What do you think?
Disquisición sobre el gobierno
Esta obra es imprescindible para entender la ideología conservadora del Sur de los Estados Unidos de América poco antes de la Secesión. Calhoun fue el principal teórico de los intereses algodoneros y esclavistas de los Estados del Sur frente a los industriales y antiesclavistas del Norte. Las ideas del que fue vicepresidente de los EEUU inspiraron a los confederados.
152 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2007
About the author
John C. Calhoun
247 books16 followersJohn Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. A powerful intellect, Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. After 1840 he switched to states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade. He is best known for his intense and original defense of slavery as a positive good, for his inventing the theory of minority rights in a democracy, and for pointing the South toward secession from the Union.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 3, 2016
With all the talk of eliminating the Electoral College this work has new life...“They who fall into these errors regard the restrictions which organism imposes on the will of the numerical majority as restrictions on the will of the people, and, therefore, as not only useless, but wrongful and mischievous. And hence they endeavor to destroy organism, under the delusive hope of making government more democratic.” Much to think upon...many questions to ponder.
September 7, 2012
The prejudice against Calhoun is held only by those who refuse to dialogue with him. This text is a beacon of light in the dark political realm of big government. America as it should have been is clearly seen within these pages. Cheek makes this treasure of Southern political theory available to all who would heed the Vice President's words. Time spent with Calhoun is never wasted.
February 22, 2019
I know of no other who so plainly and how clearly articulated THE American Political philosophy. Further, I know of no other text which considers American political philosophy and inferring exactly what would happen if we strayed from republican virtue and the rule of law, to democracy and tyranny of the majority. This should be read by any American who wants to understand the nature of the voluntary union of the Constitution before the Hamiltonian/Lincolnian revolution of the 1860s and the aftermath of this betrayal. Do yourself a favour: dispense with the slavery ad hominems, and read FOR YOURSELF the great man’s exposition....
August 25, 2019
Can't believe how little I have heard about this previously other than it being the first discussion of libertarian class theory. It's almost a perfect libertarian dissection of the workings of a constitutional democracy.
October 23, 2017
In over 40 years of studying our heritage and the science of government and reading quotes and pieces from this and his book on our supreme law I finally decided it was time to study both. Written by what I now realize was one of the most brilliant writers and speakers on the topic, it may be I needed the years of building convicions prior to reading these in-depth but I will say to any reading this, don't wait.
When he writes about factional warfare, breaks down a lot of the destructive steps a society can take to go from liberty to tyranny it was like reading a chapter of our modern day world...history's toughest lessons do repeat themselves and there's no denying that fact, espeically when reading through this work.
He writes in a style that is easy to understand, will cause pauses for reflection, challenge beliefs, send you side referencing, critically thinking and jotting notes (lots of notes). I've moved right from this to his Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, making my time with John Calhoun even more valuable in helping secure my convictions about government. My view is simple; Liberty is our right, Freedom our responsibility and these books help bring even more credence to that concept.
Don't judge the content by the perceptions modern people have about John Calhoun. If you believe he is no more than a rebellious soul bent on some outdated, predjudice driven desire to stand upon state's rights (and even what that means) then wait to read these. Get a real knowledge about who he was and what he can offer us in understanding government from Rome to modern times.
When he writes about factional warfare, breaks down a lot of the destructive steps a society can take to go from liberty to tyranny it was like reading a chapter of our modern day world...history's toughest lessons do repeat themselves and there's no denying that fact, espeically when reading through this work.
He writes in a style that is easy to understand, will cause pauses for reflection, challenge beliefs, send you side referencing, critically thinking and jotting notes (lots of notes). I've moved right from this to his Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, making my time with John Calhoun even more valuable in helping secure my convictions about government. My view is simple; Liberty is our right, Freedom our responsibility and these books help bring even more credence to that concept.
Don't judge the content by the perceptions modern people have about John Calhoun. If you believe he is no more than a rebellious soul bent on some outdated, predjudice driven desire to stand upon state's rights (and even what that means) then wait to read these. Get a real knowledge about who he was and what he can offer us in understanding government from Rome to modern times.
February 21, 2021
Although John C. Calhoun is a persona non grata, there is no doubt that he was a first-rate statesman and an original political theorist. There are good reasons for Calhoun’s ignominy, but his principles, his theories—as opposed to much of his practice or application of those theories—were brilliant. In his Disquisitions, Calhoun argues for the necessity of a concurrent, or constitutional, majority, and warns against the destructive tendencies of assessing the “People” strictly by numbers. Suffrage is vital for making sure that the governors are accountable to the people, but, by itself, suffrage is not sufficient. Counting votes can easily lead to democratic despotism or the tyranny of the majority. To protect against this tendency, the “constitution” of the government must consist of what Calhoun calls the “proper organism.” This proper organism is a means of counting interests instead of just people, of counting the sense of the community and the groups within the the community rather than just the individuals themselves. The concurrent majority gives a voice to each interest, or “sense,” of the community. This voice largely consist of a veto, a negative, an interposition to the interest of the majority. In requiring unanimous consent to government action (such as in a jury trial where all 12 jurors must agree to convict) Calhoun argues that the People are, curiously, strengthened by their unanimity rather than being weakened by it.
February 3, 2025
Possibly the most underrated and definitely among the greatest works of political philosophy ever written, Calhoun used the synthesis of ancient and modern political thought from Aristotle to Hobbes developed by David Hume and the Scottish enlightenment in the eighteenth century to define the principle behind the Madisonian constitutional system: the concurrent majority. The concurrent or constitutional majority differs from the numerical majority by including minority interests by either requiring their assent or giving them a veto of the numerical majority. This amounts either to division of the legislative body into representation of different constituencies or requirement of a supermajority to enact or remove laws. The work is truly timeless and largely free of the issues and controversies of his day.
Calhoun begins in a manner familiar to Aristotle by defining society as natural because humanity is naturally social, but per Hume these social instincts decrease with distance from interest and are governed by the universal impulse of self-preservation shared by all animals. Government thus is necessary to preserve society but is liable also to undermine the common good by placing one interest above another and pit interest against interest-so unlike society is not an unconditional good. Because of all this monarchy particularly in its despotic form is the most simple and common of governments, because of its stability and scalability with wealth and population, but is also the most improvable as it can admit of reforms and concessions without a revolution in its form compared to aristocracy and democracy.
The greatest particular cause of faction lies in the fiscal impact of government, taxation and revenue disbursement which is a problem regardless of the virtues of politicians. It is not possible to equalize the fiscal burden even with nominally equal taxes, given the inequality of wealth and ability some will pay and receive more than others (an exception to this are rentier-extraction economies who can invest in public goods without taxation, but usually are autocratic). This will result in two antagonistic parties, the tax payers and tax consumers. The ruling party will seek to shift the tax burden onto others and spend more on itself. Neither can the judiciary strictly guard against abuses of government as thr ruling party will take a looser interpretation of law and the minority party a stricter view. Partisanship is worse in pure democracies than monarchy or aristocracy since a king or nobles may strategically align with the other estate as a relatively insulated voice and usually have a source of legitimacy beyond electoral politics.
Calhoun defines constitutional government as an organism, dependent on the well functioning of its parts towards a common end by compromise rather than force. A constitution is an artifice unlike government, which is necessary in any community. The chief means of checking government is suffrage, making the officers of government responsible to the people, but in a pure democracy simply replaces the will of the government with the will of the majority and eventually the will of the dominant party’s leadership. Oppression and dissension eventually lead to anarchy or a revolution in the form of government to aristocracy or monarchy. So suffrage is a necessary but not sufficient condition of constitutional government. The additional requirement for constitutional government is the representation of all its organs in the final decision of government, not just the will of a majority but representation of minority interests empowered with a veto which is fundamentally the same principle of a supermajority-a majority including a substantial minority.
Calhoun provides the Polish commonwealth and Iroquois confederation as historical examples of pure constitutional governments where each individual organ had a veto of the rest and respectively became great nations which lasted for centuries. The defects of confederation was the inspiration for the federal system however which led to a much more powerful government than envisioned, but in the principle of federal representation the principles of the concurrent majority remain.
At the end of the book Calhoun compares and contrasts Rome and Great Britain as constitutional governments who both evolved from aristocratic monarchies which gave concessions and representation to the people over time and became great empire, but Rome had more difficulty maintaining its constitution with empire than Britain and experienced greater change in form, eventually becoming a military dictatorship. An institutional difference between Rome and Britain was Rome held legislative power mostly in one body the senate and gave checks outside it while Britain involved the three estates (crown, lords, commons) in the legislative process and more thoroughly though informally integrated the three forms of government than Rome, who because they overthrew the Etruscan kings, retained a republican primacy of the senate. Calhoun also speculates whether monarchy will survive the technological progress of the modern age depending whether it or democracy can better integrate the constitutional form which until that point it had and since most democracies have evolved from or imitated the constitutional monarchy form. At the very end Calhoun notes he will discuss the American form of government later I assume in another work, making this a very general treatise.
The United States itself originated from a war of independence from Britain, although only declaring independence after over a year of fighting and mutual attempts to redress grievances were unsuccessful. The colonists understood their rights as the rights of Englishmen and from the tradition of established representative bodies such as the Virginia house of Burgesses and further back to the Mayflower compact. The American form of government is a republic premised on the sovereignty of the people, not as a singular entity but as the union of several states which preceded the union. The people and the states enumerated specific rights to the federal government and reserved the rest to themselves (9th and 10th amendments). This is not self-enforcing but relies on the representation of the people and states in the congress and election of the president and negative powers on the other branches.
In theory the constitution is meant to integrate the advantage of monarchy aristocracy and democracy via the presidency, senate, and house of representatives although the innovation of judicial review furthered by the 14th amendment to the states de facto made the supreme court an aristocratic body of lifetime tenure with a veto of legislation, meanwhile the senate since the 17th amendment popular election of senators has undermined state influence alongside nationalization of elections generally. Original proposals were to give the federal government a veto of state laws shared between president and supreme court.
The closest to an ideological successor I have come across is James M Buchanan’s work of constitutional and public choice economics which incorporates more fully contractarian thought by considering the possibility of anarchy as a social state and beginning with a principle of unanimity premised in individualism and equality as a basis of individual rights keeping rights away from majorities rather than the supermajority as an expression of preexisting interests which reflects Buchanan’s more libertarian and economic approach. Buchanan’s approach as I understand it places more responsibility inside the system and lends itself more to a kritarchy overruling decisions of the majority.
Calhoun can also be read in light of Carl Schmitt’s criticisms of liberal or parliamentary democracy which attempts to limit or divide sovereignty by means of proportional party representation and judicial review, empowering informal actors to dominate the political system. The concurrent majority by way of supermajority and minority veto is a way the people can retain sovereignty without resort to arbitrary or autocratic government, avoiding the scenario of democracy without rights or rights without democracy, if constitutional liberties and limitations are derived from an original agreement of the whole people. This allows a civil political agonism by partisans compatible with democratic government as opposed to political antagonism suitable for a state of war or despotism, but depends on a wide consensus.
The United States and Great Britain have plurality voting as opposed to the proportional system common in parliamentary systems which is probably due to both not starting as pure democracies but having territorial and aristocratic representation which lead to single member representation. Proportionality means multimember districts so candidates strategically have to band together as parties to maximize their share of the vote. Proportionality was originally intended to favor minority and conservative interests but with political parties means the dominant interests get to form the government and the opposition parties have virtually no say. It also becomes harder to assign responsibility in government of machination by coalitions rather than individuals so that minority parties can demand concessions to form governments.
Calhoun begins in a manner familiar to Aristotle by defining society as natural because humanity is naturally social, but per Hume these social instincts decrease with distance from interest and are governed by the universal impulse of self-preservation shared by all animals. Government thus is necessary to preserve society but is liable also to undermine the common good by placing one interest above another and pit interest against interest-so unlike society is not an unconditional good. Because of all this monarchy particularly in its despotic form is the most simple and common of governments, because of its stability and scalability with wealth and population, but is also the most improvable as it can admit of reforms and concessions without a revolution in its form compared to aristocracy and democracy.
The greatest particular cause of faction lies in the fiscal impact of government, taxation and revenue disbursement which is a problem regardless of the virtues of politicians. It is not possible to equalize the fiscal burden even with nominally equal taxes, given the inequality of wealth and ability some will pay and receive more than others (an exception to this are rentier-extraction economies who can invest in public goods without taxation, but usually are autocratic). This will result in two antagonistic parties, the tax payers and tax consumers. The ruling party will seek to shift the tax burden onto others and spend more on itself. Neither can the judiciary strictly guard against abuses of government as thr ruling party will take a looser interpretation of law and the minority party a stricter view. Partisanship is worse in pure democracies than monarchy or aristocracy since a king or nobles may strategically align with the other estate as a relatively insulated voice and usually have a source of legitimacy beyond electoral politics.
Calhoun defines constitutional government as an organism, dependent on the well functioning of its parts towards a common end by compromise rather than force. A constitution is an artifice unlike government, which is necessary in any community. The chief means of checking government is suffrage, making the officers of government responsible to the people, but in a pure democracy simply replaces the will of the government with the will of the majority and eventually the will of the dominant party’s leadership. Oppression and dissension eventually lead to anarchy or a revolution in the form of government to aristocracy or monarchy. So suffrage is a necessary but not sufficient condition of constitutional government. The additional requirement for constitutional government is the representation of all its organs in the final decision of government, not just the will of a majority but representation of minority interests empowered with a veto which is fundamentally the same principle of a supermajority-a majority including a substantial minority.
Calhoun provides the Polish commonwealth and Iroquois confederation as historical examples of pure constitutional governments where each individual organ had a veto of the rest and respectively became great nations which lasted for centuries. The defects of confederation was the inspiration for the federal system however which led to a much more powerful government than envisioned, but in the principle of federal representation the principles of the concurrent majority remain.
At the end of the book Calhoun compares and contrasts Rome and Great Britain as constitutional governments who both evolved from aristocratic monarchies which gave concessions and representation to the people over time and became great empire, but Rome had more difficulty maintaining its constitution with empire than Britain and experienced greater change in form, eventually becoming a military dictatorship. An institutional difference between Rome and Britain was Rome held legislative power mostly in one body the senate and gave checks outside it while Britain involved the three estates (crown, lords, commons) in the legislative process and more thoroughly though informally integrated the three forms of government than Rome, who because they overthrew the Etruscan kings, retained a republican primacy of the senate. Calhoun also speculates whether monarchy will survive the technological progress of the modern age depending whether it or democracy can better integrate the constitutional form which until that point it had and since most democracies have evolved from or imitated the constitutional monarchy form. At the very end Calhoun notes he will discuss the American form of government later I assume in another work, making this a very general treatise.
The United States itself originated from a war of independence from Britain, although only declaring independence after over a year of fighting and mutual attempts to redress grievances were unsuccessful. The colonists understood their rights as the rights of Englishmen and from the tradition of established representative bodies such as the Virginia house of Burgesses and further back to the Mayflower compact. The American form of government is a republic premised on the sovereignty of the people, not as a singular entity but as the union of several states which preceded the union. The people and the states enumerated specific rights to the federal government and reserved the rest to themselves (9th and 10th amendments). This is not self-enforcing but relies on the representation of the people and states in the congress and election of the president and negative powers on the other branches.
In theory the constitution is meant to integrate the advantage of monarchy aristocracy and democracy via the presidency, senate, and house of representatives although the innovation of judicial review furthered by the 14th amendment to the states de facto made the supreme court an aristocratic body of lifetime tenure with a veto of legislation, meanwhile the senate since the 17th amendment popular election of senators has undermined state influence alongside nationalization of elections generally. Original proposals were to give the federal government a veto of state laws shared between president and supreme court.
The closest to an ideological successor I have come across is James M Buchanan’s work of constitutional and public choice economics which incorporates more fully contractarian thought by considering the possibility of anarchy as a social state and beginning with a principle of unanimity premised in individualism and equality as a basis of individual rights keeping rights away from majorities rather than the supermajority as an expression of preexisting interests which reflects Buchanan’s more libertarian and economic approach. Buchanan’s approach as I understand it places more responsibility inside the system and lends itself more to a kritarchy overruling decisions of the majority.
Calhoun can also be read in light of Carl Schmitt’s criticisms of liberal or parliamentary democracy which attempts to limit or divide sovereignty by means of proportional party representation and judicial review, empowering informal actors to dominate the political system. The concurrent majority by way of supermajority and minority veto is a way the people can retain sovereignty without resort to arbitrary or autocratic government, avoiding the scenario of democracy without rights or rights without democracy, if constitutional liberties and limitations are derived from an original agreement of the whole people. This allows a civil political agonism by partisans compatible with democratic government as opposed to political antagonism suitable for a state of war or despotism, but depends on a wide consensus.
The United States and Great Britain have plurality voting as opposed to the proportional system common in parliamentary systems which is probably due to both not starting as pure democracies but having territorial and aristocratic representation which lead to single member representation. Proportionality means multimember districts so candidates strategically have to band together as parties to maximize their share of the vote. Proportionality was originally intended to favor minority and conservative interests but with political parties means the dominant interests get to form the government and the opposition parties have virtually no say. It also becomes harder to assign responsibility in government of machination by coalitions rather than individuals so that minority parties can demand concessions to form governments.
February 16, 2022
Libro muy recomendable, hace ver problemas intrínsecos a la clase gobernante. Tiene deficiencias, como la aceptación de que el gobierno esta unido al ser humano para garantizar su supervivencia y así rechazando la factibilidad de la anarquía acríticamente, ya que según él no han habido ejemplos históricos de la misma poniéndola como el peor de los males. Luego tiene una concepción de la libertad cuanto menos rara, la considera un privilegio que uno se debe ganar pero que aunque te la ganes debe ser limitada, porque un exceso de la misma llevaría a la anarquía, cosa con la que estoy de acuerdo pero no creo que sea una cosa mala como la plantea el autor. El problema es que quien es el que esta capacitado para decidir entre el que merece o no la libertad, cual es el punto en el que se le debe quitar la libertad a alguien o disminuir o aumentar, todo son distinciones arbitrarias que el autor no expone. Por último esta su distinción de los dos gobiernos democráticos, el de mayoría numérica y el de la mayoría concurrente. Este último es el mas virtuoso de todos porque evita las guerras de partidos por llegar al poder afianazandolo usando ls emularios, creando poderes negativos qie protejan los intereses de todos, es decir existen poderes positivos, de actuar (gobierno) y poderes negativos, de parar acciones, tampoco explica aqui porque estos poderes tampoco tendrían incentivos para corromperse, adulados por el gobierno o por cualquier otro poder externo.
Por todo lo demas es un libro excelente
Por todo lo demas es un libro excelente
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July 8, 2024Cualquiera debería leerlo.
September 8, 2025
Calhoun shows quite well how poorly government functions and the inability of different races and classes to live together because government preys on the differences and keeps things from operating well. I often wonder why things like this are not more well read today, but then again if more people read and understand their government is functioning exactly as it was intended to function and that is not for your benefit or mine, but for theirs.
People get the government they deserve and government will take everything it can unless stopped and it spends almost all of its resources it does not eat to keep you from having the ability to understand or resist and anyone who begins the process of contemplating or organizing a resistance to it... well they are removed from the equation.
People get the government they deserve and government will take everything it can unless stopped and it spends almost all of its resources it does not eat to keep you from having the ability to understand or resist and anyone who begins the process of contemplating or organizing a resistance to it... well they are removed from the equation.
November 29, 2011
How do you rate a book that is so obviously wrong, and yet written by one who is so obviously a first-class intellect writing what, at the time, was viewed as a very legitimate and serious argument? To say the book is bad, is to imply that there is little of value here. That is clearly false; the arguments that Calhoun makes in favor of states rights and the nullification doctrine are even now being recycled (albeit with dramatically less logic and gravitas) by certain political elements within American society. For that reason alone, it is important to read and understand Calhoun; otherwise how would one know how to refute him?
April 3, 2024
How do you evaluate a work that is articulate, interesting, and original, but so obviously vile and destructive in its application? Maybe two stars is unfair based on ability and interest, but it is far too generous for a work that propped up, by design, an odious institution like slavery. People can blather on about states' rights all they wish, but Calhoun's conception of the concurrent or constitutional majority was an effort to justify the continued supremacy of landed, wealthy, whites in the South, at the expense of slaves or freed African Americans and poor or uneducated whites. It was an argument designed to protect slavery, and it was used by southerners again during the 1950s and 1960s to resist federal law regarding civil rights.
Calhoun argues that local, insular interests deserve to be protected against larger, powerful interests, be they majority or otherwise, through a nullification or veto, which will force compromise between the various interests of society. Of course, how, precisely, does one determine the sense of the people at the local or state level? Through suffrage, but suffrage cannot be extended unreasonably to the ignorant or uncivilized. Even liberty itself can be denied to those unworthy of it, for the protection of the race, and the perfection of society (which is the point of government for Calhoun) far outstrip the needs of liberty, which is simply wasted or dangerous when extended to those unprepared for it.
It is clever, in that you can see hints of truth in what Calhoun is saying. We all should want local interests to survive. We should hope for the continuation of variety in accents, habits, customs, and even conceptions of the good. It is also true, and the Constitution's framers understood this, that a numerical majority is a dangerous thing. It is what motivated them to found a republic with separated and shared powers between branches of government and layers of government. Some people do appear to seriously misuse the right to vote.
But what if those local interests are tyrannical or abusive of power themselves? What if states simply refuse, for whatever reason, necessary efforts to serve the public or defend the nation? What if they go rogue and just refuse to obey any law outside their borders? And, of course, how do we decide which people are able to contribute to this local sense of interests? What if that determination, by itself, is evil? Why should we let local majorities decide which people are worthy of liberty or have earned the right of suffrage within their states or communities? Isn't this just a recipe for the tyranny of the majority on the smaller scale?
Liberalism has its problems. The social contract is abstract. Consent cannot really be binding on future generations, can it? Extending rights to all is messy, and may not be the best method to cultivating the perfect society, and maximizing virtue. Still, isn't it better than the alternatives? Would you rather have the right to vote, the freedom to speak, and worship as you see fit in a noisy, uncouth republic or have people like Calhoun decide who deserves those rights and who doesn't? If we are at all concerned with rights and consent, these are really the only options. Either they go to everyone, broadly construed, or we empower an elite (defined by race, class, religion, party, ideology, education, income, or maybe simply those who have the proper opinions) to pick and choose as they see fit.
Of course, it is also possible we, the people, no longer really care about things like rights and consent any longer. If that is the case, we are just whistling past the political graveyard.
Calhoun argues that local, insular interests deserve to be protected against larger, powerful interests, be they majority or otherwise, through a nullification or veto, which will force compromise between the various interests of society. Of course, how, precisely, does one determine the sense of the people at the local or state level? Through suffrage, but suffrage cannot be extended unreasonably to the ignorant or uncivilized. Even liberty itself can be denied to those unworthy of it, for the protection of the race, and the perfection of society (which is the point of government for Calhoun) far outstrip the needs of liberty, which is simply wasted or dangerous when extended to those unprepared for it.
It is clever, in that you can see hints of truth in what Calhoun is saying. We all should want local interests to survive. We should hope for the continuation of variety in accents, habits, customs, and even conceptions of the good. It is also true, and the Constitution's framers understood this, that a numerical majority is a dangerous thing. It is what motivated them to found a republic with separated and shared powers between branches of government and layers of government. Some people do appear to seriously misuse the right to vote.
But what if those local interests are tyrannical or abusive of power themselves? What if states simply refuse, for whatever reason, necessary efforts to serve the public or defend the nation? What if they go rogue and just refuse to obey any law outside their borders? And, of course, how do we decide which people are able to contribute to this local sense of interests? What if that determination, by itself, is evil? Why should we let local majorities decide which people are worthy of liberty or have earned the right of suffrage within their states or communities? Isn't this just a recipe for the tyranny of the majority on the smaller scale?
Liberalism has its problems. The social contract is abstract. Consent cannot really be binding on future generations, can it? Extending rights to all is messy, and may not be the best method to cultivating the perfect society, and maximizing virtue. Still, isn't it better than the alternatives? Would you rather have the right to vote, the freedom to speak, and worship as you see fit in a noisy, uncouth republic or have people like Calhoun decide who deserves those rights and who doesn't? If we are at all concerned with rights and consent, these are really the only options. Either they go to everyone, broadly construed, or we empower an elite (defined by race, class, religion, party, ideology, education, income, or maybe simply those who have the proper opinions) to pick and choose as they see fit.
Of course, it is also possible we, the people, no longer really care about things like rights and consent any longer. If that is the case, we are just whistling past the political graveyard.
April 26, 2026
One need not agree with the positions Calhoun held regarding slavery nor even his solution to the challenges found in constitutional government (nullification) to learn a tremendous amount about politics and political philosophy. We are watching his articulations of the problems play out today.
He traces all the problems to a numerical majority as being understood to be the "will of the people" over a concurrent majority of groups with different interests
Included in his discourse are the dangers of a two party system fighting to maintain control. This plays itself out as taxes are poorly used to reward their own, the restrictions of the written constitution on government are eluded and ignored, the poor and needy are used as political pawns, and the tit-for-tat amplifications of abuses all in the name of more power
No wonder Calhoun is always shown as scowling
He traces all the problems to a numerical majority as being understood to be the "will of the people" over a concurrent majority of groups with different interests
the numerical majority, instead of being the people, is only a portion of them — such a government, instead of being a true and perfect model of the people's government, that is, a people self-governed, is but the government of a part, over a part — the major over the minor portion.
Included in his discourse are the dangers of a two party system fighting to maintain control. This plays itself out as taxes are poorly used to reward their own, the restrictions of the written constitution on government are eluded and ignored, the poor and needy are used as political pawns, and the tit-for-tat amplifications of abuses all in the name of more power
The conflict between the two parties, in the government of the numerical majority, tends necessarily to settle down into a struggle for the honors and emoluments of the government; and each, in order to obtain an object so ardently desired, will, in the process of the struggle, resort to whatever measure may seem best calculated to effect this purpose. The adoption, by the one, of any measure, however objectionable, which might give it an advantage, would compel the other to follow its example
No wonder Calhoun is always shown as scowling
August 16, 2020
Liberty, indeed, though among the greatest of blessings, is not so great as that of protection; inasmuch, as the end of the former is the progress and improvement of the race- -while that of the latter is its preservation and perpetuation. And hence, when the two come into conflict, liberty must, and ever ought, to yield to protection; as the existence of the race is of greater moment than its improvement.
With conservatism it always comes back to government existing to protect established interests.
September 8, 2025
This is a book that needs to be read by those of us on the Left, because it is one of the clearest articulations of the major arguments made by modern-day libertarians and “small government” conservatives.
September 2, 2019
I’m sure that this is my problem, not his, but I couldn’t follow him in the least. He seems to be babbling on and on with no particular point in mind.
April 9, 2024
Prescient overview on why the U.S. was basically doomed from the get-go. Written in the first half of 19th century.
August 13, 2024
Brain cells lost.
January 6, 2025
all time dumbest americans
July 11, 2025
3.5 *
March 23, 2026
Almost convincing until you remember it’s, in the background, largely about slavery—still compellingly written and straightforward. The early description of political polarization is eerily on point.
March 31, 2026
A very profound book on political theory.
January 27, 2024
A solid read for the most part, and not entirely what I had expected. I thought I would be infuriated reading this. Instead I got a pretty steady explanation of why we structured our government the way we did. And honestly, I enjoyed most of this. I did think the last section, Discourse, was very interesting. He spent 95 pages defending our way of government, and then 10 saying it needs to be revised due to sectional conflicts. He admits that the large versus small state situation was a big reason we made things as they are, but somehow thinks that sectional differences (ie support of slavery duh) is somehow different and that we should totally change things to regain equilibrium. It amazes me that throughout the history of republican and democratic government, it's always the people who are losing power or on the fringes who believe we need to totally revolutionize the current government. Slavery at the time of this writing was unpopular outside of the old south (and in the old south is was a major economic loser). People like Calhoun were watching their way of life dissolve. It's funny because while they were losing power nationally, they still commanded a lot of respect and at the time, no one wanted to completely abolish slavery. The maxim was that it would stay where it is and not grow. But in order to stay competitive in Calhoun's "concurrent majority" it would need to grow and it wasn't performing as he and his kind wanted it to.
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