USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -He pushed for the annexation of Texas so that the area would be open to slavery, and he argued passionately that slaveholders could take their enslaved people into free states and still own them. This debate over states’ rights and slavery would eventually lead to the Civil War.

Detailed explanation-2: -A staunch defender of the institution of slavery, and a slave-owner himself, Calhoun was the Senate’s most prominent states’ rights advocate, and his doctrine of nullification professed that individual states had a right to reject federal policies that they deemed unconstitutional.

Detailed explanation-3: -Calhoun’s political rivalry with William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, over the pursuit of the presidency in the 1824 election, complicated Calhoun’s tenure as War Secretary.

Detailed explanation-4: -In this case, South Carolina claimed it could nullify the Tariff of 1828. Calhoun argued that the tariff was unconstitutional because it violated the trust of the states. If Congress passed a law that was unconstitutional, states had the right to nullify the law.