Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)
STUDIES - András Tamóc: The Politics of a Cast-Iron Man. John C. Calhoun and His Views on Government.
respectively". One could contend that the Constitution's omission of nullification automatically placed it among the reserved powers. This line of reasoning is fallacious, akin to basing God's existence on our inability to prove otherwise. Furthermore, Calhoun could have shown that the tariffs salutary effects in the North and damaging consequences in the South unconstitutionally benefited one region over an other. He, however, proposed a concept that in fact violated one of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, the doctrine of separation of powers. Although not expressed in the document, Chief Justice John Marshall assigned the power of judicial review, in other words deciding whether an act of government is constitutional or not, exclusively to the court system. 2 3 Thus nullification usurped the authority of the third component of American government, the judicial branch. While most historians condemned Calhoun for putting forth a divisive and "inherently disunionist" concept, Kelly found the author's intent praiseworthy. In his view nullification was only a different expression of Calhoun's nationalism, since the theory's main goal was to keep the South in the Union. 2 4 Regardless of original intent and his efforts in working out a compromise, after 1833 only one John C. Calhoun existed in the national psyche; a dogmatic sectionalist ready to defend the South to the bitter end. 2 3 Geoffrey R. Stone et al., Constitutional Law { Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1986), p. 27. 2 4 Alfred H. Kelly et al., The American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 216. 99
