How one insolent old man sparked the flames of war
What’s that? You’re not from around here? I understand. Did you wear orange and get glared at? Have you announced in line at the Colloquium Starbucks that the tiger is your favorite animal, and now you’re afraid you’re on some list somewhere?
Poor, unsuspecting traveler. You’re obviously not a history major or a sports fan. So, please, let TDG fill you in on the Palmetto State’s longest-standing rivalry: Carolina vs. Clemson.
Constructing the Flagship
First thing’s first, forget football for a minute. This origin story goes all the way back to a snowy December in 1801, when South Carolina College was founded in an effort to promote harmony between the lowcountry and the foothills.
With the start of the Civil War in 1861, Carolina closed and (supposedly) all students took up the Southern cause. This gave government officials the opportunity to change the mission statement of South Carolina’s flagship university.
“Radical” Republican rule at the college just after the war allowed African-Americans and women to attend for a time, before the Democrats reclaimed office in 1877 and shut down Carolina entirely before rechartering the school as the South Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Columbia politicians found this name to be insufficient, and switched it back to South Carolina College.
This, naturally, ticked off area farmers who felt the name change de-emphasized the importance of agricultural education.
In short: the state was full of angry men, wielding pitchforks.
Enter Old Ben Tillman
Benjamin Tillman was a rising star in the political world in the 1880s. (You may remember him from history class as That White Supremacist Guy Who Supported the Lynch Law.)
He led the state’s agrarian movement and demanded that South Carolina College expand its agriculture education programs. When Carolina refused, Ol’ Tilly took it upon himself to found an entirely separate college devoted to agricultural studies.
Tillman modeled his new school after the Architectural College of the State of Mississippi. He went before the state government with the following reasons to shut down Carolina's agricultural program, and to create a private South Carolina army and military school.
First, Mississippi A&M did not fool with the liberal arts. They taught practical training and nothing else.
Second, they provided poor students with significant financial aid, allowing low-income citizens the opportunity to get a practical education.
Third, Carolina's current agriculture program did not have enough students to sustain its current existence.
Fourth, according to Tillman, Carolina was a place "for the sons of lawyers and the well-to-do" who looked down upon an agrarian lifestyle.
Fifth, Carolina students lived posh lives and were out-of-touch with reality in their philosophy and literature classes, unlike the Mississippi A&M students, who sweat and bled for their education.
And sixth, Columbia did not have enough farmland to sustain any kind of agricultural program.
The state conceded that a separate, more hands-on program for higher education would be beneficial to South Carolina.
Problem: Tillman had no place to put his new corn-fed military school.
Thomas Clemson Must Die
In 1886, Thomas Green Clemson decided to bequeath his plantation to Tillman for the establishment of an agricultural college in his will. But the problem with wills is that the executor must die in order for the terms to be enacted.
Besides wishing Mr. Clemson dead, the only thing Tillman could do in order to begin establishing his college was to plead with the legislature. And plead he did. Tillman urged the South Carolina General Assembly to donate state funds to his brainchild, but the state refused. Adding insult to injury, the General Assembly elected to donate the funds to South Carolina College in 1887.
This appropriation of funds allowed the college to expand and become the University of South Carolina.
Tillman proceeded to pout in his lowcountry home for the next several months until Thomas Clemson passed away. One can only assume Tillman cartwheeled his way to the State House in order to celebrate.
One Step Too Far
In 1889, Tillman went before the South Carolina General Assembly again to ask permission to make Clemson a privately operated institution. When the Assembly said no, Tillman rallied (read: pitched a fit) on the chamber floor and decried what he called “political corruption” at the University of South Carolina.
He also insisted that, with the falling price of cotton, the professors at USC were being criminally overpaid. This argument resulted in a later pay cut for faculty members at the university, and Clemson was awarded privatization.
At this point, not only were Carolina students exhausted with Clemson (a newborn college whose doors had yet to be opened) but so were professors.
Can’t Catch a Break
Tillman was elected as South Carolina’s 84th governor in 1890. (What was that phrase he used in ’89? “Political corruption?”) He settled himself into Carolina’s backyard and began to dismantle the institution.
Gov. Tillman made it his mission to place Clemson at the top of the state’s crown of colleges.
First, he reorganized USC (which was, and continues to be, a public institution with heavy government influence) into a solely liberal arts college while in office, eliminating their agriculture program. (Some might say out of spite. Take it as you will.)
Then, when Carolina took up arms against this and other such cuts in academic offerings, Tillman threatened to shut the university down, as well as the Citadel, which he referred to as a “dude factory.”
Clemson Agricultural College received extra funding and special treatment from the state government until Tillman’s exit from office in 1894.
The Birth of a Tradition
It is known that around the world people like to beat the stuffing out of each other for various reasons. In some countries, it’s known as war. But in the American South, it’s known as NCAA football.
And what’s the best way for one university to let out its aggression against the college that metaphorically relieved itself in their backyard? Tackle their football team into the bright red mud.
In 1896, the first ever match between the soon to be Fighting Gamecocks and the Clemson Tigers was held on a Thursday morning in conjunction with the State Fair.
Carolina won that game 12-6. Clemson rallied the following year with a 20-6 victory, and the rest is history.