John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. In this episode we talk with Robert Elder, author of Calhoun: American Heretic. Elder shows that Calhoun's story is crucial for understanding the political climate in which we find ourselves today. If we excise him from the mainstream of American history, he argues, we are left with a distorted understanding of our past and no way to explain our present.

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