As Yale University and New Haven city officials weigh in on an open and at times painful discussion about removing the name of John C. Calhoun, one of American history’s most skillful politicians but also a defender of slavery, from his eponymous college, “This Day In New Haven History” has made a discovery.
Back in 1832, in a political dispute with his boss, President Andrew Jackson, Calhoun removed himself as Jackson’s vice president.
Is that a kind of precedent for removing his name from the college?
Calhoun, who graduated from Yale College in 1804 but had the residential college named for him only in the 1930s, became the first vice president ever to resign, to be followed by only the second in American history. Make that second Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s veep, whose resignation was forced by pressures from a criminal investigation.
All this swirled around in our discussion during the Sept. 16 edition of “This Day In New Haven History” on WNHH radio, when my regular guest, the New Haven Museum’s Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, brought in the 1804 newspaper article describing commencement exercises recently held at Yale. Among the 100 or so graduates to receive a bachelor’s degree on that day was one John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.
To travel back in time to meet a 21-year-old John C. Calhoun and to wonder “what if?” just click on the audio above or find the episode in iTunes or any podcast app under “WNHH Community Radio.”
So he had slaves. But now Yale gets money from overseas to name a new building after a man from the middle east!!!!!!!!!!!!!!