I want to welcome everyone back to my second book reading.

I chose this one because this is one of the first books I read when I was

questioning libertarianism.

I knew that Murray Rothbard had quoted it all the time, and he always talked about

John C. Calhoun, and I had heard about this book, and so I read it,

and it raised a lot of questions. Let's just put it that way. One of the reasons I pick this one and not

someone else is, he's an American, Southerner, and a controversial figure. Let's just put it that way. But just to give you some

background on John C. Calhoun, and I'm going to take this off of, I'm going to read this off of

the United States Senate's website. Okay. So it's a featured biography.

John C. Calhoun of South Carolina first entered politics in 1808 when he was elected to the state legislature.

He moved to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1811, where he served almost four terms before resigning to become Secretary of War under President James Monroe, a position he held from 1817 to 1825.

In both positions, Calhoun was known for his strong support for federally funded internal improvements.

Calhoun was an early candidate for president in 1824, but dropped out and sought the vice presidency instead.

Although he publicly backed Tennessee's Andrew Jackson for president, his vice presidential candidacy received endorsements

from both Jackson supporters and those of John Quincy Adams. Calhoun easily won the

vice presidency, making him the vice president of the Senate,

while the presidential election was decided by the House of Representatives, which elected

John Quincy Adams over popular vote winner, Andrew Jackson. When Jackson was elected

president in 1828, Calhoun was again elected vice president, but his

growing opposition to Jackson's policies prompted him, prompted his resignation.

Elected to the Senate in December of 1832, Calhoun became an influential leader of the

southern states during the antebellum period, a period in Senate history marked by heated

...