john c. calhoun said what a dark and sash an biggs -- am abuse and calhoun's ambitions were unsated. he believed that he could play the role of interpreter and enactor of the people's will. it was not a despotism, not tyranny. he fully believed in the system of checks and balances. he fully believed that as he pit the virtue and intelligence and the wisdom of them people would ultimately win out, but he did believe that the people had not been given a substantial enough role in the original system and so to torture a metaphor -- forgive me -- to strict that foundered had written had put the people in the audience, and they were there, they were vital to the production. jackson took them out of the audience, put them at center stage. he was the director, the producer, and sometimes the star, of the show, but he wanted the will of the people to have unfettered impact on the country. again, not that the majority was always right. that was not part of it. but that all in all we would be better off as a c

john c. calhoun wanted to nullify and the baby of federal taxation was the advantage and is a more modern formulation that would allow abolition and jackson said i expect the extermination two comments. he dispatched winfield scott and issued a proclamation that lincoln called for in 1861. he was addressing the people in south carolina. he would always act at two levels, the absolute projection and meanwhile he was trying to cut a deal in the back. that's what ronald reagan did with the soviet union. remember he went from 1981 after the inauguration as the focus of evil in the modern world to kissing babies with gorbachev in red square in 88.ry hoff contemplate the condition in which the still form an its g important part uniting one bond of common interest with so many different states getting the proud title of the american citizen protecting their commerce, the literature and art, facilitating the communication, defending theme e frontiers and making the name respected in the remote parts ot the e

the theory of secession in its fullest depiction going forward with south carolina politician john c calhoun and he certainly was the leader and, i think, the inspiration for many other southern fire eaters who saw secession as the only logical way to preserve what they were increasingly coming to call their country. what you have here by the eve of the civil war, how the confederate states of america viewed itself was two nationstates in the 19th century each of whom had a legitimate reason to exist. that was the way you have to understand the buildup to secession, the drumbeat for secession by these men who were prepared for it when it did come and were able to get that large section of the southern population that we call conditional unionists, only interested in staying in the union if their way of life could be preserved and that meant preserving slavery, they convinced them this was the way to go. >> host: asked what point did senator calhoun and senator jefferson davis leave washington to return to their southern roots? >> guest: calhoun left washington via his early death. he died no