John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was the seventh Vice President of the United States and a leading Southern politician from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun, a brilliant orator and writer, began his political career as a nationalist and proponent of protective tariffs; later, he was a proponent of free trade, states' rights, limited government, and nullification. Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights. His redefinition was widely accepted in the South and rejected in the North at the time. His defense of slavery became defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or perhaps even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been incorporated into the American value system.

A representative leader of the Irish in South Carolina, he served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and under Andrew Jackson, was the first Vice President to have been born after the American Revolution, and was the first Vice President to resign from office. Calhoun briefly served in the South Carolina legislature. There he wrote legislation making South Carolina the first state to adopt universal suffrage for white men. As a "war hawk" he agitated in Congress for the War of 1812, and as Secretary of War under President James Monroe he reorganized and modernized the war department, building powerful permanent bureaucracies that ran the department, as opposed to patronage appointees.

Although Calhoun died nearly 10 years before the start of the American Civil War, he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860–61. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his determination to defend the causes in which he believed, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification, under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they deemed to be unconstitutional. He was an outspoken proponent of the institution of slavery, which he famously defended as a "positive good" rather than as a "necessary evil". His rhetorical defense of slavery was partially responsible for escalating Southern threats of secession in the face of mounting abolitionist sentiment in the North.

Calhoun was one of the "Great Triumvirate" or the "Immortal Trio" of statesmen, along with his Congressional colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Calhoun served in the House of Representatives (1810–1817) and the United States Senate (1832–1843; 1845–1850). He was appointed Secretary of War (1817–1824) under James Monroe and Secretary of State (1844–1845) under John Tyler. In 1957, a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy named Calhoun (along with Clay and Webster) as one of the five greatest senators in U.S. history.

War hawk
Although he had little charisma or charm, Calhoun was a brilliant orator and strong organizer, and after his election to Congress in 1810 he immediately became a leader of the "war hawks," along with Speaker Henry Clay and South Carolina congressmen William Lowndes and Langdon Cheves. They disregarded European complexities in the wars between Napoleon and Britain, and brushed aside the vehement objections of New Englanders; they demanded war against Britain to preserve American honor and republican values.[8] Clay made Calhoun the acting chairman of the powerful committee on foreign affairs. On June 3, 1812, Calhoun's committee called for a declaration of war in ringing phrases. The episode spread Calhoun's fame nationwide. War—the War of 1812—was declared but it went very badly for the poorly organized Americans, whose ports were immediately blockaded by the British Royal Navy. Several attempted invasions of Canada were fiascos, but the U.S. did seize control of western Canada and broke the power of hostile Indians in battles in Canada and Alabama.

Calhoun labored to raise troops, to provide funds, to speed logistics, to improve the currency, and to regulate commerce to aid the war effort. Disasters on the battlefield made him double his legislative efforts to overcome the obstructionism of John Randolph of Roanoke and Daniel Webster and other opponents of the war. With Napoleon apparently gone, and the British invasion of New York defeated, peace was achieved on Christmas, 1814. Before that news reached New Orleans, a massive British invasion force was utterly defeated at the Battle of New Orleans, which made a national hero out of General Andrew Jackson. The mismanagement of the Army during the war distressed Calhoun, and he resolved to strengthen the War Department so it would never fail again.

Nationalist
After the war, Calhoun and Clay sponsored a Bonus Bill for public works. With the goal of building a strong nation that could fight future wars, Calhoun aggressively pushed for high protective tariffs (to build up industry), a national bank, internal improvements (s

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