Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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Historical Sketch JOHN C. CALHOUN. By Wm. S. M. f OHN CALDWELL CALHOUN was born, of Scotch-Irish parents, near T Little Eiver, then Ninety Six District, now Abbeville county, South -J Carolina, on the 18th day of March, 1782; and died March 31, 1850, a senator of the United States, in the city of Washington. He was for a while a pupil of the famous school-master Waddell, under whom he opened for the first time a Latin Grammar. Long afterwards Mr. Calhoun spoke of his teacher in these words: In that character [as a teach- er] he stands almost unrivaled. He may be justly considered as the father of classical education in the upper country of South Carolina and Georgia. His excellence in that character depended not so much on extensive or profound learning as a felicitous combination of qualities for the goverment of boys and communicating to them what he knew. He was particularly successful in exciting emulation among them, and in obtaining the good will of all except the worthless. In 1802 the young Carolinian entered the Junior class of Yale College, where, on the 12th day of September, 1804, he graduated a bachelor of arts. In 1805 and 1806 he studied law at Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar at Columbia, South Carolina, in 1807 — the year in which his illustrious son-in-law, Thomas G. Clemson was born in Philadelphia. In Oc- tober that year Mr. Calhoun was elected to the State Legislature. Three years later he was chosen a member of Congress; and January 8th, 1811, he married his second cousin, Floride Calhoun, only daughter of Honorable John Ewing Calhoun. Mr. Calhoun was Secretary of War under President Monroe, and Vice- President of the United States under John Quincey Adams and Andrew Jackson. In 1832 — nulification times — he resigned the Vice-Presidency, and a few months afterwards was elected to fill out the unexpired term of General Hayne in the United States Senate. In 1843 and ' 44 he was a candidate for 25