page_title: John C. Calhoun
section_title: Mexican–American War and Wilmot Proviso
hierarchical_section_title: John C. Calhoun / Second term in the Senate / Mexican–American War and Wilmot Proviso
caption_attribution_description: English: Whole-plate daguerreotype of John C. Calhoun, which sold at auction for $338,500 USD on 06 April 2011. The daguerreotype was copied by Charles G. Crehen and published as a lithograph in 1850.
context_page_description: John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina and served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832, under two presidents of different political parties. During his political career Calhoun was also a senator, congressman, Secretary of State and Secretary of War. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states' rights in politics. He did this in the context of protecting the interests of the white South when its residents were outnumbered by Northerners. He began his 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.
  Calhoun began his political career with election to the House of Representatives in 1810.
context_section_description: Calhoun was reelected to the Senate in 1845 following the resignation of Daniel Elliott Huger. He soon became vocally opposed to the Mexican–American War. He believed that it would distort the national character by undermining republicanism in favor of empire and by bringing non-white persons into the country. When Congress declared war against Mexico on May 13, he abstained from voting on the measure. Calhoun also vigorously opposed the Wilmot Proviso, an 1846 proposal by Pennsylvania Representative David Wilmot to ban slavery in all newly acquired territories. The House of Representatives, through its Northern majority, passed the provision several times. However, the Senate, where non-slave and slave states had more equal representation, never approved the measure.
caption: Calhoun photographed by Mathew Brady in 1849, shortly before his death
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