James Henry Hammond

Infobox Governor
name=James Henry Hammond


caption=
order=60^th
office=Governor of South Carolina
term_start=December 8, 1842
term_end=December 7, 1844
lieutenant=Isaac Donnom Witherspoon
predecessor=John Peter Richardson II
successor=William Aiken
birth_date=Birth date|1807|11|15
birth_place=Newberry County, South Carolina
death_date=Death date and age|1864|11|13|1807|11|15
death_place=Beech Island, South Carolina
spouse=Catherine Fitzsimmons Hammond
profession=Politician, Lawyer, Publisher, Teacher
party=Democratic, Nullifier
religion=
footnotes=

James Henry Hammond (November 15, 1807ndash November 13, 1864) was a politician from South Carolina. He served as a United States Representative from 1835 to 1836, Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and United States Senator from 1857 to 1860. He was the brother-in-law of Wade Hampton II and uncle of Wade Hampton III.

Biography

Hammond graduated from South Carolina College in 1825, going on to teach school, write for a newspaper and study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1828 and started a practice in Columbia, South Carolina. He established a newspaper in South Carolina in support of nullification and was also a planter. He served in the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Nullifier Party from 1835 until his resignation the next year due to ill health. After spending two years in Europe, he returned to South Carolina and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He served as Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844 and in the United States Senate, following the death of Andrew P. Butler, from 1857 until his resignation in 1860 in light of South Carolina's secession from the Union.

A Democrat, Hammond was perhaps best known during his lifetime as an outspoken defender of slavery and states' rights. It was Hammond who coined the phrase that "Cotton is King" in an 1858 speech to the Senate. In 1839, he purchased a young female slave with an infant daughter. He took the woman as his mistress and fathered several of her children before replacing her with her twelve-year-old daughter. His other slaves fared no better. It was reported, in 1841, that seventy-eight of his chattel died in a ten-year period.

His "Secret and Sacred Diaries" reveal that his appetites did not end there. He describes, without embarrassment, his 'familiarities and dalliances' with four teenage nieces - the daughters of Wade Hampton II. Blaming the seductiveness of the “extremely affectionate” young women, his political career was crushed for a decade to come, and the girls with their tarnished social reputations never married. His father, Elisha Hammond, pushed him hard, regarding him as a genius. Possibly the main lesson he learned from his father was not to marry a woman with a large potential inheritance. That proved to be an undependable way to acquire wealth for his father. Instead, James found himself a young, unattractive woman named Catherine Fitzsimmons with a considerable dowry. Fitzsimmons' sister, Ann, was the wife of Wade Hampton II.

His mansion in Beech Island, South Carolina, "Redcliffe" [http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/stateparks/parkdetail.asp?PID=2015] , represents his ideal of the perfectly run plantation. [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awmss5/d08.html]

Hammond School in Columbia, South Carolina is named after him. Founded in 1966, originally as a white-flight school, it was originally named James H. Hammond Academy, but has since dropped the full name of the man whose family donated the money for the school's start in an effort to stamp out the school's racist background.

ee also

*Mudsill Theory
* Pro-slavery thought

Further reading

*Faust, Drew Gilpin, "'James Henry Hammond and the Old South",' Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge and London, 1982, ISBN 0-8071-1048-5

*Bleser, Carol, Editor, "'Secret and Sacred, The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder",' Oxford University Press, New York, 1988, ISBN 0-19-505308-7

External links

*CongBio|H000128
* [http://cghs.dadeschools.net/slavery/defense_of_slavery/hammond.htm Defense of Slavery Biography on James Henry Hammond]
* [http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/HammondCotton.html "Cotton is King" speech before Congress]
* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439.html James Henry Hammond advocates slavery]
* [http://www.sciway.net/hist/governors/hammond.html SCIway Biography of James Henry Hammond]
* [http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=c06a94a79515a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD NGA Biography of James Henry Hammond]