John C. Calhoun: American Portrait

by Margaret L. Coit

Book Overview

Winner of the 1951 Pulitzer Prize, Biography

John C. Calhoun remains a striking and central figure in American history. From 1811 to 1850 he served as representative from South Carolina, secretary of war, vice president, secretary of state, and senator. During the same period he was twice a contender for the presidency of the United States. From the beginning to the end of his career, Calhoun arrested public attention and influenced...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872497755
• ISBN13: 9780872497757
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Length: 632 Pages
• Weight: 1.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Heroic View of the "Cast-Iron" Man

Coit offers a very readable treatment of Calhoun's life. In concocting this work, the author does go into a more literary mode to make things more interesting. She does offer some imagined thoughts fresh from Calhoun's mind. This does not make the book worthy of your disregard, rather it just requires you to appreciate the book for what it happens to be. It is a very good introduction to Calhoun. You will get some anecdotes regarding his life and the decisions he made, but without the solid intellectual footing that would allow one to discern what unfolded in his life. In essence, you get the highlights without being exposed to the process of making this man's paradigm. Calhoun should go down in American history as one of the senators who had a very significant impact upon the nation's history. The former Vice-President was able to become the spokesman of the minority within that era. In doing so, he offered a vigorous justification of why the majority should be limited in what they can do to the minority. His explanation is as sound as today for any minority as it was for defending the South in his time. You will not get how he came to this in this book, but you will get the fact that he did. And you will not be bored in the process.

Solid, well-written, old-fasioned biography.

Of the three members of the Great Triumvirate--Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun--Calhoun was arguably the least interesting. He was not a poker playing rogue like Clay, nor a thunderously captivating speaker and industry shill like Webster. But his influence during four decades of national life cannot be denied, which is one of the reasons why scholars to this day argue over whether there are two distinct periods to Calhoun's career: his earlier years when he seemed more inclined to support national-oriented legislation and his later years when he appears as an early "states rights" man. Coit, who clearly admires Calhoun and is determined to unearth the person behind the stony legend, argues that Calhoun's devotion to nation and state were as one and that in his view only through a determined affirmation of the rights of the states could the larger national confederation succeed. A previous reviewer notes a problem with Coit trying to get inside of Calhoun's head, imagining what he was thinking. Undoubtedly today this aspect of her book would fall well short of academic standards. But in every other way, this is a strong book, and most of all, it is a beautiful literary achievement--it does read like fiction.