John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. Born in South Carolina, he adamantly defended American slavery and sought to protect the interests of white Southerners. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer and proponent of a strong federal government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. Calhoun saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South's remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860 and 1861. He was the first of two vice presidents to resign from the position, the second being Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973.
Edgefield County is a county located on the western border of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 25,657. Its county seat and largest community is Edgefield. The county was established on March 12, 1785.
Edgefield is a town in Edgefield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 4,750 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Edgefield County.
Clemson is a city in Pickens and Anderson counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Clemson is home to Clemson University; in 2015, the Princeton Review cited the town of Clemson as ranking #1 in the United States for "town-and-gown" relations with its resident university. The population of the city was 17,681 at the 2020 census.
Benjamin Ryan Tillman was a politician of the Democratic Party who served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign.
Andrew Pickens Jr. was an American soldier and politician. He served as the 46th Governor of South Carolina from 1816 until 1818.
Andrew Pickens was a militia leader in the American Revolution. A planter and slaveowner, he developed his Hopewell plantation on the east side of the Keowee River across from the Cherokee town of Isunigu (Seneca) in western South Carolina. He was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives from western South Carolina. Several treaties with the Cherokee were negotiated and signed at his plantation of Hopewell.
Thomas Green Clemson was an American politician and statesman, serving as Chargés d'Affaires to Belgium, and United States Superintendent of Agriculture. He served in the Confederate Army and founded Clemson University in South Carolina. Historians have called Clemson "a quintessential nineteenth-century Renaissance man."
Preston Smith Brooks was an American politician and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving from 1853 until his resignation in July 1856 and again from August 1856 until his death.
Andrew Pickens Butler was a United States senator from South Carolina who authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois.
Francis Wilkinson Pickens was an American slave owner and politician who served as governor of South Carolina when that state became the first to secede from the United States. A cousin of Senator John C. Calhoun, he was born into the Southern planter class. A member of the Democratic Party, Pickens became an ardent supporter of nullification of federal tariffs when he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before he was elected to the United States Senate.
The Hamburg Massacre was a riot in the United States town of Hamburg, South Carolina, in July 1876, leading up to the last election season of the Reconstruction Era. It was the first of a series of civil disturbances planned and carried out by white Democrats in the majority-black Republican Edgefield District, with the goal of suppressing black Americans' civil rights and voting rights and disrupting Republican meetings, through actual and threatened violence.
Floride Bonneau Calhoun was the wife of U.S. politician John C. Calhoun. She was known for her leading role in the Petticoat affair, which occurred during her husband's service as vice president of the United States. In that role, Mrs. Calhoun led the wives of other Cabinet members in ostracizing Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John Eaton, whom they considered a woman of low morals. The affair helped damage relations between John C. Calhoun and President Andrew Jackson, and effectively ended any legitimate chance of John Calhoun becoming president of the United States.
Fort Hill, also known as the John C. Calhoun House and Library, is a National Historic Landmark on the Clemson University campus in Clemson, South Carolina, United States.
Waddy Thompson Jr. was a U.S. Representative from South Carolina and U.S. Minister to Mexico, 1842–44.
Eldred Simkins was a U.S. Representative from South Carolina.
Alonzo Sheck "Shack" Shealy was an American college football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Clemson University in 1904 and is the only Clemson graduate to be head football coach of his alma mater. A member of Clemson's first football team in 1896, Shealy served as team captain in 1898.
Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson was the daughter of John C. Calhoun and Floride Calhoun, and the wife of Thomas Green Clemson, the founder of Clemson University.
Paris Simkins (1849-1930) was an African-American storekeeper, lawyer, minister, barber, and politician. Born into slavery, Simkins founded the Macedonia Baptist Church in Edgefield, South Carolina. A staunch Republican, he served in multiple governmental offices following the Civil War, including the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1872 to 1876.
Slavery as a positive good was the prevailing view of Southern U.S. politicians and intellectuals just before the American Civil War, as opposed to seeing it as a crime against humanity or a necessary evil. They defended the legal enslavement of people for their labor as a benevolent, paternalistic institution with social and economic benefits, an important bulwark of civilization, and a divine institution similar or superior to the free labor in the North.
