Friday letters: Renaming Clemson’s Tillman Hall a dicey issue

Ken Scarlett’s March 23 letter (“Give Tillman Hall the right name”) suggesting Clemson’s Tillman Hall be renamed “Rutledge Hall” in honor of John Rutledge, South Carolina’s first governor during the Revolutionary War, demonstrates how unmanageable it is to try to recreate history.

We know Rutledge owned 60 slaves before the war and afterward 28. To make matters more absurd, slavery in America likely would have ended much sooner had we lost the Revolutionary War. Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. But then we would all be speaking with English accents right now, and the Union Jack would be flying over Clemson.

Columbia

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Friday letters: Renaming Clemson’s Tillman Hall a dicey issue."