John C. Calhoun's Political Theory

John C. Calhoun was born on March 18, 1782 and died on March 31, 1850. He was an American Politician and a political theorist. He began his career as a nationalist, modernizer, and a proponent of a strong national government. Over time his views changed and he became a greater proponent of states’ rights, limited government, nullification and free trade, he saw this as the only way to save the Union. He was very well known for his intense defense of slavery as a positive good his distrust of majoritarianism and for pointing the south toward the secession from the Union. Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights, with the Southern states the minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule, he called for a "concurrent majority" where the minority could sometimes block offensive proposals that a state felt infringed on their sovereign power. Always distrustful of democracy, he minimized the role of the Second Party System in South Carolina. Calhoun's defense of slavery became defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been cited by other advocates of the rights of