John C. Calhoun

I had never given Calhoun - a seemingly racist menace who hawked strange theories such as nullification - much attention until I started to read Russell Kirk:

"The concurrent majority itself; representation of citizens by section and interest, rather than by pure numbers; the insight that liberty is a product of civilization and a reward of virtue, not an abstract right; the acute distinction between moral equality and equality of condition; the linking of liberty and progress; the strong protest against domination by class or region, under the guise of numerical majority-these concepts, provocative of thought and capable of modern application, give Calhoun a place beside John Adams as one of the two most eminent American political writers. Calhoun demonstrated that conservatism can project as well as complain." - Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind.