<p>I feel like I should attempt to justify Calhoun in order to preserve his legacy, because he was by no means a racist. It is important to recall that he went to Yale and was therefore Northern educated. However, because he was elected to represent South Carolina he had to act in their interests.
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<p>now of course we know that slavery was incredibly reprehensible, but at the same time, we saw incredible racism expressed by the KKK after the Civil War that was a) completely against Calhoun’s support of minority rights (as racism was accepted by the white majority - something Calhoun’s theories vehemently opposed) b) Perhaps worse than slavery, though the as long as we have our present, far more acceptable situation it is fine.
Calhoun also saw repeated revolutions in Europe from 1789 to 1830 to 1848 which he feared may spread to America if it were not made stable, and he saw the misdirection of a rich-poor hierarchy to a racial hierarchy as a way to stem this. This is the major flaw in his views - of course as an adherent of Herzen, Marx, Proudhon, and Bakunin I find these revolutions to be a good thing, but this also led him to, again support this far less fair system. Calhoun was a pragmatist who valued stability over morality, which I personally disagree with, but I must respect Calhoun nonetheless because he was willing to combat the party system.</p>