as heir to Greek democracy and home of balanced political economy, Calhoun more than anyone else advanced the tactic of state rights and raised it to the level of gospel. In theory, sovereign states had made the compact of union, which was the Constitution. If worse came to worst sovereign states might dissolve the compact and leave the Union. Worse need not come to worst, however, for unless a state’s or the states’ rights were abridged the Union was a good thing and the compact secure. Left to manage their own affairs Southern states need not fear interference with slavery, inimical trade laws, ruinous taxes, and the like, because the federal government had not the power to impose its will upon the states.
The Civil War rendered forever invalid the state rights political theory so closely associated with the Old South and so firmly connected with the secessionist origins of the Confederacy. Still, in 1860 state rights was a viable doctrine in Southern minds if only because it seemed the sole way to protect slavery. But it was more than a defense mechanism. State rights political theory was also in harmony with Southern life. The vaunted Southern emphasis upon individualism and especially the localism inherent in the South’s folk culture found political expression in state rights. Thus when Southern Senators spoke of the “Sovereign State of Alabama” or wherever, they were only partially playing a game with their Northern colleagues. They were expressing their political and cultural code as well, and they were generally sincere in this expression. By 1860 Southerners had employed the rhetoric of state rights so long and so well as to transform a political theory into an article of faith. 35
During the 1850s the South’s reliance upon state rights as a political weapon grew increasingly intense and more futile. The foremost national political issue of the decade following the Mexican War was slavery in the territories. Southerners believed their civilization had to expand to survive. They insisted that slaveholders had the same right to take their property (slaves) into the territories as Northern emigrants had to take theirs. Expansion was not only necessary economically; it promised political advantage as well in the form of more Southern congressmen. Also, expansion was vital to defuse what William L. Barney has termed the “Malthusian time bomb” produced by the multiplication of black Southerners. As the slave population increased within a limited land area, Southern whites feared not only falling slave prices but increased racial violence as well. 36
State rights, however, was essentially a limiting doctrine. Under its cover, politicians were able to say “thou shalt not” to the national government and to defend against encroachments upon state and local matters. In the 1850s, though, Southerners sought to defend and extend at the same time. By embarking, however hesitantly, upon compromises over slavery in the territories—such as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act—Southerners opened themselves to the possibility of compromise on other issues as well. If slavery could be the subject of national debate and territorial limitation in California or Kansas, then slavery might be nowhere secure. When their minority circumstance forced Southern politicians to abandon the absolutes of their state rights position in search of expansion, they exposed the weakness of their doctrine as well as their numbers.
The South’s political alienation from the nation as a whole was a progressive movement which gathered converts and intensity with the passage of time. In 1814 New Englanders at the Hartford Convention were making thinly veiled threats of secession in protest against “Mr. Madison’s War.” Then, Southerners struck the nationalist pose. During the Nullification Crisis in 1832, Calhoun believed he was averting the distasteful extremes of submission or disunion. Nevertheless South
The Civil War rendered forever invalid the state rights political theory so closely associated with the Old South and so firmly connected with the secessionist origins of the Confederacy. Still, in 1860 state rights was a viable doctrine in Southern minds if only because it seemed the sole way to protect slavery. But it was more than a defense mechanism. State rights political theory was also in harmony with Southern life. The vaunted Southern emphasis upon individualism and especially the localism inherent in the South’s folk culture found political expression in state rights. Thus when Southern Senators spoke of the “Sovereign State of Alabama” or wherever, they were only partially playing a game with their Northern colleagues. They were expressing their political and cultural code as well, and they were generally sincere in this expression. By 1860 Southerners had employed the rhetoric of state rights so long and so well as to transform a political theory into an article of faith. 35
During the 1850s the South’s reliance upon state rights as a political weapon grew increasingly intense and more futile. The foremost national political issue of the decade following the Mexican War was slavery in the territories. Southerners believed their civilization had to expand to survive. They insisted that slaveholders had the same right to take their property (slaves) into the territories as Northern emigrants had to take theirs. Expansion was not only necessary economically; it promised political advantage as well in the form of more Southern congressmen. Also, expansion was vital to defuse what William L. Barney has termed the “Malthusian time bomb” produced by the multiplication of black Southerners. As the slave population increased within a limited land area, Southern whites feared not only falling slave prices but increased racial violence as well. 36
State rights, however, was essentially a limiting doctrine. Under its cover, politicians were able to say “thou shalt not” to the national government and to defend against encroachments upon state and local matters. In the 1850s, though, Southerners sought to defend and extend at the same time. By embarking, however hesitantly, upon compromises over slavery in the territories—such as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act—Southerners opened themselves to the possibility of compromise on other issues as well. If slavery could be the subject of national debate and territorial limitation in California or Kansas, then slavery might be nowhere secure. When their minority circumstance forced Southern politicians to abandon the absolutes of their state rights position in search of expansion, they exposed the weakness of their doctrine as well as their numbers.
The South’s political alienation from the nation as a whole was a progressive movement which gathered converts and intensity with the passage of time. In 1814 New Englanders at the Hartford Convention were making thinly veiled threats of secession in protest against “Mr. Madison’s War.” Then, Southerners struck the nationalist pose. During the Nullification Crisis in 1832, Calhoun believed he was averting the distasteful extremes of submission or disunion. Nevertheless South
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