James Henry Hammond

Preface

James Henry Hammond of South Carolina was active in the political life of his State from 1828 to i860. He was in office only a few years, representative in 1836, governor 1842-1844, senator from 1857 t0 i860, but his officeholding was by no means a measure of his importance. During nullification times he was the leader of his district and a favored lieutenant of Hayne and Calhoun and Hamilton. His unavailing fight for the governorship in 1840 showed that he was one of the strong men of the State. Just at the close of his governorship he wrote to Thomas Clarkson, the British anti-slavery agitator, two letters in defense of African slavery as it existed. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of these letters upon the general defense of slavery and upon Hammond's reputation. He was a leader in the cooperation movement in South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. In 1857, after a complete retirement for half a decade, he was sent to the United States Senate by an overwhelming vote. During his senatorship he made, in the Senate or at home, several widely heralded speeches in support of his cherished idea of a Southern nation. In precipitating the final crisis of December 20, i860, Hammond played no part because he did not believe that the movement would succeed at that time, and he was never willing to countenance such an isolated movement as Rhett and Maxcy Gregg favored in 1850-1852. The study here presented is an attempt to show that there was in South Carolina a distinct body of public opinion, respectable in numbers and in eminence, which from nullification in 1832 to secession in i860 was working for a united South, for a Southern Nation.

I shall content myself with naming, not all who have helped me, but only those without whom this life of Ham-

vii viii JAMES HENRY HAMMOND

mond could not have been written. First comes Dean John H. Latane, under whose direction the work has been done. Another is John C. Fitzpatrick of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, known and honored of all American workers with manuscripts. In a peculiar sense do I owe gratitude to the surviving members of the Hammond family, who so graciously put themselves at my disposal.

E. M.

CHAPTER I Youth and Entrance into Politics

James Henry Hammond could trace his Hammond ancestry back for seven generations with entire certainty. The first Hammond in America was Benjamin, son of William Hammond of London, and of Elizabeth Penn, sister of the great admiral and aunt of William Penn. After his father's death, Benjamin left England with his mother and three sisters, and came in 1634 to Sandwich, Massachusetts. In Massachusetts the family lived and flourished for four or five generations. In 1774, while Ebenezer, the great grandson of the first Benjamin, was living in New Bedford, his eldest son Elisha was born on October tenth.1 Of the early life of Elisha Hammond nothing is known save that he graduated from Dartmouth in 1802, when he was nearly or quite twenty-eight years old. That is several years above the average age even for this day; it was almost ten years older than that of a century ago. It was probably poverty which caused this late graduation, for later testimony to his ability and scholarship as a teacher preclude the idea that he lacked brains.

In 1803 Elisha Hammond left Massachusetts and came to South Carolina to teach in the recently established Methodist Mt. Bethel Academy. In 1803, education, especially higher education,2 in the upper country of South Carolina was

1 During the battle of Bunker Hill, Ebenezer Hammond, his wife and child were all three imprisoned in Boston, and the tale is told that Mrs. Hammond, a high-spirited, nervous woman, anxious for the safety of her brothers whom she knew were in the battle, dropped the baby Elisha to the floor at the first sound of cannon-fire.

2 For the whole subject of Higher education in South Carolina, see Colyer Meriwether's " History of Higher Education in South Carolina," in Contributions to American Educational History, Bureau of Education, vol. i, No. 4.

most imperfect. Mt. Bethel was one of the earliest classical schools in the region and quickly gained wide reputation under Professor Hammond. It furnished to South Carolina College its first students and graduates, says O'Neall, and gave to the country 3 such men as Judge Crenshaw, his brothers Dr. Crenshaw, and Walter Crenshaw, Chancellor Harper, John Caldwell, Esq., Governor Richard Manning, N. R. Eaves of Chester, and Thomas Glover of Orangeburg.4 It also gave to South Carolina College an excellent man to fill one of the professorships. On April 25, 1805, Elisha Hammond was selected professor of modern languages. Judge Evans, who was a student there in the elder Hammond's day, says that he was captivating in manner and in appearance and that he was hardly less popular than the great Doctor Maxcy himself.

In 1806 Elisha Hammond married Miss Catherine Fox Spann of Edgefield District. The Spann family is widely scattered over South Carolina, and the Fox family, of which Mrs. Hammond's mother was a member, was connected with that of Charles James Fox. Mrs. Hammond, if we may judge from her portrait which hangs today on the wall of Redcliffe, was a woman of immense force and decided personality. No weakling could have had the chin the picture shows. It is altogether probable, as a present-day member of the family ^suggested, that James Henry inherited from his father his brains and from his mother his energy.

For some reason college life was not agreeable to Professor Hammond, despite his popularity. On January 31, 1807, he resigned and returned to Newberry. Here he lived until 181 5. And here at Stoney Battery, Newberry, was born November 15, 1807, his eldest and best-known son, James Henry.5 During Hammond's childhood his father turned

3 Need it be said that by " country " O'Neall meant South Carolina?

4 O'Neall and Chapman, Annals of Newberry, p. 53.

6 James H. Hammond's name was certainly James Henry and not James Hamilton, though some secondary authorities and some of the Library of Congress cards in the catalogue have it James Hamilton. The mistake arose I know not how, but it was made possible by the

YOUTH AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS II

his hand to many things. For some years he was principal of Mt. Bethel, where he had taught before he went to the college. Later, or possibly at the same time, he was a farmer. He kept a store there, too. At the time of his death in 1829, he was principal of New Macon Academy in Macon, Georgia. The little boy grew up as small boys do today, going to school to his father, playing around the store, driving the cows and riding his father's oxen. Years after, he used to tell his own children about seeing the great teams, which had carried cotton to market, unloading goods at his home, which had been hauled all the way from Philadelphia.6

Young James H. Hammond's early education was got from his father, who was a fine scholar and, from all accounts, an unusually gifted teacher. Though he speaks with such concentrated bitterness in later years of his childhood and early schooling,7 he must have had, even then, something of the mental capacity of his prime, for he was able in 1823, when he was barely sixteen, to enter the Junior class of the South Carolina College. In 1823 when Hammond entered South Carolina College, Thomas Cooper, the learned, ingenious, scientific, talented madcap was its president. Not yet had he begun to shock the minds of Carolinians as he was to do in a few years, until he was put upon his trial. Taught by such men, a talented boy like Hammond could hardly avoid learning and doing well. His graduation standing was fourth in a class which numbered at the end thirty-three members, among them John Gist, Randell Hunt, and Bishop Stephen Elliott, and which LaBorde described as signalizing the year by its " uncommon talent." 8 Hammond's extra-curricular activities, unexpectedly modern in direction, prove that he was no cloistered

fact that he never signed his name more fully than James H. His tombstone inscriptions and the names of his namesake grandchildren and great grandchildren settle the point.

eO'Neall & Chapman, p. 540; Columbia, South Carolina, Telescope, July 24, 1829.

7 Hammond Diary, February 15, 1841.

8 LaBorde, History of the South Carolina College, 2nd ed., p. 134.

student. He was noted in college, so he tells us, as a roostrobber, and though the pleasantly garrulous LaBorde does not say so, he no doubt made one of the number of students who annoyed the old Professor by shouting and singing on the campus too late at night. He belonged to the Euphradian Society, made speeches for it, wrote a play for it, and was selected to deliver the valedictory oration for his society. Of the oration nothing whatever is known, not even the title.9

In the spring of 1826, Hammond left Columbia and spent a year or more wandering about, as he says, " teaching school in Orangeburg at Popular Spring and near Cheraw in the family of C. B. Pegues, Esq." 10 Hammond was never a really happy man, but he was at no time more entirely sunk in black despair than during this first period of his independent existence. He was young, barely nineteen at most, he had no old friends in Orangeburg, and he lacked entirely that love of teaching which would have enabled him to endure the certain discomforts of the teacher in a little country school. His friend, Loughton Ramsay, had just died of smallpox in Charleston. Small wonder, then, to hear him say : " The tear which had been shed at the grave of poor Ramsay may ... be succeeded by another which shall water our graves. ... I often almost wish to die. My soul pants to throw 6ff the weight of mortality." 11

Returning from this unhappy school-teaching, Hammond began to read law in Columbia and then in Augusta, Georgia. It was dry work, for he did not enjoy it, and he had what his friend Hayne called " interfering wishes." 12 Quite probably also, Hammond was fonder of society and of the ladies than of law's dry study. In 1827, politics was beginning to attract him. In 1824 the tariff had passed by an almost strictly sectional vote. In the summer of 1827,

9 John F. Hammond to J. H. Hammond, October 13, 1845; Paul F. Hammond, Memoir of J. H. Hammond, p. 1 ; Roland Hammond ; Hammond Family, p. 269.

11 Hammond to T. J. Withers, May 20, 1826.

12 I. W. Hayne to Hammond, September x, 1827.

Calhoun as president of the Senate delivered the easting vote which defeated the woolens bill. The papers were full of the tariff controversy. Hammond spent part of his time in Augusta writing for the Augusta Chronicle, yet some time in 1828, after not more than a year of study, Hammond was admitted to the bar in Columbia.13 He opened his law office there, " without a friend who could in the slightest advance my fortunes & steeped to the lips in poverty. Without a name without a family connection," his practice was almost at once more lucrative and successful than he could have expected.14

But an active, keen-minded, patriotic Carolina lawyer could not possibly, in the years close following 1828, confine his energies to his practice. Too much of importance to any man who loved his country was going on, both at Washington and in South Carolina. In May, 1828, the Tariff of Abominations became a law despite the almost unanimous opposition of the Southern members of Congress. At once, in every district of South Carolina arose meetings and resolutions of protest to Congress. The Legislature of the State under Calhoun's guidance, if not at his direct behest, passed a solemn protest against " the system of protecting duties lately adopted by the Federal Government," and claimed for the State the right to enter on the Senate journal a protest against it as " unconstitutional oppressive and unjust." 15

In the universal excitement of 1829 in South Carolina Hammond was an interested participant. His letters of the period are few, but there remains the full text of an " Oration Delivered in the Presbyterian Church . . . [July 4, 1829] By James H. Hammond, Columbia, S. C." 16 Let the

13 In those days in South Carolina a lawyer had to be admitted separately to law and to equity practice, though the applicants invariably took both examinations. Hammond did this, and his two certificates hang at this day (1919) in the law office in Columbia of his namesake grandson.

16 Full manuscript in Hammond papers, Library of Congress.

South, he said, stop boasting, and find an explanation for her superiority. She must defend her inheritance. The North was overbearing and the South chafed. The worst had passed — he thought Calhoun's " Exposition," the " Protest " of the South Carolina legislature, and the election of Jackson would end the trouble — but let every one take warning and annihilate oppression at its birth.

" The moment one section of this country permits itself to [be] insulted & trampled on without resisting it — the Union is dissolved inevitably and forever. . . . Our present political institutions — which God forbid — may be destroyed," but liberty and equality will survive. Did he see some thirty years ahead? And did he on November n, i860, think of his early oration?

In early July of 1829, a Carolinian might think the situation better. Six months later he could not possibly do so. Jackson's first message favored distributing among the States the surplus revenue left after debts were paid. Nothing could more surely perpetuate the tariff system than some effective means of employing the surplus. The appointment of VanBuren and of Eaton to the cabinet made it certain that Calhoun's influence with Jackson would be small. The refusal of Calhoun to receive Mrs. Eaton in any way increased Jackson's bitterness toward him. The prospect that the worst had passed grew fainter and fainter.

Up to 1830 Hammond had not, he admitted, been a warm politician. Indeed he had not been warmly interested in anything he was doing, whether it was college, teaching or studying law. But the questions of the day were compellingly exciting. He threw himself into the nullification controversy with his whole heart and began his political career by starting in Columbia a new paper called the Southern Times. The new paper was owned by Spencer J. McMorris, and edited, although his name does not appear in it, by Hammond.

The Times adopted a clear South Carolina attitude and took a South Carolina view of Southern grievance. It opposed internal improvements, opposed a tariff of any kind for any reason and demanded a return to the Constitution of 1789 and " the union of our fathers." Internal improvements and tariffs had been enacted in the last ten years, for the avowed purpose of protecting the interests of one section and one class, contrary to the letter and spirit of the constitution. 17

In 1830 Hammond was not in favor of disunion in his public utterances and there is no reason to suppose that his private sentiments were different. The mere suggestion and the serious argument of disunion made his editorial blood " run . . . cold with apprehension " of the crisis it indicated. Indeed, he did not believe that any one was really looking toward disunion. The politicians were only threatening it in order to arouse the people to their danger, to show them whither unchecked Northern aggression might carry them.

A point which Hammond emphasized again and again in his editorials was the ground on which to oppose the tariff. Previous opposition had been based more on its effect on South Carolina pocket books than on its constitutionality. That, said Hammond, was the wrong argument. " We go upon higher ground. We are struggling for principle. We demand an abandonment of the power which Congress has assumed to pass the law." "If the law be constitutional," he very wisely said, " what right have we to speak of resistance." 18 He dwelt upon the indubitable fact that all South Carolina had done so far had been in accordance with the letter of the Constitution. If this point could be made clear to the people, he felt, they would lose their fear that the proposed convention 19 had not a peaceful

17 Southern Times, January 29, 1830, first issue.

19 Early in 1830, the nullification discussion had progressed to the very practical point where some method must be found to bring about the nullification of the law now held objectionable. The logical method was by convention. Accordingly the milliners began to urge that a convention of the State be called that winter by the legislature, the only competent body. In the main, nullifiers favored a convention intent. And he judged wisely in so thinking. One of his correspondents wrote in September that whenever he had had a chance to explain to the skeptical small farmers the difference between popular constitutional resistance to an unconstitutional law, and rebellion against an oppressive but constitutional one, and to show that the proposed convention was only to assert the unconstitutionality of the tariff and to try to get rid of it, the doubters were converted at once.20

Even so early as this Hammond had the pleasantest confidential relations with the leaders of the nullification movement. Hayne wrote to him privately predicting the happiest effects for the course he had laid out for his paper.21 F. W. Pickens told him the secret of his authorship of the successful " Hampden " articles and was glad when Hammond said he would republish them in his paper.22 Even so prominent a man as Eldred Simkens, Sr., Calhoun's law partner, did not know, though he suspected, who Hampden was. Calhoun knew the good work Hammond was doing.

The Times was too effective in the cause in which it believed to receive the contemptuous silence of its opponents. Early in 1830 Hammond became involved in a serious difficulty with General James Blair, member of Congress from Camden District. Blair had been among the boldest and most vigorous in his anti-tariff sentiments ; but on May 30, he wrote from Washington that he thought prospects were much better, inasmuch as salt and molasses duties had been reduced, a proposition to subscribe for B. & O. Railroad stock laid on the table, and the Maysville bill vetoed, that although the President's message might have been a little more " ' tight-laced/ " yet for Southern political purposes it was " ' efficient.' " This letter was published in the Camden Journal and was later republished in the Southern Times

and unionists did not, although some antitariff union men favored it and some nullifiers did not think it could go far enough.

20 B. F. Whitner to Hammond, September 11, 1830.

21 Robert Y. Hayne to Hammond, February 25, 1830.

22 F. W. Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 13, 1830.

with editorial comment denying that the South owed Jackson anything for his Maysville veto, and saying that the proposed distribution would, if carried into effect, " annihilate the Union and the South." " Were it not that we have heard of such places as Lynch's Creek and Flat Rock within his ridings we should be at an utter loss to account for it."

Blair's reply was full of bluster and bad-tempered abuse of Hammond and of the Times. To the innuendo that his constituency were too dull to understand that he had changed his stand, he retorted that Hammond was a blackguard. Several other epithets were exchanged between the two and the controversy came to the notice of Hammond's friends. They were of course much disturbed at the prospect of a duel, but they felt that Blair deserved to be denounced for his open desertion of his avowed principles, and that consequently Hammond's reputation would not suffer in the least. A challenge was sent and accepted, and a meeting on the usual terms set for August 18, on the North Carolina line near Lancaster Court House. The meeting, however, never occurred, for the Camden Anti- Duelling Association arranged a suspension of the challenge and a discussion of the. difficulties. It was at length held that an amicable settlement was honorable to both parties. Hammond's friends had not believed Blair would really fight, but nevertheless they were extremely glad to have the trouble settled in a peaceful manner, and they felt that he had, indeed, the verdict of the people with him.23

A little later a Camden editor named Daniel spoke bitterly of Hammond, and accordingly, Hammond went to Camden with a friend and horse-whipped the caustic fellow. What the difficulty was, I do not know, nor yet why Hammond, who had at least a full share of Carolina punctilio in matters of honor, chose to use a whip on him instead of a pistol. It may be that then as now a Northerner — the editor was from the North — especially one who came South, was of an

28 Account derived from the pamphlet " controversy between General James Blair and James H. Hammond, Esq., 1830, from the Southern Times " and from the Hammond MSS. of July-August, 1830.

altogether different race, and did not come within the code reserved for white men.24

During the fall of 1830 the editorial course of the Times was the subject of much private abuse, mainly from men who were not thoroughly with Hammond in politics. Some men even went so far as to urge a crusade against it and one friend of Hammond wrote that he had more than once had to pledge himself for the gentlemanly character of the editor. He seemed to think the matter serious enough to bring to Hammond's attention.25 But the paper was read. Hammond worked it up to two thousand subscribers, a very good circulation for the time and place.26

A rumor that Hammond contemplated leaving South Carolina distressed the State Rights leaders. McDuffie wrote praising the Times in high terms, calling it " all important in the present crisis " and " the ablest journal in the state." 27 Governor Hamilton "earnestly implore [d] . . . [him] not to think of leaving the Country." 28 He became more than ever high in the councils of the State Rights party.29

By May, 1830, the question of convention or no convention was the main question at issue, and by July 4, parties were forming for and against; the convention position of a candidate for the legislature determined his election. On September 20, 1830, there was a big pro-convention meeting at Columbia, an indication that the interior

24 I have heard a present-day Southerner of the finest type speak casually of " Yankees " and " white men," and, being questioned, affirm, with a smile to be sure, that there are three kinds of men, white men, negroes and — Yankees.

25 Bird M. Pearson to Hammond, October 1, 1830. 23 Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, April 18, 1848.

27 George McDuffie to Hammond, February 6, 1831.

28 James Hamilton, Jr. to Hammond, April 8, 1831. An unconscious revelation of the boundaries of a Carolinian's " Country " in 1831.

29 James Hamilton, Jr. to Hammond, January 8 & 10, February 5, 1831 ; John C. Calhoun to Hammond, January 15, February 16, 1831 ; George McDuffie to Hammond, February 6, 1831; Wm. R. Hill to Hammond, March 13, 1831; S. D. Miller to Hammond, March 29, 1831.

wanted a convention even though Charleston was against it, as indeed it apparently was.30 The September elections for city officers returned, though by a close vote, an entire Union ticket, and for the legislature returned eleven Union men and six State Rights men.31 When the legislature met, the vote on the question of convention or no convention was in the Senate 23 for, 18 against ; in the House 60 for, 56 against, in all slightly less than the required two-thirds. So the convention was not called that year.32

When the legislature failed to vote for a convention, it nevertheless resolved among other things that a State, whenever it could no longer look for aid against unconstitutional acts to other sources, could " interpose in its sovereign capacity, for the purpose of arresting the progress of the evil occasioned by the said unconstitutional acts." 33 The natural corollary of this resolution was a campaign by the State Rights party to convince the State that hope of redress from Congress was ungrounded, for then, according to the apparent meaning of the resolution just referred to, the State stood pledged to action. This Hammond saw at once, and he proceeded to act upon it, even before Calhoun had had time to suggest it to him.34

But early in 183 1 Hammond was thinking of other and pleasanter things than newspapers, tariffs and even his new position on Governor Hamilton's staff. Early in 1830 he had met Miss Catherine E. Fitzsimmons, daughter of Christopher Fitzsimmons of Charleston, and he fell in love with her at once. There was opposition; Miss Fitzsimmons was extremely young, hardly sixteen when she was married, the younger daughter of a wealthy Charleston

30 Charleston feared that a convention would not confine itself to Federal relations, but would disturb the ratio between up country and low country in the legislature.

31 Charleston Courier, September 7, October 14, 15, 1830.

32 Ibid., December 20 ; Mercury, December 22, 1830.

33 Resolutions published in the Times, December 17, 23, 1830.

34 James Hamilton, Jr., to Hammond, January 8, 1831 ; John C. Calhoun to Hammond, January 15, 1831.

merchant.35 Hammond was a poor young lawyer-editor, a most disturbing combination. He was an upper-country State Rights man, and Fitzsimmons, residence and occupation leave little room to doubt that he was a Unionist. For a time the opposition was serious and it was one of the strong reasons, the strongest, probably, why Hammond contemplated removing to Alabama. But the family consented at last. The wedding took place at Columbia on June 23, 183 1,86 and Hammond and his wife retired from the city to live at Silver Bluff on the Savannah River some miles below Augusta.

His marriage to a low country heiress made possible some very pleasant changes in Hammond's circumstances. He retired from the practice of law, which with the course of time and the progress of excitement had come to occupy less and less of his time and thought. His paper he handed over to Isaac W. Hayne. His friends congratulated him on his marriage with real feeling, though they were distressed to lose his pilot hand from the Times and hoped to see him back in politics.37 To Barnwell, then, in the spring of 183 1, Hammond went to take charge of the big plantation of Silverton. With the change of occupation his health, which, while it was not so bad as he often complained, was certainly not good, improved very greatly. Though he could have had but little experience in planting, his early years in Newberry had bred in him a love of agriculture in

35 As Major Spann Hammond puts it, there was as much difference in the ages of his eldest brother Harry and Betty, the baby, as there was between Harry and his mother. Harry was born in 1832, Betty in 1849. The first, of this branch at least, of the Fitzsimmons family to come to America was Cashel, who came to Charleston from Ireland. He was a merchant, a bachelor, and when his business grew too large for one man, he sent for his nephew (not, as some say, his son) to come over. Christopher arrived here in 1783, and married Miss Catherine Pritchard.

37 Said Calhoun : " I speak without flattery when I say, it will be difficult to supply your place and that we can illy spare your services at this critical period." "We shall at least know for any purpose of high service and generous devotion," said Governor Hamilton, "where we have a man on whom we can rely" (Letter of May 21, 1831, also published in American Historical Review, vol. vi, p. 746).

every phase which never left him. He found himself getting on well and "all difficulties vanish [ing] before enterprise and industry." 38 At first he had considerable trouble with the negroes, for they had been allowed to go with too loose a rein and they thought Hammond inexperienced and likely to submit to imposition. In order to bring them to their senses he was compelled to be extremely severe for a year or more, and the reputation for harshness which he gained then clung to him long after he had been able to manifest his natural mildness. For many months he was too much occupied with his planter's duties to engage in politics.

Both the Unionist and State Rights parties in the State spent the year 1832 on the stump. By this time Calhoun had come to his open breach with Jackson when the President discovered that it was Calhoun who had wished to censure him in 1818 for his invasion of Florida. In mid-summer he wrote and published his famous Fort Hill letter to Governor Hamilton in which he summarized and popularized the arguments he had previously put forth. Hammond retained his eager interest in the nullification struggle and was delighted to see that nullification was rapidly gaining ground in South Carolina. The only part he took in the elections of 1832 was an occasional highly successful stump speech.39 The elections of October 8 showed the State was decidedly in favor of a convention.