John C. Calhoun's Plantation Office at Fort Hill was his private sanctuary and housed both his study and library during his twenty-five-year residency there. In this building, Calhoun developed and set forth his most historically significant constitutional arguments and political theories. Calhoun moved to the Pendleton District from Washington D.C. in 1825 and settled into the Presbyterian manse Clergy Hall. After serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Secretary of War under President James Monroe, he had been elected vice-president under John Quincy Adams in 1824. He later christened his renovated Greek revival home Fort Hill and made it his permanent residence for the rest of his life. At Fort Hill in 1828, Calhoun anonymously penned The South Carolina Exposition and Protest, outlining his political theory of nullification. In July 1831, he published his Fort Hill Address, publicly signaling his doctrine of states' rights. He resigned as vice-president under Andrew Jackson in December 1832 during the nullification crisis and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1832. His oratory in debates with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster earned them the name The Great Triumvirate. His Senate service was interrupted briefly while he served out a term as Secretary of State for President John Tyler, which included overseeing the annexation of Texas. On March 30, 1850, Calhoun died in Washington after serving almost continually in public office for forty years. His major books A Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution were published posthumously. The Fort Hill plantation estate is a National Historic Landmark, and the complex is preserved as a historic house museum in accordance with the will of Calhoun's son-in-law Thomas G. Clemson and is furnished almost entirely with original family artifacts.
