"Here is just a sample of the Marxist Calhoun's thoughts on the labor theory of value, the ESSENCE of all communism:
'Let those who are interested remember that labor is the only source of wealth, and how small a portion of it, in all old and civilized countries, even the best governed, is left to those by whose labor wealth is created' (Feb. 6, 1837).
"Marx himself didn't say it any better."
You apparently do not read or understand Marx. That would also be true of your thinking about Calhoun. Just to set the perspective, your quote of Calhoun in 1837 was well ahead of any Marx publications. Marx was about 20 years old at the time and still in college. There is very little that Marx could have said to impact Calhoun's thinking regarding that quote. And it did not reflect any Marxist principles
Even in Richard Hofstadter's book's chapter on Calhoun, which you seem to quote, he does not label him as a communist, although it has been widely misunderstood by some. Calhoun did often use language that would refer to the various "classes" of people, but as primarily a writer concerned with social structures, he was defining the difference between those who wished to live by the results of their own labor, and those who would live by the profits of others. He focused on the benefits of the social relationship rather than a Marx like struggle. That is the subject area that you missed.
He addressed the reality of the different classes and contributed to the understanding of the costs of labor and the benefits. He saw the struggle of the classes but not in a racial sense---moreover that of commercial and industrial classes and other interests, primarily commercial.
And here is the fallacy of your guilt by association correlation of Calhoun to Marx.
Marx tore away class analysis from classical European liberal thinking and transformed it from a libertarian view into a socialist one. He then transformed the labor/enterprise contract into his grand explanation of cultural clash:... the historically inevitable struggle between profiting capitalists and exploited workers.
Marx viewed the state as the capitalist's tool, Calhoun violently opposed the construct. Whereas Marx liked to expound on the notion that the most wealthy merchants tended to be aligned with the political class, Calhoun saw the relationship as serving the growth of the entire population.
Calhoun's various positions show that he was changing his mind, based on events. However, he never approached the characteriture that you are describing.
First, to say someone is a “marxist” or “socialist” is a categorization that fits regardless of chronology. Robert Owen, who preceded Calhoun and Marx, and whose ideas were stolen from Marx, conceived of the term of “socialism” and the “labor theory of value,” the latter of which Calhoun accepted.
What is important is not his evolution (in your view) but rather a fundamental principle that he rejected the market theory of value in favor of the communist (small c) labor theory of value-—again, the essence of all socialism. And, again, it is not surprising that he found an ally in this in George Fitzhugh, who saw slavery as the purest form of communism.
No, all your wiggling-—and “let’s be very clear about it”-—cannot make Calhoun into a free-marketeer, because he believed fervently in both slavery and socialism (i.e., the same thing).
Neither can your rather silly defense of Calhoun’s authorship of the tariff extricate him from the absurdity that he found himself arguing against the very bill he authored.