John C. Calhoun

@ National Portrait Gallery

Description

This lithograph was part of a series published by Charles Lester titled the Gallery of Illustrious Americans. Containing twenty-four lithographs based on photographs by Mathew Brady, the series was sold via subscription. The subjects were all men of note, such as President Zachary Taylor and other leading politicians, including the fire-eating South Carolinian John C. Calhoun. Calhoun’s career had traversed the spectrum of antebellum American politics, from his fervent nationalism during the War of 1812 to his full-throated advocacy of nullification and states’ rights in the 1830s and 1840s. By 1849 he was laying the theoretical and political justification for southern secession over what he called the conspiracy to abolish slavery. He died during the negotiations over the Compromise of 1850, in which he held the position that there could be no interference in southern institutions.Mathew Brady made the original photograph in 1848–49, but Calhoun had probably passed away before this lithograph was made.

Type:

Image

Format:

Lithograph On Paper

Rights:

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

View Original At:

http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID=npg_NPG.72.53&repo=DPLA