Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.
John C. CalhounIrresponsible power is inconsistent with liberty, and must corrupt those who exercise it.
John C. CalhounThe defence of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.
John C. CalhounThere never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.
John C. CalhounI take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good. . . . I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.
John C. Calhoun