Calhoun gave many speeches extolling slavery as good. The most famous, though, was delivered before the Senate in 1837, when, after reading aloud a few antislavery petitions, he described slavery as a "positive good":
I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good.
Calhoun was taking a step beyond those defenders of slavery who argued that it was a "necessary evil," an undesirable institution that may one day fade away. Rather, he argued that slavery was good for both the enslaver and the enslaved. He went one step further to argue that slavery shielded the South from the class tensions that plagued industrial societies and claimed that Southern bondsmen were better off than Northern "wage-slaves."
To understand the speech, it must be read in context. Calhoun was directly responding to the growing abolitionist movement, which he and many Southern politicians saw as an existential threat in the South. In a less-remembered line from the speech, he proclaimed that "abolition and the Union cannot coexist." This was because Calhoun viewed slavery as so fundamental to life in the Southern states that any attempt to restrain it or limit it would be deadly. Contrary to what "Lost Cause" apologists would later say, Calhoun defined the South as a solid political bloc, united over the issue of slavery. Of course, the fact that the cultivation of cotton was absolutely central to the Southern economy was among Calhoun's major motives as well.
In any case, he warned that slaveholding states would take almost any action to protect the institution from the actions of people he portrayed as antislavery radicals. In terms of effectiveness, Calhoun, as the Deep South's most prominent politician of the time, helped legitimize the extreme position that Southern states should not compromise on the issue of slavery and should be willing to use threats of secession or worse to force the federal government to protect it. His arguments were repeated in newspapers across the South as a response to abolitionism.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/slavery-a-positive-good/
John C. Calhoun gave a speech in which he stated that slavery is good. Whether this speech was effective for the time depends on one’s viewpoint. From a southern point of view, this was a good speech. It focused on why the South shouldn’t compromise at all on the issue of slavery. Calhoun believed that compromise will lead to more compromise, and this will eventually doom the existence of slavery in the United States. He also argued that the slaves were better off in the South as slaves than they would be in the North as freed people. Many southerners agreed with this position.
Many northerners would have felt that this speech was not effective, but instead counterproductive to compromise. They believed this speech encouraged southerners to refuse to consider compromise regarding the issue of slavery. To northerners, it appeared that the southerners would rather fight to keep slavery than reach compromises about it. This speech also condemned the way of life in the North. It implied that there was much poverty in the North and that there was much suffering in the region. The northerners believed that Calhoun thought that being a slave was better than being free. Many northerners strongly disagreed with Calhoun’s point of view regarding slavery.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/slavery-a-positive-good/
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/clyde-wilson-library/john-c-calhoun-and-slavery-as-a-positive-good-what-he-said/
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