Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839

In this stirring Senate address, a leading Southern statesman lays out the desperate financial crisis that has pitted the nation’s sections against one another. He explains how a series of tariff adjustments, meant to ease the public debt, instead deepened the divide by shifting the tax burden onto the very regions that had hoped for relief. The speaker frames the conflict as a clash of constitutional principles, arguing that the Union is a compact of sovereign states rather than a single, indivisible entity.

From that foundation he turns to South Carolina’s bold response: a convention called to assert the state’s reserved powers and an ordinance that declares certain federal duties null and void. He defends the controversial “test oath” as a reasonable affirmation of loyalty to state law, equating it with the oath to uphold the Constitution itself. Listeners will hear a vivid portrait of the political tensions that set the stage for a pivotal moment in American history.