By Paul Hyde
While I breathe, I hope.
South Carolina’s motto, as always, hurls us headlong with joy and optimism into the New Year.
My hope for 2026 is that state leaders address our state’s real problems this year and nudge us further toward a modern and prosperous state that works for everyone.
My hope is that state leaders grapple with the cost-of-living challenges we face, fix the rotten roads and bridges, close the teacher-shortage gap, expand health care coverage, tackle rising insurance rates, promote vaccination, avoid nuttiness (banning “chemtrails,” really?), and extend a more generous hand to our most vulnerable citizens.
And here’s another idea fit for the New Year: It’s time for us to remove the dusty statues of John C. Calhoun and Wade Hampton III from the U.S. Capitol.
Every state in the nation contributes two statues to the National Statuary Hall Collection to reflect the finest values of the people of our states.
Our two statues, Calhoun and Hampton, represent South Carolina to all Capitol visitors. They represent our state to the world. But these are two of the worst people represented by statues in the U.S. Capitol.
The stony visage of Calhoun, the fierce advocate of slavery, has scowled over the halls of the Capitol building since 1910. The statue is currently located with others in the Capitol Crypt, suitable for a dead philosophy.
Hampton, the white supremacist and slaveholder, has resided with mutton-chopped extravagance in the U.S. Capitol since 1929.
They’ve dwelled in the Capitol at public expense for too long. Time for a respectful eviction.
What brings this to mind is a recent inspiring story out of Virginia, which removed its Robert E. Lee statue from the U.S. Capitol in 2020.
Just last month, Lee was replaced with a statue of teenage civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns.
The gutsy Johns famously led a 1951 student strike against school segregation, which contributed to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Johns now stands with George Washington in the Capitol.
The statue of Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, was moved to a Virginia museum.
The symbolism couldn’t be clearer: Virginia chose a message of aspiration and racial equality over honoring the racial strife and bloodshed of the past. The Old Dominion embraced the New South.
For South Carolinians concerned about local Confederate statues, it’s worthwhile to note that Virginia in removing Lee from the Capitol has not removed statues of Lee from across Virginia.
The Calhoun and Hampton statues also belong in museums to place them in a balanced historical context.
Statues in public places are not neutral historical records. They’re public endorsements. They represent our shared values, those we hold dear, not those we find morally abhorrent.
Calhoun and Hampton are worthy of devoted study but not worthy of public veneration.
Better angels
If Virginians can find the courage to express the better angels of their nature, South Carolinians can, too.
This idea is not too far-fetched: In 2020, Charleston City Council took the bold step of removing a statue of Calhoun from Charleston’s Marion Square.
Calhoun, who died in 1850, was perhaps the most prominent and strident defender of slavery and white supremacy in American history.
Unlike some of the founders of our nation who called slavery a “necessary evil,” Calhoun argued in an 1837 Senate speech that slavery was a “positive good” — that it was beneficial, morally justified, and the proper foundation of a stable society. He also insisted that racial hierarchy was natural and desirable.
These ideas today are loathsome to South Carolinians.
Calhoun, a powerful orator, was not just a slaveholder. He was, in many respects, the chief theorist of slaveholding and an architect of the nation’s slide toward Civil War.
Hampton, for his part, was a Confederate lieutenant general and one of the most prominent slaveholders in the Southeast.
His successful 1876 campaign for governor coincided with widespread intimidation and violence against Black voters, most notably by the Red Shirts, a paramilitary group that supported Hampton.
Historians connect the Red Shirts to the Hamburg Massacre and Ellenton Riot. Estimates of the resulting deaths range from 30 to more than 100 Black South Carolinians.
As governor (1876–1879), Hampton rolled back Reconstruction gains and paved the way for Jim Crow laws, excluding Black South Carolinians from meaningful power for generations.
But who could replace these two old Democrats, Calhoun and Hampton, in the U.S. Capitol?
That question will offer a lively future discussion among South Carolinians.
A few names I’d suggest: Robert Smalls, Ronald McNair, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, Charles H. Townes, John Laurens and Septima Clark.
Redeeming qualities
Supporters of the status quo point out that Calhoun and Hampton, despite the gravity of their moral failings, possessed redeeming qualities.
Historians such as Merrill D. Peterson and H.W. Brands give Calhoun credit for being a brilliant if flawed thinker for developing such concepts as nullification and expressing concerns about the tyranny of the majority.
Calhoun served for decades — as congressman, senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president — and was widely regarded in his time.
Hampton, for his part, was revered by past generations of South Carolinians for his bravery, personal honor and humane treatment of civilians during the Civil War.
That said, the two were fiercely and irredeemably on the wrong side of history, defending the greatest injustices our nation has ever known. Weighed in the balance, they’re found wanting.
Calhoun and Hampton do not represent a modern, economically vibrant and increasingly diverse South Carolina that’s striving toward greater unity and harmony.
Isn’t it time we present the best version of our great state to the world?
Paul Hyde is a longtime journalist and teacher in the Upstate. He worked 18 years for the Greenville News as a columnist, editorial writer, education reporter and arts writer. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Clemson and Harvard universities. He has written for the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and USA Today, among other publications. He currently is a regular contributor to the Greenville Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Classical Voice North America.
