Maybe neocons should read Calhoun, but my guess is they probably won’t. Any local or foreign entity that fails to reflect the glory of the US federal government is on the target list.

It was interesting to read The Weekly Standard‘s review of Thomas Wood’s Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Max Boot. (See here). I always thought Max Boot would have been a more appropriate name foe a WWF wrestler than a political columnist, but let’s leave that to rest.

Talking about nullification, Bootus Maximus said “Soon enough, however, the guide starts to slip from conventional history into a Bizarro world where every state has the right to disregard any piece of federal legislation it doesn’t like or even to secede. “There is, obviously, no provision in the Constitution that explicitly authorizes nullification,” the author concedes, but Woods nevertheless is convinced that this right exists. His source? Mainly the writings of the Southern pro-slavery politician John C. Calhoun.”

So in neocon-land Calhoun is just a pro-slavery politician. I suppose George Washington is next.

In Amconmag Woodsie replied thus:

“…What my book actually says is that important early Americans held the view that the states could refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal legislation and that both North and South had recourse to this mechanism at one time or another during the 19th century. As for relying “mainly” on Calhoun, in an 11-page chapter on the subject my discussion of Calhoun amounts to half a page. My main source, in fact, is Thomas Jefferson…”

As for myself I’d be as happy as a pig in something if they merely settled for some Will Rogers. ““When you get into trouble 5000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it”

The eminent neocon Robert Kagan, in his Dangerous Nation, ascribes Calhoun’s opposition to a messianic foreign policy to his fear that this could lead to interference with Southern slavery. I wonder whether he would consider Viereck soft on slavery for quoting Calhoun with favor.