John C. Calhoun Quotes
Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against a low and calculating avarice entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit for shops and counting houses.
In 1811 Calhoun was a freshman congressman. Congress was considering raising 10,000 men to resist the encroachments of Great Britain. The large cost of the enterprise was preventing the measure from passing. Calhoun objected to considering the cost factor at all:
John C. Calhoun, 1782-1850, Vice President of the United States (Democrat, SC), U. S. Congressman & Senator (Democrat, SC), Speech, U.S. House of Representatives, 1811
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the same groups similarly. See {638453} and {639956}.
John Caldwell Calhoun was an American politician and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832, while adamantly defending slavery and protecting the interests of the white South when its residents were outnumbered by Northerners. He began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861.
