The father of Southern secession

John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious figures in American political history. Calhoun is perhaps most known for arguing in favor of slavery and for his famous doctrine of "state interposition," which laid the groundwork for the South to secede from the Union.

Calhoun has catapulted back into the public eye in recent years, as the strain of radical politics he developed has found expression in the extremism of the modern Far Right. In this revelatory biographical study, historian Robert Elder shows that Calhoun is crucial for understanding our current political climate. By excising him from the mainstream of American history, we have been left with a distorted understanding of our past and no way to explain our present.

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