the inherent superiority of the white race. To that end, he endorsed slavery as the best method available—the most tried and trusted—to maintain white supremacy. But Calhoun went even further, defending slavery not as a necessary evil but as a positive good in itself.

Calhoun regarded human beings as inherently competitive, involved in a constant struggle for power and resources. And this Darwinian struggle was moral in that those with the greatest talents and abilities naturally rose to the top. For Calhoun, this inevitably meant the white man. Furthermore, Calhoun held that liberty was what we would now call a zero-sum game: the liberty of Southern whites such as himself was based on its denial to the slaves. Give liberty to the slaves, he argued, and you would take it away from the white man, thus causing the very foundations of Southern society to collapse.

It is important to offer some clarification. The "incendiary spirit" to which John Calhoun refers is that of abolition, or the fervent movement to end slavery, which was dominant in the New England states. He refers to this in the previous paragraph in which he discusses the need to "[arrest] the progress of abolition." He also begins the essay with what amounts to a call of arms: "I do not belong...to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession." Interestingly, he asserts that those who do not meet "encroachments" at the beginning are destined "to become slaves." In other words, the South will not cede its way of life, but he also does not want to "[resort] to secession or disunion." His appeal in this speech is one for peace.

To your second point, Calhoun does try to make the argument that "the black race of Central Africa" is better off than before. He says that the conditions for the slave are better than those for the tenants of the work houses "in the more civilized portions of Europe." He seems to be referencing the work houses of the Victorian Era, usually inhabited by those who worked in textile factories. Calhoun claims that the slave has "the kind superintending care of his master and mistress," which allow for him or her to be looked after "in sickness or infirmities of age." 

Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of the antebellum South and the slave system knows that this is a lie. While it is true that not all masters and mistresses were cruel to their slaves, the very fact of owning another human being from birth to death, disqualifies any pretensions of goodness. Conditions for the poor in work houses were, indeed, abominable; and England's strict class structure offered little hope to escape from penury, but these laborers were still free. It is possible that some did have the opportunity to escape from their misery. No such opportunities existed for slaves who could only escape from their condition by running away, which was extremely risky and held no promise of freedom.

Calhoun justifies the plantation system by claiming that "never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other." He defends himself with history, while intentionally overlooking, like many Southern sympathizers, the unique project of the United States: to dismantle these ancient hierarchies and to create a nation in which "all men are created equal." 

He does, indeed, make the case that this "neo-classical" order -- that is, one that mimics the hierarchies of Ancient Greece and Rome -- protects the South from the kinds of clashes between ethnic groups which were common in the North at the time: "The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict [between labor and capital]."

Calhoun conveniently forgets the bloody insurrection that took place six years before when Nat Turner led a group of slaves to kill around sixty whites in Southampton County, Virginia. While it occurred in one small area, news of the insurrection rippled throughout the South and made slave-holding whites more fearful of future attempts. All was not "so much more stable and quiet" than in the North as he claims; and the stability that did exist was only due to the fierce determination of black people to survive. Clearly, black people were not content with their condition as slaves, but did not know how to get out of it without confronting mortal danger.

Based on what I have outlined, I think that you can form a sensible opinion of Calhoun's speech. His efforts to avoid discord with the North, while also defending the pride of the South, are somewhat noble. On the other hand, his justifications for slavery are dishonest, and rooted both in racism and simplifications of history.

Calhoun's fundamental argument in "Slavery: A Positive Good: is that the south must not make any concessions to the abolitionist north to defend the institution of slavery, which is, he writes, "a positive good." Calhoun predicts (accurately, as it turned out) that the abolitionist sentiment in the north, if left unchecked, would lead to conflict with the south. He writes, "the conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together." In other words, abolitionism would go on to cause a rift between the north and the south.

Calhoun defends slavery with different points of evidence. He writes that slavery is a condition that has existed throughout history. In his words, "I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other." He thinks that southern slaves are treated better than the laboring classes in other nations and that less is expected of them. He also contends that slaves are treated more kindly if they are sick or old than are the laboring classes of other countries. He also believes that the relationship in the south between the slave and master provides for a freer state than the conflict between labor and capital in the north. 

Documents such as this one help us understand the conflict between the north and south and the deep-rooted nature of their tensions. How do you think this document shows the economic, philosophical, and sociological differences between the north and south in the 1830s?