Title page from Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun

Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun

These writings address such issues as states’ rights and nullification, slavery, the growth of the Federal judicial power, and Calhoun’s doctrine of the “concurrent majority.” This selection presents twelve notable speeches, letters, and essays by Calhoun; among them are his famous Fort Hill Address and his two great treatises on government - “A Disquisition on Government” and the “Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.”

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… it must necessarily follow, that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements; while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes… The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is, to divide the…

Politics & Liberty

The powers vested in [government officials] to prevent injustice and oppression on the part of others, will, if left unguarded, be by them converted into instruments to oppress the rest of the community. That by which this is prevented, by whatever name called, is what is meant by constitution, in…

Politics & Liberty

There is but one way by which it can possibly be accomplished; and that is by a judicious and wise division and organization of the Government and community, with reference to its different and conflicting interests, and by taking the sense of each part separately, and the concurrence of all as the…

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