On Dec. 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign. Calhoun's resignation stemmed from his political disagreements with President Andrew Jackson, which culminated in the Nullification Crisis.
Calhoun had been born in South Carolina in 1782 and went on to attend Yale University, beginning a career as a lawyer before graduating to a seat in Congress and national politics. During the War of 1812, Calhoun became the leader of the War Hawk faction in Congress, the fiery group of representatives who demanded war to redress the United States' grievances against Great Britain's policy of pressing American sailors in to Royal Navy service.
Under the Monroe administration, Calhoun served as secretary of war, and before long the South Carolinian's name was bandied about as a potential president of the United States somewhere down the line. He declared his intention to run for president in 1824, though he failed to garner the support he needed, even in his home state. Instead, he looked to the vice presidency, and hoped the position would ultimately prove a stepping stone for his presidential aspirations.
The election of 1824 proved to be one of the most contentious in American history. John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford and Henry Clay all ran, ostensibly for the same party: the Democratic Republicans. This allowed some leeway for the selection of vice president. Like Calhoun, Jackson was a slave owner who appeared to support the idea of states' rights, and therefore Calhoun attached his star to the great general. Adams' supporters within the party, however, saw an advantage of attaching the Southerner to their own man, and this led in effect to Calhoun as a running mate for both Jackson and Adams.
Since none of the four candidates received an absolute majority in the electoral college, the race went to the House of Representatives, where Adams was elected. Though Calhoun's politics differed greatly from the new president's, he nevertheless accepted the spot as number two man in the administration.
Calhoun served for four years under Adams with a generally antagonistic attitude. Things came to a head, however, when Congress passed the Tariff of 1828 in May of that year. The tariff placed a tax on imported manufactured goods, encouraging Americans to buy American-made products. For Southerners, the tariff was intolerable, since it artificially raised the prices of imports. Like most of his fellow Southerners, Calhoun was appalled at this legislation, which appeared to only benefit Northern industry while gouging Southerners.
For the election of 1828, Calhoun jumped the Adams ship and once again ran as Jackson's running mate. Jackson won the election easily, making Calhoun the second and last man in American history to serve as vice president to two different presidents (the first was George Clinton, who served under both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison).
A few weeks after the election, Calhoun authored the document “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” which listed the state's grievances with what Southerners were now calling the “Tariff of Abominations.” Further, the document expounded on the limits of federal power, in Calhoun's interpretation. Calhoun wrote: “We (the South) cultivate certain staples for the supply of the general market of the world; and they (the North) manufacture almost exclusively for the home market. Their object in the tariff is to keep down foreign competition, in order to obtain a monopoly of the domestic market. …”
Calhoun believed, as did many throughout the United States at the time, that the federal government was more of an alliance amongst the states for mutual protection and economic benefit than the central focal point for the people's allegiance. Instead, true patriotism meant loyalty to one's home state. As long as the state chose to remain in the Union, the state's people owed the Union a measure of loyalty, but the state reserved the right, at any time, to leave the Union.
Jackson, however, largely supported the American protectionism that the tariff created, putting him at odds with his vice president. Because of this and other disagreements, Calhoun retaliated in a most unusual way. Calhoun's wife, Floride, and several other wives of Cabinet members targeted Peggy Eaton in a vicious campaign of slander and gossip. Peggy was the wife of Jackson's Secretary of War John H. Eaton, who remained loyal to the president. The vicious, underhanded attacks, subsequently known as “The Pettycoat Affair,” damaged Peggy Eaton's reputation and allowed Jackson the opportunity to purge his Cabinet of Calhoun loyalists.
In the summer of 1832, Jackson signed a new tariff, this one authored by Adams, now a member of Congress. The new tariff alleviated many of the Southern grievances, but South Carolina remained defiant. Jackson chose to replace Calhoun by naming Martin Van Buren as his running mate for the 1832 elections in November.
A few weeks later, South Carolina held a state convention in which the body passed the Ordinance of Nullification, essentially a statement that a state did not have to comply with a federal law within its own borders if it chose not to. Armed with this new piece of intellectual ammunition, the people of South Carolina defied the federal government's call for the collection of tariff duties. The theory of nullification had no greater champion than the sitting vice president, Calhoun.
The threat was clear. If the federal government proved too tyrannical for their tastes, the South Carolinians, and perhaps other Southern states, had the right to leave the Union. The very fabric of the nation and the integrity of the Constitution hung in the balance.
In the book “Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times,” historian H.W. Brands wrote: “For Jackson, the linking of liberty and Union was crucial. Calhoun and the nullifiers contended that liberty allowed secession; Jackson believed that liberty forbade secession. Liberty didn't preserve itself; it had to be defended against a world bent on its destruction. And liberty's only sure protection was the Union.”
In line with the ordinance, the state of South Carolina made several preparations to weather the coming political, and possibly military, storm. The state called for the raising of 25,000 men to volunteer for militia service, if need be. Also, the state legislature asked Robert Young Hayne, then serving in the U.S. Senate, to return and serve as governor.
With Hayne in the governor's mansion, that left the state in need of a new senator. For South Carolinians, there was no greater voice that could put their views forward than that of Calhoun's. Calhoun was already a lame duck, as Van Buren was set to be sworn in in March. Calhoun wrote a letter of resignation to Secretary of State Edward Livingston, whose duties at the time included matters dealing with the Cabinet and presidential appointees. The letter was dated Dec. 28, 1832.
In the book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in White House,” biographer Jon Meacham wrote: “The state legislature at Columbia had elected (Calhoun) senator, and now he could fight Jackson openly from the floor rather than secretly and sporadically from the shadows — for as long, in any event, as South Carolina remained in the Union.”
Calhoun did indeed become the most ferocious defender of nullification in the Senate. Jackson noted, not long after Calhoun's resignation from the vice presidency, that “Disunion by armed force is treason.” The threat that the federal government would actually invade the state, coupled with the realization that no other Southern state would stand with South Carolina, allowed cooler heads to prevail. Eventually, Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay brokered a compromise that allowed the tariff to be imposed in South Carolina, but allowed the state government to save face.
The only other vice president to resign from office mid-term was Spiro T. Agnew in 1973, who did so as a result of a bribery scandal.
Cody K. Carlson holds a master's in history from the University of Utah and teaches at Salt Lake Community College. An avid player of board games, he blogs at thediscriminatinggamer.com. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com