john c. calhoun wanted to nullify the federal tariff. they believed that federal taxation was the thin edge of the wedge. he used a more modern formulation that would allow abolition, and jackson said, expect soon a civil war of extermination to commence. he threatened to lead troops in himself to south carolina. dispatched cutters and dispatched winfield scott, and he issued that proclamation that lincoln summoned, called for in 1861. let me read one by. addressing the people of south carolina. al term natalie stern and soft. he would always act at two levels. the absolute projection of implacablity. meanwhile trying to cut a deal in the back. some people might call that hypocrisy, call that statecraft. that's what great politicians do. that's what ronald reagan did with the soviet union, reagan went from 1981, two or three days after is inauguration, referring to the soviet union as focus of evil in the modern world to kissing babies with gorbachev in red square in 1988. you negotiate. you use fear -- he used a kind of bullying kind of

john c. calhoun for a lot of this and as you know later his only regret was that he didn't hang calhoun and shoot clay. again i hate this partisanship in washington now. people are so mean on cable. [laughter] >> i was actually sitting on the set when your former governor challenged them to come for a duel. chris will do it. he was happy to go out there. so i'd like to think that-part e been part of the story since modern political history. he later expressed those regrets but dedicated himself to his job in a way that perhaps if rachelb had been alive he may not have been able to do as much as he did. he felt as the redemption he would show his enemy and he was going to do everything he couldv to save the country. it was a dreadful danger and he really believed this. he saw himself as the champion of the common man as long as the common man was white and a man. this is an important point we will talk about more in the second. one of the things that makes him so relevant for us is his vision

c calhoun and he certainly was the leader and, i think, the inspiration for many other southern fire eaters who saw secession as the only logical way to preserve what they were increasingly coming to call their country. what you have here by the eve of the civil war, how the confederate states of america viewed itself was two nationstates in the 19th century each of whom had a legitimate reason to exist. that was the way you have to understand the buildup to secession, the drumbeat for secession by these men who were prepared for it when it did come and were able to get that large section of the southern population that we call conditional unionists, only interested in staying in the union if their way of life could be preserved and that meant preserving slavery, they convinced them this was the way to go. >> host: asked what point did senator calhoun and senator jefferson davis leave washington to return to their southern roots? >> guest: calhoun left washington via his early death. he died not long after the great debates he participated in to save the union although he was opposed