Take the case of John C. Calhoun, one of our nation’s most famous and influential advocates of the rights of slaveholders.

Read the short biography of Mr. Calhoun at the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State. You can’t get much more official than the U.S. government’s Office of the Historian. Here’s the link.

Here is a quick hit on google. Compare the results, notice all the obvious things the official portrait has officially airbrushed out of the biography of Secretary of State John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina.

Then look at the tell-all fucking face of the official portrait of the one-year diplomat’s influence:

This is from Clemson University‘s website:

link

In 2024 this kind of meticulous research takes a few ^seconds at most, plus two minutes to skim over some of the entries and then one minute to think.

Think about these words from the last speech he wrote. In 1850, dying of consumption he had his colleague, Senator James Mason read this on the floor of the Senate.

The Union cannot … be saved by eulogies on the Union, however splendid or numerous. The Cry of ‘Union, Union, the glorious Union!’ can no more prevent disunion than the cry of ‘Health, health, glorious health!’ on the part of the physician, can save a patient lying dangerously ill. …

How can the Union be saved? There is but one way by which it can with any certainty; and that is, by a full and final settlement, on the principle of justice, of all the questions at issue between the two sections. …

If you who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so; and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to submission or resistance.[16]

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