberg, author of A Wicked War "Historian Elder reassesses the life and legacy of U.S. vice president and South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) in this comprehensive biography. Elder skillfully tracks Calhoun's unusual political career trajectory, from his advocacy for war with England as a freshman congressman in 1811, to his modernization of the U.S. Army as secretary of war, resignation as Andrew Jackson's vice president and return to Congress in 1832 as a strident advocate for states' rights, and calls for a constitutional amendment protecting slavery in the weeks before his death in 1850.... Elder is a graceful writer who persuasively argues that the beliefs and policies Calhoun amplified continue to shape American politics."--Publishers Weekly "In this much-needed new biography, Robert Elder cuts through two hundred years of interpretive tangle to reveal Calhoun as he was and as he remains with us today--perhaps the most creative and darkly influential reactionary America has ever produced."--Matthew Karp, author of This Vast Southern Empire "Robert Elder has written a brilliant reinterpretation of one of the most vital personalities in American history. Beautifully written, well argued, and carefully researched, Elder's book offers an unflinching view of Calhoun's virtues and flaws and breaks new ground in revealing his significance as one of the first modern theorists of secession in the age of the nation-state. This is an ideal book to prompt conversations about our country's difficult history."--Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln "Through careful attention both to Calhoun's rhetoric and that of his political opponents, and to the global context for American debates, Elder sheds light on Calhoun's broad influence and enduring, tragic legacy. To understand the depth of American racism and the shape of Americans' ongoing contests over the scope of federal power, Elder argues, one must grapple with Calhoun's relentless campaign to impose his political will on South--to make his heresies into the region's orthodoxies. This book is a bracing reminder of how the genre of biography can explicate the history of ideas."--Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Armies of Deliverance