John C. Calhoun
“What people can excel our Northern and New England brethren in skill, invention, activity, perseverance and enterprise?’’
— John C. Calhoun (1792-1850). The South Carolinian served as vice president, secretary of state, secretary of war, congressman and senator. He was a brilliant, vociferous and poisonous defender of slavery and “states’ rights’’.
It surprises some that he attended Yale, where he graduated as valedictorian, and studied law at America’s first independent law school, Tapping Reeve Law School, in Litchfield, Conn., now a rich weekend place for New Yorkers.
One of Yale’s “colleges’’ (dorms) had been named Calhoun College but in 2017 was renamed in honor of Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneering computer scientist who also served as a Navy rear admiral.
Yale President Peter Salovey said then:
“The decision to change a college’s name is not one we take lightly, but John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a ‘positive good’ fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values.’’
The site of the former Tapping Reeve Law School (1784-1833), in Litchfield, Conn.
Hopper, formerly Calhoun, College (dorm) at Yale
