Author: William M. MeigsPublisher:
ISBN: 9781331188032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
Excerpt from The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun, Vol. 1 of 2 The following "Life of Calhoun" was undertaken a number of years ago and has, by the labor it has entailed, shown most convincingly to the writer the vast field that Calhoun covered. During nearly forty years of our earlier existence, there were few subjects of public importance on which he did not take a leading part. Many of these concerned the system of slavery and the protection of the then civilization of our South, but the world of his countrymen would make a great mistake to suppose, as many do, that his work was confined to this one point. In his later years that subject was of controlling importance to him, as to all Americans; but the case was far otherwise during much of his public life. The fact, however, that he was the leader in the losing struggle of the South has centred public attention on this one phase of his life's work, and his fame, - so great in his day, - has suffered a marked eclipse. Modern man, with slavery as much gone as is the civilization of ancient Egypt, or Assyria, can hardly conceive how vital were the questions presented to the South by the growth of abolition sentiment and the evident likelihood that in no long course of years the slaves would be emancipated. To the Southerner this result was ever a nightmare, promising a terrible upheaval, the loss of his existing civilization, and even a reversion to some state of half-barbarism. These predictions of his have not been fully realized, but we must remember that the generation that lived during Abolition did go through a period not so different. Most of us probably realize to-day that the fundamental difficulties in a popular government of the existence side by side of the two races are still unsolved and are perhaps no nearer solution than they were fifty years ago. Calhoun said that the negroes, instead of being the slaves of the individual, would become the slaves of the community, and the tendency is, beyond doubt, away from actual equality and toward some other form of absolute control by the white race. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
