The fourth in this quartet is the theory of state sovereignty ("
states' rights"), also known as the "Calhoun doctrine" after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman
John C. Calhoun. Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the federal union under the US Constitutionand not merely as an argument for secession. The basic premise was that all authority regarding matters of slavery in the territories resided in each state.
