Editing Langdon Cheves (section)

==Retirement==
After leaving the Bank, Cheves remained in Philadelphia until 1826, when he moved his family to [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]].{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=142}} He returned his family to South Carolina in 1830 to become rice planters{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=152}} and continued to engage in public debate, writing occasional essays and reviews. He was a leading advocate for the idea of a unified Southern resistance to national government, particularly in opposition to tariffs and the abolition of slavery.

In 1823, he was appointed to adjust American claims under the [[Convention of Saint Petersburg (1822)|St. Petersburg Convention]]. Most of the disputed claims concerned slaves seized by the British navy from southern plantations, and Cheves was chosen by Southern Congressmen as a sympathetic pro-slavery voice.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=136}} After a series of delays and disagreements, the  British agreed to pay a lump sum for the seized slaves, which would be distributed to American slaveowners by a commission consisting of Cheves, [[Henry Seawell]], and [[James Pleasants]]. During their adjudication, Cheves argued against admitting the testimony of the slaves themselves, but Congress intervened against him to side with Seawall and Pleasants. He resigned the commission early after approving two claims.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=140}}

In 1823–1824, Cheves was asked to re-enter the political arena as a [[Democratic-Republican Party]] candidate for the office of [[U.S. President]] in time for the [[1824 United States presidential election|1824 election]]; he turned this offer down.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}} In 1828, he endorsed [[Andrew Jackson]] over his friend [[Henry Clay]] and [[John Quincy Adams]]. Jackson considered Cheves for Secretary of the Treasury, but he was passed over in favor of [[Samuel Ingham]].{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=144}}

===Nullification and secession===
During the [[nullification crisis]] of 1828–33, Cheves urged tariff reduction, as did most members of the South Carolina planter class.{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=215–18}} In contrast to many of his allies, however, Cheves spoke highly of regional union in opposition to "the metaphysics of nullification" as a distinctly South Carolinian issue. He framed the issue as "a great Southern question, in which South Carolina is not more interested than the rest of the Southern States" and therefore urged the formation of a convention of States to present a unified front of resistance and pressure Congress into tariff reduction. He also recalled the failure of Georgia in resistance to the Supreme Court decision ''[[Worcester v. Georgia]]''. His compromise position was not popular with either the outright Nullifier or Unionist factions. Cheves decried both factions as divisive and the popular rancor over the issue a betrayal of representative constitutional democracy.{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=215–18}}

Cheves stayed aloof from the intrastate conflict over the crisis until 1832, when he joined the Unionists after they adopted his call for a convention of Southern states and were successful in reducing the tariff, over the Nullifiers' objections. Cheves directly countered Calhoun, now Vice President of the United States, arguing that "[t]here is not a shadow of support for the doctrine of Constitutional Nullification... in the Constitution of the United States." He did nonetheless decline to directly join the Unionist campaign and refused election as a delegate from [[Sumter County, South Carolina|Sumter County]] to the Unionist state convention.{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=220–22}}

In 1837, he opposed a recharter of the National Bank, arguing that excessive centralization threatened to snap the taut binds between the States:

<blockquote>"Those who wish the Union to last, should not desire to make the Government stronger. The cord is one which will not bear stretching; you may multiply its strands but you will destroy the material. Touch it with power and it will snap like a thread."{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=225}}</blockquote>

In 1844, amid renewed calls for nullification over the Tariff of 1842, Cheves emphatically revived his prior position, calling for no action by South Carolina without the backing of the entire South. This time, he added that such action was also necessary to defend slavery, without which the South would become "blackened ruins, with a remanent of the African race wandering amidst them in all the mistery of desolation and hopelessness." Throughout the following decade, Cheves's idea of unified Southern action became increasingly popular, leading to a series of informal commercial and political conventions throughout the region.{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=226–30}}

In the summer and autumn of 1850, Cheves served as a delegate to the [[Nashville Convention]], which adopted resolutions denouncing the [[Compromise of 1850]]. In the convention's second, more radical session, Cheves took a leading role by personally offering and advocating for a resolution that "secession by the joint action of the slave-holding States is the only efficient remedy for the aggravated wrongs which they now endure and the enormous evils which threaten them in future, from the usurped and unrestrained power of the federal government."{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=226–30}}

At the state convention of 1852, Cheves worked to prevent South Carolina from seceding unilaterally, maintaining his belief in Southern unity.{{sfn|Huff|1977|pp=235–36}}

===Planting and real estate===
Cheves's plantation, called Delta, made heavy use of slave labor; when his daughter was married in late 1830, Cheves gifted her forty-one slaves and three house servants.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=153}} The total number of slaves held on the plantation throughout his management varied around 200.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=164}} Cheves frequently replaced his plantation's overseers through his eleven years as its manager, finding that they were inadequate "manager[s] of Negroes."{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=161}} He employed lashings but refused to employ methods of punishment that he believed would "extend so far as to endanger life and health."{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=170}} In 1835, he inherited a second plantation focused on cotton production, which he named Lang Syne,{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=196}} and an additional 94 slaves.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=203}} A third plantation, Southfield, was established for his youngest son Hayne in 1845.{{sfn|Huff|1977|p=240}}