Letter, 1849 Feb. 18, Washington, D.C., to [Elisha] Mitchell.

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Letter, 1849 Feb. 18, Washington, D.C., to [Elisha] Mitchell.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62030210

Letter from John C. Calhoun in Washington, D.C., to [Elisha] Mitchell (1793-1857), a fellow alumnus of Yale and professor of chemistry at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1848, Mitchell preached a sermon arguing that slavery was a system of property holding under God's law and as such was no worse than any other form of property ownership. Calhoun's letter was written in response to the publication of this sermon, The Other Leaf of the Book of Nature and the Word of God (74 pages) Although Calhoun realized that Mitchell, a native of Connecticut, wrote for a Northern audience, he disagreed with Mitchell's interpretation of the "book of nature." Mitchell, who was licensed to preach by the Congregational Church and in 1821 was ordained a Presbyterian minister, held that all men are born free of inequalities, but Calhoun believed that man's natural state is in the political and social world. Calhoun wrote, "infants come into it subject only to the inequality & restrictions to which their parents are, but also subject to their control...they acquire by growing to manhood, all that the political institutions of the community allow."

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University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries

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SNAC Resource ID: 7808661

University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries

Related Entities

There are 2 Entities related to this resource.

Calhoun, John C. (John Caldwell), 1782-1850

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rp3z99 (person)

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states' rights in politics. He did this in the context of protecting the interests of the white South when its residents were outnumbered by Northerners. He began his political career as a nationalist, mo...

Mitchell, Elisha, 1793-1857

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zw1j9h (person)

Elisha Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, student and tutor at Yale College, Presbyterian minister, and professor of geology and chemistry and bursar at the University of North Carolina, 1818-1857. From the description of Elisha Mitchell papers, 1816-1905. WorldCat record id: 23658466 Elisha Mitchell (19 August 1793-27 June 1857) of Connecticut was a graduate of Yale who taught at Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y. and at New London, Conn., and was a tutor at Yale be...