John Caldwell CALHOUN, Congress, SC (1782-1850)

CALHOUN John Caldwell , a Representative and a Senator from South Carolina and a Vice President of the United States; born near Calhoun Mills, Abbeville District (now Mount Carmel, McCormick County), S.C., March 18, 1782; attended the common schools and private academies; graduated from Yale College in 1804; studied law, admitted to the bar in 1807, and commenced practice in Abbeville, S.C.; also engaged in agricultural pursuits; member, State house of representatives 1808-1809; elected as a Democratic Republican to the Twelfth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1811, to November 3, 1817, when he resigned; Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President James Monroe 1817-1825; elected vice president of the United States in 1824 with President John Quincy Adams; reelected in 1828 with President Andrew Jackson and served from March 4, 1825, to December 28, 1832, when he resigned, having been elected as a Democratic Republican (later Nullifier) to the United States Senate on December 12, 1832, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Robert Y. Hayne; reelected in 1834 and 1840 and served from December 29, 1832, until his resignation, effective March 3, 1843; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President John Tyler 1844-1845; again elected to the United States Senate, as a Democrat, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Daniel E. Huger; reelected in 1846 and served from November 26, 1845, until his death in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1850; chairman, Committee on Finance (Twenty-ninth Congress); interment in St. Philip's Churchyard, Charleston, S.C.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law; Calhoun, John C. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. Edited by Robert Meriwether, W. Edwin Hemphill, and Clyde N. Wilson. 28 vols. to date. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959-; Bartlett, Irving H. John C. Calhoun: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1993; Cheek, H. Lee, Jr., ed. John C. Calhoun: Selected Writings and Speeches. Lanham, Md.: Nationa.l Book Network, 2003.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present