C
Caesar
An imperial Roman title for the emperor or DICTATOR
over the Roman Empire. Originally named after the
emperor of Rome, Julius Caesar (102 B.C.–44 A.D.), the
term Caesarcame to mean the leader of the Roman
Empire. Because the imperial Caesars assumed more
and more dictatorial power, the term Caesarcame to
be associated with undemocratic, tyrannical govern-
ment. This image of ABSOLUTEruling AUTHORITYin one
person was transferred to the German imperial title
kaiserand the Russian term czar.
Further Reading
Walter, Gerard. Caesar, a Biography,transl. from the French by
Emma Craufurd, Therese Pol, ed. New York: Scribner’s,
1952.
Calhoun, John C. (1782–1850) American
statesman and political theorist
Calhoun is best known for his defense of a STATES
RIGHTSview of the U.S. CONSTITUTION. His theories of
states’ nullification of federal laws and the right of
individual states to secede from the union greatly
influenced the South in the U.S. Civil War. His argu-
ment for “concurrent (state) majorities” is seen as an
attempt to preserve the institution of black slavery in
the Southern states.
In Calhoun’s theory, earlier associated with the
ANTIFEDERALISTS, he conceived of the United States of
America as a compact among sovereign independent
states. In this view, the central, national government in
Washington, D.C., was limited to foreign affairs, the
states retaining control over internal domestic policy,
so the majority in the federal government (CONGRESS)
had to have the concurrence of the majorities of state
governments for a law to be truly national. If the fed-
eral government passed a law that was obnoxious to a
state, that state could vote to nullify or invalidate it
within its borders, and if the national government con-
sistently opposed the interests of a STATE, that state or
any group of states could withdraw from the union
and establish its own nation (as the Confederate States
of America did in the South prior to the Civil War).
Calhoun’s ideas had an appeal in the slave-owning
southern states in the early 1800s, when they felt
threatened by encroachments of the federal govern-
ment, but his theory of concurrent majorities was
rejected by the leading founder of the U.S. Constitu-
tion, James MADISON, and in practice it made national
law and coherent public policy inefficient and
unworkable. They fueled the southern tendency45