Esquire Names John Calhoun Worse VP Pick

[0zzy]

I thought you guys would get a good kick out of Esquire Magazine's "Dumbest Vice Presidential Picks of All Time." (http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/worst-running-mates-ever-0909) According to the historians at Esquire, John C. Calhoun was the worst Vice Presidential pick in US history. While this may be true in the political sense, they go on to blame Calhoun for essentially causing the Civil War stating,


"The Jackson/Calhoun ticket breezed to victory and Calhoun vowed things would be different second go round; instead of seeking to impede his President, he would strive to tear apart the entire nation. Calhoun championed nullification, whereby if states didn't like a federal law, they could just ignore it (and yes, this did lay the groundwork for secession, the Civil War, and 600,000 dead Americans)."

And while describing Andrew Johnson they begin, "Granted, Abraham Lincoln would be a tough act for anyone to follow." It's clear to me that public education has been focusing less on teaching young ones about the Constitution and more time idolizing presidents such as FDR and Abraham Lincoln.

[Acala]

The worst thing about Jackson was that he DIDN'T support nullification or secession. Those were the only real checks on Federal power in the Republic. If Jackson had been as heroic in a fight for the rights of nullification and secession as he was in his fight against the bank, we might be living in a different world now.

Blaming Calhoun for the Civil War is like blaming a rape victim for her injury because she didn't lie back and enjoy it.

[Aratus]

i'm a northerner, and yes... henry clay, j.c calhoun and dan'l webster defined the great
debate AFTER the times and clymes of jamie monroe... and i am proud of the way JQA
examined the fine details of the Amidstad case. i agree that to blame Calhoun for the
totality of our Civil War is bordering on absurd. it makes more sense to harp on the
shortsightedness of Jefferson, and the ruinous political hypocracy of the election of the
year 1800. our worst vice-president EVER was the fellow AFTER the venerable JOHN ADAMs.

how they passed over the monarchistic imperialistic ambitions of Monsieur Burr and his
quiet French monies is beyond me. John Marshall is famous for a ruling that cut against
his more famous Randolph cousin. Thomas Jefferson was livid at a deep betrayal that
threatened our liberties. our nation almost died as a legal entity before our nation was
a quarter century old. our civil war seems but a deeper widening inclusion intrinsic on
the feuds between roundhead and cavalier. the holdover of feudalism that damned
people into an estate worse than being an indentured bond servant. our civil war was
over human dignity. we KNOW as a nation slavery was an injustice. all the quiet negotiations
that almost had an economic compensation to a porportion for slave and master were
tossed out the window by honest abe's generration. we fragmented as a people regionally
and then tore at each other. the bloodbath that was our civil war was not totally triggered
by john c. calhoun, even if his esoteric guilt perhaps is equal to the guilt of both clay and webster.

jamie monroe dies in 1831 knowing there is to be a conflict. as i said here earlier most happily,
he is our LAST POTUS who could have resolved this deep divide. ---the divide that is intrinsically
both sides of thomas jefferson's soul. the freedom loving lord of a virginia manor. i must be
honest. puritans did not bow down to the great lords of merrie auld england after 1650...
they who cheered as the blood of Charles Ist flows profusely in 1649... and to hear that JOHN TYLER
liked the idea of having a kinship to the clever WAT TYLER who teamed up with JOHN BALL
in the tyme and clyme of RICHARD II... i do give pause and thank Lady Liberty... and us all...
for our defense of our inate freedoms and liberties, our unique system of government...

[0zzy]

I sent this to Lew Rockwell, apparently an article on the website about Calhoun will be coming out today or tomorrow.