John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782-March 31, 1850) was U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from South Carolina. He was the Secretary of War under President James Monroe; Secretary of State under President John Tyler; and Vice-President under both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He was a prominent supporter of "states rights," and in 1850, the year he died, he gave his last speech to the Senate regarding the Civil War that lay ahead:
<The cords that bind the States together are not only many, but various in character....The strongest of those of a spiritual and ecclesiastical nature, consisted in the unity of the great religious denominations, all of which originally embraced the whole Union. All these denominations, with the exception, perhaps, of the Catholics, were organized very much upon the principle of our political institutions.
Beginning with smaller meetings, corresponding with the political divisions of the country, their organization terminated in one great central assemblage, corresponding very much with the character of Congress. At these meetings the principal clergymen and lay members of the respective denominations, from all parts of the Union, met to transact business relating to their common concerns.
It was not confined to what appertained to the doctrines and discipline of the respective denominations, but extended to plans for disseminating the Bible, establishing missions, distributing tracts, and of establishing presses for the publications of tracts, newspapers, and periodicals, with a view of diffusing religious information, and for the support of their respective doctrines and creeds.
All this combined contributed greatly to strengthen the bonds of the Union. The ties which held each denomination together formed a strong cord to hold the whole Union together; but, powerful as they were, they have not been able to resist the explosive effect of slavery agitation...> 1782JC001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1782JC001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). John Caldwell Calhoun, 1850, in his last speech to the Senate before he died, warning of the impending civil war. Richard D. Heffner, A Documentary History of the United States (New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1961), pp. 120-121.