John C. Calhoun

From 1811 until his death in 1850 South Carolina statesman John C. Calhoun served successfully as a congressman, secretary of war, vice president, senator, secretary of state, and again as a senator. In the 1830s, as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the North, Calhoun developed an influential political and ideological defense of slavery. The following viewpoint is excerpted from a speech Calhoun gave before the Senate on February 6, 1837, in which he addresses a series of petitions to abolish slavery that Congress had received. Calhoun proclaims slavery to be a “positive good.” Echoing the Greek philosopher Aristotle, Calhoun argues that in all societies one class lives partly off the labor of another, and that Southern masters care for their laborers better than employers in the North or in Europe do. He also warns that the zeal of...