Calhoun: A Statesman for the 21st Century

by Clyde N. Wilson

An admiring biography of John C. Calhoun by Margaret Coit won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. A little later John F. Kennedy chaired a committee that declared Calhoun to be one of the five greatest U.S. Senators of all time.

The times have changed and recent writers have once more relegated Calhoun to a dark corner of American history.

In the first half of the 19th century Calhoun was for 40 years one of the half dozen most important public men of America. Seldom victorious, he was always important and always listened to on many more national questions than slavery.

Clyde Wilson, who is more familiar with Calhoun than anyone in our time, by exploring neglected aspects of his thought, demonstrates that Calhoun was a statesman—one who had a farseeing vision of the public good and told the people what he thought, even if unpopular. And that much of what he had to say is prophetic wisdom for the present.

Genres: History, Politics, Biography

172 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2022

About the author

Clyde Norman Wilson is professor of history emeritus from the University of South Carolina. He is a recipient of the Bostick Prize for Contributions to South Carolina Letters and of the first annual Randolph Society Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the M.E. Bradford distinguished chair of the Abbeville Institute.

Reviews

[Ben House · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calhoun: A Statesman for the 21st Century by Clyde Wilson is published by Shotwell Publishing.

Dr. Wilson is a lifelong scholar and author whose works have been devoted to the writings and life of John C. Calhoun. Shotwell Publishing, in its own words, “loves the South—its history, traditions, and culture—and are proud of our inheritance as Southerners. Our books are a reflection of this love.”

The terrible year 2020 is past, and we wish it were forgotten. Most of the memorable events of that year were not good. The year began with the first impeachment of Donald Trump, quickly became the year of Covid, witnessed the improbable rise of Joe Biden, experienced the horrible summer of shutdowns, riots, racial tensions, and more. The year ended with a bitterly contested Presidential race where facts about election tampering still surface.

One of the most energetic events of that year was the surge of raging desire to remove statues across the land. Anyone associated with the South, the Confederacy, or the American connections to slavery becme the subject of efforts to erase them from history.

Long revered in the North and the South, long considered a great statesman, long admired by scholars and political thinkers, John C. Calhoun was a favored target. His statue in Charleston had to come down. America had to purge itself of any and every representative of the then current group-think.

Calhoun said things in the 1800s that no one today would or should say. Of course, it is hard to find someone who hasn’t said things that are discredited, embarrassing, misguided, or grossly wrong. But Calhoun defended features of slavery itself and was relegated to the dung heap of history.

A few years ago, Robert Elder wrote a biography titled Calhoun: American Heretic that was highly acclaimed. (We reviewed it that year, trying to be fair minded about the book.) Its central thesis is found in the title. Calhoun was not viewed as a truly American thinker; he was, to use a word that is really a damning one, A HERETIC. Not being Medieval, we no longer burn them at the stake, but we find other ways of reducing them to ashes.

If one listened to the journalistic rhetoric, the protests, and even some of the scholarly opinion of circa 2020, one would assume that John C. Calhoun should be pushed to the far corner of historical notice. He could be assumed to be the Theodore Bilbo of the 19th century. (Sen. Bilbo was a notorious segregationalist and white supremacist senator from Mississippi in the first part of the 20th century.)

One might never guess that Calhoun’s career was large and touched many facets of American political thought and action. Also, he was a holder of many offices–Senator, Secretary of State, Vice President, and more. He was also a profound political thinker; he was one whose ideas were not just bullet points or applause lines for public events.

There are and have been quite a few Calhoun scholars and fans among political leaders in the past, but their tribe is much diminished today. Professor H. Lee Cheek, a professor of political science and history at East Georgia State College, is one example of a worthy scholar and writer who has written or edited books on Calhoun. His works include the following:
Calhoun and Popular Rule, published by the University of Missouri Press (2001; paper edition, 2004);
Calhoun: Selected Speeches and Writings (Regnery, 2003);
A Disquisition on Government (St. Augustine’s, 2007), which is an edition of Calhoun’s most famous writing.

The other big name in Calhoun scholarship is Dr. Clyde Wilson, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina. Along with a number of books and articles that he has written, he has also the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun..

While a new and extensive and strongly defensive biography is needed on Calhoun for our time, Dr. Wilson has produced a book to plug in the gap during the current onslaught of attacks.

This book consists of over a dozen previous essays all about Calhoun the man and his thought. There is, as the book admits, quite a bit of repetition since the essays overlap in subject and topic. Some are quite easy pieces dealing with parts of Calhoun’s life, while others are more detailed studies of some of the issues he was grappling with in his day.

Overall, this is good history. It is a good “Wait a minute now!” kind of work for someone who is being swept away by the now accepted party line. One of the sad things about much of what we call education is that there is no dialogue. We have our modern list of good guys and bad guys, and no place for the serious weighing of merits, context, and greater course of life that people lived.

One value of this book is that it highly commends a previous biography of Calhoun by Margaret Coit. Ms. Coit was a young writer who had developed an interest in Calhoun as a high school student. She went to college and became a reporter. Her biography of Calhoun, titled John C. Calhoun: American Portrait, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Clyde Wilson wrote the foreword to a reprint of this book.

Obviously, Clyde Wilson’s compilation is not the final word or the definitive study needed. One doubts that such a study could get any serious attention in our time. But there are those who don’t shop wholesale on current trendy ideas. They look around at the small suppliers, the less known-brands, and even the ideas that we are warned to steer clear of.

Clyde Wilson is no stranger to promoting the non-party line. He has never been in danger of his ideas sweeping the nation. He is, in fact, the co-founder and co-publisher of Shotwell Publishing. One would be well advised to search out the books, ideas, and writings of Dr. Wilson and John C. Calhoun when seeking light in these dark times.

[Mark Harden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilson is the world authority on Calhoun and this collection of excellent essays is testimony to his knowledge and understanding of this great man.