A champion of state rights, he is an important figure in the drama of expansion and conflict that is at the heart of American history in the nineteenth-century.
A New England native, Margaret L. Coit was raised and educated in North Carolina. She received her B.A. and D.Litt. from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). She served for some years as professor of English and social studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Now retired, she holds the position of Emerita Professor. She was awarded the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her work in John C. Calhoun: American Portrait
