He ended with a flourish:
I have now, senators, done my duty in expressing my opinions fully, freely, and candidly on this solemn occasion. In doing so I have been governed by the motives which have governed me in all the stages of the agitation of the slavery question since its commencement. I have exerted myself during the whole period to arrest it, with the intention of saving the Union if it could be done; and if it could not, to save the section where it has pleased providence to cast my lot, and which I sincerely believe has justice and the Constitution on its side. Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility.125
It was his most famous speech. It was also his last. Calhoun died of tuberculosis on March 31, 1850. He did not live long enough to see the outcome of the 1850 debate. Clay’s compromise eventually passed after Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois pushed through parts of the package as individual bills during the late summer and early fall. Henry Clay, with Douglas’s able assistance, had done it again, even over Calhoun’s objections. The Union once again was preserved, at least temporarily.126
Figure 1.1 Henry Clay. Source: Library of Congress.
Figure 1.2 Daniel Webster. Source: Library of Congress.
Figure 1.3 John C. Calhoun. Source: Library of Congress.
Following his death, Calhoun’s legacy was difficult to assess. Southerners saw him as a giant among political philosophers and statesmen. Aside from his defense of state rights and slavery, he was cognizant of the need to protect minority rights in a system constructed on majority rule. His logical arguments favoring liberty over Union especially appealed to the Fire-Eaters, those extreme southern partisans who urged the South to secede a decade after Calhoun had passed from the scene.
For northerners—and perhaps for subsequent generations of Americans—he was too wedded to outdated notions. His preference for state rights, his tolerance of the abominable institution of slavery, and his willingness to inflame passions at a time when cooler heads were needed made him part of the problem, not the solution. Calhoun simply could not grasp the need for a living constitution to evolve as societal standards evolved. He was a relic of a bygone era.
Whatever his legacy, few can deny that John C. Calhoun, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, left an indelible mark on the history of the United States. The Great Triumvirate demonstrated the power of elected leaders to shape the life of the nation, even if they never captured the presidency. These three men indeed were congressional giants, and their collective footsteps reverberated for generations.
NOTES
1. See, for example, H. W. Brands, Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster: The Second Generation of American Giants (New York: Doubleday, 2018).
2. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 12–13; Scott Farris, Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2012), 24; David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, Henry Clay: The Essential American (New York: Random House, 2010), 3–42; Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1991), 3–31.
3. Farris, Almost President, 21; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 46–51.
4. Richard B. Cheney and Lynne V. Cheney, Kings of the Hill: How Nine Powerful Men Changed the Course of American History (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996 [1983]), 3; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 61–63; Remini, Henry Clay, 43–44.
5. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 54–64; Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 14–15; Remini, Henry Clay, 42–43.
6. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 68.
7. See, for example, Michael Beschloss, Presidents of War: The Epic Story from 1807 to Modern Times (New York: Crown, 2018), 7–36; Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill, 6.
8. Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill, 3; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 68–74.
9. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 75–76; Remini, Henry Clay, 59–63.
10. Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill, 8–9; Farris, Almost President, 24–25; Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 51–53; Remini, Henry Clay, 72–93.
11. Clay is quoted in Calvin Colton, The Life of Henry Clay, the Great American Statesman (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1855), Vol. I, 165. See also Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill, 9; Farris, Almost President, 25.
12. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 90–93; Hugh Howard, Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War: America’s First Couple and the Second War of Independence (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012), 24–29.
13. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 26–31; Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill, 12–15; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 90–99.
14. Beschloss, Presidents of War, 57–96; Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 38–46.
15. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 60–62; Farris, Almost President, 25–26; Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 44–45.
16. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 62–63; Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15–18, 70–79.
17. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 53–60, 62–66; Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 44–46.
18. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 121–24; Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 50–56.
19. Brands, Heirs of the Founders, 64–66.
20. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 131–32; David Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009), 3–19.
21. Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution, 83–90.
22. Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 139–48; Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution, 73–90.
23. Fergus M. Bordewich, America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 76–82.
24. The amendment is quoted in Jeff Forrest, Ph.D., Issues & Controversies in American History: Slavery in the United States (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2012), 180.
25. Hannis Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the American Constitution: An Historical Treatise (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 280; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 143–44; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 147–48.
26. Bordewich, America’s Great Debate, 80. See also Farris, Almost President, 27; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 147–60.
27. Much has been written about the election of 1824. See, for example, Farris, Almost President, 27–29; Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 154–85; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 203–11; Joseph Nathan Kane, Facts About the Presidents (New York: Ace Books, 1976), 81–82; Nancy E. Marion, The Politics of Disgrace: The Role of Political Scandal in American Politics (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010), 55; Jules Witcover, Party of the People: A History of the Democrats (New York: Random House, 2003), 127–29.
28. Brands,