Charleston Currents – John C. Calhoun

PHOTO ESSAY: Calhoun statue comes down in Charleston

Staff reports | Contributing photographer Rob Byko captured the moment Wednesday (above) that a statue of John C. Calhoun cracked away from its pedestal after workers sawed and chiseled for 17 hours to free it.

After Charleston City Council voted Tuesday night to take down the statue, work crews arrived shortly after midnight Wednesday to start the removal process. Originally, officials thought it would take a few hours to unattach the bronze statue from the 115-foot pedestal at Marion Square, but workers discovered they had to saw through a metal rod inserted more than a century ago to provide stability, particularly from hurricane-force winds.

Throughout the day, hundreds stopped by to watch the workers’ progress. Just after 5 p.m., the statue came down. It then was loaded onto a truck and taken away. Read more about what happened Wednesday.

by Rob Byko · 06/29/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Photo Essay, Photos

Police monitor the Calhoun monument at Marion Square.

FOCUS: Council vote may bring down Calhoun statue this week

Staff reports | Charleston City Council is poised Tuesday evening to vote on a resolution forwarded by Mayor John Tecklenburg to remove the statue of John C. Calhoun from atop a 110-foot pedestal at Marion Square.

Calhoun, a former vice president and powerful senator in the years before the Civil War, advocated and developed the political theory of nullification, which holds that states should be able to invalidate federal laws. Never legally upheld in federal courts, this principle of state’s rights was used by slave-holding states to break away from the United States when, most historians agree, the war was caused for economic reasons to perpetuate the system of human bondage of enslaved Africans.

If the Wednesday vote, which reportedly has the backing of all members of council, is not challenged in the courts, observers say the statue could be down as early as Wednesday morning, a relatively swift end to a controversial statue that has been a thorn in the side for the city’s African Americans for more than a century.

by Charleston Currents · 06/22/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

The Calhoun Monument looms over Marion Square.

BRACK: Repeal the Heritage Act this week

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The curious thing about laws is they can be repealed.

When South Carolina legislators meet this week to talk about money, they need to add repealing the Heritage Act to the agenda. Twenty years ago, the act passed as the fulcrum of a compromise to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse dome. Now, its time has come. It needs to be shelved itself, gone like prohibition and old laws on fugitive slaves, sodomy, investment banking and miscegenation.

by Andy Brack · 06/22/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

NEW for 6/22: On taking down a monument and repealing an act

IN THIS EDITION
TODAY’S FOCUS: Council vote may bring down Calhoun statue this week
COMMENTARY, Brack: Repeal the Heritage Act this week
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston Gaillard Center
NEWS BRIEFS: On the Heritage Act, Fresh Future Farm and coronavirus
FEEDBACK: State fortunate to have Elmore as future doctor
MYSTERY PHOTO: Pretty gazebo begs question, “Where am I?”
CALENDAR: Redux exhibit now open
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Denmark Vesey

by Charleston Currents · 06/22/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Full issue

MYSTERY PHOTO: Where did this portrait go?

If you’ve been around South Carolina politics for a little while, you probably know the identity of the man painted in this portrait. That’s not the information we’re seeking with this mystery. Rather, we want to know where the portrait is located. For bonus points, where was it, say, three years ago and why did it move? Send your best guess to: feedback@statehousereport.com – and please make sure to include your name and hometown. In the subject line, write: “Mystery Photo guess.”

by Charleston Currents · 12/11/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Mystery Photo, Photos

By Detroit Publishing Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

FOCUS: Charleston has common-sense approach to historical statues

By Robert S. Carr, special to Charleston Currents | George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist, is probably best known for his often proclaimed and lampooned quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If that thought is accurate, what does it say about the future of those who tear down monuments to the past?

Mayor John Tecklenburg of Charleston has the right idea. Instead of tearing down monuments that may offend some, he is quoted as saying in The Post and Courier: “The whole story of our history needs to be told. I intend to be complete and truthful about our history and add context and add to the story instead of taking away.”

by Charleston Currents · 08/21/2017 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

John C. Calhoun in 1849, a year before his death. Image is a whole-plate daguerreotype by Mathew Brady valued at $338,500 at auction in 2011. Via Wikipedia.

HISTORY: John C. Calhoun

S.C. Encyclopedia | John Caldwell Calhoun was born in Abbeville District on March 18, 1782, the third son of Patrick Calhoun, an upcountry planter and former legislator, and Martha Caldwell. A prodigy, the young Calhoun lost his father at an early age. His older brothers, William and James, already successful cotton planters and merchants, helped finance his education. Calhoun attended rural upcountry academies before entering Yale at age twenty and graduating in two years. He then attended Litchfield Law School in Connecticut before reading law in Charleston with the distinguished attorney William Henry DeSaussure, a prominent Federalist. Calhoun returned to Abbeville and began the practice of law,

by Special to Charleston Currents · 01/09/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia