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jaj\!ES henry HAJ^vIOND 1307 - 18^4

by

Elizabeth Merritt

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

1921

PREFACE

James Henry Hammond of South Carolina was active in the political life of his State fron: 1=2B to l^^'^C. He was in office only a few years, representative in ISS*^ , governor 1B42-1P.44, senator from 1=^57 to IS'^O, but his office-holding was by no means a measure of his importance. During nullification times he rms the leader of his district and a favored lieutenant of Hayne and Cajhoun and Hamil- ton. His unavailing fight for the governorship ir 1S40 showed that he was one of the strong men of the State. Just at the close of his governorship be wrote to Thomas Clarkson, the British anti-slavery agitator, two letters in defense of j\frican slavery as it existed. It wculd 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 m.ovement in South Oarolir.a from 1^50 to 1852. In 1857 after a com.plete retirerent for half a decade he v/as sent to the United States Senate ty an overwhelming vote. Duri?-:g his senatorship he made, in the Senate or at home, several v.'idely-heralded speeches in support of his cherished idea of a Southern nation. In precipitating the final crisis of December 20, 1860, Hammond played no part because he did not believe that the movement would succeed at that time, and he was never willinf to countenance such an isolated movement as Rhett and Vaxcy Gregg favored in 1S50-1852. The study here

presented is an attempt to show that there was in South Carolina a distinct body of pijblic opinion, respectable in nuEbers and in eminence which from nullification in 1832 to secession in IHPO 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 whoir: this life of Ka'?.mond could not have been written. First comes Dean John H. Latane , under whose direction the work has been done. Another is John C. Fitz- patrick 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 Ham.mond family, who so graciously put themselves at m.y disposal.

1I4 • Ai •

CHAPTER I HA'T'^OND IN HIS YCTTTH

James Henry Hanmoni could trace his Hammond ancestry back for se- ven generations with entire certainty. The first Hammond in America was Benjamin, son of William Hajnmond of London, and of Elizabeth Penn, sister of the great admiral and aunt of tYilliarn Penn. After his father's death, Benjamin left England with his mother and three younger sisters, and came in 1634 to Sandwich, Massachusetts. In ?viassachusett3 the fa-dly lived and flourished for four or five generations. In 1774, while Sbenezer, the great- grandson of Benjamin the first was living in New Bedford, his eldest son Elisha was born on October tenth. Of the earlj'' life of Elisha Hammond no- thing is known save that he graduated from Dartmouth in 1S02, when he was nearly or quite twenty-ei:;ht 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/ 7?hich 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 !/as3achusetts and came to South Carolina, to teach in the recently established Methodist ?.:t. Bethel Academy. A"t TnCCt tip^e

education, especially higher education, in the upper countr*y of South Carolina

g was most imperfect. Mt. Bethel was one of the earliest classical schools in

1

During the battle of Bunker Hill, all three were imprisoned in Boston, and the tale is told that Mrs. Ebenezer, a high-spirited, nervous woman, anxious for the safety of her brothers who 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 "outh Carolina, see Colyer Meriwether's work by that name in Contributions to American -Educational History,

the region and quickly gained wide reputation under Professor Hammond. It ftirnished to South Carolina College its first students and graduates, says O'Neall, and gave to the country'such men as Judge Crenshan, his brothers Dr. Crenshaw, and Walter Crenshar, Chancellor Harper, John Caldnell, Esq., Governor Richard Manning, N. R. Eaves of Chester, and Thomas Glover of Orangeburg. It also gave to South Carolina College an excellent man to fill one of the professorships. April 25, 1805, Slisha Hammond was elected 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 apr>earance

and that he was hardly less popular than the great Doctor Maxcy,tbe ■president.

o-(- tVje college. I 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 Vxs. Hammond's mother was a member, was connected with

that of Charles James Fox. Mrs. Hammond, if we may judge from her portrait

tbe Ha.mroon4 \-= s«\ tieoe e, which hangs to-day 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 far.ily 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. January 31, 1S07 he resigned and returned to Newberry,

where he lived until 1315. And here at Stoney Battery, Newberry, was born

5 November 15, 1°>Q1 , his eldest and best-known son, Jam-es Henry.

I

Need it be said that by "country" O'lleall meant South Carolina? 4

O'Neall and Chapman: Annals of ''lewberry, p. 53. 5

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

'jr-' /.

'n\A

During Hammond's childhood his father turned his hand to many things. For some years he was principal of jft. Bethel, Trhere he had taught before he went to the college. Later, or T-.ossibly at the sar^e time, he was a farmer. He tept a store there, too. At the ti'^ne of his death in 1S29, he was prin- cipal of New Macon Academy in Macon, Georgia. The little boy grew up as sniall boys do to-day, going to school to his father, playing around the store, dri- ving 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^oodsN^t his home) which had been hauled all the way from Philadel phia.

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

7

early schooling, 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 mad-cap 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 sig-

Q

nalizing the year by its "uncommon talent." Hammond's extra-curricular acti- vities, unexpedtedly modern in direction, prove him to have been no cloistered

6 .

0,Neall k Chapman: Annals of Newberry, p. 540; Columbia South Carolina Telescope, July 24, 1829.

7

Diary, February 15, 1841.

8

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

4

student.. He was noted in college, so he tells us, as a roost-rcbber, and though the pleasantly garrulous LaEorde does not say so, he no doubt made one of the number of students nho 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 T7as selected to

deliver the valedictory oration for his society. Of the oration nothing

9 whatever is known, not even the title.

In the spring of 1826, Hammond left Columbia and spent a year or

more wandering about as he says "teaching school in Orangeburg at Poplar

.10 Spring and nesir Cheraw in the family of C. P. Pegues, Esq. Hammond was

never, I think, a really happy man, but he was certainly at no time more entirely sunk in black despair than during this first period of his inde- pendent existence. He was young, barely nineteen at most, he had no old friends in Orangeburg, and he lacked entirely that love of teaching whioh 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 small- pox 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 vrish _tQ die . Vy soul pants to threw off the weight of mortality." ■J? lA't' '^he. "c^taSe of from this unliappy school- teaching, Hammond began to read

law in Columbia and then in Augusta, Georgia. It was dry work, for he did

12

not enjoy it and he had what his friend Hayne called "interfering wishes."

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 1324

John F. Hammond to J. H. Hammond, October 13, 1845.

Paul F. Hammond, Memoir of J. H. Hammond, p. 1.

Roland Hammond: Hammond Fam.ily, 269. 10

Diary, February 6, 1841. 11

Hammond to T. J. Withers, !*ay 20, 1326. 12

I. *r. Hayne to Hammond, September 1, 1?27.

online

|o^Oti)3 .A -ij

the tariff had passed by an almost strictly sectional vote. In the suiraner of 1827, Calhoun as president of the senate delivered the casting vote which defeated the woolens bill. The papers were full of the tariff controversy. Hfiuranond spent part of his tin^.e in Augusta in v.'orking for the Augusta Chro- nicle, yet some time in 192B, after not inore than a year of study, Hanmond

13 was admitted to the bar in Columbia. He opened his law office there, "with- out a friend who could in the slightest advance my fortunes i steeped to the

lips in poverty. Without a name without a family conrection," his practice

14 was almost at once more lucrative and successful than he could have hoped.

But an active, keen-minded patriotic Carolina lawyer could not possibly, in the years close following 1128, 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 1*^28 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 sole?rn 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."

In the universal excitement of 1329 in South Carolina Hammond was an interested participant. His letters of the period are few, but there re- mains the full text of an "Oration Delivered in the Presbyterian Church...

-I ^

[July 4, 1829] By James H. Hammond Columbia, 3. C." Let the South, he said.

13

In those days in South Carolina a lawyer had to be admittel 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.

14

Diary, April 19, 1836. 15

Cong. Deb., 1328-1829, pp. 52-58. Id

Full manuscript in Hamm-ond papers. Library of Congress.

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 nould 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 fbe] in- sulted & trampled on without resisting it - the Union is dissolved inevitably and forever... Our present political institutions - which God forbid - ray be destroyed," but liberty and equality will survive. Did he, one wonders, see some thirty years ahead? And did he on November 11, IB'^0, 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 v/ere paid. Nothing could mere surely perpetuate the tariff system than some effective m.eans of employing the surplus. The appointment of VanEuren and of l^aton to the cabinet made it certain that Calhoun's influence with Jackson would be small. The refusal of Calhoun to reveivs ^rs. 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 adiritted, been a warm politician. In- deed he had not been warmly interested in anything he was doing, whether it was college, teaching or studying law. But the questions of t^e day were com- pellingly 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.

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■ 0 ;,.i ';^;!.

The Times adopted a clear South Carolina attitude and took a South Carolina view of Southern grievances. It opposed internal im- provements, opposed a tariff of any kind for any reason and demanded a return to the Constitution of 1789 and "the union of our fathers." In- ternal improvenents and tsiriffs had been enacted in the last ten years,

for the avowed purpose of protecting the interests of one section and one

17 class, contrairy to the letter and spirit of the constitution.

In 1830 Hammond was not in favor of disunion in his public utter- ances 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...coli with apprehension," of the crisis it in- dicated. Indeed, he did not believe that any one was really looking toward disunion. The politicians ;7ere only threatening it in order to arouse the people to their danger, to show them whither unchecked Northern aggression might carrj' then.

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 bocks, than on its con- stitutionality. That, said Hammond, was the wrong tack. "»e go upon higher ground. iTe are struggling for principle. We demand an abandonment of the power which Congress has assumed to pass the law." "if the law be constitu-

tional," he very wisely said, "what ri?:ht have we to speak of resistance

nlB

He dwelt upon the indubitable fact that all South Carolina had done so far had been in accordance with the letter of the constitution. He felt that if this point could be made clear to the people they would lose their fear that the

17

Southern Times, January 29, 1830, the first issue. 18

Southern Times, February 4, 22, 1830.

19 proposed convention had not a peaceful intent. And he judged wisely in so

thinking. One of his correspondents wrote in September that Tfhenevcr 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

20 try to get rid of it, the doubters were converted at once.

Even 30 early as this Hammond had the pleasantest confidential re- lations with the leaders of the nullification movement. Hayne wrote to him

privately predicting the happiest effects for the course he hsid laid out for

21 his paper. F. i7. Pickens told him the secret of his authorship of the

successful "Hampden" articles and r?as glad when Hsimmond said he would repub-

22 lish them in his paper. Even so prominent a man as Eldred Simkens, Senr.,

Calhoun s law partner, did not knovr, though he suspected, who Hampden was. Calhoun knew the good work Hgunniond was doing.

The Times was too effective in the cause in which it believed to re- ceive 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 smd most virourous in his anti-teu'iff sentiments; but on May 30, he wrote from iiTashington that he thought prospects were much better, inasmuch as salt and molasses duties had been reduced, a proposition to subscribe for B. & 0. Railroad stock laid

By early 1830 nullification discussion had progressed to the very practical point that some method must be found to bring about the nullification of the law now held objectionable. The logical method vras by convention. Ac- cordingly the nullifiers began to urge early and late that a convention of the State be called that winter by the legislature, the only com.petent body. In the main nullifiers favored a convention and unionists did not, although some anti- tariff union men favored it and some nullifiers did not think it could ro far enough.

20

B. F. ffhitner to Hammond, Sent^ber 11, 1830. 21

Robert Y. Hayne to Hammond, February 25, 1B30, 22

F. W. Pickens to Hammond, "arch 8, 13, 1530.

q.-*-^^,

on the table, and the Maysville bill vetoed, that although the President's message night have been a little more "'tight-laced'", yet for Southern political purposes it was "'efficient.'" This letter was published in the Camlen Journal and was later republished in the Southern Times with editor- ial comment denying that the South owed Jackson anything for his Maysville veto, and saying that the proposed distribution would, if carried into ef- fect, "annihilate the Union and the South." "Were it not that we have heard of such places as Lynch' s Creek and Flat Rock within ^is ridings we should be at an utter loss to account for it."

Blair's reply was full of blustery, bad-tempered abuse of Hamnond and of the Times. To the innuendo that his constituency were too dull to understand that he had changed his stand, he retorted that Hammonl was a black-guard. Several other enithets 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 th^t Blair deserved to be denounced for his open desertion of his avowed nrinciples, and that consequently Hanmond'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 Ceirolina 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. Hsimmond's friends had not believed Blair would really fight, but nevertheless they were ex- tremely glad to have the trouble settled in a peaceful manner, and they felt

23 that he had, indeed, the verdict of the peorle with him.

23

Account derived from the pamphlet "controversy between vfeneral Ja^-es Blair and James H. Hammond, Esq., 1330'I from the Southern Times and from the Hammond MSS. of July- August , 1830.

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10

A little later a Camden editor named Daniel spoke bitterly of Hammond, and accordingly, Hammond went to Canden with a friend and horse- whipped the caustic fellow. What t^e difficulty was, T do net know, nor yet why Hamnond 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 altogether different race, and

24 did not come within the code reserved for white men.

During the fall of 1330 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

25 matter serious enough to bring to Hammond's attention. But the paper was

read. Hammond worked it up to two thousand subscribers, a verv good oircula-

tion for the time and place.

A rum.or that Hammond contemplated leaving South Carolina distressed

the State Rights leaders. McDuffie wrote praising the Times in hiph terms,

calling it "all important in the present crisis" and "the ablest journal in

27 the state." Governor Hamilton "earnestly implorefdl . . . fhim] not to think

go

of leaving the Country. He became more than ever high in the councils of the State Rights party.

24

I have hesu'd 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. 26

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, April 18, in4fl. 27

George McDuffie to Hammond, February 6, 1''.31. 28

Jam.es Hamilton, Jr. to Hammond, April 8, I'^Sl. An uncorscicus revelation of the boundaries of a Carolinian's "Country" in 1?31. 29

James Hamilton, Jr. to Hammond, January 3 & 10, February 5, 1S31. John C. Calhoun to Hammond, Jinnary 15, February 1^, 1831.

11

By May 1830 the question of convention or no convention was the main question at issue, by July 4, parties were forming for and against; and the convention position of a candidate for the legislature determined his election. September 20, 1330 there 7?as a big pro-convention meeting

at Columbia, an indication that the interior wanted a convention even

30 though Cheirleston was against it, as indeed it apparently was. The

Seltember elections for city officers returned, though by a close vote, an

entire Union ticket, and for the legislature returned eleven Union men and

31 six State Rights men. 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 rcs[uired two-thirds.

32 So the convention was not called that year.

When the legislature failed to vote for a convention, it neverthe- less 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

33 evil occasioned by the said unconstitutioral acts." The natural ccrcllary

of this resolution was a campaign by the State Rights part3'' 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 upon it he proceeded to act,

34 even before Calhoun had had time to suggest it to hirr.

George McDuffie to Hammond, February ^, 1R31. ffm. R. Hill to Hammond, J^'arch 13, 1331. 3. D. Miller to Hammond, I/arch 29, 1831.

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

Courier, September 7, October 14, 15, lfl30. 32

Charleston Courier, December 20; I.'ercury, December 22, 1830. 33

Resolutions published in the Times, December 17, 23, 1S30.

' 'eVfioo er;j

JwHii

12

But early in 1831 Hammond was thinking of other and pleasanter things than newspapers, tariffs and even than his new position on Governor Hamilton's staff. Early in 1''30 he had r.et ''iss Catherine E. Fitzsiranons, daughter of Christopher Fitzsinnnons of Charleston, and he fell in love with her at once. There was opposition; Mss Fitzsinr.ons was extreirely young,

hardly sixteen when she was ujarried, the younger daughter of a wealthy

35 Ch8U"leston Kerchant. Hammond was a peer young lawyer-editor, a moct

disturbing combination. He was an upper-country State Rights man, and

Pitzsimmons' residence and occupation leave little room to doubt that he

was a Unionist. For a time the opposition was serioiis and it was one of the

strong reasons, the strongest, probably, why Hammond contemplated removing

to Alabama. But the family seem to have realized that if there were not a

wedding there would be an elopment, and they preferred the former. The

3f^ wedding took place at Columbia on June 23, 1831, 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 circum.stances . He retired from the practice

of law, which with the course of time and the progress of excitem.ent 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

34

James Hamilton, Jr. to Hammond, January 8, 1831. John C. Calhoun to HamJEond , January 15, 1R31.

35

As Major Spann Hamm.ond 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 1932, Betty in 1349.

The first, of this branch at least, of the Fitzsimm.onK fam.ily 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 m.an, he sent for his nephew (not as some say his son) to ccm.e over. Christopher arrived here in 1783, and married Miss Catherine Pritchard.

36

Diary, February 6, 1841.

13

%7 hoped to see him back in politics." To Barnwell, then, in the spring of

1831 Hammond went to take charge of the big plantation of Silverton. ',Vith the change of occupation his health, rhich while it was not so bad as he often complained, was certainly net good, improved very greatly. Though he could have had but little experience in planting, his early years in New- berry had bred in him a love of agriculture in every phase which left him only with his last breath. He found hinself getting on well and "all dif- fioulties vanish[ing] before enterprise and industry." 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 v/as too much occupied vfith 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 vras Calhoun who had wished to censure him in 1S18 for his invasion of Florida. In mid-suTrmer he wrote and published his famous Fort Hill letter to Governor Hamilton in which he stimmarized and popularized the arguments }ie had previously put forth. Ham- mond retained his eager interest in the nullification struggle and was de-

37

Said Calhoun: "l speak without flattery when I say, it vrill be dif- ficult to supplj^ your place and that we can illy spare your services at thiscritical period." "TTe shaJl at least know for any purpose of high service & generous devotion," said Governor Hamilton, where we have a man on whom we can rely." Letter of May 21, 1S31, also published in American Historical Review, vol. VI, p. 746.

38

James L. Clark to Hamm-ond, January 13, 1832.

14

lighted to see that nullification was rapidly gaining ground in South

Carolina. The only part he took in the elections cf 1B32 was an oc-

39 casional highly successful stui^p speech. The elections cf October 8

showed the State was decidedly in favor of a convention.

The sj^ycial session of the legislature^which Governor Kamilton

convened as socn as he knew the results of the election^ registered the

popular will and called a convention. Tc it Ramir.ond care near teing sent

in Barnwell's delegation. The cocrmittee nut his nar.e in noininaticn and he

lost by only a few votes to an old inhabitant, though he had only recently

40 moved into the district. The work of the convention, important though

it was, needs only a word here. It met luring the week of November 19 and in serious dignity passed a report of the Comr'ittee of Twenty-one, an ad- dress to the people of South Carolina, another to the people of the United

41 States, and, most important of all, the Ordinance of Nullification.

Within three weeks after the passage of the Nullification Ordinance came

42 Jackson's anti-nullification proclamation of Deceiriber 10, 1S32. A point

which the nullifiers emphasized again and again in their campaign was that

nullification was not only constitutional but peaceful. The address of the

convention tc the peor^le of South Carolina decried utterly "the idea of using

1,43 force on an occasion of this kind. Hanrmond at the time believed that

nullification was peaceful in intent. So sure was every man in the State then

that the Federal Government would accept the nullification by the convention

39

Hammond to ¥. C. 1.'. Hammond, May 27. 1S32.

Diary, February 7, 1G41.

J. L. Clark to Hamm.ond , July 2, 1S32.

A. H. Pembertcn to Hammond, July 2, 1832.

40

Diary, February 7, 1841. 41

All of these and other important related documents are printed in 22 Cong., 2 sess., H. Doc, no. 45, serial no. 233, as well as in the Journal of the Convention.

■un

15

as binding. But Jackson's proclamation said that 'The laws of the United States must be executed."^ The military preparations which followed at once are araKing. Far more extensive vere they than any preparations of 1S60. At once Hammond aroused himself from the lethargy into which his friends feared he had fallen. As soon as he heard it he vfrote to Governor Hayre , offering his "services in any way that you can make them, most useful," offering to recruit volijnteers if the Governor thought it best, suggesting that Jackson's proclamation be answered officially, and advising that the

concentration of troops in Charleston, i^hich he took for granted, be ef-

45 fected "without parade."

As Hammond was writing from hii; Barnwell home to offer the Governor his services in any capacity, the Governor was signing his commission as

"Aid-de-oamp to the Commander-in-Chief" and charging him with the military

A a, arrangements in Barnwell. He was to raise in his district as much as he

could of the volunteer force of ten thousand for emergency service, and also

to procure all possible information, "relative to the general condition of

the militia within your District the temper of the men — the state of their

arms — ; whether those out of order can be repaired in your neighborhood —

and what supplies exist of Field Pieces, Muskets, Rifles, Lead, ic , and

generally everything which it is important for ne to know: — all of which

It 47 may be embraced in a confidential Report. But Hammond had already started

42

Richardson: Messages and Papers, vol. ii, pp. 640-^56. 43

The address is of course in the Convention Journal . 44

Richardson: Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. ii, p. ^54. 45

Jas . H. HammiOnd to Governor Hayne , Jecember 20, 1832; also printed in Am. Hist. Rev., vol. vi, pp. 751-752. No other document that has ever come to my notice shows so perfectly and so unconsciously as does this letter to Go*§rnor Ha3me the devoted love and confidence which Carolinians of that day felt for the State.

46

R. Y. Hayne to Hammond, December 21, 1R^2, enclosing commission to Hammond signed by Governor Hayne, December 20, 1832.

16

into just this sort of activity on receiving his commission without naiting for details. As scon as he heard of Jackson's proclamation, he rut hie af- fairs in order so as to be able to leave home for an indefinite tinie. He took the oath at once, and started to distribute the circulars which the

Governor sent. He arranged a meeting at Barnwell Court House rrhere his re-

_ It 48

cruiting speeches, he tells us, succeeded beyond my expectations. The

entire district he covered in his work cf inspecting, recruiting, conmis-

sioning. Provision depots had to be selected and the best arrangenents

50 possible made for having a supply of food and fodder m case of reed.

Governor Hayne had urged as most important in his General Orders of

December 26, 1832 that each aid-de-camp try to recruit in his district a

company of mounted Hinute Men to move before the volunteer companies could

be shaken into action. They were to be called only in case of necessity and

to be kept out only until volunteers could come up. The Governor suggested

that in each district ten men of irJ'luence be selected to act as leaders.

Each leader was to select ten men as his quota, and through him the aid was to

act in siimmoning the minute men. Hammond thought, with much reason, that these

Minute Men were to be merely an advance guard of the Volunteers who would fall

back into their places when their corps came up, and upon that basis he gave

out subscription papers. He was amazed, therefore, and a little indignant, to

find that the Minute Men were to be an independent company and he protested in

47

General Orders No. 2, Decep-ber 26, 1632. Confidential printed circular, Copy in the Hammond MSS.

48

Hammond to Governor Hayne, January 8, 1832.

Hammond to Governor Hayne, January 8, IHZZ , Df. F. Tf. Pickens to Kamm.ond , January 14, 1S33. Hammond to Major Collins, January 17, 1B33, Df. S. Same to Captain Touchstone, January 18, 1333, Df. S. Same to Colonel VYm. Ed. Hayne, January 23, 1P33, Df. S. 50

Hammond to Governor Hayne, January 23, 1833. Hammond to Wm. Fortune, January 18, 1833.

• p* - •tc"' ^ r.-~

).i;.:£o.:U

a-roB ■

17

the nost vigorous possible military language. B=irnwell was so large that it would be very difficult to obtain a corps of Minute Men unless the members could be Volunteers as well, and he asked permission to continue his plan as best suited to his district. Such perifission Hayne gave and Hammond went on with the recruiting.

Hammond labored hard and uncessantly at his recruiting but he found it uphill work. Barnwell district was not inclined to volunteer. "The people of Barnwell are generally very poor, k though staunch yeomanry, not generally so public spirited I find as some of cur neighbors. If drafted there is not a nullifier in the district and few Union ren irho would not cheerfully take up arr"s....& they ?70uld make soldiers that might be depended on: but as to volunteering they do not understand it i are not inclined to put themselves to Unnecessary trouble. The fact is that there are not intelligent men enough sprinkled about to stir them up, i that they have gone right heretofore I attribute to mere instinct, '.ihenever they can be collected together I have never failed to produce some ardour among them, but in so large a district, so sparsely populated it is dif- ficult to get them to-gether, t they know so little of the matter that one exhortative does not last long.... I have made it a point in this district to address the Union men whenever I find them & explain to them the true

character of the present question. It opens the eyes of many who appear

51 never to have had any light before on the subject.

Early in 1833 it looked as though the odious tariff, the osten- sible ground for South Carolina's agitation, would be amended to something approaching her satisfaction. Decei^ber 27 was introduced the Verplanck bill which would have reduced duties about a half in two years. Senator Preston told Hammond, with whom, during this year he was in constant com-

51

Hammond to Governor Hayne, January 23, 1833, Df.

18

raunication, that he thought the bill would nass. Hairmord did not favor the bill though he acknowledged that most of the nullifiers would ?o for it. For himself, he thought they would have to fight the figlit over again in a few years. "Let him only amend the preamble and say that the object of the bill is to reduce the duties to the revenue standard and thus sanc- tion the principle that they should be so reduced and it will be altogether

, i-i It 52 acceptable .

On sale day^'^Sn January 1333 a meeting at Barnwell Court House, which Hammond had arranged, resolved, among othor thinfrs , that "any media- tion from other states urging a suspension of our Ordinance \he rejected] unless accompanied by a pledge to prevent the enforcement of the Tariff within their limits also, if it be not repealed in a given time." This resolution Hammond partioilarly favored and urged without anv consultation with leaders out of the district. The Administration might be able to get Virginia politicians to urge South Cau^olina to suspend. Then the tariff

would be lowered for the present and when the people had been decoyed into

54 a false security and could not be got to nullify, would be raised again.

The possibility of the adjustment of the tariff caused no cessa- tion of Hammond's patriotic activities; the probability of the passage of the Wilkins Force Bill roused him to greater warmth. Not for an instant did he contemplate acquiescence in the Force Bill. Nor did he blink the consequences of persistence. Before this there had been a chance of blood- shed if the United States tried to enforce the nullified law; the Force

52

Hammond to ffm. C. Preston, January 27, 1833.

53

Sale day in South Carolina is - for it is still observed - the first Monday in the month. On sale day are made all sales ordered by the court, such as foreclosures and those made necessary in settling a will. Other people with property to sell, especially four-legged property, bring it to the court house on sale day, for they are more sure of finding a crowd around then. It was, for that same reason, a very favorite tim;e Tor holding any kind of public meeting. In this application it resembles the court day observed in Virginia.

19

Bill was notice that the attempt would be made, and nade with all the Federal resources. He thought that at least eight hundred and fifty men, some tvTO-thirds of the number of fighting men in the District would stand firmly by the State. The parade of the Volunteer Veterans - nono of them less than fifty years old - had had a happy effect. "Every one seemed ready to fight and all appear animated by a mo::t thorough conviction that we are unconquerable.

Hammond personally never was - could indeed hardly have been - more consecrated to Carolina than at this time. He wrote to the Governor:

"I hold my property all of it as much at the service of the state as my life: but to calculate on something short of extremities I think I can furnish you next year with the proceeds of an hundred bales of cotton. I did think of making a large provision crop but reflecting that I was on the frontier of Georgia and flanked on allsides with Union men I thought perhaps it would be safer to plant cotton and furnish the state with the proceeds. If the seasons are ordinary I can afford to give at least a hundred bales without depriving myself of the means of m.eeting the contin- gent expenses of my official situation. For this I will take the States certificate or no certificate if the times require it. If it should be preferred I would cheerfully turn over to the service of the State from the time the first movement is made all my efficient male force to be employed in ditching, fortifying, building as pioneers *c. of course not to bear arms which would be dangerous policy to be justified only by the greatest extremities.

54

Harjnond to Governor Hayne, January 8, 1833; to V/m. C. Preston, January 10, 1833.

55

Hammond to Governor Hayne, February 7, 1833.

56

Hammond to Governor Hayne, February 7, 1933.

20

'Meanwhile the Clay bill, reducinf: duties to twenty per cent by 1842, and the Wilkins force bill were introduced and passed. On Varch 11, the South Carolina convention met again pursuant to Hamilton s call. As it was expected to do, it accepted the new tariff bill by rescinding the nullification ordinance, and the force bill by nullifying it. Ham- aond "consider fed] that bill [Clay's] a grand concession to us; being almost all that we have required either in the principle or in the prac- tice of the Government. The Force Bill was nullified by South Caro- lina and the convention declsured that "the aillegiance of the citizens of this State, while they continue such, is due to the said State; and that obedience only, and not allegiance, is due by them to any other power or

authority, to whom a control over them has been, or nay be delegated by

59 the State."' Hammond doubted that this second nullification would cause

any trouble unless Jackson proved nore hot-headed and scoundrelly than he

«0 anticipated.

Yet with the practical end of nullification, the end at least as it proved to be, military preparations in South Carolina did not cease. Recruiting of a cavalry troop was carried on to success. The Governor started out on a series of reviews, and rifles and lead and powder form the burden of letters. Hammond knew what the State was thinking and ex- pressed it in public and in private in much the same terms. There was no telling what Jackson might do and it would then be foolish in the extreme to discontinue military preparations so long as the "distilled despotism" ©S the Force Bill hung over them.

57

Hamilton was president of the convention. 58

Hammond to V. C. M. Hammond (his brother), Varch 27, 1933. 59

Journal of the Convention, p. 130. 60

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, March 27, 1833. 61

Speech of Hammond to the Barnwell Volunteers. Hammond had just been

elected Colonel of the regiment, and on this occasion he was presenting to them a flag given by Governor Hayne . The speech is in vol. xxxiii of the

Hammond Papers, sheets 25:^61-2.

«i>i Oki ^- Lt JO*

21

CHAPTER II HAlAtOND IT^ C0N5RE3S

With the practical close of the nullification exciteinent Hai?.- mond was back at Silver Bluff to spend the summer with his wife and the babies, his fiddle, his books and his planting interests. Well might he feel a measure of satisfaction at his position. He had given his time and energy and had stood ready to give his money for V7hat he unqualifiedly believed was right. Largely by his own efforts he had raised a volunteer regiment of a thousand in a district formerly only apathetically State Rights and in some degree Union in sympathy, and had feeen almost una- nimously elected its colonel without saying a word. He had been invited to deliver the annual Fourth of July address at Barnwell Court House and had pounded forth the idea that the constitution was a check upon the majority, that the State had not surrendered sovereicnty in ratifying it and that since it is the essence of sovereignty to be able to determine the extent of its obligations, the State should interpose her sovereignty whenever the constitution was violated. By August he seemed likely to manage matters in Barnwell to his own satisfaction.

After six months or so of comparative rest in the country - comparative only, for he was most of the time electioneering for Congress

Hajmnond s attention was brought back to public affairs by the excitement

2 over the oath.

1

I. If. Hayne to Hajmnond, August 15, 1833. 2

The same session of the convention which had accepted the tariff nul- lified the Force Bill, and declared paramount allegiance due, not to the United States but. to the State, had after wrangling, emponered the legis- lature to prescribe oaths binding whom it would to observe such allegiance and abjure all other.

22

The lfi33 legislature abolished all State militia commissions and required all new offiers to take an oath of allef.iance to the State:

"I, A. E., do solemnly sv/ear, or affirm, that I will be faith- ful and true allegiance bear to the State of South Carolina; and that I

will support and maintain, to the utmost of my ability, the laws and con-

3 stitution of this State and the United States; so help me God.

Although the oath did not upon its face demand paramount sil- legiance to the State, all circumstances pointed to such an intention and to such an interpretation. There was much fiery opposition to the militia oath, and several Union men elected officers refused to take it. One of these, Edward McCrady, elected lieutenant of the Washington Light Infan- try, sought by mandamus to compel Colonel B. F. Hunt to issue his com- mission. The case came at length to the State Court of Appeals and here

by a two to one decision the oath was held unconstitutional as an ordinary

4 enactment. Hammond saw that to call the legislature in extra session to

remove the judges would only create sympathy for them, and that the thing

to do was to amend the constitution at the regular session and thus put

the question of allegiance out of the reach of a Union bench.

At the next sale dajr after the decision the State Rights party of

Barnwell District held a meeting at the Court House to consider it. The

party relied entirely on Hammond to express its views, and urged him to

5 send on a preamble and resolutions even if he could not be present. Since

the speech and resolutions vrere deemed by the party committee timely and

correct enough to print, they deserve somewhat extended quotation, as being

3

Courier, December 10, 1833. 4

Courier, June 4, 1B34. 5

Angus Patterson to Hammond, June 22, 1834.

23

an aoourate idea of South Carolina political philosophy of the post- nullification period.

"Had the majority of the Court of Appeals, in the present instance ... confined themselves to what they deemed the proper construction of the Constitution of the State, this CoTmnittee would, without hesitation, have recommended, as the wisest course, a silent submission to their decision, until the Constitution could be amended... But... they have gone further... The real question put at issue, and determined by the Judges ... Tin their obiter] is, whether, according to our confederated system, sovereignty, or the last power of decision on all civil and political questions, from which there can be no appeal, resides in the States, respectively, or in the Federal Government. The paramount allegiance of the citizen, or obliga- tion to obey without further question, is due of course to that last power or sovereignty... [according to the Court, allegiance] means nothing but obedience. But we ha/e two Governments, State and Federal. He, therefore, owe allegiance, or obedience, to two powers. Neither has a right to claim it exclusively." Such, said Hammond, was the dictum of the court, a dictum which he thought both false and dangerous. "We admit, on our part, that we have two Governments. We admit, that 7/e ov/e obedience to both... But the highest dutj'' which we owe, is not to the Government .. .we have a poy;er above the Government . . . This transcendent poTrer is Sovereignty , and belongs to the people only, not to the people in a 'state of nature' ,.. .but .. .in a state of society, .. .called the Social Compact. A compact which, from the nature of things, necessarily arises whenever a number of individuals meet and form a distinct community. . .the principle of whose existence is, that they will adhere together, on their own soil, against all the world; and

, .-.or ■

jii'&Rn

24

the first rule, that every member must submit implicitly to the will of the majority, so long as he continues with them. It is this high and exclusive obligation which we dignify with the name of 'allegiance', in return for which, the individual receives the substantial protection of the compact... from all invasions of his right by Government itself, which it creates, limits, checks and alters at discretion...

"since an individual cannot be at the sar^e tine a member of two social compacts, his allegiance cannot he divided... to determine the true ultimate relations of the American citizen, .. .it is only necessary to as- certain to what Social Compact he belongs... Each Colony was declared a Sovereign and Independent State. They afterwards .. .created a new Govern- ment by the Constitution of the United States... A new Government was created - not a State... a new agency - not a sovereignty arose..."

The resolutions which Hammond recommended were unanimously adoptedN

"That the Allegiance of the Citizens of this State, while they tontinue such, is due to the said State. And that obedience only... if due., to any other power or authority."

"That the Legislature, at the next Session, ought to.. .define and punish Treason against the State."

"That, when a Public Officer entertains views "repugnant to that power whose Agent he is, it is his duty to resign his office." This of course referred to the judges -ivhose opinions Hammond had just been refuting.

"That no candidate for the Legislature be supported who did not favor the constitutional amendnent regarding the oath."

organized.

That the State Rights Association be, and the same is hereby re- «6

6

Report at a meeting of the State Rights and Free Trade Party of Barnwell District, held at Barnwell Gourt House on I'onday, July 7, 1334. Published in pamphlet form and also in Hamrr.ond: Letters and Speeches.

...0':

25

In the 1834 legislature, elected after sm exciting ceunpaign the nullifiers had two-lhirds and were therefore able to pass the constitu- tional amendment. The Union men were still not satisfied. There was a Union plsui afoot, of undetermined strength, to r.ake popular elections impossible while the oath was in force. In the event, the Committee on Federal Relations reported, with the oath amendment, an interpretation of

it which did not impair allegiance to the United States. With that both

7 sides were satisfied.

Hammond had decided by the last of 1333 to be a candidate for the United States Congress the following year. He was young, his health, always an important factor with him, was fairly good, and his nullifica- tion activities had made him practically the mouthpiece of his district and given him the friendship and favor of the two governors under w>iom

Q

he had worked. The campaign went on through the year 1834 very ?uuch like any other South Carolina campaign. Representatives in the United States Congress were almost unique among Carolina officials in that they were elected by the people and not by the legislature. For that reason there were more appeals to popular favor. Both Hamrond and Franklin H. Elmore who was for a time at least, a serious opponent, vrent to barbecues^.,^ and company musters or sent serious letters to be read if they could not be present. Both wrote letters or made visits of flattery to the humble voters. This was the only popular election Hammond ever had to stand, and it may very well have created in him that aversion he afterwards exoressed towards increasing the number of popular elections as tending to undue

7

Mercury, December 11, 1B34. 8

Know 0 most modest young man... that you James !!. Hammond were one of the safest counsellors in difficult & apparently desperate cases that the TTaried experience of... f Governors Hamilton and Hayne] had ever brought them into council with. General Hayne in his emphatic wav pronounced you 'ccol sagacious t honest,' Gen. Hamilton added, ""Aye and as brave as Julius Caesar.'" (I. 'i7. Hayne to Hammond, January 27, 1835 )«

•ofriu no iaev,

:"'-Sc; 'lO t.'^i'Si'

26

excitement of the popular mind.

Nullif ioation had left the South with the feeling, not always oonscious, but certainly at least dormant, that t^e Mortherner in the mass was a different kind of human creature from himself - so different that there could never be more than peace between them, never amity and unity. When anti-slavery gave place to abolitionism, the South began to lose vrhat tolerance it had had, for bitter resentment of Northern de- nunciation and demand for the punishment of "these wicked monsters and deluded fanatics." Governor McDuffie in >"is annual message of 1B35, said that "the laws of every community should rjunish this species of inter- ference by death without benefit of clergy, regarding the authors of it as 'enemies of the human race.'" He went further:

"it will, therefore, become our imperious duty, recurring to

those great principles of international law, which still exist in all

their primitive force among the sovereign States of this confederacy, to

demand of our sovereign associates the condign punishment of those enemies

of our peace, rrho avail themselves of the sanctuaries of their respective

jurisdictions, to carry on schemes of incendiary hostility against the

institutions the ssifety and the existence of the State....

For the institution of domestic slavery we hold ourselves

responsible only to God, and it is utterly incompatible with the dignity

and the safety of the State, to permit any foreign authoritv to question

9 our right to maintain it."

By midsummer 1835, Hammoni, leading nullif ier and congressman- elect, beloved of McDuffie and R. Y. Hayne and Hairllton, had gone as far

9

Governor WcDuffie's annual message, November 24, 1^35, in Journal of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina for the year 1335, p. 5 .

iD. nox^JBxoni/n CIS S8orlv+

•xirc

"LVr

"..+ r n:

27

as the ardent Governor. He subscribed fcr the New York Evening Star because its cclum-is vrere equally free to both sides, and wrote at length to Noah, its editor.

"The Northern Fanatics must net expect to find in us the un- represented colonial subjects of an arrogant monarchy... 'iTe do not be- lieve that all or perhaps a majority of the Northern people favour the views of these Incendisiries but what does it boot us if they dc not so long as they give them an asylum fror which to hurl their rurderous missiles. These men can be silenced in but one way - Terror - Death. The non-slaveholding states must paas laws denying protection to them t yielding them up to demand to those wbose laws and whose rights they have violated... This is the only remedy. This alone can save the Union. So soon as it is clearly ascertained that this will not be done v.-e shall dissolve the Union, & seek b3' 7far the redress denied us by allied sister States. Depend upon it, sir, it will come to t'"is, 4 ere long. I do not speak of any plans on foot but of the inevitable tendency of things."

The United States Telegraph of August 18, 1835 which flammond could not have seen by the nineteenth, and the Charleston Courier - the Courier, not the Mercury, - of the twentieth contained the same idea. That three separated points of influence should at almost the sam.e tim.e demand the death penalty for the circulation of abolitionism, argues the terrible seriousness of the question, and the incalculable importance of slavery to the South.

As to emancipation, Hammond stoodsquarely with his region at this

10

Hammond to V. M. Noah, August 19, 1P3.5, Df.

t".'* r yr

28

period ard considered it flatly impossible. "We will l ire had better give cur lives... Emancipation is impossible as it would be to divide

the continent at the Alleghanies. Vfe would sacrifice a thousand unions

till sooner than ruin our selves, desolate this fair region.

Hammond arrived in Washingtor. in tiine for the beginning of the

twenty-fourth Congress, almost simultaneously v/ith the serious agitation

of the slavery question before that body. There had, to be sure, been a

few petitions for abolition in the District of Columbia but they had been

very few and the members presenting them had made it clear that they

12 presented them by request. This time the House had no socner got under

way, than the question of slavery in the District took tbe floor and held it for a good portion of the session. The very da" the matter r.-as brought up by Fairfield, Slade of Vermont, moved to print, saying that i+. was due the memorialists "as a m.attcr of cormon courtesy and common right."

Hammond, being a new member and a young one also, took no nart in the preliminaries and even allowed the first abolition petition to be dis- posed of without speaking to it. In a day or two, another petitir^n for the abolition of slaverj' in the District r^as presented. This Hamrond moved be not received. He had thought that the decided vcte (180-31) by which the first petition had been laid on the table would insure against the appearance of any miore , but since "it had not had that effect... he thought it was not requiring too much of the House, to ask it to put a m.ore decided seal of reprobation on them, by perem.ptorily rejecting this." The discussion tock up a great deal of the time of the House for the

11

Hammond to M, ¥. Noah, August 19, 1835, Df. 12

For example, Mr. Fairfield [of Maine] understanding he said that by a presentation of a petition, a merrber was not made responsible for its propositions, presejited a petition signed by 172 females, praving the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and moved that it be referred to the Committee or the District of Columbia." Cong. Deb., 24 Cong., 1 sess., p. 191^1, December 16, 1P75.

t. — - - . \ X

j'J al'i;jcj"'i-vii;-i.'j

i* "{-^ .1

^T^_r'r■|

V.t905-

29

month of January, and part of February. Hammond led the fight of those

who took the highest ground, that the House had not the riftht to ccncGrn

14 itself at all with slavery and therefore should not receive the petitions.

15 He himself spoke but seldom, but he was evidently watching.

The course of Kamnond and PicKens and their associates was to get

the Northern men on record on the question. And the course of the Van

Burenites was equally to avoid a decisive vote, for as Thomas Cooper said in

December, "all the poptilace of the middle and ncrtlern states is against

you and the Van Burenites won t dare to le hostile to such a iriass of votes.

The programm.e was entirely satisfactory to the South Carolina leaders and

seemingly to the mass of the constituency as well. "So far as I have any

[■ judgment 1 it is most decidedly with the course you took," wrote ?. H.

Elmore, his opponent for the seat in Hongress. "if you car nail these

Northern non-comriittal t[an1 Bfuren] n.en & compel them to say unequivocally

one thing or the other j-cu will have done good service to the South . . . You

say most truly that what we want is to know what we have to depend on . . .As

_17 far as T know you are entirely approved by your constituents.

13

Cong. Deb., 24 Cong., 1 sess., p. 1962. Slade did not .ay ac Hart: Slavery and Abolition, p. 157 claims, that they had a constitutional right to have it printed. His only words to any thing even resembling that idea were that they belonged to a section of the country... as well ini'crm.ed in regard to their constitutional privileges, as any other portion of the Union."

14

As for instance Cong. Deb., 24 Conr., 1 sess.. p. 19''6 , 24^6. 15

John Qulncy Adams says that "a great number of other petitions with the same prayer [abolition of slavery and of the slave trade in the Districtl were presented by many members, and all vfere postponed, on motions cf Hamjnond that they should not be received." (Adams: Memoirs , vol . ix, p. 275.) The Debates for the session show that Hammond v?a£ present and voted, at every yea and nay on the petition question and that he was absent or did not vote on any other question except the increase of the Navy v/hen he voted nay. (Cong. Deb., 24 Cong., 1 sess., p. 2168.) The abolition fight had not yet engendered the private and personal bitterness between individual Northerners and Southerners

30

Hammond himself spoke to the question cf the reception of petitions only once at any length. He thought of course that the House ought not to receive the petition "tecause it asks us to dc ?fhat we have no oonsittutional power to do." In speaking or f-is point, that is, that Congress, having exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, had the power to abolish slavery, he nade the very good point that the Constitution is to be construed as a whole and that since it recognizes slaves as property and forbids Congress to take private property with- out compensation, it would be a violation cf its spirit and letter to abolish slavery there.

Dismissing with a brief decided negative the power of Congress to legislate slavery out of existence in the District , Hammond turned hia attention to the abolitionists. With a fulness indicative of wide reading and an unquestioning intention to oppose the eneiry at once and thoroughly, he set forth the history of abolition societies. This done, he proceeded to "examine more closely the real designs cf these abolition- ists, the means by which they will attempt to effect them, and the probably result. Their designs are .. .[according to TJm. Jay's Inquiry];

*lst. The immediate abolition of slavery throughout the United States.

*2d. As a necessarj- consequence, the suppression of the American slave trade .

which came later to be such a regretable feature. For example, when a few months later Hammond went to Europe, this samie John Quincv Adams offered him at least one letter of introduction, a thing imipossible, surelj', ten years later, (j. Q. Adams tc George Lafayette, June 6, 133^.)

16

Thomas Cooper to Hammond, Decerber 30, 1835. Placed, wrcngly, at V, 19177 in LSS. Division, Library of Congress.

17

F. H. Elmore to Hamm.ond, December 31, 1835.

31

'3d. The ultimate elevation of the black ropulation to an equality with the white, in civil and religious privileges.

"Sir, the abolition of slavery can be expected to be effected in but three ways: througli the iredium of the slave-holder or the Government - or the slaves themselves.

"I think I may say that any appeal to the slaveholders will be in vain.... So far as our hopes are concerned, I believe I can say ve are perfectly satisfied. . .so far as we have been able to observe other states of society abroad we... [prefer our own].

"As to cur fears... Sir, it is all a f lourish . . .in no part of the world have men of ordinary firmness less fear of danger from their operatives than we have...

"The appeal to our interest .. .might appear to promise much suc- cess for whatever it is the interest of a community to do, that (sooner or later) it will be sure to do... In Southern latitudes where... a large com.bination of labor under the direction of one head is required... domestic slavery is indispensable."

Not for an instant did Hammond consider that he was defending slavery. Listen tc his words, spoken on the floor of Congress in the year of Our Lord 1836.

"Slavery is said to be an evil... But it is nc evil. On the con- trary I believe it to be the greatest of all the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon our glorious region.*

„18

18

Hamnond: Letters and Speeches, p. 34. It would perhaps be a rash assertion that this is the very earliest defence of slavery, not as some- thing to be endured because it was present, but as a genuine good; it is certainly the earliest the writer has been able to find, and it may v/ell be the first statement to that end by a man of any prominence . It should be reirembered tbat it is at least a year before Calhoun s statement on the floor of the Senate that slavery had proved itself a positive good to both races. (Calhoun: Works, vol. ii, p. 630; also in Cong. Deb., £4 ConT., 2 sess. , 7181

„r '

32

In 1830 Hairanond's blood had run cold at the verj' thought of disunion: in 1836 he said boldly and unequivocally that it was by no means impossible. Since emancipation by the slave-holder was visionary and emancipation by the slaves themselves impossible, it only remained to con- sider emancipation by act of Congress. And said Hammond: "the instant the first decisive step is taken looking toward legislation on this sub- ject, I will go home to preach, and If I can, to practice disunion, and civil war if needs be." And yet - he believed the step would be taken, that the Abolitionists would not stop, but vrould carryon the conflict -agaiB«4~^th©» until "we may have to dissolve this Union.

Hammond was thus going on boldly and successfully in his fight

against abolitionism in Congress when, to use his own words, "Henry L.

20 Pinckney, one of my colleagues betrayed us and moved a compromise. On

February 8, Pinckney offered in the Rouse a resolution to refer to a

select committee all memorials and petitions relating to abolition in the

District of Columbia and to bid the coirjcittee report that "Congress

possesses no constitutional authority to interfere" with slavery in the

States and that "Congress ought not to interfere" with slavery in the

PI District. Hammond was on his feet in indignant protest the instant

Pinckney finished speaking. Pinckney had said that he and his colleagues did not differ in principle. "Sir," said Hamr^ond , "we do differ, differ vitally, on principle. I consider the gentleman s proposition as aban- doning the high, true and cnlv safe ground of our rights, to throw our-

22 selves upon the expediency of this House." PinckTiey's resolutions were

19

Cong. Deb., 24 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 2448-2465; Letters and Speeches, pp. 15-50, especially pp. 35, 41, 49.

20

Dieu?y, February '' , 1841. 21

Cong. Deb., 24 Cong., 1 sess., p. 2491.

22

Ibid., p. 2495.

.'.Uf o Ji ) -

iilod.

t ,^*.^.K,ta

33

carried by large majorities, though on the later ores Hammond and other Southerners did not vote.

Pinckney's resolutions had not coire as an entire surprise, but that lid not lessen HEunnond's indignation. Sometime before of ferine it, Pinokney had ccme to him, he said later, and showed him a rescluticn which he desired to present. Hammond refused to suffor it in silence, and understood him to say he would not offer it. '^en late in W'^rch Pinckney said he had consulted all but two of his colleagues, and that none had thought the resolutions worse than unwise, Hammond replied in a wrathful

open letter to the Charleston Courier refusing even to endorse the purity

t . 23 of Pinckney s motives.

Pinokney' s course was much denounced by Hammond and his corres- pondents. James Ham.ilton thought his course T:as "utterly inexplicable

except on the presumption of religious fanaticism - as we should be

24 reluctant to charge venality." Others were not so kind to him. One

correspondent "could wish him if a man of honor & sensibility, nc other

or worse punishment than to be compelled to read the editorials of the

Union papers in his behalf... fif he read certain ones] he 7/culd v.-ith the

proviso mentioned immediately commit suicide.

"But Sir - I know not the man, and I... believe he had sold himself

£■5 for the patronage of the Charleston Navy Yard. Besides the approbation

of the Union papers Pincknej'' received net only the indirect denunciation

of the papers which praised Hamrond, but the direct condemnation of the

Mercury, with which he had himself been connected, and of the State

23

Hammond to the Charleston Courier, March 24, 1P36 , Df. S. 24

James Hamilton to Hammond, February 10, 1836. 25

G. B. Lam,ar to Hammond, February 27, 1^3^.

34

Rights press generally. He would have even been derounced by public meetings through the State, had not wiser heads decided it was better to leave him to his constituents and to confine themselves to praise of their own representatives.

It was in the ccijrse of his speech in the House that Hammond made a statement, alirost a side remark, which gees very far tc^Tard il- luminating his career. He had just been reviewing the causes of Northern hostility to the South. He had said that position alone was not a cause , that the fact that the North ar.d the South vrere in different regions of the country did not lead the North to hostility to the South. It was natural that non-slave holders should have an aversion to dom.estic servitude; that, also, the children of the Puritans should, until they investigated, be instinctively hostile to all slavery; and that most of all, the crowding foreign immigrants of the Korth, themselves out of bondage, should be horrified at the slavery of their Southern counter- parts. Having thus with easy brilliance explained reasons and influences which som.e Northerners to this day do not understand Hammond went on to give casually, almost unconsciously, his opinion of the result of these tendencies .

"And here let me say that these opinions, so natural, so strong, and so distinctly marking the geographical divisons of our country, in- dicate differences which, if pushed much frrther, will inevitably separate us- into two nations; a separation which I should regard as a calamity to the whole human race, and which we of the South will endeavor to avert by

86

Meigs: Calhoun, vol. ii, p. 153, says that Pinckney was apparently not denounced openly, but it would seem that Meigs is mistaken. R. Y. Hayne told T7m. C. Preston that the Mercury had denounced Pinckney. (Hayne to Preston, February 18, 1836.)

"I have been in this place [Charleston! since Friday fthe S^th] and have not heard a man approve of Mr. Pinckney' s resolutions - those who did not denounce fchem, and I have not met with a State Rights man who did rot

.!'='£ B

35

every means save the sacrifice of our liberties, or the subversion of our domestic institutions."

A man does not go on to reiterate the obvious as though he were announcing a great discovery. So Hanmond , havir.|^ said briefly that dis- union, if it must come, would bring two nations, did not pause to discuss why he thought it would bring two and riot twenty-two, but went or to his next point. But that he did so think and that he desired it and worked for it, is the central fact in his life. About the same time he expressed the sam.e idea even more frankly to Beverly Tucker. "l believe disunion must take place," he said, "and have long believed that the planting States

under one federal head would exhibit more pro5p«Tf»tythat) the world has ever

21 seen." Nothing that he ever had said or was to say contradicted this

belief, many things emphasise it or are clearer if it is remembered. Yfhen

he went to the Se^nate in 1857 he laid it down as his cardinal political

principle that he would in no event countenance an isolated m.ovement of

South Carolina. When he discountenanced South Carolina's secession in ISPO,

as he did, even after Lincoln's election, it was because he thought the other ^^ State y vyei-e ,

JBouth%,not yet ready to follow. Many of the incidents of Hammond s career

can be overlooked; the one thing not to be forgotten is that he foresaw

Southern nationality and worked for it long before such a conception had

entered most m.en' s heads.

It was during this session and in ocnsequerce of this speech that

say nothing." (Angus Patterson tc Hamjnond , February 29, lP3''x''.

"when that D — nd Traitor Finkney came out with his more traitorous

resolutions .. .that white livered cowardly dog P ....I could consume an

entire sheet of paper in cursing him..." (J. H. Adams to Hamm.ond , ?'arch 29, 183«^,) .

27

Hammond tc Bfeverly] Tucker, Vavbh 11, 1836, Df .

p •if-.t^^

36

B. Tucker of Virginia, the lovable, erratic old Southerner, professor at Wv WicitO <a oci iV\€l>-NI ' > started a correspondence with Haimnond add a friendship lasting until Tucker's death. Tucker was more heed- lessly in favor of Southern nationality than Hammond, and his exuberance,

impractical though it often was, contributed to keep Hammond's spirits

28 high and firm.

Meanwhile Hammond's health T;aE failing badly. It had never been

very good since his boyhood, even Y.ith due allowance for his undoubted

habit of exaggerating his ailments. Since he had left Carolina and the

out-cf-dcor life to which as a planter he was accustomed, for '.Washington

29 and the "mephitic air of the Capital, it had grown steadily and

rapidly worse . In the middle of February he was taker sick and confined

to his room with a severe attack of a chronic complaint. His old friend

Thomas Cooper, who, besides being chemist, philosopher, economist, lawyer

and politician, was a physician, and bade him take a trip. A Philadelphia

specialist gave the same prescription. Vfhen to the doctor's advice was

added the intelligence, so grateful to an-" public man, that his standing

with his constituents would allow hin to be absent from the District for a

while, he determined to go to Europe. His colleagues in both houses dis-

m.issed him with real regret and gave him many letters of introduction to

men of prominence in England, France and Germany. He Tras accompanied by

his wife and his oldest son Harry, row about four yr-ars old, v/ho had been

with him in Vfashington. He would have liked much to take all four

children, but Kit and Edward-^and baby VTilliam vere too small to enjoy the

28

Tucker's name was of course Beverly Tucker, but it is impossible to think of him except as B. Tucker. He always signed his name so, and his hand-writing and his signature are as much a part of him as his face or his ideas .

29

The old House and Senate chambers had no outside air and had to get

^ ,^ iK Tvi i-<7r> m£>f n J vv

•OXVijfi ' 'JT7,BU

• S T' > W

.xisibi:.:;

37

trip, and too much of a tax on their frail mother, so they stayed behind at Silverton under the capable care of their grandmothers and their Uncle Lflarcellus. His planting interests his good overseer Love locked to, with Pierce Butler for counsel and oversif.ht.

Late in July lS3fi the !!airjnonds ] ef t New York for Lcrdor. Here they stayed only a week, before hurrying on to Paris. Three weeks they enjoyed "the gayest * really loveliest of cities." From Paris they went slowly and leisurely, as befitted their means and their health, by way of Burgundy and Switzerland over the Gimplon to Italy.

In Italy the travellers staved for several months, for they found it the pleasantest part of their trip. From Jvfilan they made an excursion to Monza to see the Iron Crown. To Brescia, Verona, Padua, Venice, Bologna and Florence they went in turn. Florence held them for a m.onth, "luxuriating on the wonders cf the Royal Gallery, the Pitti Palace, the Venus de ?^?edici... the great masters of painting a-^iong whom Raphael is the Homer." Their stay in ROme was the longest and - despite Hammond's dictum that the churches, the music, the women and the climate were alike intolerable - the pleasantest part of the journey. In Roir:e vras born their fifth son, Charles Julius. Hamjnond approved as unqualifiedly as it was possible for him to do of anything, of Roman antiquities and galleries and also, by an odd turn of mind, of "th^ir fruit * viands of all sorts vfhich are delicious." In Rome and throughout Italy he bought a great many of

the paintings and pieces of statuary which so delighted him and his

31 friends, and awed and shocked his country neighbors in years to come.

artificially what ventilation they had. Undoubtedly m.ephitic, poisonous, was not too severe a term for them.

30

He died a fen m.onths later near Valenciennes. 31

"■'any of them are still to be seen at Redcliffe which descended to Hacry, and at Elackville, the home of his second son, ]/ajor Spann. Spa-nr) ft't^Vjeaj^e o^ tV)»-ee was c a Ue c\ EOwAircl.

■\rtc\*^ri I

5 o I •» i:

•I o .

;i^:;:

38

From Rome the travellers went slowly back through France to England. Here they stayed longer than they had on the way over, and made trips to Edinburg and all the tourist cities of the British Isles. A little more than a yeeir w-ts consumed by this trip. Hammond s health was much improved, "better than it has been except at short intervals," H^ wrote to Waddy Thompson during the winter^ "if I could always be as v/ell as I arr now I should be satisfied but I cannot indulge in the expectation. The excitement & anxieties of home & fever of -Dclitics would certainly

prostrate me again very soon. Another year in Europe m.ay perhaps harden

II 32 m.e so as to bear the form.er tolerably.

The news of all kinds from this country had been very cheering

during the whole of the trip. Calhoun had devoted the last minutes of

33 the session to a note to him and had urged him to write often and fully.

Wm. C. Preston published abroad his opinion that Hammond was "a long bcw-

34

shot ahead of any man from the South in Congress. Governor Butler

lamented that he had not had the aid of Hammond's "tallenls & judgenent"

when he became Governor. ' His brother Marcellus said that "the people all

along the road... ask a great deal about you and sister Catherine. His

ql eotton

crops were first rate. He made three hundred and thirty bags in 1836 which, Butler adied, was a good crop for his thin land. His children were in splendid health. "l called to your house to see your children a few moments," said Pickens in November , "I found them all very hearty and m.ore

32

Hanunond to ffaddy Thomt)son, from Rome, December IB, 1836. 33

John C. Calhoun to Hammond, July 4, 1336, Calhoun Corr., p. 362. 34

J. L. Clark to Hamm.ond , October 22, 1836. 35

P. IK Butler to Hamr.iond, October 30, 1?36. 36

M. C. M. Hamjnond to Hammond, November 23, 1936.

H

59

improved than I ever saw children. The youngest (" William] has grown very much and Christopher fthe second son] looks like a mountain boy. Your Mother and Brother Marcellus were with them. They seemed very

happy .

With health improved, friends solicitous, children blooming and crops the equal of anyone's in the region, Hammond came back in the

summer of 1837 to Barnwell. ' Bythe ti:-e of his return there was talk of

38 running him for the South Carolina Senate,'^ and Governor Butler an- nounced to him an intention to appoint him to the Senate of the United States if a vacancy occurred. His views of South Carolina s proper policy were likely to prove influential. " I ar ajixious to see you as well to learn the state of your health •;c . as to consult on our present political situation," said Angus Patterson, Senator from EarnTrell, just before the opening of the legislature. "l hor^e yoi? will visit Columbia during the session... as early as convenient. Many of us are in a fog uncertain what course to steer... if you cannot fcome] give re your views

fully by mail as early as convenient, and without reserve as I will ccn-

n 40 sider it confidential. F. H. Elmore, his successor in Congress,

wanted to know what Hamjnond thought of the President's policy and es-

41 pecialy of its probably effect on their staple crops. Pickens was very

eager indeed for Hammond to return to public life. " I hope you will at

least go into the next Legislature without hesitation. This would not

42 interfere with yoiir pursuits k could give you experience , i keep vou

37

F. W. Pickens to Hammond, November 14, 183*^, 38

Jas. L. Clark to Hsunmond , August 3, 1S37. 39

P. M. Butler to Hammond, October 30, 1537. 40

Angus Patterson to Hammond, November 23, 1837. 41

F. H. Elmore to Hammond, December 11, 1337.

40

before the public. Do be sure h go... it will be important to you & the

-43 State."

But Ilanmond was not at all inclined to go to the State legisla- ture. Ever since his marriage he had been getting more and rore interested in his planting. "Planting. . .in this country is the only in- dependent and really honorable occupation," he told Marcellus some years later. "The planters here are essentially what the nobility are in other countries. They stand at the head of society & politics. Lawyers k professed politicians come next, then Doctors, merchants ic." And he loved planting, too, and worked hard at it. He had an overseer, of course, for he was often obli-^ed to be absent, but when he was at the plantation he did not leave matters to the overseer. Mounting his horse every morning very early he himself rode over his acres, directing and planning, locating ditehes, overseeing the building of the grist mill, ordering improvements in tillage and drainage. The poiBerty of his thin acres, and the depression of the prices as a result of the panic of 1837 disturbed him greatly though his crops were on the whole the best he could have hoped for. Led by this, and by a constantly outcropping desire to go where land was cheap and good and sure to rise in value, he took a month's journey on horseback in the spring of 1838 with a favorite slave

boy through Georgia dnd Florida in search of land to buy. But good land

45 was high and cheap land pooiT, so he returned to Barnwell to ditch and

drain and manure in an effort to improve his present holdings.

42 The South Csu*olina legislature met for only a few reeks in late November and December, and a planter could very well give three weeks at that time without prejudice to his planting.

43

F. VT. Pickens to Hammond, Warch 9, l^^?:^. 44

Hammond to W. C. M. Hammond, Way 9, 1^48. 45

Diary of trip in the Hamjnond papers in the Library of Congress.

oz.

'tus

41

CHAPT3R III HAJffllOMD IK THE GOVERNORSHIP

By 18^9 or perhaps even earlier Hanarord bad decided he wemted to be governor. He had thought of it for several years, but only in a vague way. 'iThen he oane back froir, Europe he did not intend to retire completely from public life . Calhoun and Pickens urged him to return to the House but that he did not wish to do. He blamed his loss of health in part on the "mephitic" air of the Capital building. By 1839 he had been in retirement long enough, and the governorship vfas a good place for a man of his abilities and station in life to start a?ain. To be sure, the governor of South Carolina, like the King of En?lard, reigned but did not govern. But even without the Civil List, most men would be willing to be King of England.

Calhoun has left it on record that as soon as he heard Van

BToren's Sub-Treasury message, he decided to support it, since he thought

2 that Van Buren and not he had changed his mind. He knew almost as soon

that Preston, his colleague. would favor Eiddle's bank and events proved

3 his knowledge correct. Preston did try to carry South Carolina away

from Calhoun, and at first he had some success. He was a thorough VThig,

1

John C. Calhoun to Hammond, April 18, 1S3S. F. '.7. Pickens to Hammond, February 8, 1839.

2

Calhotin to the Alexandria Gazette, September 15, 1^37, in Niles' Register, vol. liii, p. 53.

3

Calhoun to Jas . Ed. Calhoun, September 7, 1S37. Calhoun to Anna "aria Calhoun, September S, 20, 1837.

42

therefore he disliked Calhoun only lees than Van Buren. In the firct vote on the Sub-Treasury in the House, all the South Carolina delegates except Rhett and Pickens voted to lay the bill en the table, when a change of that one state's vote would have reversed the result.

By the next session Calhoun's position in South Carolina was stronger. On his way to Washington he spent several days in Columbia nhile the legislature was in session, and "mingled with the members." As a result of his mingling, the legislature passed resolutions sup- porting the position he had asstimed and declaring the incorporation of a national bank "unconstitutional, inexpedient and dangerous." At a special session of the legislature Calhoun was strong enough to punish Preston more pointedly. A resolution was passed declaring, what had been expressly repudiated before, that "any public servant who refuses to promote the same [ppclicy of a sub-treasury") pursues a course injurious to the welfare and prosperity of the state. All the congressional delegation except Preston and Tfaddy Thompsor came in the end to support

Calhoun's views.

7 Such xmanimity was, as Petigru said, too great, unnatural.

Hammond, who was watching, said that only Pickens and Rhett really agreed

with Calhoun, and that the others were trying to get control of the State.

Soon the breakup began. Preston was strong in Columbia, and Thompson

p succeeded in returning to Congress despite Calhoun's opposition. The

4

Cong. Deb., 25 Cong., 1 sess., 1684-5.

Veigs: Calhoun, vol. ii, p. 197 n., says incorrectly that all but Rhett voted to table the bill. Pickens voted not to table, and Rhett, who had already left for home, did not vote. Pickens to Hamnond , w'arch 1, 1840, July 10, 1S40.

5

Courier, December 14, 1837.

Niles Register, vol. liii, p. 257.

South Barolina House and Senate Journals, pp. 57-5?, 70-71.

-Tii-j; Lsnc

43

1838 governorship contest showed the Preston strength. The candidates were Patrick Noble of Abbeville and P. T. Elmore of Richland. Nolle was a kinsman of Calhoun and of Pickens. ftTien it came to a vote, though

Elmore had broken a pledge to withdraw, 58 votes, more than one third,

9 were cast against Noble. As a result the Elirores, v/ith the Rhetts ,

split from Pickens, but not from Calhoun. That was the situation in

1839 as Hammond saw it. Which faction was stronger no one yet knew.

For a while Hammond's candidacy remained quiescent. The Rhett- Elmore people hinted around, but they would not take Hammond except on their terms and he would take them only on Ms own. By August Hammond received the distinct advantage of the adherence of Frank Pickens, Calhoun's cousin and at this tim.e his closest political friend. He did not disdain the Rhett-Elmore support on his own terms - would indeed have been glad to get it -; and he was eager to knov; who would be their candidate.

With the beginning of the new year came the visille opening of the cam.paign. Hammond found cut just before New Year's that John ?. Richardson was the candidate of his opponents. Friday, January 10, the Mercury cam.e out editorially for him. The late legislature had dis- played, it said, great unanimity for the Honorable John P. Richardson.

6

Niles Register, vol. liv, p. 339. Preston did not resign for four years,

7

J. L. Petigru to H. S. Legare, December 17, 1837, in Charleston Sun- day News, June 10, 1900.

1838. 9

8

Calhoun to J. R. Poinsett, July 4, 1<^38; to Duff Green, October 11,

Courier, December 10, 1?38. 10

Hammond's Diary, February 7, 1841.

'^ar ■ -iJ. .

44

Union men had cooperated with nullifiers to iriaintain the proper State

12 Rights attitude, yet up to now no governor had been selected from there.

13 At once the Unionist Anti-Sub-Treasurj'- Courier responded cordia]ly to

the nomination. The Chsu'leston Southern Patriot, and even the Edgefield

14 Advertiser likewise assented. If this legislative unaniirity did exist,

it was important. The legislature of 3outh Carolina still elected the governor and if the 1839 legislature was unanimous for Richardson, the 1840 legislature composed entirely or largely of the sare members, would probably elect him.

Hammond and his friends were troubled because they had no news- paper at their comnand. The Elmores controlled the Columbia South Caro- linian, and the Rhetts the Mercury, and as these two went, so went others. Hammond tried hard to get the Carolinian away from the Elmores, but

Pemberton, the editor, owed the Slmores, and DeSaussure and the Goodwyns

15 more than three thousand dollars which he could not pay. It was even

charged that the Mercury would not publish signed contributions favoring Heunmond for, said S. W. Trotti, niost faithful of Hammond's lesser lieu- tenants, in the Courier, they put off and delav, under plea of a great press of business until they might as well refuse entirely. The Vercury denied the charge and said it was Trilling to publish any Hammond articles not in bad taste , but since it classed as bad taste any use of the State

11

Hammond's Diary, June 27, 1339; July 14, August 17, 1S39. 12

Mercury, January 10, 1340. The existence of such unanimity may be doubted .

13

Courier, January 1^, 1^40. 14

Charleston Southern Patriot, January 11, 1140.

F. W. Pickens to Hammond, February 1, 1340.

15

Hammond to F. W. Pickens, January IR, 1340.

■I'-'qooi

rf.rl

is edi' ,r;

45

Rights-Unionism argument, it denanied that Hammond concede the point at issue. Hai^jnond had to do witho^jt an editorial nomination. Fie mas

put into the running by a letter of James V. sValker in the Courier over

17 the signature Charleston. Next day the Kercury regretted the

18 nomination, and later it grew still bitterer.

The most important single factor in the campaign was the at- titude of Calhoun. Both candidates wanted his favor and both claimed

to have it. Hammond went up to Pendleton in the summer of 1839, but

19 Calhoun would not even express a civil hope for his success. Tihen it

appeared that the Rhetts vrould support Richardson, Hammond almost de- manded of Pickens that Calhoun support hi^i. Pickens said that Calhoun

preferred Hammond but that he was not going to urge him to take part in

20 the campaign. A little later v/hen the political abuse on both sides

proved the campaign to be of more than ordinary bitterness, Calhoun was distressed. He himself wrote to Hammond a long letter praising the cor- rectness of his national views and stressing with nuch emphatic detail his own determination not to take sides.'" Hammond then trie:l to have

Pickens work on Calhoun in his behalf, but Pickens refused to do it,

. 22

deeply though he himself was interested in Ham.mond s success. He tried

2^ to get General Ha-nilton to find out what Calhoun really thought. During

16

Coijrier, July 2, 31; Mercury, July 3, 1340. The controversy wan along for several more numbers till it died away in vagueness.

17

S. W. Trotti to Hammond, April 1« , 1"40. Courier, February 13, 1840.

13

Mercury, February 14, 19, 1-.40. It said on the 19th that if there should arise any opposition to Richardson, it would be composed of "the bank party, the Preston party, and such Sub-Treasury Nullifiers as personal ambition or jealousy" had blinded.

19

Hammond's Diary, August 17-21, 13'^:?, 20

Hammond to Pickens, January 13, 1849.

'. :;ow f(

46

May, Hammond was almost beside himself with eagerness to have Calhoun ap- prove him, or at least approve the ilea of having a distinctly State Rights candidate. Three times in a month he wrote long letters arguing the risk

involved in electing a former Union man while the State Rights party were

24 in the asoendenoy. But 'alhoun remained firm.

The Richardson party did not make the mistake of underestimating Hammond. Their very eagerness to be rid of him, their certainty - in the Mercury - that he stood no chance, and the bitterness with which they at- tacked his motives in coming forward indicate that they were protesting too much. One move was to spread the rumor that he had withdrawn or that he would do so. This was denied, immediately and emphatically. Then they induced one of his lukewarm Charleston friends to ask to be re- leased from his pledge to vote for him. Hammond at once released not only the man who asked, but Ker Boyce and J/agrath, his other Charleston pledges, as well. And the wary caution of Boyce *s letter accepting his release makes Hammond's chances seem indeed slim.

2(0

Pickens to Hamrond, January 22, 1340.

S. H. Butlsr to Hammoni, February 5, 1840.

21

Calhoun to Hammoni, February 33, 1^40, Calhoun Corr. S. H. Butler to Hammond, V'arch 11, 1S40.

22

Pickens to Hammond, f.farch 17, 1840. 23

Hammond to General Hamilton, Aoril 13, 1840, Df. 24

Hammond to Calhoun, April 19, ?,'ay 4, 31, 1840, all in Calhoun Corr. 25

James M. Walker to Hammond, Aoril 20, 1340.

Hammond to A. G. Magrath , April 23, 1840.

Hammond to 'Aer Boyce, April 23, 1840.

Ker Boyce to Hamjnond, April 27, 1840. Theo. Starke wrote a week or so later that Boyce (he spells it Bois) was for Hairimond but did not dare come out and say so. If this is so, the Rhetts did own Charleston.

47

If Hairanond could not be forced or bullied to withdraw, pos- sibly he could be induced to do it. Certainly the Richardson suppor- ters tried to buy him off. Walker, at the time he asked to be released

from his pledge, thoughtHammond could have the senatorship next time for

26 withdrawing now. Hammond himtself says that he had been repeatedly

sounded as to the succession next ti:ne & as to the U. S. senatorship at

27 the first vacancy. " Even Pickens pointed out that there were advan- tages in a withdrawal and said that Calhoun had asked him to say that a

2S withdrawal now would strengthen 'is future position. But Hajimond said

to them all that he would not be bought off.

"Met Judge Earle here [Pendleton] this evening... he was very tight that is tipsy... Finally called me a Clay man... He has been to Lime- stone Springs where the Elmores are i this is there move against me... He

29 says the Clay men claim me. I have never given them any reason.

And that is true. Hsurmond liked Van Buren but little better than

Clay, but he thought the President's course so far favorable to the South,

and he was willing to continue to support him while it continued to be so.

That was Hammond's attitude from first to last in private and in public,

yet his opponents said or insinuated early and late that he was a Harrison

man, and against the Sub-Treasury. Did it mean nothing, asked the I\'ercury,

that the only Bank organ in Charleston was chosen for nomination against

30 Richardson. The charge rras picked up and used and it grew. Hammond was

26

Jas. M. VTalker to Hammond, Anril 20, l^AO. 27

Hammond to M. C. !.!. Hammond, April 30, 1=^40 . 23

Pickens to Hammond, May 2S, 1*^40. 29

Hammond's Diary, August 13, 1839. 30

Mercxary, February 14, 1840.

48

31 invited to a Harrison meeting on tho strength of it. Barnwell Rhett

said specifically that he could prove that Hammonl had been nominated

by Calhoun's enemies, Preston, Thompson, Adams and Pierce Butler for

32 the sole purpose of breaking down Calhoun. The rumor was mdus-

33 triously spread that Hammond had turned from Van Buren to Harrison.'

In order to combat it Hammond wrote and gave to Vihit Brooks a formal statement of his position on the presidential candidates. Because it so definitely represents his stand and because it was so fully spread abroad, it deserves quotation.

"l have never .. .hesitated to exnress my opinions on the sub- ject [of the presidential election]. I confess that Vj?. Van Buren has agreeably disappointed me in the firmness and consistency with which he has administered the Government and that his leading measures so far, have met my cordial approbation. Without pledging myself to any in- discriminate support of his administration, I have no hesitation now, in saying that I prefer him to Gen. Harrison, upon every grounl, and am under existing circumstances in favor of his re-election.

"l have always been an advocate of the Independent Treasury,

34 with the specie feature.

A *•" ^^

The Brooks letter had a wide circulation. /\ reference ^to the

Preston men as a faction naturally displeased them, but it proportionate- ly pleased the Sub-Treasury men and "almost induced Col. Godwin" to take

35 him up. The Riohardsonites fixed attention on the qualified nature and

31

Invitation, May 16, 1S40 in Hammond VSS. 32

S. H. Butler to Hammond, March 11, 1B4D. 33

J. P. Carroll to Hammond, "ay 24, 1940.

ffhitfield Brooks to Hammond,' May 25, 1340.

34

Hammond to Whitfield Brooks, June 1, 1340. Draft

in Hammond MSS.

d Einesf^i'T vlecMni*}'

A

49

what they said was the late appearance of his support of the President

an4c)a"i»»ithat their man had been a firm adhersnt of Van Euren for a much

longer time. This the Hammond forces vYsre quite ready to admit. The

best position for a Carolinian was one of very qualified support of Mr.

Van Buren, such as Calhoun and MoDuffie gave him. Richardson, had truly

„Zf> supported him longer, "back even as far as the time of nullification.

And no Carolinian needed to be told what support of Van Buren had meant seven years before .

The charge that Hammond was a Harrison^Preston man, though it was not true, had yet that color of truth which is fully sufficient for a political opponent. It was never at an-' time directly charged that Ham- mond was in favor of Harrison or of a United States Bank. It was done by innuendo. Why, asked the Richardson men, did Hsimmond choose a Bank paper for his nomination? Over and over again the Rhett men reiterated the statement that he was supported by men of known anti-Sub-Treasury belief. In this there was much truth. Hammond had at one time been a friend of Preston and of Thompson. He had been in familiar correspondence with both while he was in Europe. Pierce Butler, '.7ho had been and still was his

familiar friend, was an undoubted Tfhig. General Hamilton, a Harrison man,

37 wrote a piece for the Edgefield Advertiser, favoring him in the most

positive terms, and though it appeared under an assumed name, the other

side probably knew who wrote it. Harrmond usually knew who their writers

It was also published in the Courier of August 3, 1840, and earlier in the Edgefield Advertiser.

35

M. Labordo to Hammond , July 27, 18S0. 36

"Sub- Treasury" in Mercury, July 30, 1S40. 37

Pierce Butler to Hammond, April 27, 1840.

-¥-«»»:>».. fcoft

50

were. Hammond's position on the charges was truthful as well as up- standing and proper. There was no truth in the charges that he was linked in the fight with Preston. If Preston's frienls around Colu^ibia were - and Hamnond admitted they were - working for him, they were his

friends first. But Hammond's personal friendship with Preston, and

38 Butler and Player he had not given up and did not intend to give up.

Hammond's main attacks on Richardson were attempts to show that

he was not an original Sub-Traasury inan, ani even more forcefully to

39 show that he was an original Union man in 1832, Union even to the point

of resisting nullification bv force. This nullification argument nar- rowed down to what Hammond's people used to call the Clarendon con- spiracy. In fact it would not do to use the mere fact of haviyig been a Union man, for too many of Hammond's supporters had been Union men, but he was "a confederate in a conspiracy to resist by force the fundamental

law of South Carolina." One man told Ham-nond he had seen a copy of the

41 42

Clarendon resolutions with Richardson's name signed to them. That

Richardson had been readj; for physical opposition to nullification his

forces denied as categorically as they dared. It "is news to those who

know Col. R. best and most intimately" that he raised a company to

resist the state, or that he had regarded the nullification proclamation

as the only orthodox commentary on the constitution." The charge if true,

38

Hammond to Ker Boyce , Aoril 10, 1840. 39

Hammond to T. T. Player, September 9, 1840. 40

Player to Hammond, September Z3, 1840. 41

T'ne Clarendon resolutions were passed at Clarendon, South Carolina, August 2, 1834. The fifth one pledged the signers to resist the test oath with all the means with which God and nature have endowed them." Courier, July 16, 1840.

41

Paul ^uattlebum to the fv'ercury, August 21, 1340, published in the Courier, September S3, 1340.

•T a .-■•;

51

was so danning to Richardson's chances that it worrisi his followers for several weeks. One of his nullification supporters denied that it was true that he had ever approved of the principles of the nullification proclamation, and said that he had positively not had a part in any

militeu'y organization of any party to resist the constitutional author-

44 1

ities of the State. Yet Richardson s managers knew his past history

was not calculated to appeal to a fervid Carolinian. The only statement

over Richardson's own natne urged the people to forget the past and

45

resist a protective tariff. For?et, that is, the signature to the

Clarendon resolutions and the vote to table the Sub-Treasury till, which could not be explained away, and resist a measure which to be sure every good Carolinian would resist, but one unlikely to need much active resis- tance until after the contested governorship was over.

By early fall Hammond was beginning to lose hope. News from the upper country was especially discouraging. York, Union, Spartanburg smd Greenville were almost sure to go against him. Olowney, who was one of the leaders up there , was an old friend of Elmore and would likely go with him. More important still, Clowney was an old friend and close admirer of Calhoun, and, despite the Senator's promises of neutrality, it was the current belief that he favored Richardson. All of Union District assumed

this, and even Hammond's friend who told him of it, did not question its

4f= truth. It was also believed that there had been a dicker on the United

43

"One of the People", in the Mercury, June 12, 1S40. "state Rights Democratic Party", I'ercury, June 12, 1B40.

44

A Nullifier, Mercury, July 31, 1840. 45 ■ ■

J. P. Richardson to John A. Stuart, i/ercury, September 12, 1340. 46

Bird M. Pearson to Hajmnond, October 7, 1R40.

Sub-Treasury in Mercury, July 30, 1R40.

'li>«-lw

52

States senatorship between the Union and State Rights sides. The 1839 legislature, besides displaying great unanimity for Richardson, had re- proved Preaton in terms severe enough to have iravm a resignation from most men. Preston did not resign then, but according to a rumor cur- rent especially in the up country around October 1840, he and his friends had agreed that he would resign and permit the choice of a State Rights senator in return for which the Union party should nick the 1^40 governor. To be sure, Preston did not resign until 1842, but it was none the less a talking point in favor of Richardson and two at least of

A 7

Hammond's close friends wrote that it was costing him votes.''

By the last of October when the returns for the State elections

were in, and it was possible to see exactly who would be the men to

48 elect the governor, Hammond was sure he would not be the man. Nor was

he. The election gave Richardson 104 votes and Hammond 47. All Richard- son's opponents together did not get votes enough to defeat him, had they

49 been concentrated on one man.

'.Then at the clisse of the legislature in 1340 Hammond left the

bachelor quarters he had been keeping in his splendid new house in

Columbia and returned to Silverton to his wife and the babies and his

ever-beloved planting, he was lonely and beaten in spirit. Nullifiers

who should have befriended him had helped carry more than thirty old

Nullification votes for Richardson, and only two or three Union men had

gone for him. The last minute withdrawal of Judge Johnson had also

47

Bird M. Pearson to Hammond, October 7, 1840.

F. W. Pioens to Hammond, January 12, 1840; October 16, 1840.

48

Hammond to "'. C. ". Hammond, October 28, 1840. 49

Courier, December 11, 1840.

'I5£ Ll:i

-Titii ,

A ^ A... .. .

C'>i 0 .1. 1.

i':..i-.

. f-fi« i'-^'^c./f f^V?

53

worked against him". None of his subsequent defeats - and be had more than one which left him in a far more unfavorable position - left him so defeated in spirit . '''■'■ Haiwnond declared that he was tired of politics and forever done with it, yet all the while the (question whether he should be the next candidate for governor was of much interest to him. He could have had the succession for withdrawing, but, not having done that, he was uncertain how far his defeat had cooled the ardor of his friends for him. Particularly did he want to know what Calhoun thought, ** how far my continuing to run against bis wishes have affected me in his good opinion."'

In the middle of February he received practically a direct of- fer of the position. M. E. Garn, who was, Hammond knew, in touch with

53

the Regency, said that he had been asked by a "leading gentleman in

the lower country to say that opposition to him had not been personal, and that they would be gl^'i to elect him governor next time, if only he were willing to run. Then came what Hammond thought was the point of the whole matter. It would probably provoke opposition to have him

nominated by any of those who h-id acted with him last time . Such a

54 course wis understood to have the support of the Big Ones in V/ashington.

Hammond told Garn that if Rhett, for he assumed that it was he, wanted

only to support him next time, he would be elad to run if his friends

50

All of Johnson's Union votes went to Richardson and only part of his State Rights ones went to Hsumr.ond. Had Johnson stayed in, Richard- son would not have been elected on the first ballot and on the second ballot Richardson would have been -.Tithdrawn and Hammond could have beaten Johnson. (Hammond to I'.. C. M. Hammond, December 14, 1340.)

51

"l want some one," he wrote to I. Vi'. Rayne , "to whom I could pour out myself & with whom I could commune in spirit &. in truth... I wish I had some one here who could understand k. appreciate all this." (Hammond to I. -.Y. Hayne, January 21, 1P.41, Dfl. '

52

Hammond to Pickens, January 27, 1841, Df. Extract.

'rom;

r. ^(o:

i&Bnizion

54

thought it best. If, however, Rhett meant to draw him away from his

old and tried followers - and the hint of trouble if he were put up

55 by them seemed to hint as much - he repelled the offer with scorn.

His friends were afraid Rhett would sucoedd in doin^ just this, and

he thought it necessary to explain to them why it seemed better, not

definitely to repel Rhett' s offer. The onlv objection to accepting

it was that perhaps they would surrender too much and have it used

against them, but he was determined to surrender nothing and would

promise Rhett nothing more than a fair deal. After all, as Hammond

reminded them, the Regency had beaten them rather badly. \ihy , then,

should they in turn declare war, and war to extinction, on the suc-

cessful party.

During the early spring the governorship situation remained

calm. Calumbia was still lively with parties and balls, but politics

was not much discussed. Hammond was listless and drowsy, despite

another round of parties and the fine house he had just built in

Columbia, which he liked better the longer he was in it. He met Rhett

at Gillisonville , while he was on a militia tour, but the other made

no reference to the governorship, though Hammond knew by word of mouth

57 that his terms had been accepted.

53

The Regency was Hammond's nsime for the Low Country Rhett group. 54

V, E. Garn to Hammond, February 15, 1S41. 55

Hammond to M. E. Garn, March 19, 1841, Df. 56

Hanunond to James I'.. Walker, Varch 2'', 1°^! , Df. 57

Hammond's Diary, May 20, 1<'41.

55

When Rhett's answer cane, though it was rather cool, it ac- ceded to Hanmond's terms. Rhett hai meant onlv that he should he nominated by the Democrat i*- party to which they all belonged and that Calhoun had suggested the plan. That this had been the original plan of the Rhetts Hammond did not for an instant believe. Undoubtedly, if they could induce the next governor to take his nomination from them alone, it was entirely to their advantage to have him do so, and at any rate it was worth trying. Besides the reasonableness of this belief, he had the strongest sort of confirmation from Carn who was still acting as a go-between. Carn said that he had certainly understood Rhett to propose that Hammond be nominated exclusively by the party with which he worked and not from his own friends. "Mr. Rhett dis- tinctly recommended that we should keep perfectly fl[uiet and let the

CO

whole matter be brought about on his side." Perhaps it was sufficient that Rhett now consented to a general nomination.

Late in August James M. Tfalker all but upset the apple cart by

a series of letters over the signature of "ffardlaw." They were an at-

59 tack on the Bank of the State of South Carolina, and though it was not

true, the riimor got abroad that Hammond had assisted in their prepara- tion if he had not written them himself. This was unfortunate, for the Bank was a power in the State and the fact that Hammond had allowed himself to be elected a director in the Columbia branch only that sum- mer, made an attack on it by him look like a piece of treachery. He

58

M. E. Carn to Hammond, June 14, September 2, 1B41. Hammond Diary, June 20, 184]..

59

The Bank of the State of South Carolina should not be confused with the State Bank of South Carolina or with the Bank of South Carolina. The existence of the three banks" with names so similar at one and the same time is proved by the appearance of advertisements of the three in the newspapers on the same day.

V;Xo*JL-^C

■fi^i-D CiB

5?

wrote, as soon as he heard of the rumor, to Walker the author of the letters, to 0. R. Carroll vfho had told him of the effect of them, and to F. H. Elmore, the president of the Bank, showing or saying that he had not known of the writing of then until after they were published, and the matter died away, leaving the politicians pacified, but the debtors of the Bank one and all against the Hammond forces, as he was to find out later.

Hammond was very busy during the fall and early winter over the anniversary address before the State Agricultural Society which he had done so much to start two years before, so that he did not spend much time worrying over the p;overnorship. For one thing, the slight opposition was dying down. It was very strongly rumored that the candidacy of Hammond had the support of Calhoun, or even that it had been started at his suggestion, and Frank Pickens came to favor him decidedly. The death of B. T. 31raore, on September 19, 1B41, harmonized Columbia politics, as Hammond had thought it would do. By the end of the year Hammond was as surely governor as if it had been a year later and he already inaugurated. The Regency held a meeting, a caucus probably, in Columbia, December 16, 1841, during the session of the legislature. Present were F. H. Elmore, the Rhetts, Burt, ''cWillie, Fair, Davie, Governor Richardson, J. E. Henry, Manning, young Gregg and James Chesm.<t of Camden, and possibly a few more. The meeting was called to organize

60

Hammond's Diary, June 14, 1841. 61

Hammond's Diary, August 19, 26, 31, 1841.

Hammond to C. R. Carroll, August 31, 1841.

Hammond to James M. ,7alker, September 9, 1841.

62

Hammond said of him after his death that he bore him (Elmore) no malice and always acknowledged his excellent qualities but he went on to

57

opposition to Hammond for governor, but it was found that he was too strong to risk dividing the party bj' run^^ing a candidate af^ainst him, 30 it was decided to support him instead. The final decision was of course communicated to him, but not the original purpose of the meeting. Yet Hammond knew he was not the real choice of the party. The Richardson men wanted tfcDuffie, and R. B. Rhett wanted to support him even if he was not a candidate. Albert Rhett had sent word that he would support Hammond if the caucus nominated him, or if it nominated no one, but that if it nominated some one else of v.'hom he (Rhett) could approve, he would support the nominee, "it is clear, exulted Hammond, I am a bitter pill to them.

One or two minor honors which came to Hammond in the course of the year showed the growth of his popularity and may well have led his opponents to conclude that he could not safely be passed by again. In April he was elected general of the State militia. Since the stirring daj's of '32 and '33, Hammond had not lost his interest in the militia and on several previous occasions he would have been elected, but for a technicality in the militia laws. "Undoubtedly the recogni- tion was grateful to him. To the end of his daj's he was addressed oftener as General Hammond than by whatever correct title happened to be his. A little later he was elected a director in the Columbia branch of the Bank of the State of South Carolina. Viith his usual bitterness he notes that it is a "post of much responsibility i no profit 4 I 6nly

say that he had been his bitterest, most active enemy, the main prop of a certain blackguard politician, and the connecting link between the vulgar and genteel Democracy of Richland. Diary, October 6, 1841.

63

Hammond's Diary, December 16, 19, 1841: Report of remarks made in the South Carolina House of Representatives, by J. 2. Henry, December 13, 1842.

58

(Iff

accept it to learn Bomethins; of the way of business." Most significant of all politically, was his election as trustee of the colle^^e late in November. The trustees of the college were elected by the legislature and the men who elected him trustee 7.-ere with few exceptions the same ones who, a year later, elected hira governor.

During this same session of the legislature, Hammond delivered the anniversary oration of the State Agricultural Society which he had helped found in 1839. It was a calm, r asoned production, based on his ten years experience as a planted, and looking forward along lines which South Carolina was to find only much later were the best ones for her to follow. His theme was, briefly, that the production of cotton in South Carolina was fast outstripping its consumption and that the State must replace it with something more profitable. Viliat he really thought the best thing to do was to turn from agriculture to manufacturing. The water power in the State was - and is - excellent, and the slaves could be trained to perform nearly all the operations of a cotton factory. To the settlement of these difficulties and the inevitable dislocations and losses attendant upon the transition he urged the Argicultural Societv to address itself. The oration -was a great success. It satisfied the expectations of those who already knew his abilities as a plante|* and a thinker, and it attracted the interest of all who v/ere interested in the

64

Hammond's Diary, December 16, 19, 1341. 65

Dieiry, February 8, 1S41. 66

Hammond's Disiry, June 14, 1S41. 67

Diary, November 28, 1841.

xxi fc£:*oe

00"! L'-iq-i-.

1 0 n f^ j ■ ■

'^e.tiii'. Aoi

rx j

, WTO II>

SEsrti- ':tc

■ XiBTJ 6.-iT .

-< . L V *• •

59

future of South Carolina. If, as seems clearly true, a large part of Hammond's great influence in the State came from his recognized preeminence as a planter, then surely his 1^41 oration is a distinct factor in that recognition, "it was universally said it would prevent anj'' opposition to me for Gov., he recorded a few days later.

At the last minute there was an attempt at opposition to Hammond's election. V/hen he came to Columbia in early Decer^ber, he declined to electioneer, and accordingly refused to po to the State House or call on any of the members of the legislature. His aloof- ness offended some, and others personally hostile to him joined to raise opposition on the cry that he v/as a Rhett man. Finally R. F. W.

Allston was induced to run against him. The opposition was serious,

, «9 for Allston got 76 votes to Hammond s 83. HammonJ was not cast down

over this close vote. V/hatever evidence he saw in it of opposition

was opposition not so much to him as to the Rhetts, his supposed

backers .

During the session of the legislature in which Hammond was

inaugurated, the governor was authorized to substitute military schools

71 for the hired guard at the Charleston and Columbia arsenals. ftTiat

influence Hsumnond was able to exercise over the lejjislature v.'hoce head

he had so recently been elected to be, is uncertain, for neither his

68

Disiry, November 28, 1841. The oration was widely published in pamphlet form. There is a copy in the Charleston Library (A. Pm., Series 5, vol. iv , no. 14) and one in the Library of '['onj^ress, among the Reynolds pamphlets, as yet other wise unclassified. (The present ("1919] number is AC 901 R4 , vol. x.)

69

Diary, Decetrber 8, 1841. Hamjnond knew who these last-minute leaders were and characterized them in his usual style: Bill Yyers a notorious blaok-guard; 'Jilliam H. Gist; Louis T. Tvigfall, an Sdfefield bravo; F. J. Moses of Sum.ter; A. D. Sima, a sot: G. Vf. Dargan.

60

papers nor the records of that body show in the least. Certain it is, however, that he entered heartily into the proposed change and furthered it in all ways at his command. Such a plan had ten years before been one of his darling ideas. As long ago as 1333, he had included in his

recommendations to Governor Hayne , a strong nlea for a military profes-

72 sorship in the South Carolina College.

What Hammond himself felt to be the most important measure of

his career as governor, so far as what he would have called national as

distinguished from federal affairs, was his attack on the Bank of the

State of South Carolina. He had always disliked banks entirely. As far

back as 1837, he thought that "There is no argument in favour of a

national bank that mav not be used in favour of a despotism," and even

earlier, 1S34, he had expressed the opinion, not perhaps to be wondered

at in a nan at once young and wealthy, that "Banks any way as connected

„73 rr.erely with the currency are of very questionable utility. But the

Bank was powerful. He himself had felt its power. The mere suspicion,

ar.d that unfounded, that he, while a director in the Columbia branch, had

written or even countenanced the letters of "Wardlaw" attacking it, had

very nearly Tn^ecked his chances of being governor. It had a capital of

between three and four millions, which it could and did use in furthering

70

Diary, December 19, 1842. 71

Proclamation of Governor Hammond, December 21, 1842, in the Mercury for January 2, 1B43.

Reports and R'?solutions of the South Carolina Legislature, 1342.

Journals of the South Carolina Legislature, 1842.

72

Hammond to Governor Hayne, November 7, 1833, Draft. Another favorite project which he was able to put through, was an agricultural survey of the state. Mercury, January 20. July 31, 1842; June 20, July 31, 1843.

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, p. 93.

Ruff in: Agricultural Survey.

;son.

ei

the political ambitions of its president and directors.

To an attack on the Bank Hammoni devoted a great part of his first annual message. The Bank could not pay the principal of the public debt of the State from its profits in less than a century, and certainly would not use its principal to that end without compulsion. Therefore, Hammond recommended that the Bank be required, upon penalty of forfeiture of its charter, to purchase and to cancel, every year $500,000 worth of bonds besides paying the interest on the remainder. This it could do without being thrown into li(|uidation and even if it

were forced out of existence the State would only be getting rid of two

74 ,

evils at one time. When this part of the Governor s message was re- ported back from the Committee on Ways and Means, C. G. ?.^emminger chair- man, it followed Hammond's recommendations almost to the letter. An accompanying bill to require the payment of :H00,000 yearly by the Bank passed by a good majority, despite the efforts of the Bank people to

have "require" changed to "empower," and despite the opposition of the

75 Mercury. Hammond, although he thus attacked the Bank, was not at

enmity with the Bank people. He was a director in the Columbia branch.

From Memminger, close friend of Elmore, its president, he got much of

the information he needed to write his message. Indeed, he told Elmore

himself more than a month before the beginning of the session what he

73

Hammond's Diary, November 2, 1537.

Hammond to Wm. C. Preston, June 12, 1834, Df.

74

Annual Message, Noverri.ber 2°., 1°43, in Letters and Speeches, vp. 54-'^4. 75 . ■ ■

Hsimmond s Diary. January 31, 1844.

Hamm.ond to Gilmore GimTis, January 9, l'^44 (misplaced as of June 9).

Elmore MSS., Library of Congress, passim.

Mercury, December 2, 4, 8, iR43.

^2

expected to say about the Bank and sent hiir. proof-sheets of the message several days before it was delivered.

In the second year of his governorship Hammond became involved in a controversy with the Jews of Charleston. By proclamation of September 9, 1844, he set aside the first Thursday in October, for thanksgiving, and called on all the people to moet on that day and "offer

up their devotions to God the Creator, and his son Jesus Christ, the

77 Redeemer of the World." To this mention of Christ the Jews took

instant and fervid, perfervid, exception. \'ihen the third of October came, neither of the two congregations of Jews in the city opened its doors. A letter signed by A. Moise , jr., and more than a hundred others, de- clared that the proclamation, by mentioning Jesus, was an obvious and gratuitous exclusion of the Jews, a mockery and an insult. "Vi'e trust that for your own reputation you will... ftefore the end of the term] remove the impression which the act in question has made upon the minds of a large portion of your constituents." Hammond stiffened under the threat and, like an indignant Carolina gentleman, replied that he had not intended to wound the Jews but at the same time he would not have changed his language, had he known their feeling: that though himself not an acknowledged Christian, yet as a dweller in a Christian land, he re- fused to be called to account for calling Christ the Redeemer. His reply was far from satisfying the Jews. They held a meeting, and denounced it

Hammond 'd Diary, January 7>1 , 1344.

James V. Walker to Hammond, July 1^, 1843.

Hammond to Simms, October 4, 1843.

77

Charleston Mercury, September 13, 1844.

tdJ-.-

ov.

63

as erroneous, a misstatement, sarcastic, bad-tempered and in bad taste. For was the tempest without a political cast. Governor Aiken, Hammond's successor, in a proclamation issued the very day he took office, in

terms gave up to the Jews the very point in controversy, though he

78 later denied any intention of reflecting on Hammond.

If Hammond stood alone in Lis letter to the Jews, in another and vastly more inportant incident occurring about the same time he had the State and indeed the entii-e South behind him. South Carolina pro- vided, by a law of 1S35, that all free hegroes arriving in her limits

by boat should be arrested and imprisoned until their vessel was ready

79 to leave and should then leave on her. The Northern States all ob- jected to this law, but only Massachusetts took any action. In 1843, in accordance with a resolve of the State legislature, she appointed B. F. Hunt of Charleston, South Carolina, her agent to represent the rights of her colored citizens detained at Charleston upon their ar- rival there as seamen and gave him power to take the question to the

80 United States Supreme Court. Hunt refused tc accept. Next year, Mas- sachusetts undisccuraged - and unenl-i ghtened - "appointed the Hon. Samuel Hoar of Concord, to reside at Charleston, .. .under the Resolves of March 24, 1S43 and I/iarch l''. , 1844, with regard to citizens of Mas- sachusetts imprisoned in other states," and Hoar made his way to Charleston, took up his residence there and obtained J. L. Petigru for

78

Hammond to Colonel R. Q. Pincknejr, September 28, 1^44, A. Df. B.

William Yeadon to Hammond, October 14, 1844.

Charleston papers of November 20, 1844.

Heunmond's Diary, November 21, Decerrber 12, 1844, February 8, 1845.

William Aiken tc Hammond, January 14, 24, 1845.

F. 7f. Olmsted tc Hammond, January 17, 1845.

A. H. Pembertcn tc Hammond, February S, 1845.

79

Mercury, November 1", 1843. Louisiana had a similar law.

t Lavi

64

his counsel. Meanwhile, Governor Hammond had made a vain effort to change the law so that the negroes, irstead of being jailed, should be confined to their ships. His effort failed, it was said, because the British consul at Charleston was too pugnacious about it.

As soon as Hoar arrived, the people of Charleston requested him to leave , but he refused to do it . Hammond at once communicated to the legislature the letter he received from Hoar, announcing his mission. The legislature passed, practically unanimously, resolu- tions directing Hammond to expel Hoar from the State, and giving him unlimited authority for doing so. Hammond determined that Hoar, and through him, Massachusetts, must realize that the expulsion was the quiet, deliberate action of the State of South Carolina and rot a case of hysterical mob spirit, "it is the State of South Carolina which speaks and acts." V/hen the officials sent for the purpose ar- rived in Charleston, they found Hoar preparing to leave in response to a second invitation from the Charlestoniars , sc that no use of force was necessary. Perhaps he had already fulfilled the purpose for which he had been sent.

In itself the expulsion of Hoar is a very trifling affair, yet through it one catches a glinpse of the lack of any real unity in the Union at this time. The appointment nade by Massachusetts v/ithcut finding out whether the man selected vrould accept, and the consequent refusal by him have already been mentioned. Hear nciv the terms in which public opinion in Massachusetts refers to the appointment of Hoar.

80

John A. Maybin of New Orleans received a similar appointment for that port, rhich he likewise refused. It does not appear why Massachu- setts thought the men would accept.

65

"Prejudice even cannot connect hie n-.issicn v.-ith fanatical scheming or mischievous agitation. He goes under the authority of tbe CoTmonwealth , to investigate the fact with regard to t> e alleged oppression of our citizens... and to attempt to put the questions which restrict those rights under the laws of South Carolina, into such form that they nay be adjudicated by the Courts of the United States, and the constitu- tionality of those laws may be tested." And South Carolina spoke un- officially but emphatically, "The insolence and impertinence of this abolition move is insufferable, if it turns out not to be a hoax (the absence of formal credentials beyond the mere ipse dixit of the man who writes himself Hoar i^ suspicious) a., but v?e learn that Massachusetts had offered a similar agency to lawyers in Charleston before, and b-^en f ef used . She may therefore have now sent her own m.en to begin the war, and make a direct issue with us on abolition. The State will meet it in such a way as to preclude all chance of Federal interference, it is to be presumed, and thus make direct battle with cur abolition enemies." Did Massachusetts reall3'' believe that independent, individual, proud Carolina would not object to the residence in her midst of one v/hose only ptirpose was to establish the unconstitutionality of one of her laws, be the sub- ject matter of it what it might? It is unlikelj^. It is unlikely that Massachusetts herself would have sat ^uiet under such provocation. And despite denial from Massachusetts, South Carolina interpreted the mission, and correctly, too, it seems, as an abolition m.ove . Equally strongly did she resent it as an infringement upon her state sovereignty. Massachu- setts within her own limits might treat her own colored persons as she.

66

Massachusetts, pleased. But South Carolina denied in toto the rif.ht to require her to permit the application of ?\'assachusetts law within the limits of South Carolina, and there seems to he little dcubt that her point was well taken. Even more characteristic of South Carolina's belief in State rights was her convictior that she could meet a repetition of this interference in such a way as to avoid conflict

with the federal gcvernment and yet have it out in sore for- of war

81 with Massachusetts .

Throughout Hammond's governorship he was Euch concerned with Federal relations. He took office at a time when indignation over the tariff of August 1042 was still great in South Carolina. According to general understanding in the State, the tariff of 1832 expired in 1842, and a new act must be passed before ariy revenue whatever could be col- lected.^^ The act of September 11, 1S41 had produced far from suf- ficient revenue and the government was in actual need of funds. When the distinctively protective tariff of August 30, 1842 had been rushed into legal force. South Carolina was highly indignant. Threats of nullification were every v/here in the air. Hammond, as soon as he had digested the new measure corxf erred with the more influential members of his party, especially with Pickens and with Calhoun. Calhoun leaned

m.ore to nijllif ication than he would have wanted most men to know. Pickens »

81

!'ercury, ITcver^ber 13, 23, Decerber 16, 19, 1^43; December 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 21,1844. This includes quotations from the Boston Atlas, the Baltimore Sun, and the Journal of Commerce.

Hsmmond's Diary, January 31, Dsoem.ber 1, 7, 1844.

Hammond to Henry Bailey, December 5, 1°44, Df. S.

P. S, Brooks to Hammond, December 6, 1844.

"Treatment of Hoar by South Carolina."

82

For a strong presentation of this view see the dissenting opinion of Justice J'cLean in: Aldridge v. Williams, 3 How., 9. Taussig thinks the

67

was very strongly agaiBst nullification: he practically told Calhoun that he would not be able to put it through this time. ' To Hammond he gave advice to have the legislature pass some sort of resolutions on the tariff but to be sure that they were moderate ones, v;ith no threat. Calhoun thought he ought in his inaugural to take "strong grounds against the Tariff; ard to denounce it as unconstitutioral , unjust, unequal, inexpedient, anti-Republican and pernicioi:s in its effect morally and politically; but at the same time express your con- fidence that the great popular party of the country, T*ose onlv safe ground to stand on is strict adherence to the constitution and justice and equality between citizen and citizen, state ani state, and section and section, will rise in its might and put it down. . .advert to the circumstances under which the bill was passed and .. .express a deep regret, that any member of the great popular party should have voted, from any consideration, xn its favour.

Hammond's own inmost convictions he did not reveal to any one or even enter in his diary at this time. Briefly, they were that the only sure remedy for the South against Northern aggression was a dis- solution of the one Union, already existing, and the formation from, it of two others, and he was not ready to propose that on account of the

point very well taken.

83

F. W. Pickens to Galhcun, fcveTnber S, 1"42, Calhoun Corr. 84

Hammond Papers, John C. Calhoun to Plamrond , September 24, fl842V. Dr. Jam.eson includes this letter in his Calhoun Correspondence, but gives it date of 1841. It is well to be cautious in criticizing Dr. Jameson's editing, but external and internal evidence is against him on this point.

0"i~

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tariff. Nullification he no longer thought either constitutional or peaceful. But this he tcld no one. And there was much truth in what he did say, that they ought to try evers^thing before resorting to nul- lification, and that the tariff seemed sure to be repealed, as Calhoun

85 and Pickens both pointed out.

During l'^'S4 the Texas question added itself to the tariff as a cause of excitement in South Carolina. Of the founiing and indepen- dence of Texas, its early efforts to join the United States, and the rejection of those effeort by Van Buren and the conseoiuent disappoint- ment of Calhoun and through him, of Carolina, there is not space here to speak. In 1843 it v/as noised abroad that Great Britain and France were interesting themselves in Texas, in order to bring about the abolition of slavery and to secure such a source of cotton supply as Texas represented. Both of these projects South Carolina was svre to oppose. Meetings favoring annexation of Texas were held throughout the State all during 1844. Late in the session of Congress v/hich ended in June the South Carolina members tried to have an address of all the Southern members got up in favor of a Southern convention, but it failed because every one was interested in the presidential election. Then Rhett drew up and McDuffie and most of the South Carolina delega- tion signed an address to their constituents recomriending separate State action by a convention next spring, but, said Hammond, "at the

85

Hammond s Diary, October 25, 1°44.

Hammond to J. C. Calhoun, September 10, 1842.

86

At Buford s Bridge, Barnwell, it was resolved, on Vay 23, that the Southern States had better "stand out of the Union with Texas than in it, without her," and that no one vjould be supported for president who did not favor annexation. Mercury, \Jay 27, 1844. Calhoun had taken up the work of the State Department April 1, 1B44. Another meeting in Barnwell passed similar resolutions. Mercury, ^av 28, 1844. See also the ''ercury for June 8, 10, 15, 1844, especially.

'f -■

69

eleventh hour Calhoun car.e in & broke it up. . .chanting praises of the Union and to peace.

After the end of the Congress the members came back South again. Despite the precept of Calhoun, Rhett favored separate State action. July 31, 1844 at a dinner in his honor at Bluff ton he declared there was no hope in Polk or in a Southern convention but only in nullification or secession; and he urged that a convention of the State be called, to meet at the end of the next Congress. A week or so later he spoke again in the same strain. The South must have relief from the tariff and from abolition. In State action alone had he any confidence, and this could be done only by a convention of the State of South Carolina. For only a convention, according to Carolina theory, could pass an ordinance of secession. The bla^ie to Rhett 's tinder vfas quick and hot. The Mercury declared for resistance by separate State action. Robertville gave him a dinner August 22, St. George's another August 2P . "R. B. Rhett will address his constituents on the state of their public affairs next sale day." Rhett was defended against the Courier's charge that he had de- nounced Calhoun. Saltketcher, St. B£u?tholem.ew* s gave him. a dinner. A

large gathering at Barnwell Court ^cuse on September 7 showed the

89 district nearly unanimous for speedy action.

Hammond himself has, fortunately for the historian, left definite

87

Diary, CctoVer 25, 1344. This is probably the meeting to which I. E. Holmes had reference in his speech in Charleston July IP, v/hen he said that a meeting of the State delegation in V/ashington , Calhoun had said that "if there nas any men in the Union v;ho prized that Union more than any other man in it, he was that man." (Courier, July 1°, 1S44.) Hammond could have had his information only from a member of Congress and Holmes, a representative, was a correspondent of his.

88

Mercury, August 8, 15, 1P44. 89

Mercury, August 7, 19, 21, September 10, 1344.

70

statements of his ideas at this time. The Union he felt had been a good thing for the South. During the half century in which they had lived under it, they had prospered as at no other time in their his- tory. But if the North continued to oppress the South on the tariff or on slavery, the Union nust break in two. The South must have Texas, cost what it might, even the Union itself. Four fifths of the people believed so, he told Calhoun, and rould stand by the issue if

so made. His only hope was that the end, v/hich he thouJ'ht inevitable,

90 would be peaceful •

Hammond was in constant correspondence during the summer with all the leaders, especially those in a measure independent of Calhoun. Before he heard of the Bluffton speech he had in mind to send a private and confidential circular to the governors of the other Southern States, asking whether their States would support South Carolina in any measure of resistance, but from this he was dissuaded bv James Hamilton, who had already said in public that the State was not ready for separate action, and that this was Calhoun s opinion." ~ A meeting in Charleston, August 19, which expressed confidence in Calhoun, an intention to await the result of the election and a hope of securir.g united action, he feared was a serious blow to State action.

Early in October Calhoun returned to Carolina and silenced bohh

90

Heumnond , Inaugural Address as Governor. Hammond to J. C. Calhoun, June 7, 1844, A. Df. S. Hammond to Simm.s, June 18, 1B44. Hammond's Diary, August 7, 1*^44.

91

James Hamilton to Hammond, October 4, 1^44. Hamilton's advice was that South Caroline should: (l) support Polk so as to gain the support of all Southern Democrats; (2) announce to all Southern States that she did not intend to submit to the tariff of 1^42; (3) declare her right under the spirit of the constitution that slavery be not menaced on the floor of Con- gress; (4) call a convention of the South for Richmond, Vay 1, 1'='45; (5) if

71

movement and movers. "V/e are as calm as the dead Sea, said Hammond. But Hammond, thinking the State rather silenced than convinced, and

not being himself convinced, was, after his habit, not silenced

icr was

95

94- either. It was an open fact among the leaders that the governor was

considering inserting in his message a call for separate State action. Hamjnond had lost faith in waiting longer. In his annual message, nearly half of which was devoted to Federal affairs, he recormiended early and decisive State action. Vfith regard to the tariff, there was no hope of relief. "Our State is bound... and owes it to the country and herself, to adopt such measures as will at an early period bring all her moral, constitutiona, and, if necessary, physical resources, in direct array against a policy, which had never been checked but by her interposition. On abolition his recommendations were even more urgent, Imancipation was a "naked impossibility," therefore "you will be justified by God and future generations, in adopting any measure, however startling they nay appear... you vfill be equally justified in

taking these measures as earljr and decisively as in your judgment you

It 97 may deem proper.

Hammond was unconditionally sincere in his recomm.endations ,

this failed, call a State convention for Juljr 4, l^-'45, decide the rirht course against the tariff. Kiles Register, vol. Ixvi, pp. 4^0-421, 4Z^ ,

92

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, August 25, 1844.

?.Tercury, August 21, 1844

Niles Register, vol. Ixvi, pp. 314, 345, 34f^ , 569, 434-7.

93

Hammond's Diary, October 25, 1S44. 94

During the fall of 1844, he was putting the State into trim to use force against the United States if it became necessary. For instance, he sent R. F. C?lcock to procure for the State accurately surveyed plans of the fortifications at Moultrie, Johnson and Castle Pinckney with notes on

^tOflli

72

yet he did not delude himself into thinking they would be adopted. " I am not aware of a single man who will openly sustain me in either branch of the Legislature." Nor was he disappointed. Pickens, who had Cal- houn's ear, if he did not speak for hir. directly, and who already had

denounced the Bluff ton movement, at once introduced resolutions, in

98 favor of delaying action and waiting on Polk and the DBanccrats, and

they passed, as one senator admitted to Hammond, because it was be-

99 lieved Calhoun wanted them. Calhoun later declared to him that he

"never had the slightest intimation of them. . .[before publication] &

that he did not wholly approve of them." But whether the belief in

his approval was true or not, it had the effect of truth.

In the House the leader of the opposition to Hammond's views,

their strong and weak points and the best ways of attacking them; and cautioned him to move ao as to conceal the fact that he was acting for the State authorities. Hammond to R. F. Colcock, September 12, 1844.

95

Ker Boyce to Hammond, November 4, 11, 1844. James Hamilton to Hammond, November 12, 17, 1R44. Both men, old nullifiers, argued that the election of Polk bound the State to wait to see what he would do before she went further.

96

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, §§. 94-1C4. The emphasis is the biographer' s.

97

Ibidem, pp. 1C2-103.

98

Mercury, Decem.ber 2, 1^44.

South Carolina House and Senate Journals, p. 2fi.

99

Hammond's Diary, November 28, 1844. 100

Hammond's Diary, July 17, 1S47. Ham-^ond is describing a visit to McDuffie at Cherry Hill, where he met Armistead Burt and Calhoun late in May, 1847. This diary is not in the Library of Congress, in 1919.

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y.emroinger, had the message referred to the Committee of the ViTiole instead of to the Coiranittee on Federal Relations. A half dozen sets of resolutions were introduced. I.'erjTiinger , avowed unbeliever in the oppressiveness of the tariff, propsed to take no "further action on that portion cf the Governor's message which relates tc the tariff, Texas, and to the Abolitionists." Later he withdrew his motion and proposed Pickens*, which had now com.e from the senate, instead. Col- cock defended the Bluff ton Boys, as the supporters of the message were called. Hammond himself drafted resolutions declaring that Congress had repeatedly violated the constitutional provision relative to the laying and collecting of taxes and its pledge of 1833 to levy tariff for revenue only; that it had, and for an ominous reason, refused to annex Texas and that therefore there ou?rht to be a convention of the Southern slave holding States Vtfhich South Carolina ought to initiate. Fot even yet, in spite of having said that Carolina should at an earljr date bring even her physical resources against the United States did he desire her to use those resources alone.

Hammond felt his position was completely vindicated, when the

House at Washington rescinded the rule of 183fi to exclude abolition

102 petitions. Pickens, at that time not less close to Calhoun, but

less informed of his plans, introduced resolutions calling the repeal

a "flagrant outrage," declaring that any legislation by Congress upon

slavery would be the same as a dissolution of the Onion, and calling

101

Hamm.ond's Diary, November 28, 1844. I/ercury, December 3, 1S44.

102

McDuffie prepared a joint letter showing the position of the South Carolina delegation on the repeal, but it was not sent. (Hammond to McDuffie, Novem.ber 27, 1"44, Df.j Probably Calhoun intervened again.

74

103 on the governor to convene the legislature in such an event. It shews

the changeableness and uncertainty of the legislature that Pickens'

first resolutions were passed only late in t'-^e session, and by a close

vote 57 to 39, and at the same ti!r:e the second set on the rerroval of

the gag rule, were, by the same vote, 55 to 38, postponed to a day

104 after adjournment.^

"You have the singular felicity of being the only Sx-Gov.

extant or extinct who had carried out of office more reputation than

he carried in." So wrote Jajnes ''. ';7alker to Hammond, and Walker was

105 not in the least an uncritical follower of the governor. Undoubtedly

Hammond did increase his reputation during his governorship, and in the way of all most dear to Southerners, defense of his Southern institu- tions. John L. Brown, of Fairfield, South Carolina, v/as duly con- victed in the fall of 1843 of aiding a slave to escape from her master, and in accord with law, was sentenced to be hung in April. The case occasioned no comment in Carolina, and was rarely heard of outside of Fairfield. But the Abolitionists, though ignorant of its outstanding points, took up the case, both those at the North and from Great Britain, and Hammond, to his astonishment, found himself overwhelmed with petitions.

103

Hammond's Diary, Decerriber 22, 1844,

F. W. Pickens to J. C. Calhoun, Decerber 28, 1<544.

1C4

Mercury, December 15, 1844. Coiorier, December 21, 1844.

Niles Register, vol. Ixvii, pp. 25*^,272, 196-8. Hoar's mission and expulsion occurred at this session.

105

James ¥. 7/alker to Hammond, June 11, 1345.

106

Several things about the case the Abolitionists did not know. Brown was not one of them, as they seemed to assume, and was not as-

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75

To ore of the memorials received, that from the Free Church of Glasgow, Hammond made reply. The law under vfhich Brown was convicted was good, old, British law, and he was pardoned because Hammond did not think he had violated it. The memorial denounced slavery in the severest terms. If the Bible came from^ God, it was blasphemy to allege that slavery, which the Bible regulated and permitted, was a violation of right. Slave farilies were separated by masters less frequently than other families by circumstances. Slaves got twice the bread and twelve timies the meat per week that an English operative got, to say nothing of clothing, shelter and care in old age. As to freedom, what was it and how r.uch of

it did an English factory worker possess? Compare the negro in Africa

107 and in America and decide again whether slavery had been a curse to him.

The letter attracted attention at once and won for its author

golden opinions. The Mercury in publishing it called it "the ablest and

most Bfetisfactory and conclusive vindication of our Southern Slavery

that we have ever witnessed in any thing like the same brief space," and

said that the publication had been obtained only by repeated sclicita-

108 tions. It also provoked replies, correspondence and criticism, from

the class to which it was directed. To these, Hamjnond replied, this

time in the two letters to Thomas Clsu?kson, longer and more leisurely than

the Free Church letter but identical in attitude and generally lumped with

sisted the slave to freedom,. Indeed, said Jud?e C'Keall, who sentenced him, "if he were to-day charged with being an abolitionist, he v>'ould regard it as a greater reproach than to be called a nef^ro thief." Instead he was a dis- solute, worthless fellow who kept the woman as his mistress and who aided her to escape in order either to continue this intercourse or to sell her to his own profit. Also, on account of his youth and the fact that the master re- covered his slave, the sentence had been first commuted to thirty-nine lashes and later remitted entirely. John B. O'Neall to Bailie Hastie, Chairman of an anti-slavery meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, in the I/ercury , August 7, 1S44: John B. 0 Neall to "A Loyal Fairman" , I-^rch £7, 1844, in the Marcury, Aoril 30, 1844.

ksd

76

it in the popiJ.ar mind.

He "conscientiously believefd] Domestic Slavery of these states to be not only an inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and humane institution, productive of the greatest political and social ad- vantages, and is disposed. . .to defend it on these grounds." The African slave trade he did not propose to defent though "efforts to suppress it have effected nothing more than a threefold increase of its horrors." "But let us contemplate it as it is." It is not contrary to the will of

1 no

God. The scriptural sanction of slavery is so clear that moderate Abolitionists admit that mere slave-holding cannot be deemed sinful, and desperate radicals say that if the BiMe upholds slavery, the Bible and not anti-slavery must fall.

"l endorse without reserve the m.uch-abused sentiment of Gov, McDuffie, that 'slavery is the cornerstone of cur Republican edifice* while I repudiate as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that 'all men are born equal.'" It is impossible to have society without a "natural variety of classes." Only the slave holding United States has no need of a huge standing army

107

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, ^p. 105-113. Vercury, December 9, 1844. DeBow's Review, 1849, pp. 289. ff.

108

Mercury, Decerr.ber 9, 1844.

109

The Hebrews had bondrren forever, and they were embraced in the class of things forbidden to be coveted. St. Paul sent a runaway slave back to his master. To say that the Bible virtually forbids slavery because of the crimes arising from it, is to say that because adultery and theft arise only from, marriage and private property, marriage and private property are vir- tually forbidden in the Bible. Tyre and Sidon viere destroyed, not because they traded in slaves, but because they enslaved the Chosen Peo|le, and the sentence was that they themselves should be sold into slaverjf.

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77

to overawe the loner classes. Far fron beire a soiTce of weakness in time of nar, our slaves would remain peaceful on the plantations and cultivate them under the superintendence of a few citizens, and we should be able to put into the field a larger force than any other nation of equal nuT.bers.

But the grand charge was that slavery gives rise to sexual licen- tiousness. Miss Martineau's scandalous stories vfere so false said Hsunmond that some wicked joker must have furnished them to her, knowing that she expected to write a book. The charge was not just or true. Among the slave-holding white people, as even the bolitionist rill admit, "there are fewer oases of divorce, separation, crim, con., seduction rape and bastardy than among any other five millions of people on the civilized earth." Some intercourse did take place between white men and negro women but it was considered highly disreputable and Kiss Martineau's tale of a young man's trjio^ To buyiftg from a lady a colored woman ?jith the avowed purpose of keepin? her as a concubine" was too absurd to contradict, for any man who rno<4e sucW ex propo^iTior) to any decent woman would be lynched. After all the num.ber of mixed breeds was infinitely small, especially when it was considered that, from the color, no cases can be concealed.

Economically slavery was not unpaid labor. To the individual pro- prietor slave labor was dearer than free labor, for the slave must be paid for, fed, clothed, reared, supported, nursed and pensioned. But to the community, it was cheaper, for the pauper system of the free States was not so economical or so humane as the care given in slave States to the non- working slaves. The slave ovmer was not irresponsible. Laws under which

110

This, be it noted, is just what did happen during the Civil 7»'ar.

Martineau: Society in America, vol. ii, p. 123.

J f'JUS 9^''''

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78

he enjoyed his civil rights forbade him to kill, to overtask, to starve. There was a law prohibiting teaching slaves to read, but it was passed to prevent their being approached by Abolition writings. The slave holder was bound as a man to treat his slaves humanely and he would lose money and social standing by being cruel to them. (Even Harriet Eeecher Stowe makes the brutal Legree a Northerner.) As to cruelty, let the Abolitionist look to the treatment of the freemen of civilized nations, to English mill operatives, for example.

The race increased as fast as the white race and lived longer. Of insanity Hammond had heard of only one case twenty years ago, and of suicide also only one. The separation of families was always avoided by the owner, though the slave was usually indifferent about it, and there have been instances of slaves preferring to stay with their masters to going with their families. Religiously, more than half of the communi- cant members of the Methodist and Baptist churches in the South were

Tip

colored. Large plantations had exercises for their own slaves.

EmEinoipation was impossible. The South could not be persuaded or hired to give up all they would have to do. The results of emancipa- tion were unfavorable in the West Indies and would be worse in the United States. Free negroes would not work while they could steal or hide .

Clarkson's advice to the North to dissolve the Union if it could not gain a permanent ascendency over it came close to treason. The South venerated the constitution but onJ.y in its integrity and it was resolved to maintain its "system of Domestic Slavery" at all hazards.

112

See Lippinoott's ''ag., vol. Ixii, p. S7 (July-necenber, 1898).

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79

An extended criticism of the Letters is out of place. The literary style is excellent. They are neither unduly abstruse or ab- surdly simple, but readable: net abusive, like t' e circular they ansvfer, but restrained in feeling; not weak, yet firm: they are, inshort, the work of an accomplished scholar, planter, gentleman, as one of the 1S4.5 Fourth of July toasts called the author. The reasoning is not bad. Certainly Hammond was right about the mote and the beam;. The condi- tion of the English operative could not excuse the Southern planter for mistreating his people, but any English philanthropist laid himself open to attack when he went three thousand miles to remedy evils exceeded by those in the nearest town. Once grant, what few in 1P.45 would dispute, that the precepts of the Bible are for all times, and the scriptural

argument is not to be dismiissed lightly. It is not convincing to an age

treats which ppca)^ the Bible with its law codes like any other prim.ary

sociological document and when we believe with Montesquieyf that the sam.e

laws will not do for all times nor all climes. But three quarters of a

century ago this was not the case . The Bible was absolute and for all

time, in detail as in spirit. Hammond's perform.ance is valuable for

itself; its unique value is in this, that it expressed the inarticulate

sentiments of nearly five million men and made its author the spokesman

of his section.

The Free Church and Clarkson letters supplied the Southerner

whose emotions and convictions were readier than his tongue, with ars'u-

ments to prove the things he already believed but could not express. For

this reason they had a quick, imm.ense , long-lasting vogue. They circula-

80

ted first in manuscript form, and everyone who read them urged that they be published. Within a week of the completion of the fir-t, it was creating a sensation. They appeared simultaneously in the Carclinian and the mercury, as well as in pamphlet form in late f.'ay and June, 1^45.

The day the Mercury published them, the office was besieged all lay and

113 all Charleston was reading them and talking about them. The general

sentiment was that Haramoni had exhausted the subject and the ' he abso-

-114 lutely rhad1...not left the pseudo-philanthropists room to lie upon.

He received well nigh a hundred letters praising them. Wen so different

in political views as Harper and Preston went into raptures over them.'

I! 11*^

Simms thought them by very far the best things Hammond had ever done.

The Fourth of July brought Hammoni more toasts than everybody else besides,

The pamphlet sale was immense. The Mercury had to print an edition of

1]7 fifteen thousand extra copies of the issue in which thej' appeared.

There was a free circulation of five thousand in Charleston alone. Men

bought them by the dozen, by the fifties, by the hundreds. They were

translated into French by a member of the Chambre de Deputes and circu-

118 lated all over Europe. One man wrote from Scotland to saj^ that they had

1 1 Q

convinced him of the divine approval of slavery. " To the enl of his

113

J. L. Clark to Hammond, June 14, 1S45. 114

William V/ashington to Harnmond , June 17, 1345. 115

J. L. Clark to Hammond, June 27, 1345. 116

Simms to Hsumnond , [July 10, l'^45]. 117

A. P. Aldrioh to Hammond, July 1, 1°45. 118

J. L. Clark to Hammond, June 27, 1345.

Hammond's Diary, March If', 1345.

George McDuffie to Heimmond, i/arch 15, 1S45. This of course relates only to the Free Church letter, there had not yet been time to circulate the

life Hammond used to get letters praising them and asking for more copies. One man had lent his so often that it was ororn out. J. D. B. DeBow republished them in his Review and called them "admirable and un- answerable ... one of the most forceful exhibitions of the question in every possible point of view." They were republished in 1353 in a volume with several articles by other men of the South under the title 6f the "Pro-Slarvey /\rgument," and again in 13^0, with Christy's "Cot- ton is iiing," they appeared in a fat volume as "Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments."

eiarkson letters, of January, 1345.

119

Alexander Dunlop of Gairbraid, Scotland to Hamrond , Sentenber 1, 1845.

120

DeBow' s Review, vol. vii, pp. 259, ff., 1349.

82

CHAPT3R IV

HAMMOND IN RETIREMENT

At the close of his governorship Hammond left Columbia Eind returned to Silverton permanently. He ca:ne back for a day or two in April and in September 1345 , but outside of that he came there no more for ton or fifteen years. Though he had thus withdrawn himself from participation, he did not lose his interest in public affairs, either of the State or the federal government. British relations held his attention. He had been delighted with Calhoun's Packenham letter about abolition in Texas; he was more than pleased with the senator's course on Oregon in the Senate. "Calhoun has taken a noble stand [on the Oregon question].... He at once declared himsSlf for peace and breasted the popular current. I... really feel as though I may have in my thoughts done injustice to him as a man of firmness

and lofty purposes. If he goes through this without flinching I shall

2 rank his i^ualities far higher than I have done.

1

Hammond to Calhoun, May 10, 1344, Calhoun Corr. Aberdeen told Packenham to say that Great Britain would neither secretly or openly resort to any measures which could tend to disturb the tranquility of the slaveholding states of the United States. But he had at the same time admitted that Great Britain was constantly trying to bring about the abolition of slavery throughout the world.

Calhoun answered that Great Britain's extension of her abolition program from her own possessions to the outside world presented to the United States the vital danger of an abolition frontier on the southwest, and that to avoid it the United States had concluded a treaty of an- nexation with Texas. YThat Hammond most applauded - and what the North most opposed - were statistics to show that the negro's condition had deteriorated greatly in those places in which abolition had been tried. Calhoun: VYorks , vol. v, pp. 333-339.

2

Polk in his annual message favored and urged the giving of notice

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The struggle just then aoti<.^9 in the State on the question of

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the election of the presidential electors, attracted HaimnonJ s attention.

He very frankly and very decidedly opposed giving it or any other election

4 to the people. In 1846 when a general election was to be held there was

great clamor in Charleston for the election to be given to the people. In August a writer in the Courier whose pseudonym of Jackson would in- dicate concurrence in the former president's mode of thought, urged the change upon the ground that the legislature is not the state within the meaning of the federal constitution. Hammond himself wrote for the Mercury an article, signed Falkland, opposing the change on the ground that the people should not hold any elections which could as well be msuiaged by responsible agents already chosen, that the electors would be virtually chosen by self-constituted caucuses.

By the summer of 1341^ Hamnond's attention was turning more and

more from national and local questions toward his election to the United

7 States Senate. Even during his «^overnorship, his friends had often

to Great Britain of the termination of joint occupancy of Oregon. War looked inevitable and Calhoun, acting now with the Whigs, favored upon the proposal to give notice.

Harmon i's Diary, February 14, 1'^AP .

For Calhoun's attitude, see Calhoun to J. E. Calhoun, December 14, 1845.

Calhoun to T. G. Clemson, December 26, 1345.

Calhoun to F. W. Pickens, August 21, September 23, 1845.

3

Alone of all the States at that time. South Carolina had her presidential electors chosen by the legislature. Of course there was a constant, though sometimes subdued feeling against this practice.

4

Hammond to J. A. Ashby, September 28, 1844. 5

Constitution, Article II, section 1, clause 2. 6

A. H. Pemberton to Hammond, October 12, 27, 1-^4'^. Hammond s Diary, November 25, 1346. He changed his mind by 1S4S (Hajmmond to Simms, September 22, 134S.)

84

presumed that his election to the Senate was a matter of a very short time.® By the sununer of 1845 when his Clarkson letters were to popular the matter began to attract some attention. Men from all over the State began to urge him to consent to go to the Senate. General McDuffie s resignation was formally announced in August, 1''46 and Elmore was nominated in the Mercury by Ker Boyce, GU2:)po3edly with Calhoun's endorse- ment. The nomination was followed immediately by approving communica- tions in the Carolinian and in the Charleston papers. Much the same thing happened to Hammond, and he was second on the Carolinian's list of candidates. Hammond had no campaign. He had said some years ago that he would never canvass for the senatorship and that he might even not accept it. "l am net soured I am not aspiring. I am willing to

nil If iil2

stop there, he told Simms. If I am drafted, why, I must serve. That was Hammond's attitude now. It continued to be his attitude for the remainder of his life. Even when his rejection disappointed him most bitterly he did not consider that he had been a candidate, that he had asked and urged men to vote for him. He was only willing to accent the election. Probably his enemies said among themselves that he wanted it

7

He had said to himself some five years ago that there were only three offices he would really like to fill, a military generalship, the governorship, and the Ignited States senatorship. Two of these he had gained; the third seemed in his grasp.

8

Simms to Hammond, March 26, fl345.] 9

"We want you in Vfashington at this time so important to the South," wrote friend and enemy alike. Governor Aiken took the trouble to write, saying that he had heard him "mentioned throughout the country" in con- nection with the next senatorial election. (Wm. Aiken to Hsunmond , July 12, 1845.) McDuffie sent him word that he wanted him in the senate. (B. T. Watts to Hammond, November 20, 1845|,).

10

J. H. Hammond to F. W. Pickens, November 1, 1843, Df.

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offered on a silver salver.

Despite Hammond's genuine indifference, his friends were far from indifferent and worked for him most zealously. ViTien the legis- lature met and noses were counted, Elmore's election was conceded, yet on Novermber 29 he withdrew from the canvass. With Elmore's with- drawal Hammond was the leading ceindidate, though Davie, Rhett , Barnwell, Pickens and one or two more were still running.

Suddenly, as Hammond told Marcellus, there was "the devil to pay about the Senatorial election." Colonel Vt'ade Hampton, ¥jrs. Ham- mond's brother-in-Taw, sent word to Hammond's friends that ijinless they withdrew their candidate, an exposure would be made that would prostrate him forever. His friends refused to read certain documents which Hampton offered them and sent Aldrich to Hammond at Silver Bluff to get instructions. Hammond, in an open letter which he gave Aldrich to use, admitted that the Hampton difficulties arose from a great indiscretion of his, which had caused him inexpressible pain; and put upon Hampton the responsibility for the making of all disclosures. Whether Hampton did make any disclosures or not, the matter thus sprung in the midst of the election was certain to influence some votes and perhaps even to defeat

11

Hammond to Simms, February 19, 1S46. 12

Hammond to M, C. M. Hammond, November 2, 1346. 13

John M. Felder to Hammond, November 23, 1846. Hammond with characteristic sardonic bitterneso thought that the reasons for the with- drawal were that Elmore had secured for his foundry the contract for cannon- balls which he had desired, that his withdravral would have been fatal to the debtors of the Bank, and most of all that he, Hammond, had fifty-five votes pledged and more coming.

Hammond's Disiry, December 4, 1346.

14

Heunnond to Major fM. G. M. Hammond], December 4, 1846. 15

Hammond had feared this might happen. Diary, July 2, 1345.

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Hanmond, had there been no log-rolling. But the election of A. P. Butler, his leading opponent, would leave a vacanty on the bench, which Davie who had 26 votes, desired to fill. And William F. DeSaus- sure wanted to be ohanoellor. At any rate, after the second ballot, Davie withdrew and his 26 votes went to A. P. Butler, electing him, Hammond was told and believed that Davie's friends had gone to Butler

on a promise that Butler's friends would vote for DeSaussure for Chan-

I I''

cell or, and in the hope that Davie would get Butler s vacant seat.

Hammond kept himself well-informed upon affairs in Congress.

He read with interest the speeches of Calhoun and the resolutions

introduced by him, February 19, 1847. They declared that Congress had

no right to pass a law which would prevent any citizen from going with

17 his property into any territory belonging to the United States. He

concurred heartily in them and in the Virginia resolutions of the same

11 general tenor. ® At the ssune time he refused to bestir himself about

them. Yet he was not without ambitions. Beverly Tucker of Virginia

began now to write, annointing Hammond as Calhoun s successor as leader

of the State Rights party. HaTrroni was glad to find the idea existing

outside the state, "if I had the physical poyrers, I would not hesitate

td do all in my power to prepare myself. And I own I should esteem the

19 one [position] suggested as the highest post in America." 'lYithin the

16

Hammond's Diary, December 9, 1846.

J. L. Clark to Hammond, Deoembar 22, 1846,

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, December 13, 1846.

The events, upon which serious charges could indeed be based, had occurred not later than 1343. Hampton had slumbered on his wrongs" for three years.

17

Calhoun: Works, vol. iv, pp. 348-349; Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 2 sess. , 455 .

18

Hammond to Major [M. C. M. Hammond] February 26, 1347.

B. Tucker to Hamn^ond, I.^arch 13, 1847. Tucker tells Hammond that

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stato, too, the desire for Hammond s leadership was gaming.

The presidential election of 1S43 attracted Hammond's at- tention more than any other had ever done. Very early he had decided

21 that of all the probable candidates, Taylor appealed to him most,"

especially after Cass's Nicholson letter approving the doctrine of

22 squatter sovereignty. To Hammond as to most other Carolinians the

doctrine of squatter sovereignty was equally abhorrent with the doctrine

23 that Congress had any power whatever over slavery in the territories.

Of the Charleston feeling for Taylor he Icnew, and of the part Calhoun played in keeping it quiet. He knew, too, and disapproved, of the hope of some that Calhoun himsJlf might be able to run as a third to Cass and Taylor. '^^ The Charleston movement to aid the election of Taylor regard- less of the party by which he was nominated, came to a head in a meeting

I 2P on July 20 of Taylor Democrats. At Calhoun s advice, the state had

taken no part in the Democratic convention, consequently the members of the party felt no obligation to support the nominee. The meeting ex- pressed approval of the nomination of Taylor made irrespective of parties.

the Virginia resolutions were iiis work "indirectly. They were prepared by a young pupil of mine who was not a member and who toll me of them as a son would tell a father that he had not shown himself unworthy."

19

Hammond's Diary, February 21, 1R47; E. Tucker to Hammond, February 6, 1347.

20

21 22 23

Simms to Hammond, March 2, rn47"|. Hammond's Diary, April 4, 1B47.

Hsmrond to Simms, April 19, 1847, Niles Register, vol. Ixxiii, p. 293,

"The territories will decide the question of slavery as soon as they have become states. But who is to restrain them ? Conf,ress. Then it has power over Slaverj' in the Territories. A doctrine as false as dangerous.... It is a fundamental principle not only of republican but of all sound

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Hammond vvas satisfied with this movement and willing to cooperate with it, on the ground that the South T.ust depend on itself and not longer be bound by psirty ties. He was asked to preside at a Taylor meeting in Charleston and in general to take the lead in the Taylor movement but he refused to do so. He did not like Taylor s "damned rascally set of friends out of Go. Ca. The neutrality of Calhoun helped Cass greatly, for Taylor, seeing that the North was of- fended and that Southern Democratis would not help him, declared him- self a decided Whig. Hammond was vastly disappointed at Taylor's clear Whig stand. He wrote letters in every direction, saying that while he did not intend to repudiate Taylor, had he know^ this three months ago he would not have been a Taylor man. Yet he would not say this for publication. As time went on, he grew more and more luke- warm toward Taylor. After the elections to the state legislature he

political writers that a majority of the people may establish their own government t make their own laws. We are not to overturn the principle for the sake of slavery." (Hammond to Simms, June 20, 1843y).

24 25 26 27

H. Yl. Conner to Calhoun, December S, 1847, Calhoun Corr., p. 1147.

Hammond to Simms, June 20, 1B43,

H. W. Conner to Calhoun, April 13, l°4f^, Calhoun Corr., pp. 11P6-11''7,

This self-dependent isolation does not mean, what at first sight it seems to, that Hammond was showing an inconsistency with his disapproval of a Southern pro-slavery party. He did not mean that the South should have a distinot party, to run its own candidates, but only that it must look with clearer eyes at its own interests, and choose, irrespective of party, that candidate most likely to support them.

28.

M. I. Keith and A. G. Mapath to Hammond, August 10, 1843. So de- sirous were they to have Hammond s aid that though they wanted to have the meeting "next week just before the Cass meeting, they would postpone it if the time did not suit him.

29

Hammond to M, C. M. Hammond, August 13, 1848. Hammond to Simms, August 13, 1848.

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31

thought it would disgrace the state forever to vote for Taylor.

Hammond was deeply despondent. His health was bad, perhaps almost as bad as he thought it was. And though Simins tried his hardest to convince him that he had not been shelved, he refused to be comforted. He was deeply saddened by the death in October of his second son, Christo- pher. "It is a heavy blow," he said, "5: threw a dead weight on the already overburdened springs of life.""

Most of Hammond's energy was devoted during 1B48 to a war against the Bank. His Anti-Debt letters of the year before had been at least in part responsible for the defeat of the project to charter a railroad, and had thus made him a leader in the Anti-Bank "roup of his interest. The Bank, looking ahead to the expiration of its charter, was already working

for a recharter and the pamphlets of Anti-Debt were being spread among the

33 legislators to defeat it. The anti-Bank partj'' gained strength, and both

it and its opponent indulged in copious letter-writing. Largely through

Hammond's efforts the Columbia South Carolinian was bought as an anti-Bank

34 paper, and Hammond vtrote for it a series of anonsnnous editorials.

30

31 32

33 34

Hammond to A. B. Holt and the Comn^., October 10, 1848, Df. Hammond to K. C. M. Hajnrr.ond , September 15, 18, 1348. Hammond to James Gadsden, September 21, 1848, Df. Hammond to Simms, September 22, 1848.

Hsimmond to M. C. M. Hammond, November 15, 1348.

Diary, March 11, 1849.

J. P. Carroll to Hammond, May 8, 1843.

Hammond to Simms, July 8 , 26 , 1848.

Simms to Hammond, July 20, 1848.

L. W. Aver, Jr. to Hammond, December 3, 24, 1948.

Hammond a Diary, Iv'^rch 11, 1349.

90

There was work for the anti-Bank men at the session of the legislatiire . Hammond was not in the legislature, and did not come to Colimbia. C. G. Memminger of Charleston was, he thought, the only man who really understood the question. Accordinly, he induced Memminger to take the lead against the Bank. There was a severe struggle. The friends of the Bank were numerous and active, and it was only with r.uch difficulty that a resolution was got through declaring that the legis- lature did not intend to recharter. And even that, as Hajnmoni said,

35 could be repealed when the tine for recharter came.

Hoveinber 20, 1349, before the South Carolina Institute in Charleston, Hsunmond delivered an address which he with much justice re- garded as one of the best things he ever did. The Institute, with William Gregg, Ker Boyce, Gilmore Simms and William A. Owens among the leaders, and Hajomond one of the life members, had been formed early in 1849 to encourage the growth of Carolina. manufactures and especially to spread information on the possibilities they afforded. Gregg in par- ticular had been working at least since 1845 to change Carolina's habits of industrial thought. 3 ProbaTsly in connection with his work before the legislature, he met Hammond, and the two became friends at once. Both thought that the Bank directors individually and collectively hampered Gregg s cotton mill at every possible turn. Gregg felt that Hammond was

35

Hammond's Diary, March 11, 1849. Hammond Papers, Novenber-Deoerher , 1343. Merciory, Novermber-DeceTber , 1840. Courier, November-December, 1*^48.

36

Letters by Gregg appear in the Courier beginning January 28, 1845, in the Columbia Southern Chronicle, July 23, 1845; the Charleston Evening News, October IC^ , December 13, 1^, 19, 1847; March 6, 11, 31, 1846; Mercury, April 8, 1348, ff.

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91

the logical man to deliver an oration on the manufacturing interests of the State. Hanmond began the oration be showing that cotton, to the culture of which South Carolina had for sixty years chiefly devoted herself, had not reached a point at which its value was regulated, not

by supply and demand, but by the cost of production. And the cost of

37 production in South Carolina was too high to make its cultivation pay.

At an 4noome of two per cent. South Carolina was being impoverished and

depopulated. "For the last twenty years floating capital to the amount

of five hundred thousand dollars per annum and slaves to the number of

83,000 had been taken by their masters to richer distant lands." Nothing

much was to be expected from improved agricultural methods.

Presumably most of the available capital and enterprise would

for some time to come be absorbed in cotton manufacturing, so superior

were South Carolina's advantages in that line. Already the South more

than supplied herself with coarse cotton cloths. Cotton manufacturing

"has hitherto afforded, and still sif fords, the largest returns on its

investments, of any other permanent industrial pursuit the world has ever

known," and from experiments made, it was confidently expected that a

proper development of Southern resources would lead to profits so great

as to attract abundant skill and capital.

With the English and North could not compete in the open markets

38 of the world, but the South probably could. According to Montgomery,

37

Land which enables the planter to produce 2000 pounds per full hand, returns seven per cent and such land is abundant in the south and southwest. But in South Ceu'olina the land yields an average of only 1290 pounds per full hand and a return of only two or three per cent .

38

Montgomery: Cotton Manufacturing in the Great Britain and the United States, Glasgow, 1840.

98

the cost of a factory in the United States was §60,000 more than in England for buildings and machinery, yet because an American factory made 16,000 yards more in a fortnight than the English one, and be6ause the American one had so much less expense for transportation, the final cost of manufacturing was in favor of the United States. And a Southern factory would save almost all the transportation cheirges. Wherever men can live cheapest gind work longest, there the cost of labor

will be least. The laborer in the South did not need as much clothing

7,9 or food or fuel or lodging as his Northern or English fellow.

Hsid South Carolina manufactured all her own 1346 crop, she would, at the British rate, have been ^24,000,000 richer, according to Hsimmond. And she had the resources to manufacture so great a crop. $40,000,000 judiciously invested would accomplish it, and South Carolina had in the last twenty years lost over twice that sum for want of profit- able investment for it. Slaves could undoubtedly be trained for operatives but it would not be wise or necessary to use them. There were about 50,000 non-aelf-supporting whites in South Carolina from whom the necessary 35,000 operatives could be drawn as rapidly as necessary. "We have coal and iron. We have, besides, immense forests and noble streams without number. We have capital and labor, and the raw material is peculiarly ours. It only remains for us to prove to the world that we

39

13 bushels of corn = 86.00

160 pounds of bacon = $9.00

coffee and sugar = H.OO

Total =319.00

So that *19,00 was the cost of a full supply of wholesome, palatable food. The garden and chickens which each slave family had, cost nothinr. And according to the Edinburj^h Review in 1842, the English workman spent more than that for bread only, ind for less bread.

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93

n40 have the courage to claim our orm.

Much that Hammond said now he had believed, and ur^^ed too, in his address before the State Agricultural Society in 1841. He had said then as now that cotton production in South Carolina did not pay and could not be made to pay, and that cotton manufacturinf^ as indubitably would pay. On one point only had his opinion changed seriously. In 1841 he had urged the possibility and advisability of using slave labor in the mills. Now he believed white labor safer and better. The In- stitute address was, to use Hajmnond's own report, "highly applauded on all sides." He "received a public dinner from the Board of the

Institute t another from the Chamber of Commerce. The latter was

„42 spontaneous and the first dinner the Chamber ever gave to any one.

40

Yet he wrote to Quattlebum in the summer while he was working on this oration that he had "no idea of placing the manufacturin? above the agricultural interest either politically or socially & in view of their introduction regret[tedj that suffrage was not restricted to landowners. At all events they should use native operatives ... .This is eoing to be the great question in So Ca and you should study it." (Hammond to Paul Quattlebum, July 9, 1849, not in the Library of Congress ).

41

Diary, December 15, 1849.

48

Hammond's Diary, Deoenber 15, 1S49. Of the College societies oration some two weeks later, the orator thought that it was "the best thing I ever did. The encomiums passed on it by those capable of judging were perfectly satisfactory ic the multitude were not backward in echoing them."

For a whimsically egotistical view of these two pieces, s ^e Ham- jaond to Simms, December 20, 1849.

The Institute address of which account has just been given was abundantly published in pamphlet form. It was also included by DeBow in his Industrial Resources, vol. iii, p. 24, ff.

'. C-'W 1

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CHAPTER V HAl^OND IN CONVENTIONS

The "Dutch man-cf-Trar which brought us twenty nee,r,ars" began the process of Southern nationalization in 1*^19, altbough for tv.-o centuries it Ti'ent on unaided and alrrost unseen even by those ur.cn whom it was working. Of course nen ujiderstood - come men at least - that slave labor and free labor 'were incompatible, but in those early days a political remedy v'as rarely sought. No one thought then of the pos- sibility of two nations arising. It was one, or thirteen or fifteen, whatever happened to be the number of colonies or states. And the VYar of 1812 and the Louisiana Purchase, equally rith the extension or the restriction or the extinction of slavery were subjects which divided the country. Even the Missouri comproEise did not demand the extinction of slavery, was a contest of two opposing forces for a conmon prize, not a life and death striiggle between antagonists.

But with the 1820 compromise the South became acutely con- scious of herself as a unit, a whole, a nation and not a region in another union. From then on, the Southern states came to see that their real unity of interest was with each other and not vfith the North. And they chose the remedy readiest to their hand. They did r.ct need the Northern states, and they clung to, and developed a thecrj', state rights, which allowed them, to go. Put it was a weapon, net a citadel, which they sought and found in state sovereignty. Frcm 1820 on, then, the South felt

, '{1 JTI .

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herself to be a whole, felt certainly that she was coming to be a nation. Even at the time of nullification, there is room to believe that sorce of the co-States would have come to Carolina's aid if the Union had used force against her.

Hsimmond's consciousness that there were in 1 B3fi two nations in the Union, and his clear explanation of their origin and course of the division, have already been mentioned. He believed that the im- perative duty of every true Southerner v;as to awaken the jealous , warring Southern factions to a consciousness of their duty and th.eir future. "We must unite the South," he said, "Every head everv heart every hand must be devoted to that purpcje. The impatient fP-'^ett and

Yancey] must be restrained; the t-'m.id and the wavering must be en-

nl couraged; the laggard must be whipped in and the deserter shot.

Anything which worked toward Southern unity Hamm.ond favored. One of his favorite projects was direct trade with Europe, for t^-at would Southern dependence upon the North and Southern attachment to it. At least by 1837 and possibly earlier, direct trade meetings, im- portant enough to be called conventions, were held in the lower South.

The 1837 one was held in Augusta, Georgia, in mid-Cctober under

I 2

Calhcun s direct patronage and favor. VcDuffie was present and was

chairman of the committee on resolutions. The convention favored

establishing a system of direct importations from Europe and throwing

n 3

off degrading shackles of our comjmercial dependence. In 1S3S

1

Hammond to B. Tucker, March 11, 1836. 2

J. C. Calhoun to J. E. Calhoun, September 7, 1S37, Corr., p. 377. 3

Courier, October 24, 1837; "/ercury, October 26, 1837.

**^ - ~r-f ry i-T -■

i -■••■.{9V3 'io V

.311 Y""'"

96

4 meetings were held in April and in October.

In 1839 a four day contention, the largest of them all, was held in Charleston in April Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida sent delegates, to the number of more than two hundred. South Carolina was espeically well represented with I'emminger and Preston, Ker Boyce and Hamilton, Wade Hampton and F. H. Elmore in her delegation. Hayne vi&s especially prominent. McDuffie who had been so active in work for direct trade was not there. He was in :£ngland at v/crk for his object, fidding prices for staples the planters needed and trying to start from that end a direct trade between South Carolina ani Great Britain. Hammond was at the convention, working vigorously for McDuffie' s ideas which were his ideas, too. Ten years later, Hammond finally induced the Legislature to subsidize a staam.ship line to run to Liverpool and Havre.

It is alm-ost idle to say that these trade conventions had political significance; with som.e of their promoters they had a political intent. Even Calhoun who died in 1850 with dark forebodings about the fate of the Unon thought early in 1637 that "nothing could be vforse than the state of things here" and believed that "something must be done and in my opinion that something is a Southern Convention." "l write not, you know, for the press.

4

Mercury, April 5,6; October 19, 1S3S. 5

George McDuffie to Hammond, March 31, 1839. 6

Hammond to H. W. Conner, July 17, 1850, Df.

Hammond to Simms, July 25, 1850.

A. H. Brisbane to Hammond, February 25, 1851.

S. W. Trotti to Hammond, December 11, 1839.

7

Calhoun Cofrr., Calhoun to James Edward Calhoun, December 20, 1837, Calhoun MSB., Library of Congress, Calhoun to J. R. Mathev/s , February 12, 1837.

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97

g Hammond thought by 1835 that "disunion is inevitsible. From

that time on a Southern convention was a favorite measure with both

Calhoun and Hammond. From the early forties the demand for a Southern

convention grew throughout the South. In 1944 there was much talk of

it in connection with the Texas annexation question, especially in

South Carolina. With the appearance of the V/ilm.ot proviso in 1S46 the

desire for a convention revived and widened and grew more definite.

In 1847 Calhoun favored the formation of a southern party to

Q tt n

defend slavery.' From this proposal Hammond dissented in toto , for

he san it would lead to the formation of a northern anti-slavery

10 party. He opposed also the establishment of a pro-slavery paper in

VYashington, for he thought it would be only a Calhoun organ, and he

was sure it would do more harm than good. "They cannot get the manlor

adopt the tone that will unite all the slaveholders. . .because when it

comes to be tried it willbe found that Kentucky &c. do not take the

same views of the question t?iat So Ca tc. do. An attempt to establish

a common ground for discussion will develope the diversity in our

sentiments & I fear greatly weaken our cause. And tlie one thing

Hammond desired before all else was an undivided South, a South without

diversity of sentiment.

8 9

10 11

Hammond to I. V/. Hayne , September 1, fl^^S], Df.

Calhoun: Works, vol. iv, pp. 382-3Pfi; Calhoun Ccrr., pp. 718-720. Mercury, March 10, 23, 1847.

Hammond to Simms, March 2P , April 1, 19, 1847.

Hammond to I. ff. Hayne, June 4, 1847. I. W. Hayne to Soule, August 25, 1847. Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, September 5, 1847. Hammond to Simms, November 1, 1847.

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98

Throughout the state during 1847 the demand for a convention

12 of the section grew. The Mercury approved specifically. Calhoun

urged it. T'eetings throughout the state demanded it. ■ Most of

them, to be sure, vrere vague on specific measures to be acted on by the

convention, but some cooperation they all desired. Hammond took no

part in this agitation for it seemed to him only a dream at this tir.e,

15 and he did not think Calhoun unselfish or sincere in urging it. A

1^ year later the idea of a Southern convention seem.ed less hopeless,

although Barnwell Rhett did not favor it. In 1°4S Rhett was ready, as

in 1844, for action but he did not think a convention would eet any

17 action. And the Mercury agreed v/ith him. Yihert the legislature met,

18 Governor Johnson favored a convention, and it was unanimously received

that South Carolina was prepared to cooperate in resisting the Wilmot

H 1.19

proviso at any and every hazard.

The attempt to unite all the Southern members of Congress in an address to the people of the South proved discouraging to conven- tionites, although it exactly bore out Hammond s objection to a pro-

12

Mercury, August 9, 1847. 13

Calhoun to ["Joseph Lesesne] in Benton: Thirty Years, vol. ii, pp. 698-700.

14

Mercury, October 11, 1847. 15

Hammond's Diary, '>^arch, 1^47, 16

Mercury, Septenber 12, 1848, quctin.^ from Abbeville Banner. St, Peter's wanted a convention. Mercury, Septerrber 20, 1B48. Fairfield authorised her representative to leave Congress if the Wilr.ot proviso passed, and directed the appointment of a coionittee of correspondence. Mercury, Novem.ber 16, October 1?. , November 21, 1S48.

17

Speech by Rhett in Charleston, September 2Z , 1848, in Mercury, Septem.ber 29, 1848.

99

slavery nev;spaper. As the result of an attempt to prohibit slavery in the District of Columbia a n^eeting of the Southern delegation in Washington chose Calhoun to draw up an address. VvTien Calhoun pre- sented the Gouthern Address, iThigs and Democrats divided along party

20 lines instead of uniting to defend the South, and the \'ihie,s under

Toombs were able to alter and soften Calhoun's langaage , though -they

failed to prevent the adoption of any address. Of the fcrty-eight

signers, about two-fifths of the Southern delegates, only two were

Vfhigs. The Address discussed, very ably, the abolition crusade, the

Northern violations of the Constitution, the offensive recently begun

in Congress and the probability of its success unless the South itself

.^ , . ... 21 unitea m opposition.

The Southern Address had failed to unite the Southern delega- tion but it succeeded in arousing a degree of attention from- the people

18

South Csirolina Senate Journals, 1^48, pp. 26-28. 19

South Carolina Reports and Resolutions, 1P48, p. 147.

Not yet did the word disunion ccme readily to the legislative tongue. Other states, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, all were willing to cooperate, but they were hazy on the proper form, of co- operation.

Laws of Virginia, 1P48-1849, p. 257.

30 Cong., 2 sess., Sen. Misc. Doc, 58.

30 Cong.^ 2 sess., H. Misc. Doc, 54.

Laws of iMorth Carolina, 1848-1849, Resolutions, 237-239.

31 Cong., 1 sess., Sem. Misc. Doc, 24.

20

Robert Toombs to John J. Crittenden, January 3, 1849, ir Toorbs Stephens Cobb Corr., pp. 189-142.

21

Calhoun: Works, vol. vi, pp. 285-313. Benton: Thirty Yeara'View," vol . ii, p. 733 ff. Polk: Diary, vol. ii, pp. 285-286. Washington Union, January IP, 24, 28, 1849. Charleston Mercury, January 31, 1849.

1o 1- i.+,-cii:.e vi-i

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100

22 of the South. By the end of February Charleston responded. In a

month or two Barnwell, Beaufort, Williamsburg, Colleton, Camden,

Sumter, Lexington, Abbeville, York, Union, Spartanburg, Laurens and

Msirlborough had approved, and meetings of endorsement had been held

in other Southern states, outside of South Carolina." Hammond

although he was so entirely out of touch with public sentiment, felt

it would do great good in arousing the Southern people to the near-

24 ness of the crisis.

In almost every case, the South Carolina meetings called on

account of the Southern Address had ended in the appointment of

committeeB of safety and correspondence. By I.'ay 1R49 there was a

central committee of safety, and twenty-nine districts and parishes

sent representatives to a meeting in Columbia. Calhoun advised that

25 this Columbia meeting try to pave the way for a Southern convention.

But the resolutions adopted were far milder than that. They were

milder than the district meetings and the newspapers, and beyond a doubt

they represent the heart's convictions of t^e leaders of the state.

South Carolina was ready to act with other Southern states. To that

end there should be elected a Central State Committee of Vigilance and

22

Mercury, Februarj' 28, 1^49. 23

Mercury, March 26, 1849. 24

Hamjnond to Calhoun, February 19, 1«49, 25

Calhoun to Means, April 13, 1949.

'1 9 v..

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d"ns3

101

2r.

Safety.

At the suggestioh of the committee the Governor wrote to other Southern governors, asking how much cooperation South Carolina

could expeot from them. Although apparently but one reply was re-

27 oeived, it was decided to send Daniel V/allac° to represent the state,

29 confidentially, at the Mississippi convention in October. iVallace

was amazed to find in Mississippi a very intense and active prejudice

2P against South Carolina'^but nevertheless he thought that when the time

came Mississippi would act correctly. Nor was he disappointed.

After passing good Southern resolutions on interfering with slavery, the Mississippi convention call-^d a convention of all slave- holding States for Nashville in June ISSO, Calhoun was of course

30 eager for such a convention, and Hammond had long desired it also,

but he savT, what Wallace had found out, that to agitate it in South

Carolina would be injurious to its chance of success. For this reason

South Carolina would have preferred to have her endorsement of the call

come after other States had acted but that was impossible. The 1S50

session of the legislature would be too late, and the 1B49 session

began almost immediately after the end of the Mississippi convention.

31 Governor Seabrook indorsed the Mississippi call. A caucus of the

26

Those elected were F. H. Elmore, James Gadsden, .Vade Hampton, D. J. McCord, and P. W. Pickens.

Mercury, May 15-17, 1849.

27

W. B. Seabrook Papers.

Elmore to Seabrook, May 30, 1849.

Moseley, Florida, to Seabrook, May 18, 1849.

28

Mississippi had been the only State except South Carolina all of whose delegation in Congress had signed the Southern Address. After some months of agitation, and a partial preliminary convention in May, a con- vention of all the State was called for October. Calhoun in a letter to

102

entire legislatiire was confident that South Carolina would support any Pleasures the Convention adopted, and a few days later the caucus elected the four delegates-at- large , Cheves, Slmore , Barnviell and Ham- mond. Further than this it did not go. It did not even express an

32 opinion on what the convention ought to do.

"This Convention," said Hammond, "may turn out nothing or may

33 be the greatest event since 1790." Certainly there was much reason

for his pessimism. The first session of the thirty-first congress

opened on December 3, 1849, and it opened badly for the South. The

three weeks of struggle over the speakership ended in the election of

the rather unsatisfactory Howell Cobb by grace of t're Free-Soilers .

Some months before the new congress opened, it was known in South Caro-

lina^that California was forming a State government which was almost

certain to forbid slavery, and that this was being done under Federal

guidance. Nejct came Clay's coirpromise resolutions of Januarj' 29, 1S50,

and Calhoim's and Webster's speeches. There was prospect of a truce of

some duration. Hammond was discouraged. He had started the Georgia

Constitutionalist and the Repullic to agitating for a convention to send

C. S. Tarpley, July 9, 1849, urged that this convention act towards a general Southern convention. Only by such a convention could both the Union ad the South be saved. The Tarpley letter is in the Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 1 sess., app. 52.

29

Seabrook Paners , Wallace to Seabrook, November 7, 1849. 30

Har-mond to ','. C. M. Hammond, November 16, 1S49. "Have a letter from Calhoun urging me to move in favor of a Southern Convention. . .1 have replied that it is my favorite measure."

31

I/essage to the Governor, November 27, 1S4?. South Carolina Senate Journals, 1849, pp. 10-28.

32

Mercury, November 29, December 1, 10, 13, 1849. 33

Hajranond's Diary, December 15, 1849. 34

Mercury, August 1, 1849.

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delegates to Nashville, and he had had "great hopes that an impassable

35 breach would be made before all was over," but by early sprin? he

doubted it and thought that if there was a truce, the Nashville Gon-

vention would degenerate into a presidential caucus. A little

later, and he was going only because it might do something, though he

doubted it would do much. The Clay compromise had lowered Southern

37 tone so much that a convention could do nothing decided.

When the convention met at Nashville, June 3, 1850, dele- gates from nine of the slave-iiolding States were present. By June third, Calhoun who had done so much to bring the convention to pass, was dead. Resolutions which he had drawn up very shortly before his death asserted the entire unconstitutionality of the California con- stitution, and the opposition of the South to the i/ilmot proviso, and declared that the time had come "to settle fully and forever all the

questions at issue." These resolutions were sent at his direction to

39 Hamnond , "were taken by him to the convention, but there is nothing

to show that they were used.

In June, 1350 Congress was still working upon the various

measures of the Clay compromise, a fact which influenced the work of

the convention as much as Hammond feared it rr.ight. Hamnond was on all

the committees and v?orked hard. He carried throurh the resolutions

committee the address prepared by Barnwell Rhett, and "demolished"

40 Judge Sharkey, the president, in a speech upon it.

35

Hammond's Diary, March 17, 1850. 36

Hammond to Simms, March 2(1, 1850. 37

Hammond's Diary, April-jvlay, 1350. The exact date of tke entry

is uncertain. 38

Calhoun Correspondence, 787.

t.tlit'rro':

104

The convention condemned the pending ccmpromise; refused to discuss measures of resistance to measures not yet adopted; and offered as an extreme compromise the extension of the line 36 30 to the Pacific. Hammond had no high opinion of the work of the Nashville convention. Before he returned home he wrote back that the results "do not amount to much," that he found it impossible to su.'^gest for use at this tine remedies requirin^^ separata state action, and that

for that reason he had kept still, since he "did not care to discuss

„ 42 _ what I had no faith in, though compelled to support it. The (?:reat

point," he added, "is that the South has met , has -^cted with ^reat

harmony in a nine days meeting, & above all has agreed to meet again...

My great point was another meeting."

Calhoun has been charged by those who do not knovi and by those

who ought to know, with plotting, certainly with desiring, to dissolve

the Union. The charge is exploded now, and v;as always unjast. Calhoun

loved the Union. But he loved the South still more, "in considering

it [a Southern convention"), I assume that the first desire of every

true-hearted Southern man is, to save, if possible, the Union, as well

as ourselves; but if both cannot be, then to save ourselves at all

n 43 events. In nothing does Hammond show his independence of Calhoun

39

Joseph A. Scoville to Hainmond, April IB, 1350. 40

Hammond's Diary, August 10, 1B50. 41

Mercury, June 12, 13, 15, 20, 1B50. 42

Hammond to Simms, June l'^ , 1B50. 43

Calhoun to Foote , August 3, 1R49, in the I'ercury, June 4, 1351.

105

more than in his attitude to the Union. At no tims through his life does he feel or profess any attachnent to it. Unlike his frreat pre- decessor, his idea was the burdensomeness and uniesiraVility of the Union. At different times he says he had long been a iisunionist. "l have for near or quite twenty years been in favour of disunion," he said to himself on returning from Nashville. The value of the Union, he told Calhoun in 1849, was hourly being calculated in every corner of the South and the conviction was growing that it was a burden of which they were better rid. " I have thought this myself for twenty years." "From the oommenceraert of my legally political life I have worked faithfully for the dissolution of the Union often with all against me but Rhett.

These views are retrospective, but from time to time Ham- mond expressed views which can be reco.~nized as similar ."T" It has come to this in our opinion that we of the South are to have no more free- som than we can maintain at the point of the sword & we are determined to be always prepared for that issue whenever it is necessary to m.ake it."^^

In 1344, Hammond thought a government crisis near. The North was determined to tax the South for its own benefit, and to uproot "our peculiar domestic institutions. A peaceful separation is not my

44

Hammond's Diary, August 10, 1350. 45

Hammond to Calhoun, February 19, 1849. 46

Hammond to L. M. Keitt, fNovem.ber 11,1 1362, Df. 47

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, J^'arch 27, 1R33.

Hammond to John H. Pleasants, January 27, 1833, Df.

Hammond to T. 7/. Hayne , September 1, 1835, Df.

Or could anything more calmly assume disunion as inevitable and certain, than this letter written from Rom.e? Congress, said Hammond to >Yaddy Thompson, ought to buy all the good statuary which any member

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106

only hope."^^ Just before the session of the legislature in which he reoonunended in vain separate State action, Governor Ham-ond was still more certain of speedy disunion. "A separation of the States at no re- mote period is inevitable. It might now be affected peacefully and properly. A few jnears hence it must take place in blood or the South remain m it as a subjugated region.

Hammond was a worker for disunion long before he was ready to advocate it openly. The contemporary expressions so far quoted are all

to men with whom he was at the time rather more than acquainted. "l

50 want to know how far the interests of the Review will permit me to put

the question of North 5; South in its true colors. Cf course it will

not do to advocate disunion but I propose in a quiet way to sliow

the [probably "that"] v^e have nothing to fear from it — that our

wealth t strength are sufficient to enable us to take & maintain a stand

among the nations." Always it was the South, not South Carolina alone,

which Hammond thought of as seceding. Even when in 1R44 he recommended

early and decisive State action, that action was not to be separ-ate state

52 secession, as the resolutions which he had introduced at the time show.

It was along this line that Hammond had much to say of disunion

in connection with the work of the Nashville Convention. The South

Carolina delegation had laid the foundation for great influence for their

proposes. "They will be there," he went on, "S: someboiy must get them in ^ the general breaking up." (Hammond to V/addy Thompson, December 13, ISI^'^u'

48

Hammond's Diary, August 7, 1P.44. 49

Hammond's Diary, November 24, 1^44. 50

The Southern Quarterly Review v/ith which Simms had just associated himself.

51

Heuranond to Simms, March 23, 1849. 52

Hammond's Diary, November 25, 1B44.

-{

107

State among the Southern States, biat immediately after it adjourned, Rhett at a meeting in Charleston, "openly hoisted the Banner of Dis- union — He a Delegate & known to be the author of the Address. He has been of course denounced throughout the Union and So Ca along vfith him.

Clay and Foots in the U. 3. Senate denounced him as a traitor." Hammond

53 did not disagree with Rhett's sentiments, as he told 5imins,'Dut he

thought it most unwise to utter them now.

"Rhett's speeclt has given everyone a handle to abuse So Ca i

to endeavor to hold her up as the leader of the Southern move-nent i its

aim as disunion. For this the South is not yet fully prepared 5: many

may be alarmed 4 kept out of it by this course. Nothing cculi have been

I 54

more injudicious than Rhett s speech... It was criminal.

"l should be ffoi' secession"] if I thought it judicious as I have for near or quite twenty years been in favour of disunion & believed it inevitable... I have not yet appeared in print as an avowed secessionist.. I think I can do more good at present bv appearing to be cautious, k in fact being so."" '

Calhoun spoke his vicarious valedictorjr in the Senate on March 4. Almost exactly four weeks later he lay dead in the back parlor of Hill's mess in Washington, and South Carolina was in mourning. "Wr. Calhoun is dead," said Hammond t "l feel his death even more sensibly than I ex- pected... He was a wall of granite in resisting & the good he had done in preventing evil is incalculable. But after all evil has become intoler- able k the jealousy of him — his towering genius 4 uncorpromising temper

53 Hammond to Simms, June 27, 1350. 54

Hammond's Diary, August 10, 1R50. 55

Hammond s Diary, date not given but from internal evidence, be- tweefa November 21, and December 14, 1950.

lOB

has had much effect in preventing the South from uniting to resist it/5^

Within a week of Calhoun's death, the City Council of Charleston had appointed Hammond to p;ive the memorial oration for him."'''^ Hammond accepted, but hardly had he done so when Governor Seabrook appointed R. ^. Rhett to a similar duty for the legisla- ture. Hammond was disgusted at this contest for the crown into which he had, however unwillingly, been thrown. He threatened to withdraw

and not deliver the oration, but so great was the protest from his

53 friends that he went ahead. ' It was delivered in Charleston to an

applauding audience on November 21, 1850, and the orator was given a

dinner by the City Council.

Hammond's Calhoun was, from the intellectual and literary point, quite the best thing he had done and probably the best he ever did- It did not arouse the enthusiasT. created by the Clarkson letters or by the "Cotton is King" speech, but their immense popularity was due in part, and in large part to this fact, that they had aig influ- ence for action upon his large communitv, entirely foreign to an oration on their departed leader.

Upon this leader Hammond was speaking, less than a year since his death and while his living memory w.s still warm ir- Carolinats heart, yet lis speech y/as more than a good word. He praised Calhoun's course in the ^ouse of Representatives, yet he said also that many of his views at this time were essentially wron;!^ and many of his opinions

56

Hammond's Diary, April 7, 1850. 57

J. C. Norris , Clerk of the Council, to Hammond, April 5, 1S50.

T. L. Hutchinson, Iv'ayor, to Hammond, April '^ , 1S50.

58

Hammond to Simms, April 2^, n50.

H. M. Conner to Hammond, April 29, 1«50.

Hammond to Simms, August 23, 1850.

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109

there had contributed powerfully to the injury oA'' the South . For Calhoun's course in opposing the tariff of 1S28, Hairmond had most eloquent praise. It was then, said he, that Calhoun surrendered his prospects for the presidency, surrendered them for the constitution and the cause of justice.

In the course of his praise for Calhoun s speech on the Force Bill, Hanmond had a touch of insight apcroaching inspiration. "And if," said he, "logic, building on undoubted facts can demonstrate any moral

proposition, then Mjr. Calhoun made as clear as mathematical solution,

n 59 his theory of our ^-^overnment . " Did Hammond think that he had said

something as self-evident as the sum of two and two? Or did he see that he had there approached at least to a solution of the whole trouble; did he see that men cannot be made to obey the rules of logic when working on what they feel to be a moral question, that Calhoun's argument, logical, brilliant, unanswerable though it was, was as power- less and incomplete as the old and now abandoned "economic nan" 7

Hammond had not hesitated to mention and even to emphasize Calhoun's errors of judgment, he did not hesitate to say when he thought his abilities too highly praised.

"The colloquial powers of Mr. Calhoun have been highly lauded. In this there is a mistake. Strictly speaking he had no uncommon en- dowment of this sort. It is true that he entered readily and easily into any conversation... But he exhibited no sparkling wit, no keen retort, none of that liveliness of fancy which so delightf'jlly season and refine familiar conversation. Nor was he anything of a raconteur. All these things he occasionally enjoyed with much zest, but rarely at-.

59

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, p. 2fi0.

110

tempted them himself.

Calhoun's theory of governinent Hamnoni forecast with no little acciiracy, thourh the material at his hand was not abundant. He had the 1843 Life and probably copies of most or all of his speeches, and he had at various times had a few, a very few, conversations with Calhoun. Slender sources a modern historian would think, for a ,iust estimate of a man like Calhoun. Yet even a modern historian would adnit that the estimate is just, that, as Hammond said, "if the Oration should be read

twenty years hence it will be supposed it was written after the book

1.^1 [Calhoun: Works, vol. IT.

Calhoun's death left a vacancy in the Senate to which the

Governor had the pov/er of temporary appointment. The three most prominent

men in the State were R. B. Rhett, F. H. Elmore and Hammond. Charleston

public opinion favored Hammond and there was room to believe that he was

Calhoun's own choice." But Governor Seabrook, "like an ass as he is,"

desired to go to the Senate and he would appoint no one likely to be

stronger with the legislature than he. Had he been able, he v/culd have

appointed a man weaker than any of the three. Appoint Hammond, the

strongest of the three, he would not. He save the Senate place to 21more ,

and in order still further to weaken the force of Harr.mond's oration, he

appointed Rhett to deliver a eulo^^y on Calhoun before the legislature.

60

Hammond: Betters and Speeches, nn. E93-294. 61

Hammond' c Diary, October 1, [13511. 62

Simms to Hanmond, April 2, 4, ri°.5C1.

H. VY. Conner to Hammond, April 8, 1^50.

Joseph A. Scoville to Hammond, April 18, 1S50.

63

Hammond's Diary, April 7, 1R50.

Simms to Hammond, April 2, 4, 10, 1350.

H. V/. Conner to Hammond, April 3, 4, 6, 9, 1850

Ill

Vflien the legislature met Elmore had died and Haimnond and Rhett were the only real candidates. Rhett was elected on the fourth ballot over Hammond, who lost none of his votes.

Hammond said to himself before the election that it was a test;

that he would not withdraw and would therefore feel forever beaten if he

65 failed of election. His friends all agreed that he was defeated

because he had not returned to the irregular November session of the Nashville Convention. He had returned from Nashville saying that the only good thing about it was that the South had net and had agreed to meet again. But since then he had come more and more to believe that the true crisis was not at hand, that although South Carolina was ready to secede no other State would follov/ her. And, sc believing, he felt that the convention would be useless, if it did not actually harm the cause of a Southern Confederacy.

Even with so powerful an argument as Kamnond's supposed indif- ference, there was much campaigning needed to elect Rhett over him. The Rhett faction disagreed on sight with the prevalent opinion that at Calhoun's death Hammond was the first man in the State, and they would use any grist that came to their mill in an effort to supplant him. And the grist came. Some of it was old, but it had not gone s*-,ale. It was

James K. walker to Hammond, April 13, 1850. Hammond to M. C. I'.. Harr.ond , April 16, l."-".50. 7fe. H. Gist to Hammond, April 20, 1850. I. ». Hayne to Hammond, "ay 3, 1850.

64

L. U. Ayer, Jr. to HamraonJ , DeceiT.ber 13, 1350. 65

Hammond's Diary, December 15, 1°50.

Hammond to Simms, December 10, 1-950. •

66

It was irregular in that, although the June session had resolved to meet again, it met now in November without any call by its president, who alone could regularly bid it reasserible.

Paul Quattlebum to Hammond, December 17, 1B50.

V.'£-ltr;

OW 9i-i<-

'^-f.+ +r

si-y n-r'^'

QOZ'tT-

t.nY£

■r-ii afiv

112

still possible to utilize the unsatisfied curiosity about the Hampton quarrel. The situation between HaTimond and the Bank v/as equally un- friendly. Most of all, Hammond would not and did not electioneer, and

Rhett very decidedly would and did. And Hammond did not return to

68 Nashville.

Despite the paralyzing effect on the Nashville convention and

the South in general, of the compromise of 1850, the announcement of

its terms in South Carolina had given rise to much disunion talk. By

sale day in October there was a Southern Rights Association in almost ©very district of the State. The Fairfield Herald made up a long list of reasons why it favored disunion and other papers approved the list. Even the Courier thought disunion inevitable.

As soon as the compromise measures were passed, Seabrook was

72 urged to convene the legislature, but he refused. The regular sessic

of the legislature opened with days and weeks of v/rangling on Federal

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, October 10, 1''50, January Z, 1851. I. W. Hayne to Hammond, October 15, 1850. M. L. Bonham to Hammond, November 3, 1850. Maxcy Gregg to Hammond, November 4, 1850.

67

Paul Quattlebur. to Hammond, January 28, 1851.

John Russel to Hammond, January 9, February 10, 1851.

68

Hammond was m.uch embittered by hisdefeat, m.ore even than he usually was, and he resisted all efforts to c?ieer him up.

Hammond to Simms, December 23, 1850, February 4, March 20, 1851.

Hammond's Disu-y, December 21, 1850.

James '■'. V/alker to Hammond, December, 1850.

[B. Tucker] to Hammond, January 2, February 4, 1851.

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, January 7, 1851.

Simms to Hamjnond , January 30, [1851].

69

Mercury, August 28, September 5^ October 4, 1850. 70

Mercury, November 6, October 21, 1850.

South Carolinian, October 22, 1850.

71

Courier, November 7, 1850.

113

relations. Nashville's call for a Southern cor;.f:ress hecair.e tangled up with the idea of a separate £3tate convention for South Carolina. At length it was noted to send delegates to the Southern ccrsress by popular election, and to hold a state convention at a time to be set by the next legislature unless the GoVf^rnor called it within the year. Hammond was not satisfied. "I doubt if a single State will send ner.bers to the Montgomery Convention... This will make the whole

affair ridiculous'.. I fear our action now is so premature that the

74 other states will recoil.

On sale day in May, the Southern Rights Association of the

State met in convention in Charleston on call of the Charleston associa-

75 tion. ' Vaxcy Gregg submitted an address and resolutions which took

for granted that the coming state convention would withdraw South

76 Carolina a separatelj- from the Union. After two days of speeches the

meeting almost unanimously adopted the resolutions and formed itself

into a Southern Rights Association of the State of South Carolina. By

the sunmer of 1851 the reaction against the extreme secession attitude

of the State Rights convention vtas producing, thouph slowly, a strong

cooperation party. There v/ere, naturally, various shades of opinion

Of course there was some opposition to this disunion talk. The Greenville Southern Patriot was founded about this time. Courier, November 15, 1950.

72

Governor Towns of Georgia had said that if South Carolina did any- thing decided, the Union party would be able to bind Georgia to submission.

V('. B. Seabrook papers, Seabrook to Colonel John A. Leland, Septeciber 21, 1850.

Seabrook to f Governor of Alabaima, Virginia, J/ississippi , ] Septem- ber 20, 1350. Confidential.

Governor G. v;. Towns to Seabrook, September 25, 1B50.

73

South Carolina Journals, 1850. Courier, November 30-December 21, 1''50. Mercury, December 20, 21, 1850.

114

on each side. To the Cecessionists were attracted all who wanted to do something and believed that secession was the only alternative to abject submission. Their nain leader was Barnwell Rhett. Of the Cooperationists some, like Perry and Waddy Thoirpson and Poinsett were for entire submission: some, and a larger nuir.ber, were not Trilling to secede without a previous agreeTT-ent v?ith other States.

Most Cooperationists wanted to \7ait, several years, for co- operatiof, and tc secede alone only as a last and desperate alterna- tive. Here Harmond was to be found. Others of this group were Lang- don Cheves, Congressm-en Barnwell, Butler, VToodward , Crr and Burt: all

the judges except Chancellor Dargan, and, said Hammond, "generally the

_77 ablest t most judicious men throughout the state. Charleston v/as

tv/c-thirds Cooperation. This Cooperation group tried its hardest, but

7ft in vain, to get Haranond out to work for it. He had been defeated by

Hammond's Diary, December 21, 1850. The second session of the Nashville Convention, the one Hammond did not attend, called a Southern congress.

74

Hammond's Diary, December 25, 1S50. 75

I'ercury, February 14, 1851. 76

Courier, I/:ay 6-9, 1851. 77

Hammond s Diary, September 7, 1951. Hammond considered he had founded this group.

73

7i'. A. Owens to Hammond, August 20, 1351.

H. R. Spann to Hammond, August 25, 1°51.

Charleston Cooperation Party tc Hammond, August 28, 1851.

Hammond to the Charleston Cooperation Party, Septem.ber 1, 1851.

115

Rhett for the Senate. He had seen the legislature adopt measures

which he thought rashly premature. He determined then, and made

his determination known, that he would have no more to do with. public

affairs. His withdrawal was not suffered to go unresisted. Even in

79 his retirment m.en of all opinions wrote to him for advice. Yet

though he would not come out, he was working for their success. He

80 had been stuffing Aldrich with facts and plans for months past, and he

gave his views fully and plainly to Gregg and Jones among the Seces- sionists.

No one expected that the Southern Congress for y^hich elec- tions were to be held in October would m.eet, for sumjner elections in other States had shown that South Carolina stood alone in opposition to the Compromise. But the elections could be used to show whether the very Secessionist state convention elected in February did or did not fairly represent the mind of the State. Certainly if the October elections showed a Cooperation preponderance the convention would not take the State into secession. The Secessionists took up the chal- lenge. Hammond thought the Cooperationists had made a tactical mistake, for they had been organized so recently that they could lose, and still not be really outnumbered; and he was sure they would not win,

79

Hammond to Carew and Heart, January 1^, 1^51, A. Df. S.

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, January 7, 1251, January 20, 1851 (out of place chronologically.)

Simms to Hammond, January 20, 1851.

B. Tucker to Hamm.ond , February 4, 1851. James Jones to Hammond, April 5, 1851. F.J. McCarthy to Hammond", April 21, 1851. Hammond to V. C. N(\ , Hammond , April 29, 1''51.

80

Hammond's Disu?y, October 14, ''ovember 30, December 4. 81

Courier, September 17, 1851.

Mercury, September 9, 24, 1851.

llfi

Such vfas the general expectation, ivt ir the event the Secessionists were annihilated. In every district except one, and that ore Rhet^ s

Qg

own, the Cooperationists won handily.

'*Vhen the elections showed so plainly that the State was not ready for separate state secession, the defeated Secessionist leaders fell back on Hammond s Plan of Action;'" now known by .-ome of them to be his. Hammond himself believed that his Plan was the only feasible thing. He gave them his opinions. He thought that there should be a large party formed nop; of all but the extreme wings of both Coo-nera- ticnists and Secessionists, com'nosed of all the reasonable Secession- ists and all the Cooperationists v/ho had ever contemplated secession, and that for this party his Plan was the best programme. The plan of keeping up the Secession organization was, he thought, foolish in the extreme. "Nothing could be more v;eak in policy or unpatriotic in principle .

For Rhett at this time Ha'TiOnd had only Vitterest condemna- tion. His mildest idea v.'as that Rhett v/as moved by a dei-ire for

PC

ncteriety.' He laid on Rhett the blame for the outcome of the recent elections in other States. He wrote him down as having in a twelvemonth scattered to the winds the Resistance party which existed in posse if not in esse at the time of the Nashville convention. Ha^miond rejected

82

Mercury, '^'ctober 29, IRSl. 83

It had been published anonjTnously in the iv'ercury, on May 2, I'^Sl and was later fathered by A. P. Aldrich. Han-mond said of it that "the plan is simply to cut every tie between So Ca & the Fed. Gov. which can be cut without affording a pretext for collision & to remain thus with one foot out of the Union until a sufficient num.ber of States take the same ground." Senators and Congressmen v/ould not be elected, for instance.

Hammond's Diary, May 25, 18-51.

84

James Jones to Hammond, October 2P , 1S51.

John Cunningham to Hammond, ^''overiber 10, 1851 (Confidential"''.

Hammond s Diary, November 21, 1=51.

117

the finality of the Clav Compromise so thoroughly that he was unable to see that the compromiae and not Rhett's excess of violenco hai caused South Carolina's isolation.

In the same bitterness of inird and heart which led him to speak so severely of Rhett, Hammond declined what he admitted was a chance to become the leader of the South. R. K. Cralle and D. H. Loudon, president of the central Sonthern Rirhts Association of Vir- ginia wrote, separately to him late in December of 1S51 and urged him to write a memorial of Southern injuries. It was to be laid by the convention of the Southern Rights Associations of Virginia before the Virginia legislature, and by them before the United States Congress. It offered him, he said, "much the best opportunity I have ever had for distinguishing myself... But I declined it. Repudiated by my cwn State .. .broken up as I am in my own household... I could not forget myself long enough even to begin it fairly." Nor did Aldrich's lengthy

attem.pt to prove the invitation really a vindication of his character

87 suffice to move him.

88 In the interval between the calling and the meeting of the co-n-

vention Hammond s advice and help v.'ere soupht by men of both Secession

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, November 8, IG, 11, l^r.i . 85

Hammond to Simms, November 21, IRBl, Hammond's Diary, November 21, ?0, I'^Rl.

86

Hammond's Diary, August 10, 1350, January 3, 31, 1851. 87

D. H. Loudon to Hammond, Decem.bsr 22, 1851.

Richard K. Cralle to Hammond, December 4, 1851.

Hammond's Diary, January 6, 1852.

Hammond to Simjns, January 27,, 1852.

A. P. Aldrich to Ham.mond , January 30, 1852.

B. Tucker probably had something to do with extending the invitation.

88

The convention, the date of the meeting of which had been left to the

succeeding legislature, had, after much hesitation, been set for the fourth

.Monday in April, 1852. A. P. Aldrich to Hannr.ond , November 2., 1851; -er-

lie

and Cooperation belief. As soon as it became evident that separate state secession could not nov/ be carried, and the Secessionists fell back on Hammond's Plan, Maxcy Greep, one of the most active Secession leaders, began to seek Hammond's counsel. Even after the call for the convention had been issued, he counsulted with him. '•^ At Rhett's sug- gestion he asked him to prepare the leadin;? documents for the coming convention. Hammond would not. " I wrote to Grerg positively declining to write anything for the Convention or to advise anythirg or even to express any opinion upon the present state of affairs. ' But what pride had failed to induce Hammond to do, i7hat sensitiveness had caused him to refuse to do, friendship succeeded in drawing him on to. His faithful Aldrich about the same time declared that he would adopt 'is suggestion to move as soon as the Convention assembled that it adjourn

sine die, and sent himi the resolutions he would introduce if he failed

9-1 to secure adjcurnm.ent. Hammond disapproved of the resolutions, and.

feeling it due to friendship to saj'' so and to fix it up, he drew up what he said was re a] best possible manner,

what he said was really a schedule of submdssion for dcinf^ it in the

92

cury, December 9, 1851.

89

Hammond v/as still interested in his Plan but only as an incident in the larger plan of disunion. "Order is a prime necessity in every com- m.unity, especially an agricultural one & most especially a slave-holding one. To the great body of the Southern People, the Union is the only tangible 5: appreciable Representative of Order, & it is solely on this account that they love & sustain it... They must be enlirhtened so as to appreciate these oppressions. . .& not viait for physical demonstration. And, pari passu, steps must be taken... to insure the rupture of the Union, vfhich do not in the first instance involve any violation of Order . . . My Flan is the "irst proper measure yet propounded." (Hamjnond's Dia'ry, Decem- ber 4, 185a..

90

Hammond's Diary, April 24, 1352.

Maxcy Gregg to Hammond, March 29, 1852.

i:t

,■;■■ I

119

The Convention met April 26, IS^^S. At first, though the Secessionists had a clear majority, they were in a snarl, v/ithout con- cert of policy. Both Secessionists and Coope'^ationists appointed un- official coFjnittees to confer vfith each other, tut these cormittees proved quite unable to agree to any line of action. To Hairanond's Plan the Convention paid little attention. Gregg would net consider it with- out serious amendments, and Aldrich v/ould not move or even vote for it

93 30 amended.

The report of the committee of twenty-one was finally adopted by a seven-to-cne vote. It consisted of a resolution that South Caro- lina was amply justified "in dissolving at once all political connection with her co-States; and that she forbears the exercise of this manifest right of self-government from considerations of expediency only." To this was added an ordinance relative to the right to secede: "ordained. That South Carolina... [has a] right, without let, hindrance or molesta- tion from anj' power whatsoever, to secede frorn the said Federal Union: and that for the sufficiency of the causes... she is responsible alone, under God, to the tribunal of public opinion among the nations of the earth." ^*

91

They v;ere to the effect that South Carolina was ready to divide the Union and would do so as soon as enough other States agreed.

92

Hammond's Diary, April 24, 1S52. Hamjnond to Simms, April 27, 1852.

93

IfMXcy Gregg to Hammond, March 29, 1852. A. P. Aldrich tc Hammond, April 20, 1852.

94

Journal of the State Convention of South Carolina, 1^52, up. 18-19. Mercury, April 28-30, May 1, 1852.

This first resolution resembles closely one of the resolutions in HaEimcnd s Plan.

120

"The incident of the Convention," said Hammond, "was the resignation of Rhett." Ke was in Columbia, although he was not a member of the Convention, "and wished to address the secession caucus when it met but they would not hear him." He was further reproved fcy the refusal of the convention to give him the ayes and noes on a measure in v/hich he was interested, and he had been much hurt by Clemens* s charge that he was in affinity with the advccat'^s of free soil. "Thus," commented Hammond characteristically, "he was literally kicked out in disgrace i irfamy... 4 so terminates the

-OR

career of the man thus used to destroy me. So far had the Seces- sionists overreached themselves that the cause of Southern nationality was set back a decade.

95

A. P. Aldrioh to Hammond, May 3, 1852. Harimond to Simons, May 14, 1852. Hammond's Diary, May 12, 1852. Mercury, I/iarch 11, 1852.

121

CHAPTER VI HAI^aZ-OT^D IK THE SENATE

With the close of the State Convention in South Carolina in 1852, there began for Hammond a period of political inactivity which lasted unbroken for five years. "l have done with the public forever in every form & shape," he said to himself just after the convention dissolved.

About the middle of November he was nominated for the Senate

2 for a six year term, along with A. G. Magrath. His friends canvassed

and found he v^ould get his usual vote of aboiit a third of the whole,

and they therefore would not permit his name to go up. Aldrich found

different reasons for this lack of support alleged by the groups, from

the small fry refusal to elevate a m.an of doubtful morals to Carev/'s

idea that Hammond should have gone to the second session of the Nash-

ville Convention. Hammond had said that he would accept only a

unanimous election, and would value that only as a reversal of unjust

condemnation, but that he should be shelved for any such colDection of

reasons as Aldrich found in circulation, made him bitterly eloquent.

To Simms he compjlained of "the undeserved infamy v;hich the State has

wantonly landed on me & my children, the effect of which poor Harry has

1

DeBow wanted to insert a mem.oir ard portrait of him in his Review but Hammond refused. J. D. B. DeBow to Ham.mond , April 27, 1852; Hammond to J. D. B. DeBow, May ]0, 1852.

The Youltrieville Guards invited him. to deliver the anniversary ■ oration which he had refused to give last year. He refused again.

ffm.. H. Bartless to Hammond, i'^ay 1, 1852.

Hammond to Vta. H. Birtless, May 10, 1852.

Hammdnd's Diary, May 12, 1852.

2

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, Movem.ber 15, 1352.

122

already felt. It is outrareous & 1 wish that South Carolina stood upon the Cliffe of Hell & I had power to cast her into the flaming gulf below. I would do it before you could cross at... That double- dyed traitor 4 scoundrel Uagrath has been underir-ining me from the

, . . n4

beginning.

During all this long period of retirement Hammond was lone- some. He was not always alone, he was by no means inactive, but, save for Simms, no one, wife, children, friends, came close to him.. "Friends I have none. Neifthbors none... no ore knows what I suffer..

My friends have given ne up." " I cannot possibly conceive," he told

■to Simms, "of any earthly power or event thut could galvanize me any

wholesom.e vitality or stimulate me to any important or useful action

apart from my own selfish d sensual routine. Of political activity

he had absolutely none. Yet ti'oufh he was at heart so melahcholy, he

succeeded alff.ost entirely in concealing his mood, "when you and others

see me, my looks & language & conduct so contradict what I have

written that you cannot but laugh at m.e." And Simms agreed with him.

Years later, when Hammond's i'-'ith -bv^-'-ii- ^^^'iv^nrff ^"'^ covered his faults , by it.? r-rmnr rr ^ tA roused Simms grief , he wrote of him in the Mercury, that during this comparative retirement, "his house, always the

3

.A. P. Aldrich to Ham.mond , December 7, 1852. Hammond's Diary, December 11, 1352.

4

Hammond's Diary, May 12, 1852.

Hammond to Sim.'ns, December 10, 1352. Need it be said that his violent mood passed?

5

Hammond's Diary, June 7, Julv 29, 1552. The same undernote of aloofness, grieving, involuntary, and sometimes bitter, runs throueh the diary of these years. For five years there are barely a hundred and fifty pages of correspondence. At other periods there are single days on which he received as much. 6

Hammond to Sirnms, October 25, 1^5.'^.

.T ■■ : ,

IS

seat of a generous hospital ity , v.-sic ^.. constant point of attraction to distinguished friends and youthful admirers. HerevTith that wonderful fluency which characterized his conversation... he spelled the senses through late hours to the delight of the listener.

Hanimond had given up politics entirely, but the mind which had there found congenial employm.ent could not cease to exist, and, existing, could not fail to busy itself vvith something. To theology he devoted, in the next year or so, much of the time he had been v/ont to put into politics. He had all his life been something of a student

o

of the Bible. By September 1854 he had hammered out and piven logical form to v/hat he called: "My Religion this, 16 Sept. 1B54." Of this no more nedd be said than that it wy^S unitarianism with a touch of spiritualism. It included also his constant belief that most or all of his misfortunes were due to an especially malignant personal Provi- dence. •

In connection with his reflections or God and a future life,

Hammond came across Judge Edmonds' Spiritualism and read it with atten-

9 tion and approval. From it he became more and more interested in

spiritualism. He talked and argued with the somewhat reluctant Simms

until he too believed spiritualism to betrue, and until his own feeling

deepened into sure conviction. Tjliile Simms was in Bevi York in the

7

Mercury, November 28, 18fi4. 8

He was never a member of any church. Far from it. He says, for instance in 1839, that "the mysteries of Xianity are as absurd as many others."

Hammond on Christianity, October 13, 1839. Though f-is article is dated 30 precisely, it is included in volume among the undated papers. in the Library of Congress.

9

Hammond's Diary, December 13, 1853. 10

"My mind however is made up... if all the phenomena were to prove sham it would not change me. The thing is so." (Hamm.ori to Simms, July 14, lS5f . ) ,

f>i>V'

124

fall of ISS*^ Hamnor.d sent him money for spiritualistic tests and questions, which he was to ask four or five mediums, and he regarded the results as absolute proof. "To me Spiritualism is a great &. glorious thing... These phenomena demonstrate a future life for us... We now know that v/e live

nil

after death. ~ He was so much interested that he took the lead in bringing a medium to Augusta, Georgia. Even after he got to the United States Senate he was regarded by the Spiritualists as so fsu" one of

them that a man from a distance claimed his aid on the ground that both

12 were Spiritualists.

In May, 1851 Hammond had moved with all his farrily to the Sand

13 Hills near Augusta, and had given it out that he had left the State forever.

For several years he was seeking a permanent residence other than Silver- ton. During the summer of 1353 he looked all around Aiken for four or five miles and tried to buy, making a half dozen offers and sounding out

as many more, but to no end. In the spring of 1855 he bought Dr. Milledge

f 1 4

Gal^hin s residence in Beach Island which hw named Redcliffe, from the

red bluff in front of it. It is a beautiful situation, with a '.^ide view

which Hammond especially loved. Across the river are the Georgia hills.

His front fence, he called them. Redcliffe was his residence for the

remainder of his life. Here he built a fine I'ouse, and a pretty little

white church, which he called St. Catherine s, and which he attended. Here

11

Simms to Hammond, September 7, October 13, December 9, 30, 185^-. Hammond to Simms, March 20, 1857.

12

Hammond to Simms, June 1, 1857.

David Quinn (Cincinnati, Ohio) to Hammond, April 17, 1858.

13

Hammond's Diary, May 25, 1851. 14

Beach Island is the name of a large, roushly triangular region on the Savannah River, defined by three of the many streams. Cne point of the tri- angle is almost opposite Augusta, Georgia. Redcliffe is so near Au<?usta that

125

he lies buried, his wife and his children around him, in a peaceful graveyard with tall slim cedars standing round.

By the end of IRoP there were indications that Hammond was once more feeling an interest in that life beyond his plantation v.'hich he had so vigorously given up five years before. That fall he wrote a letter to the editor of the London Spectator, upor an aspect of slavery not often emphasized. Had the editor, he asked, ever really Icnown a negro. "You speak of African slavery as if it were the slavery of... [Anglo-Saxon or Gelt]... But it is not & vou are ■wholly v/rong. I would not cage an Eagle or even a Hawk. Shall we therefore rear no

poultry?... Noy/here and at no tine has the African ever attained so

,, l.S high a status... as in the condition of Americar slavery.

Hammond had said some years ago that politics was his voca- tion. He might abjixre it, he might desire, as at one a^igry moment he did, to push South Carolina over the cliff of Hell, but he could not hold to such an impulse. The letter to the Spectator shows b'' the mere writing of it that Hammond was once more arousing himself, by its style and forcefulness that his ability had not rusted from disuse. With the beginning of 1857 came the first step in the renewal of his political career. Preston Brooks, he who caned Sumner, died in February. He was the representative of the district i»^ which Redcliffe lay, and Hammond was at once spoken of for the vacancy. The nomination was made, an organization to elect him got up, and he was at last

it is easily visible from the city or a clear lay. Silverton, Hammond's old home, was also in Beach Island, farther dov;n the river.

A. Df.

15

Hammond to the Editor |"of the London Snectator] , October 22, 185*^,

126

1« forced to say he would not serve if elected. A. P. Putler, Senator

frojD South Carolina, who had been chosen over Hanmond in IMP, died in

May 1057, and left a vacancy for the le?,islature to fill. Hainrnond was

naturally mentioned for the place but he had refused pocitively to go

to the Housel'^and inclined only a little more to go to the Senate. At

18 first he consented not to decline an election, but his reluctance to

being a candidate grew stronger as election tine drew nearer. He and

his brother Maroellus quarreled so seriously that the T.'ajor left Red-

cliffe at midnight and was not heard from for several weeks. In a

letter to the Mercury Hammond declined to be a candidate" ■ orto s^rve

« 19 if elected."

But though he did not knew it, the leaders were payin^f no at- tention to his refusal. They could not lo so. He was too evidently the only available candidate, too nearljr alone as a ''reat man v^'hc had kept clear of all connection with this faction or that, had expressed no opinion on any of the controversies of the rast five years. He had taken no part in the intermittent controversy over negro seamen which endured from 1952 to 1856. He had so far taken no part in the argum.ent over the re-opening of the slave trade. He had been unmoved by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act. Most important of all, he had not.

16

M. C. M. Hammond to Hammond, Februeiry 2, 5, 1B57. ^

John A. Calhoun to Hammond, Februsiry S, 1357, He was Calhoun s

nephew.

Hammond's Diary, May 6, 1857, and in general the Hammond papers

for February and I'^rch, 1S57.

17

And this even though he knew people -were disappointed and m.ortified. H. A. Meetze to Hammond, May 24, 1857.

IS

Hammond to John Cunnin.^har., June 26, 1S57. Hanmond to Dr. George Douglass, July 15, 1857.

To himself, and to his intimates he explained his position fully. "l do not seek office from the State. She has committed a great & wanton out-

127

so far as anyone knew, expressed any opinion of the probleT? of 3outh Carolina's relations with the political parties. In 1955 and ISS*^, to go no fiorther back, the question whether to join the DeTTiocratic party or to form a great Southern party of their own, had divided the State into two camps. J. L. Orr was leader of those who still had faith in the Democratic party, L. I'. Keitt of those opposed to joining: the Cin- cinnati convention. F. V'. Pickens presided over the 3^ate convention on sale day May, 1856, the convention in which save Charleston, none of the parishes was represented, and w^ich gave the Democratic party a chance. R. E. Rhett had already proved too radical. During 1S57 the Mercury did all it could to strengthen the party lines. These men all had at heart the same desire, the v^elfare of the South, but they differed so widely on methods and their personal antagonisms were so warm and so alive that they could not gain united action.

V/hen the legislature took up the election late in November, Hammond, Pickens, Chesnut, J. S. Preston and R. E. Rhett were no?^inated. Hammond got sixty-five on the first ballot. On the second, Preston, Rhett, and the few scattering ones -.vithdrew. On the third Hammond got eighty-five votes and was elected. Such was the enthusiasm disnlayed

at the result that it was probably true, as Karcellus said, that Ham-

SO mond was the choice of the State."

rage upon me... She must spontaneously 4 with large unanimity exi^unge the stain she has fixed upon me, before I will lift a finger in obedience to her beyond what the law coir.pels everyone to do... Here T rest." (Hammond to Sim^s, August 13, 1857.) .

19

Hammond's Diary, September 29, 1R57. He went on to say that he was sorry he had not done it weeks ago. For the letter, dated finally October 2, 1857, see the :>:ercury, October 5, 1357, His son. Major Snann Hammond, considers this letter the most entirely admirable act in his father's career.

20

Hammond's Diary, December 9, 1857.

'.'. C. M. Harrmond to Hammond, November, 1^57,

128

"when the result was known, for the first time in my life I heard a shout in the House and in the lobby. General Harjr.ond ?fill be

here in a da,y or two, and preparations are now being made for his recep-

w21 tion, and I assure you it will be a grand affair.

Hammond was deeply delighted. "This is a signal triumph over

all my enemies &... a full compensation &. more for ill I have endured.

It wipes off every calumny &. putpsl n-.y name among the foremost of So

-22 Ca without a stain.

Hammond had been out of office for nearly fifteen years, and out of the public eye entirely for five years. Altogether his public service amounted to less than four years and he had a num>er of times been defeated for office. To the world outside of South Carolina, there- fore, the peculiarly high endorsem.ent with which he was sent to the Senate appeared incomprehensible. The real r'^ason why he was chosen was that he was available, that if no faction placed him first, all placed him second only to their own favorite. His choice v/as , then, obviously pleasing to all the leaders and all their political followers. The reasons why the people of the State raised a cheer at his choice are, if not so obvious, certainly strong. They believed him intensely patriotic, as they understood patriotism. He had led his district in nullification. He had in Congress taken the highest ground against abolition agitation. He had as governor expelled Samuel Hoar and been ready, they believed, to fight the Union. His writings which to the Northerner seemed occasional or fallacious, to his fellow Carolinians were unanswerable. The effect of his Clarkson letters was to make him

21 Courier, Columbia correspondence of November 30, 1*^57 , Sam. T. Tupper to Hammond, December 2, l'^57.

22

Hammond's Diary, December 9, 1357.

129 cotton-

the

prophet, the expounder, of his State. The philosophy of his^manu-

o+\«+l and l%<»-9 '

curing orations, though it did not stir the State to action, met wil

facturing orations, though it did not stir the state to action, met with

T

heartiest approval. Especially did people enjoy his conclusion that they could have had ^24, 000, 000 a year i^ore .

More influential upon the Caroliniar mind than what Hammond said, was what he was. He was the baron of his district and one of the great barons of the State. He owned thousands of acres of land and could ride for a day and still be master of all he saw. At a time when thirty- eight families in Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas had more than three hundred slaves, HaTrmond was one of the thritv-eight. As a planter he was at once theoretical and practical, theoretical and scientific

enough to make experiments and to express their results clearly, nrac-

24 tical enough to increase to a degree the value of his holdings. He was

very willing to give advice and to spread abroad all that he knew about

planting. He helped found the State Agricultural Society in IS'^O and

his papers are full of agricultural questio'^s and requests. His

neighbors, great and small, looked to him as a really eminent planter

in the days when planting was the only honorable occupation. It was as

planter, patriot and statesman that they sent him. to the United States

Senate.

Hammond took his seat in the Senate January 7, 1^53. He was not

impressed with what he found there. The Senate was a "vulgar set of mere

sharpshooters — county court lawyers .-: newspapsr politicians." For

Buchanan the liking he had felt even before his nomination had grown to a

23

Century of Poculation Growth, p. 13*^. 24

To be sure, some years he records that he made only a bare crop.

130

cordial support and the possibility of some influence v/ith him. The

selfish separateness of Southern representatives disgusted him en- PS tirely. He was silent in the Senate for some time, always, however,

keeping watch on the Kansas situation. By this time Kansas was quiet, for the Free State party was in full control there. But with the opening of Congress came Douglas's assault on the Lecompton constitu- tion, the confusing verdicts from Kansas, and the ensuing bitter struggle.

Hammond's contribution to the wordy debate was delivered on March 4, 1358, in answer to Seward's assertion that the South was now a conquered province which the North would rule. To Kansas he devoted a short legalistic argument to show that the Lecompton constitution

It P/^

was the sovereign act of a people legally assembled in convention."

But the real burden of this first speech of Hammond's was not

the Kansas troubles but a comparison of the resources of TTorth and

South. The territory and population of the South were ample for an

empire. As to production, the South had every great staple the North

had, besides two or three which the North could never hope for. Of

surplus production, Ha-mond showed by the 1857 report of the Secretary

of the Treasury that the South had per capita ^16,6^, against not over

$10.00 for the North. And the South would have no army or navy, for, y-iave '-pot <a ^retec^ive tariff

she would ^ free trade^^ other nations would come to her to do business,

and she would have no sea trade of her own, no commerce, and conse- quently no foreign wars.

25

Hammond to Sirams, December 19, 1857, January 20, 1^58. 26

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, p. 311.

..•■XI re:. .L

-•Tc> a tocc

.\Lr';,^ 9:

131

"Would any sane nation rcake war en cottcn?... The South is perfectly cccpetent to go on, ore, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton... 7/hat would happen if no cctton was fur- nished for three years?... England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilised world with her saire the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King."

The greatest strength of the "outh arose froF the unparalleled harmony between her political and her social institt'tior'S .

"In all social systems there must be a class to do the renial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have... Its consti- tutes the very r.ud-cill of society and of political government; and you m.ight as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except cv this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand... We use them for our piarpose and call them slaves."

Hammond s peroration was brief, simple, im.pressive, the very valddictory of the South he loved.

The Senator from New York says... that you intend tc take the Goverrunent from, us, that it will pass from our hands into yours. Per- haps what he says is true; it m.ay be; but do not forget — it can never be forgotten — it is written on the brightest page of human history — that we, the slaveholders of the South, took our country in '--er infancy,

132

and after ruling her for sixty out of the seventy years of her existence, we surrendered her to you without a stain upon her honor, boundless in prosperity, incalculable in her strength, the wonder and the admiration of the world. Time will show what yor v/ill

make of her, but no time can diminish our glory or your respon-

27 sibility."

The galleries were packed, and the floor of the Senate chamber thronged. There was a great curiocity to hear this new Sena- tor Tvhom South Carolina ?iad sent to represent her with such peculiarly

28 high endorsement. In the South praise of the speech was almost un- restrained, though naturally some of the leaders were c&cl. News- papers by the ten and score pronounced it irresistible. In Charleston the Courier approved in the main, the i«^ercury all through and the Constitutionalist pretty strongly.""' Journals and individuals alike hailed him a worthy Elisha to Calhoun.' " It was published and dis- tributed free over one entire Virginia coimty, and the New York Tribune

also gave it in full. Though there admitted, as a whole the North was in arms against him. Most of the

Though there was, even in the North, some approval , as Hammond

27

Hamjnond: Letters and Speeches, pp. 321-322. 28

Paul P. Hammond: Memoir of Hammond. Pamphlet. Copy in the J.'SS Division, Library of Congress.

29

". C. M. Ha.-mond to Hammond, I-Wch 15, I'lSfl. 30

Charleston Evening News, the New York Journal of Commerce.

A. H. Brisbane to Harrmond, March 10, ISSP.

Simrs to Hammond, f.ferch 27, 1858.

31

Charleston Standard, I»'arch 17, 1858,

H. S. Olcott to Ham.mond, ^/arch 14, 1858.

32

See the 1858 clipping hook in the Hammond papers. Unfortunately

^r.i- .-(

■-'XEidxa ,.^oj

IZi

open resentment was directed against bis statement that an unskilled, inferior, menial class was the verj' nud-sill cf society. Ke was

usually referred to in the North hereafter as Mudsill Haim^ond , and one

33 faction of the California Deinocrutt; took the name of r.udsill. ' Ir

this resentirient the main objection vms that a mudsill class was com- posed of those fit for nothing better than to lie in the rud and be trampled on. This was a wrong idea. To Ha^-mond the mudsill was an es- sential substructure. He used the word years before, where there T,-as no possible reference to slavery.' "l do believe," he said, "that a proper appreciation of money & the exaction cf strict punctuality in all pecuniary transactions is the very ccrnerstore or perhaps I should say the m.ud-sill on which the fabric of hum.an happiness in this life rests.

Hammond in caucus reserved the rieht to vote against the Kansas

36 bill, yet when the bill passed the Senate, Hairjnond voted for it. He

wished to show that South Carolina vias v;illing to yield to the wishes of the South, that she did not seek to isolate herself. He wanted as of old to" put her en raport with the m.ost advanced part of the South and not out of reach of any." In the conference committee necessitated by the diverse action of House and Senate, V7m. H. English of Indiana pro- posed that compromise which finally became law. Kansas was to have her

the clippings are not always dated, and it is therefore not always possible to tell what speech they refer to. .

33

G. Bailey to Hammond, November 8, 185S. 34

Hammond to Cimms, Mav 2'^, 135 4. 35

Paul Hammond: u'emoir, p. 11 and Harry Hammond (Apnleton: Cyc . Am. Biog., vol. iii, pp. 67-68) also explain the phrase in tf-is way.

36

Harmond to Sim^ms, N'arch PA, 1858.

17A

demand for land cut from 23,000,000 to 4,000,000 acres. If she ac- cepted the cut, the President should proclaiF. her admission to the Union with the Leoompton constitution, if not, then statehood n;ust wait for population sufficient for one representative. Hammond had something to do with the final shape of the B;nglish bill, though how much the apparent double-dealing of Stephens made uncertain. Hammond drew up a list of objections to the bill and Hunter and Stephens told him that the committee had refused to agree to all except one of them. He found out too late that they had never toll the committee

kbout them, and that they ?f0uld have been allowed, had the ccmittee

37 known of them.

Outside the Kansas question Hammond's work at the session needs but brief notice. He spoke orce or twice on British aggressions. To the regular routine of the Senate he devoted rucli time and trouble. He was op the naval committee and after the rer.oval of Biggs (iv'orth Carolina) he was on the finance comm.ittee to fill the vacancy. He grumbled at the work, of course.

"I am utterly fagged down with 8 hours a day in Com or in Senate... on the finance under Hunter — old woman, afraid of his own

37

Hammond tc ;/. C. V, Hammond, '.'ay 1, 1858. 38

In 1857 and 185S suspected American slavers vTere searched in the Gulf of Mexico by British cruisers. Protests were at once registered tiy Cass, and the subject came up on the floor of Congress. Though for a time the aspect v;as threatening, Kalm.esbury* s acceptance of the American contention removed all danger, and the only effect of Ham- mond's speech was to strengthen his hold on his constituents whose senti- ments he accurately represented.

John Russel tc Hamm.ond , June 7, 135?.

[Simms] to HaTmond , June 11, 1853.

F. \Y. ByrdsaDl to Hammond, June 1, 1858.

17,5

shadow — talent for analysis — imaginative — no capacity to govern men at all... v/alking in the street, mephitic as it is I can frame a speech... but half an hour in that damned Senate reduces me below big timber." •^^

As the session went on, HaiMnond became more and more disgusted and hopeless. Despite his belief and that of many of his correspon- dents that the South ought to say "Kansas or disunion," he did not be- lieve that she would get herself together and say it clearly and

41 unanimously enough to be heard by the North. That the South united

and unanimous could get from the i'lorth far more than the Horth really

desired to concede, he did not feel it necessary to keep saying. Cer-

tairJy he did every thing he could to keep her united. His opposition

to the Kansas bill as it passed the Senate has been noticed, yet he

voted for the bill. He thought of himself as yielding to the wishes of

the South, and as putting South Carolina not out of reach of any part

of the South. At any sacrifice short of principle So Ca should keep

in the ranks with the South — especially when the whole South is in

array." So thinking he was the more dism.ayed to find the South at

V/ashington net even rem.otely ready to unite in recommending any measure,

extreme or moderate .

"The South here is utterly unorganized & I fear demoralized...

39

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, 'v'ay 1*^ , 88, 1858. Mrs. Hammond testi- fied to the amount of work her husband vi&s doing, but she said he was standing the strain very well. Hammond admitted there were "many agree- abilities."

40 ^ For general disgust see, Hammond to E. 7, Perry, April 9, 1858. Perry s Rem.iniscences , pp. 110-131.

41

Hammond to Simms, January 20, February 7, l.<^58. Tradeweil to Hamm.ond , February 11, 1P.58. Herschel V. Johnson to Hammond, '.'ay 1, 1858. I. W. Hayne to Hammond, January PA, 1858.

136

We have no concert... Each one is striking out for himself."

"More than half the men in both houses think they have a

chance for the presidency and act accordinglj'."

"Do you know we have ten aspirants for the Presidency among

So Senators. Confidentially... Breckenridge, Hunter, Davis, Toombs,

Brown, Johnson of Tenn., Crittenden, Bell, Mason, Houston, besides

43 4 members of the Cabinet — Poor South."

By the end of the session he entirely despaired of immediate disunion outside of South Carolina, v^hose lead wcijld not te accepted by the South as yet, only Clay of Alabama ard one or two more were prepared for it. Napier, the British Ambassador, who had cultivated Hammond, asked his opinion on the matter of disunion. Hammond pointed out that there were tv/c presidential elections in six or seven years, and gave it as his opinion that "T/e may not separate en the first if the South is beaten, if we dc not if beaten on the second, the Union is perpetual." And to Napier's objection that Seard thought it im- possible ever to sever the Union, Hammond replied, "He may think so."^ So then, despairing of disunion, Hammond went south to receive the verdict of his ccnstituents on his work. The very general satis- faction at his speech on the Kansas question has been mentioned, but even here there was an underncte of coolness, due more to what the fire-

42

Hammond to Simms, March 22, 24, l^FiS. 43

Hammond to Simms, January 20, March 24, 1B58; Perry, Reminiscences, p. 111.

44

Hamiriond's Diary, April 16, l^^i^l. The Hammonds and the Clays were rather intim.ate. Hammond s son Paul married into N.'rs. Clay's fam.ily before the end of the year.

137

eaters feared he meant than to what he said. In general his course had established him in the confidence of the State. McCaw of York

was heard to say that in five years, he would be the law in the

45 State. ' \'fhen Simms proposed to give him a dinner in Beach Island

upon his return home, the idea was received with enthusiasm. July 22, when it came off, there were twelve or fifteen hundred people there, several hundred of them ladies. Before the dinner yeas served, "Senator Hammond... for an hour enchained the attention of the large assemblage in a speech replete with sound conservative sentiments, in vfhich he gave a full and satisfactory account of his stewardship at the federal metropolis. "

Just what the Senator said is, alas, in doubt. The papers presented what they said was "a faint and inadequate outline .. .either in matter or manner," but the outline v/as the basis or T;hich Carolina and i'^^ssachusetts and Chio discussed the sneech, and it must there- fore be noticed. Separate state secession he disapproved of, en- tirely and emiphatically. If disunion did come, it nust be a movement of four or five states, not less. And he did not think disunion was the necessary policy now. Let the South strengthen and consolidate Southern resources and institutions within her present limits. Her ability to do so was greater now than it had ever been. His vote on the English bill he strongly defended. The revival of the slave trade he thought impracticable ir, the Union, and not surely wise out of it.

45

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, '^une 26, 1358. Aldrich, who gave him this pleasant news, was one of his most faithful followers, but he was far from a sycopJiant, and he never hesitated to tell him truths, hov/ever unpleasant they were, if only they vfere true. His estimate therefore may be taken at its face value. Simms, June 2P , 1858, agfceed with Aldrich.

46

Courier, July 23, 24, 1?53, quoting from the Constitutionalist.

138

Of the 18^0 presidential election, he thou-ht a free soil victory possible, "but," said the Courier, "he doubted whether the body of the South would be willing to make the isaue of disunion on a single presidential triumph of the adversary, but its repetition would un- doubtedly be the knell of the Union."

It must be agredd that unless his hearers loiew him quite well, they believed he had turned Unionist. After dinrer the other speakers were brought out by toasts. Tradewell of Columbia, a warm supporter of Hammond, differed widely with him now and nade a de- cidedly disunion speech. Maxcy Gregg, high priest of secession, made known his alarm at his conservative sentiments and his own refusal to follow him in relying upon the Northern Democratic party. Richard Yeadon, Unionist, invited to speak as a personal and not a i olitical tribute, in a pleasant sem.i-facetious speech, said he 'was no'Win full accord vfith Hammond. If Ham.mond*s plans suited Yeadon, that was proof enough that they were not good State Rifhts views.

The speech vias badly reported, but it circulated. Soon re- ports began tc come in, a little praise, largely of a sort the speaker

/I o

would have preferred not to have,'"^nd loud demands for explanation, publication, repudiation, even for excommunication. "There can be no doubt," wrote young Barnwell Rhett , "that many of your friends and admirers are disappointed in the Union tendency and tone of your late

47

Courier, July 27, 1858. 48

"Yeadon s hobby is Unionism... and for God's sake do not mdx yourself up with him. (John Cunningham tc Hammond, October 9, 1^53 ^.

49

Vifaddy Thompson approved it unqualifiedly and at length. The New York Times called it so moderate that Hammond v.'puld probably be forced to retract it. New York Times, August 3, 1858.

//

139

speech... To show j'ou that it is not inconsiderable it has bpen urged

upon my father Mr. Rhett by gertletren here to review your speech

It 50 anonymously and denounce it.

The opposition did not die down iurinp; the suir.ner. Hami^ond T/as urged again and again to explain what he had meant tc say or to settle the question by publishing an authentic version. Even the friendly Courier thought this would be a good plan. In Grange burg it was proposed to tender him a barbecue as a derrand for an explana- tion.^^ Y/hile disapproval of the speech was still high, Kairinond in- creased it in a most unexpected way. Lawrence Orr, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, had not been at Hamiriond's Beach Island dinner. Therefore Hammond declined politely an invitation to a dinner to Orr. His intention was merely tc be polite. Judfe then his amazement when Maxcy Gregg, chief fire-eater, declined an invitation to another dinner to Hammond, on the ground that he had been too coir.pli-

m.entary to Orr, and a very faithful friend told him the note had given

53 rise to more complaint against him than anything else he had ever dene.

Yet Bonham' s letter to the Orr Comjnittee had been only less cordial than

Hammond's, and still more important, Hamnond's indorsement had been

given before Orr said at Craytonville that he would stick to the Demo-

50

R. E. Rhett, Jr. to Hammond, August 2, I'^.SS. John Cunningham to Hammond, August 2, ln58.

51

Courier, August 6, 1S5B. 52

Orangeburg Southron, quoted in Courier, October 12, 1S5S. 53

J. L. Orr to Hammond, July 25, 1853.

R. N, Wright to Hammond, July 2fi , lB5n.

Hammond to the Orr Committee, August 4, 1858, A Df . S. in Hamjnond papers, also in Courier, August 28, 1858.

M. L. Bonham- to the Orr Committee, Courier, August 28, 1858.

Courier,- August 21, 1853.

Maxcy Gregg to Barnwell Coirmittee, October 23, 1853, a Df. S.

Paul Quattlebum to Hammond, Noveroler 7, 1858,

140

cratic psirty, no matter what it did.

Bonham alone of the South Carolina delegation had held out against the English billt' Bonhair s dinner, then, was the occasion of a Radical rally. Men spoke or wrote letters, praising Ecnhair., and condemning Orr and Hammond. And 2ref,g ccllect'^d them in a pamphlet, and with it reached hundreds who would otherv/ise never have heard of the incident. '^^ Hammond did not make the mistake of treating Gregg too lightly. He saw that it wci'ld indeed be tetter for him to explain, and he gave it out that in his speech at Barnwell Court House set, after much delay, for October 29, he would state his position carefully. He opened with a word or two of local interest and turned quickly to Kansas. The Lecompton constitution he would have kicked out of Con- gress, not because it was fraudulent but because it would not fulfill its purpose of making Ksmsas a slave state. The English bill the Senator defended clearly. It had accepted the Lecompton constitution, cut Kansas' land grab by five- sixties , and offered her the oppostunity of coming in now tith the cut, or v/aiting for statehood until her population justified it. No bill could possibly have forced Kansas to organize under the Lecompton constitution.

It was his opinion that "an overwhelming majority of the South would... decidedly prefer to remain in the Union rather than... set up a separate government," if the constitution were properly adhered to. He had come to believe that the South could sustain herself in the

54 Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 1 sess., po. 1399-1904. 55

Charleston Evening News, November 3, 29, 135B.

Mercury, July 5, 15, 22, August 9, 20, September 8, Octoberr. 19, November 3, 1658.

"An Appeal to the State Rights Party of r-.outh Carolina, in several Letters on the present aindition of Public Affairs" f Gregg, editor! Columbia, November 19, 185B.

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, November 29, 1858.

141

Union and even control it. The 3outh coulJ at any time secede, but if she only showed the North clearly just what the limit w-is of her en- durance, the North would not trespass heyond it. "Our history proves

that no man and no measure has yet been strong enough to stand against

„.S7 the South when united. I believe none ever will.

The abolitionists co-Id not use the government to destroy the South. So far the result of abolition had been that eitiancipaticn, whether by persuasion, by purchase or by coercion, was ncT as impossible as the removal of Gibraltar. Abolition fanaticism was now ebbinf^ and could not rise again. England and Prance found out that cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco add coffee cculd not be produced widely except by slave labor, and they had practically renewed the slave trade in disguise.

Maxcy Gregg had refused to attend the dinner, but there was a word for him nevertheless. Hai^mond had been given to understand that there were to be two parties in the South, called Rational and State Rights Democrats. He refused to recognize the distincticn. " I go for the Constitution strictly construed and faithfully carried out. I will make my fight, such as it may be, by the side of any man, whether from the North, South, East, or West, ^rho will do the same."

"The Union of these States... is but a policy and not a principle. It is subordinate to rights and interests. But the union of the slave holders of the South is a principle involving all our rights and all our interests... let us develop and consolidate our re- sources, and devote ourselves manfully and hopefully to the accomplish-

56

Hammond to L. M. Keitt, October 10, 185S, A. Df. 3., marked "not sent." Hammond to Simms, August 13, 1B5B. Courier, October 4, 1858.

57

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, p. 343.

142

ment of the magnificent future that is within our reach."

Both North and South the Barnwell speech circulated widely, and was received generally with favor. The Northern press went wild over

CO

it. Men troubled themselves to write him approval from Boston, Philadelphia, Norwich, Connecticut, New York, Cincinnati, Dubuque, Reading, Dayton, New Rochelle, Nilv/aukee, Sing Sing, Chicago, Chepachet, Rhode Island. Lewis Cass wrote, a'-^:l Glancy Jones of Pennsylvania.

Seward told him it was a great speech, and even President Buchanan ccm-

50 plimented him on it. " Some New York men who admired the policy of it

tendered him a dinner whenever it would suit his converience. ^ Yost of the Northern approval and much of the Southern disapproval was based on a belief that Hammond was now pro-Union. But it does not appear why a man who declared the Union a policy, not a principle, should be called a lover of the Union. Certainly Hammond would have teen r;ore successful in the South had he been a little less hopeful, but even R?iett Junior, than whom none was more radical, said that he hoped to be able to sup- port any measures to enable the South to rule the country in the Union, "for if it were possible tc preserve the Union and the South intact, none

58

New York Tribune, undated clipping mentionin^^ the speech by its date.

New York Times, November, 1"58.

Daily Comnercial, November 11, 1R58.

Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, November 14, 1"5S.

Cincinnati Gazette, quoted in the Courier of Novem.ber l'' , 1S5S.

Cincinnati Daily Times, November 3, 195S.

Davenport Daily Morning News, November 17, I'^BS.

Davenport State Democrat, November 17, 135 S.

Boston Courier, November, 1^5? .

Boston Daily Traveller, November 17, l'i58.

Boston Post, November 17, 1S58.

Chicago Daily Herald, November 24, 1959.

59

Lewis Cass to HamjDond , November 6, 185S. J. Glancy Jones to Hammond, November 12, 1859. Hammond to M. C. M. Hamm.ond, December 11, 1358. Hammond's Jiary, April 16, 1858.

60

Joseph B. Stewart to Hammond, Decem.ber 15, 1858. Hammond refused.

143

would rejoice more than I." '" Hammoni despaired of dissolution te- cause Southern leaders could not be ^ot to move for it as yet, what, then, could he do but plan the best way for thein to maintain them- selves in the Union?

Hammond did his utmost to hold himself away from all fac- tions. As soon as he became Senator, various sets tried to use his name for selfish pusposes. Even before Svans's death - and his terra did not expire until 1859 - this man or that sought to have Hammond favor him as Evans s successor. Owens and Tobm who were contesting with L. U. Keitt for his seat in the House, all tried to set themselves right before Hammond. He liked the Rhetts and be- lieved it was well to have someone harping on the string they did, but he saw no reason to link himself up with them. Vi/hen he was thinking seriously, as he was in the spring of 135?, of buying the Mercury, his idea was to conduct it so as to avoid factions and

as he refused several other invitations for dinners this winter in the North.

61

New Orleans Delta, Noveivber 10, If^-SS. Philadelphia Daily Commercial, November 10, IP.-'iS.

62 R. B. Rhett, Jr. to Hammond, July 26, l'?.5S. 63

Hammond's Diary, April 16, 1S61, 64

Hammond to Simms, April 3, Ivlay 21, 1S53.

Simms to Hammond, May 8, 1853.

65

?/. A. Owens to Hammond, May 11, 1S58. John E. Tobin to Hammond, i'!ay 25, 1353. L. M. Keitt to Ka-mond, June 23, 1358.

lU

extremism of all kinds. How could he unite the South if his own South Carolina was factious? And what could he do for the South unless it was united?

Adams, Gregg & Co. tried to organize the fire-eaters against him. The next possible issue was the election of a successor to Evans, now dead. J. H. Adams was a candidate, and he practically demanded Hammond's aid. The reopening of the slave trade which he had officially favored, Orr had ridiculed. In the secession contest of 1850-1852, Hammonci had favored disunion and his Plan of Action for attaining it was in Gregg s possession. Hammond was rot m the least disposed to go for Adams. In fact he said he would resign if

Adams were elected, and thought his friends would go for Rhett or

C-P. McQueen.

\fhen the legislature came up to the election, it was reported

that Memminger, Manning and Rhett stood on Hammond s platform, and

that Adams and McQueen were ultra. After four or five ballots it was

evident that Adams could not win but that he held the balance of power.

He refused to heal the split, however, and his friends went doivn irith

66

R. B. Rhett, Jr. to '.'. C. M. Hammond, January 6, 1358.

Hammond to Simms, Iv'arch 22, April 3, October 2^^, 1858.

Simms to Hammond, March 27, April 12, 1353.

S. S. Farrar to Hammond, Llarch 30, 1353.

A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, April 22, 1358.

John Cunningham to Hamr.ond, Iilay 3, 1S58,

I. W. Hayne to Hammoni, June 9, 1858.

67

J. H. Adams to Hammond, September 22, 1858. The tone of the letter is not so unfriendly as the apparent threat Iriicates. Adams was governor.

63

Hammond to ■'. C. M. Hamm.ond , Novem.ber 28, 1858.

Rhett denied that this was true of him, but the impression pre- vailed, and won him s>ome of his votes.

145

him. Finally James Chesnut, Jr. was elected by the grace of the Nationals. Ghesnut had defined his position, before the election, as State Rights, anti-convention, anti-slave-trade, agreeing in the main v.'ith Hsuranond. State Rights was sustained and the slave trade agitation absolutely condemned. The cooperation but not the merger of the state with the Democratic party was indicated. And the sup- port of all the State save the few fire-eating slave-trade men waa assured to Hacnond . Small wonder, then, that Hammond, viho was in

70

Columbia at the tim.e , was highly delighted.

V/ith the reopening of Congress Han-jTiOnd returned to i'/ashing- ton. He was disgusted with the Derccrats. The presidential election was almost two years off, yet he found it already occunying everyone's mind to the exclusion of ever^rthing else.

"Every man v/ishes to be Pres. or ^.as a man for Pres. or is deadly opposed to some man &. this it the session to try all the nags

entered or to be entered on the Steward's books. Every Senator even

«71 appears to keep his hand on his betting boosc & his mind on it.

Haumnond in Washington saw only the selfish separation of the

entire Northern delegation. He knew the extent to which in the South

the representatives controlled and guided popular opinion; it v/as then

not unnatural to suppose the same thing true of the North. Reasoning

thus he saw nothing to prevent the working of his plan to rule the

70

Courier, August 9, October 23, 29, November 30, December 3, ^, 10.

J. H. Adams to Hammond, September 22, 1S5B.

Hammond to r... C. LI. Hammond, November 28, 1358.

Charleston Evening News, December ?, 1S5B.

P. G. Bowman told Hammond that Chesnut had withdrawn in l'??? on a promise that Hammond's friends v^'ould favor him in the next vacancy. And vfhat evidence there is does not contradict this.

P. G. Bowman to Hammond, January 24, 1^59.

Hammond. had thought ten years back that Chesnut "would yet play an important part in Public affairs." (Diary, Dcceriber l'^ , 1S50L"

146

Union in the Union. He dis not realize how the North was united against slavery. Some of his friends did see chances against his plan. There was a question in Trescot's mind whether Hajimond s

plan would work. "The question is," said he, "whether if you

,,72 were in power you could act your speech. Cunningham of the

Charleston Evening News was even more definite, "if the South

could get rid of the slavery question, which bands the North,

she might be potent as a balance-of -power; for even on V^e tariff

the North coi.'ld be divided." But this could not be, and the

73 South could look for nothing but subjection or separation.

Notwithstanding this very weighty criticism from men

undoubtedly Southern, Hammond continued to believe in ^is plan.

"My idea is, as it has long been, to continue to do what we have

so long done, rule the Union in the Union. It is what our hands

find to do & is therefore cur highest duty. And it is what under

74 wise counsel & prudent conduct we can do.

To cfiirry out his plan it was essential that the South do

nothing to outrage the moderate Northerners, above all, that she

keep strictly within constitutional limits. And she was doing her

utmost, it seemed to shock the North and break the law. August,

1S58 the slaver Echo entered Charleston harbor in charge of a prize

crew from the U. S. 3. Dolphin. At first when the federal author-

71

Hammond to Simms, December 15, 1R58, January 21, 1859. Hammond to M. C. jI. Ham-roni, February 13, 1359.

72

Wm. H. Trescot to Hammond, December 5, 1P58. 73

John Cunningham to Hammond, April IS, 1<^.59. Cunningham was even more of a secessionist than Hammond. 74

Hammond to Simms, April 22, l°,59 ,

147

ities tried to prosecute the Echo's crew, the f^rand jury of Charles- ton refused to indict them. V/hen later the crew was tried for piracy in the United States Circuit Court at Charleston, the jury- acquitted then. The yacht Wanderer under the flag of the New York Yacht Club, entered the Savannah River with three hundred negroes fresh from Africa. The cargo was taken up the river to a point near Augusta, and thence distributed widely. No one was over

punished, and the Vlanderer, offered for sale, vms bought by a part-

75 owner without opposition. For the action of the South in these

cases, Hammond had only disgust. "The South has dene nothing but stab herself ever since October. The Tcho, the Y/andersr casas & all their incidents... ideal impracticable & injurious all thev strip us of every supporter in the free states."

At least as foolish to his mind v^as the denand made in Con- gress for a Congressional slave code for the territories. And the

77 dememd was squarely and unequivocally made. V/hat more could

abolitionists ask than such a chance? And nothing else woi;ld so

7°, surely weld the North together as such a demand seriously made. But

Senator Brown's proposition was favorably received in the South and

it might be well for South Carolina to notice it. Hammond turned the

matter over in his mind for some months. Then, December, 1359 he

drew up an amendment to the constitution of the United States.

"Amendment to the Cons of the U. 5.

"1. All rights to & of property of any kind which existed

75

Courier, August-September, 1858.

Spears: American Slave Trade, pp. 202-205.

76

Hammond to Sim-s, f-'arch 13, April 22, 1559. 77

Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 sess., pp. 1242-1243. 78

Trescot agreed with Hammond. Trescot to Hammond, August 9, 1359,

148

under the iSonstitution or laws or customs of each or any Federal State before the adoption of this Constitution & were not surrendered by it shall be fully recognized by the Government in all its branches; shall be in no wise impaired by any act of any Department of it; & shall be thoroughly protected in each & all of the Public Territories until a Territory by being admitted into this Union as a Sovereign Stute , shall become authorised & enabled to protect whatever it may see fit to de- clare to be property,

. "Congress shall have no power whether by levying taxes, im- posing duties or by any other mode or Ti.easure to discriminate between

or among the industrial pursuits of the citizens of the U. S. so as

n 79 specially to favor or promote any one of them."

His purpose was mixed. Certainly John Brown s raid was in the

back of his consciousness. His proposail would completely silence all

the vexatious extremists of the type of Maxcy Gregg and Yancey, and

Brown, for instead of mere Congressional legislation, it would set up

an sunendment to the Constitution. He wanted his proposition to be an

ultimatum on "what the South can stand or must dissolve," but he r^ust

have known that it was not to be fulfilled. If such a proposal could

have possibly got through Congress in December, 1S59, to say nothing of

the chances of ratification in the States, it need really not have been

offered at all. For to make it possible the North wo-'ld have had to

recede from every stand it then held. It was to have been offered in

Congress sifter the election, regardless of who won. But by November,

1360 events had gone too far for it.

79

lammond to V. C. M. Hammond, December 27, 1S59.

& !'£=-

H .sp.finp.aclrncinoo

: ■J'6/iiXii'-

o.t In:

149

Hammond was, it has been shown, deeply and wisely distrusted at the conduct of the South. Added to exasperation was ill health. He was never so ill as he thought he was, he was also never really well. He thought now that he was going to die. "Althou'^h every body says I look better than when I left I know I am worse... My stomach & nerves are wholly out of order 4 have been now for six months... I fear I shall never get through this, although for a few hours almost every day I feel as well as ever I did. But the fact is the world is over for me."

It is then not entirely surprising to find him thinking seriously of resigning, in fact already determined upon that course.

"l shall announce my resignation before October or Nov. I don't want

«3l it known just now. To this there was much opposition, especially

by the moderates, those whom the fire-Raters called National Democrats.

He reiterated his intention still more emphatically in midsummer. Sir-ims

answered him shortly and bade him stop groaning, and get to work. He

paid no attention to the pretestants. He had his letter of resignation

written and ready to send to the legislature when John Brown's raid

made his presence in Washington imperative.

80

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, April 10, 1B59. 81

Ibid. 82

Hammond to Simms, August 15, December IP, 1859.

Simms to Hammond, August 24, 1?59.

J. D. Ashmore to Hammond, August 25, 1359,

Wm. H. Trescot to Hammond, September 1, October 25, 31, 1859.

J. L. Orr to Hsunmond, September 17, 1859.

0' n

• U'>ii V* t,

ro.^ 9 ■

150

CHAPTHIR VII HAMMOND IN THE COTTFSDERACY

Hsumnond had returned to Washington in December, 135B to find the presidential election of 18^0 already the absorbing topic of all. A year later in the House was the ei^ht-week struggle over the speaker- ship, the struggle in which the "impending Crisis" entered so largely. Then came the Love joy fracas on April 5, wherein his speech caused the Speaker to resume the chair, so great was the disorder. Almost all the South Carolina delegation took part in the angry repartee. Nor was the situation in the Senate much better. Davis offered and had passed resolutions much like Hammond's constitutional amendment, but of course without enforcing legislation they were so much declamation. In face the Senate was perhaps inescapably more political than the House, so Tiany Senators were would-be presidents. Of non-political intercourse

between the North and South there was absolutely none. It had been so

4

by 1855, it was still more true in I860. Hammond himself said that

social intercourse betvreen Northern and Southern Senators had entirely ceased, and he believed that every nan in both houses carried a re- volver.

A dew days later, April 23, IR^O, the Democratic convention cai^e together in Charleston, South Carolina. There had been some discussion

^ Cong. Glofce, 36 Cong., 1 sess., App. pp. 202-20'^. 2

Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 1 sess*, r.n. 658, P35. 5

Hammond to his son, Harry Hammond, February 12, lc60. 4

Clay: Belle of the Fifties, p. 27. i'rs. Clay was the wife of C. C. Clay, Jr., Senator from Alabama. 5

Hammond to Francis Lieber, April 19, 186C, in Perry: Lieber, pp. 310-311.

Hammond to M. C. If, Hammond, April 22 I860

ura ecr.'

■'J-JU

151

on the propriety of South Carolina's being represented there, for it was not her habit tc take part in nominating conventions. Vt February the pre- convent ion men were holding district meetings over the State to choose delegates to a state convention. ' They were much exercised to avoid any split within the State. Lawrence Crr , head of the Ccnven- tionists, hoped those opposed to a convention would not fight these who

attended it, as the latter did not intend tc trouble these who stayed

7 away. Hammond was opposed to it, but he was not inclined to proscribe

the m^en who went to it. He was rather ccnter.pti;ous than resentful. " I

am sim.ply opposed tc Conventions for nominating Presidents but if our

people choose tc go into them I have nothing more to say than that I ar.

not bound. The state convention uhen it met refused to go as far as

some demanded, and stopped with declaring that a territorial government

had no power to affect slavery in its limits, either directlj' or in-

9

directly.

It was not possible for Hammond to go to Charleston, but he kept an efficient finger in the Southern political pie. Douglas he thought entirely impossible for president, and he noted that others v/ere coming to his opinion. Still he believed Douglas cculd nas-.e the nominee, Breckinridge was increasing in popularity, and Hammond offered to sup- port him if he were nominated. His real preference was for Hunter of

10 Virginia, and he worked for him, against some of his closest friends.

NoVi He had once in a disgusted moment called Hunter a tim.crous old

Mercury, February 14, 24, ?/arch 15, IP'^O. 7

J. L. Orr to Hammond, September 17, I'^.'iS , 8

Hammond to Sinims, April 3, IS'^D.

Hammond tc M. C. K. Hamjriond , April 22, 1"^0.

9

Mercury, April 19, 20, 1860.

'■; p! Cj rj *• •

152

woman, but even then he credited hiir. with imagination and a talent for analysis, and when his hypochondriac morbidness passed, he believed Hunter abler than any other - save himself.

Hammond mas mentioned for the presidency, at least vigorously enough to attract the ill will of the radical Columbia clique. He put the thought of the presidency froa hir., but he did rot underestimate either his ability or his popularity. "The North, even the Black Re- publicans would take me after their favorite, or sooner at least than

fill any Southern man. Up to the very day the convention met, he was so

poptilar in Savannah that it was thought there that he and Everett could

. 12 win.

The Charleston ccnventicn met April 23, according tc schedule.

Hammond was not unprepared for trouble, and he was not disappointed. A

week later, Alabama, according to instructions from the state convention,

withdrew when the minority platform was adopted over the majority one

favored of the South. Hammond at cnce telegraphed to the South Carolina

delegation tc go out if any State seconded Alabama, "i they did just

13 what I ordered." The split is usually regarded as evidence of de- liberate intention to destroy the Democratic party, with a view to bringing about disunion. It was so tegarded at the time by some men. J. D. Ashffiore thought in August that those at the head of the Charleston

10

Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, March 9, April 22, ISfiO. J. B. 0 Neall to Hammond, March 17, ISf^O. W. D. Porter to Hammond, April 12, 1B«C.

II

Hammond to }' . C. W. Hammond, April 10, 1^5P. 12

\'i. Duncan to Hammond, April 23, IS'^0. See also Hammond papers, January-April, 1859; November, 18^.9; January- April, 18^0, and especial- ly the clipping book on the Barnwell speech.

13

Hammond's Diary, April 16, 1861.

Hamir:ond to M. C. V. Ham.mond , May 11, I860, (displaced in Hammond papers. Library ot Congress, and now [191?! found at vol. xxx, 24706)

-»r,l-f -^r

: B.^B'

15:

convention night have intended to disrupt the party in order to elect Lincoln and lead to sc!T;e kind cf resistance. But this was at nost only a conjecture, not supported by the best of evidence. The South hated Douglas, hated him as a renegade, as rorse than an honest enemy. Unless the irifluence of passion upon people highly susceptible to it be set aside and an improbable degree of foresi-'ht attributed to them, the desire to prevent the election of Stephen A. Douglas at any hazard must be conceded a large place in whatever plan the leaders had formu- lated. Bolting a convention was nothing new. Yancey hirself had done

15

it in 1848. ' In 1856 the Alabar.a delegation had been instructed to

withdraw liinless the convention adopted a satisfactory platform, and when they did withdraw in ISf'O, they were "positively instructed" by the State BOnvention to do so. It v^ras not certain that secession from the convention would set disunion in motion. A. G. "agrath, one of the first South Carolinians to resign his federal office later in the yeeir, a m.an who »70uld write (^uite frankly to Hammond, said cnlj'-

that if the seceding States used their opportunities well the split

17 could be of great advantage to the South. Hammond told Henry Lesesne

18 that he did not believe the Richm.ord ccnverticn would bring disunion,

and as late as m.id-Septem.ber he said to an intimate friend ro more

than that he would hot oppose something being done if Lincoln were

14

J. D. Ashm.ore to Hammond, August 30, 18F0. 15

DuBose: Yancev, p. 220. IP

The resclutions are given in full in the I'ont'^omery Jaily Mail, January 12-14, 18P0, and in Murphy: lUabaira and the Charleston Convention of 1860, in Ala. Hist. Soc. Pub., vol. v.

17

A. G. Wagrath to Hamjnond , May 2, IBRQ. 18

Hammond to Henry Lesesne, Vay 15, 13^0, in t^e scrapbook, Hamjnond KSS,

154

19 elected.

What Hanmior.d thought might happen, what really he assumed would happen was that "there may be a row in the CTharlestonl Convention. The upshot will be ["will he," not "may be" 1 the secession of th- Cotton

States & their nomination of Hunter or Pearce [Maryland 1 .. . Then they

„20 will carry their nominee into the ^^ouse next year. His preference was

still for Hunter. The plan, or rather the possibility, cf carrying the presidential election into the House of Representatives was sancti6ned by law, and by practice as well. The House elected Jefferson over Eurr in 1801, it elected John Quincy Adams over Clay in 1825. And there were other cases in which it entered into campaign discussions. In April, 1860, Hammond was in V/ashington, along with other men as moderate or as far-seeing, certainly as little inclined as he to favor an abortive dis- union movement. Certainly they discussed the likelihood of the elec- tion going into the House. The chances of the House choosing the Southern candidate were very slight but Hsimmond honestly believed there was a chance and of the leaders, he at least must be absolved of the guilt of plotting to destroy the convention as an aid in establishing his long-desired Southern confederacy.

When the Columbia convention met to choose delegates to Rich- mond, after lengthy wrangling it chose a fire-cat-r delegation headed by Rhett. Hamm.ond would have been aliriost more than human had he not exulted in the unpopularity which he discovered Rhett enjoyed. "l could give you a chapter on Rhett & his convention. I knew he was rot nopular.

19

Hammond to I. W. Hayne , September 19, IP'^O, Df. 20

Hammond to his son Harry Hammond, April 27, 18*^0.

155

but out of So Ca he is as odious as ever Burr was. So much for the

«21 incarnation of disunion. And naturally Hamnond was confirmed m

his preference for his own plan and prevented fron: seeinf the nearness of disunion. Still better pleased Tvas he when Pv.hett, seeing he could get no approval for his radical course, gave up his political life and turned Union saver. So desirous was Rhett of support from the Con- servatives that he even said that disaussion of separate state seces-

?? sion T7as premature.

Hammond was slow to believe that Lincoln would be elected.

Late in July he told J, D. Ashmore that he had some hope of success for

Breckinridge and Lane, As late as early June, J. B. 0 Keall, Union nan

though he was, thought the "Black Republican party can hardly elect

24 Abe Lincoln." But the campaign went on. Dcuelas refusdd tc join

25 Breckinridge and Bell in withdrawing for a fusion candidate. It becane

quite certain that Lincoln would win over the divided field. Since 185r ,

to go nc further back, it had been proclaimed with increasing vigor, that

the election of one Black Republican president would brln? disunion.

Hammond had thought that it ought to, and had been much censured by those

who thought, wrongly, that he said the South should submit to two. Vore

than a year ago, it was the opinion of one Carolinian v/ho had opportunity

to know vfhat he was talking about, that the masses in the State would

21

Hammond to '.'. C. M. Hamjr.ond , July 4, IvS'^O. 22

Hammond to Simjns, July 10, 18?C.

Wm. P. Miles to Hairjnond , August 5, 1S60.

Mercury, August 10, 22, 18,''lSfiO.

23

L. M. Keitt to Hacmond , August 4, IS^O. 24

J. B. O'Neall to Hammond, June 7, 1860, 25

Davis: Rise and Fall, vol. i, p. 52.

loiaKOO?..

15^

welcome any movement looking to disunion.

By mid-August the tide of secession was running high, sweeping with it much that might have resisted a normal current. "There is considerable feeling in the Gtate Crr is for disscluticn." ''ore emphatic still w;is Porcher I/iles of Charleston. " I feel very much in- clined to think that it is just as vvell tc break up thinf,s generally." Faster and faster came reports of o;rowin~ sentiment for secession. In Union District Ashmore found them "red-hot for separate state action. In Spartanburg quiet but looking to resistance of some kind as absolute- ly necessarj' in the event of Lincoln's election." Even yet Kammiond had not caught the popular drift. In September he was stial givin.?; it out that he was a candidate for the United States tc succeed him.self in

1861. Sven after secession was an accom.plishied fact he did not take

30 credit to himself for having foreseen it.

Along with the growint: favor for immediate, and, if need be,

separate secession, v.'ent, am.ong the hotbeds a proposal to use force to

31 prevent the inauguration of Lincoln. Hammond denounced the plan

26

I . \7 . Hayne t c Hammond , January 5 , 1 '^S 9 .

The attitude of the average Southerner to those v.-ho would have him wait for some overt act from Lincoln, was much like that of a friend of Hammond, "in other words — if I have been notified by a man that he will attack & kill me the first chance he has I must do nothing till he does attack me." (W. Duncan tc Hammond, May 9, 18^0.)

27

L. lu. Keitt to HairjT.ond, August 4, 1860. 28

Wm. Porcher u'iles to Hammond, August 5, l^i^O. 29

J. D. Ashmore to Hamm.ond , August 30, 18*^0.

L. M, Keitt to Hammond, September 10, 186 0,

A. P. Aldrich to Hamjrond, October 4, 1860.

30

Hammond to , January 18, 1861, " I had no hand in 'precipi- tating' the present imbroglio, because having for many years past mingled but little with my fellow citizens I f^ought from, what I saw at Washington, that it was merely a bullying mover.ent of the politicians."

157

vigorously and certainly. It was treason, no less, to interfere with the inauguration before secession. It would destroy at a breath the entire constitutionality of the Southern rovement. "if," said he, "anybody is for violence of any sort Vsfcre secession formally de- clared, I must be excused the risk of a halter." "But the State being sovereign," he continued, "may secede v/ithout assigning any cause... General incompatibility, the b^st of all grounds for a divorce, had better be pleaded."

Hammond's conservatism was due solely to a belief that the people of the South outside of South Carolina were not yet in favor of disunion. "The state of opinion and feeling outside of South Carolina.. appears more strongly union than at any tim.e in ten 5fears. Ycu can hardly see it as I see it unless you had been in Washington when the secession occurred in Charleston... you should have seen how the fire- eaters blenched and shrunk'.". . . I have never seen the day that I v/ould not on any practicable scheme v?ith a fair chance of success risk all I am in the effort to make a Southern Slaveholding Ccrfederacv. . . . But

31

A secret association called A'inute Men was formed in every dis- trict pledged to march with rifle and revolver at a minute's notice to prevent it. The plan was originated in Columbia by a younger brother of P. S. Brooks. Lam.ar, Butler, Jennings were in it and Rhett , Pic!.ens and J. H. Adams T,'ere probably at the bottom of it. Ir. Edgefield alone there v/ere more than four hundred m.embers. By October the supporters of it were so bold ihat its emblem., a blue cockade, was som.etimes seen on the street. D. D. Tillman to Hamm.ond, October 9, 18^0.

32

Hammond to I. VY. Hayne , September 19, l^^O. Hammond tc Simms , September 23, l^fiQ.

33

There was even some Urior sentiment in South Carolina, though it was not great or influential. F. Asbury Mood, a preacher in the upper districts of the State, said that "in the upper Districts of South' Caro- lina at least the m.ajority are far from believing that we reap only misfortune 5: injury in the Union & that prosperity S: blessing is to be found only in South Carolina setting up for herself." Cv. Asbury !"ood to Hammond, November 2, Ifi^O). ^

158

nobody shall frighten me cr ccerce me... into a scheme of... again lowering by an abortion the character of South Carolina.

In Alabama it had been decided that the Governor should sum- mon a convention of the State forty days after it was certain that Lincoln was elected. In South Carolina Harmond , at the request of the legislature, told them, what he thought the v/isest course. He vixs not sure secession was the wisest course: and he wovild insist that the constitution of the United States as it stood be alopted by the n-=w Confederacy as its constitution. He aaid he feared dema'ropues within more than enemies v;ithout. Undoubtedly Hammond s plan, or any plan short of immediate secession was, as he said, "behind the times" by November 7, 1860. V.Tien the election returns were in, Charleston was unanimous for undelayed separate secession, so miuch so, t-at when it seemed that the legislature v70uld call the convention for January 15, a demand was made and heeded that it meet earlier. Chesnut resigned from the Senate December 10. Toombs of Georgia resigned . Judge Kagrath resigned.' Hammiond resigned. Ever since he v/ont to the

34

Hammond to I. W. Hayne , September 19, IBGO. Hammond to Simms, September 23, 1B60.

3.5

Will S. ^''ullins, Henry Ruist, Jofm Currin^ham, R. R. Rhett , Jr., John E. Carew, James Simons, G. Gannon, ,/. D. Porter, A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, November P, 18i^0.

Hammond to the South Carolina Legislature, Cctober 15, ISf^O, A Df. S,

Hammond to A. P. Aldrich et al . , November 8, 1S?0, A. Df. S.

HammiOnd to M. C. }'. Ham.'-'Ond , Novem.ber 12, 10^0.

Crawford in his Genesis of the Civil War, p. 14, has the statement that on October 25, 1860 there was a meeting at Redcliffe of the Ccnpres- sional delegation and Gist, Adams and Orr, "which meeting unanimously re- solved to secede in the event of Lincoln's election. Crawford is, so far as I have been able to discover, the only authority for this statem=ent, and he does not say whence he got his information. Against its correctness is the negative evidence that there is not the least mention of it in the Hamjnond papers even to Simms or to Marcellus, or in the Diary. ?.'ore im- , portant is the fact that it was contrary to his course in the past, and in the immediate future, and to his categorical statement, that he had had no hand in precipitating the event. I incline very strongly to doubt that

159

Senate he had been getting more and irore out of touch vrith the coiiimon people of South Carolina. His lonp, seclusion had dulled him more than he realized. By resigning as he did he made himself the leader of South Carolira in the direction in which she clearly insisted upon goinp. It was as certain as any thing in the future can be that the Convention a

month later would secede. His resignation reinstated him at once into

37 popular favor. Although he could not accept, he was invited fet orce

to speak at the meetings which were held all over the State.' His advice was that they hope, as he was doing, for the best, and keep care- fully within the law and the Constitution.

Another thing whic?i he emphasized in all the letters to the committees, was the importance of having the seceding State or States im,- mediately adopt the United States constitution, without changes. He had told the South Carolina legislature the same thing, and it only goes to show that, however the North and the average historian up to recently denied it, the South honored and respected the Constitution. But they must be its guardians and interpreters.

tVith the close of IS^O and the decision of South Carolira to

Cravvford is correct, but I s''.ould like to know ivhat authority he had for it.

36

James Chesmut to Ham-^cnd, Kcvemlsr 10, 1^60. V/. D. Porter to Hammond, Ncverrber 11, IS^C. Mercury, November 8, 19^0.

37

B. T. V/atts, to Hammond, November I? , lS'^-0. ff. D. Porter to Hammond, Novem.ber IP, l^'^O.

38

Edward Kcble to Hamjnord, November 15, IS'^O.

R. F. Simpson to Hamjnond , Novem.ber 15, l^'^O.

James J. Boyd et al . , to Ham.m.ond , November 15, I'^^O.

Hammond to Pendleton and to Spartanburg Committees, Novem.ber 22, 1°P0.

Columbus J.'eeting comirdttee to Ha;r.miond , Novem.ber 20, 1'?''0.

Hammond to V,'. H. Vitchell et al . , November 22, I860, Df. S.

l'=0

secede, Hammond's public life came tc its end. "For me," he said,

"I am out. Vt'hatever of reputation may survive me rests or what I have

done." Towards the future his attitude was so unapprehensive that he

was rather certain than even serenely hopeful. Sven the highest hope

yv<aS con*i.de oT that

implies a little doubt. Hammond t^'eti- the' Ccrfedaracy was going to

succeed. "The terms of the treaty tc be made with the North will depend on Northern behavior." He gave the new Confederate government his approval to an unusual degree.

"with what calm dignity i. profound abilitv have all the Con- ventions managed the movement & tc crorrn it all, see the Federal Con- vention inaugurating a Provisional Govt, that worked & then making a Permanent Constitution that reformis alm.ost all the abuses of the U . S.

Cons... & is really a miasterpiece . All honor & glory to that wise &

m41

noble Convention.

By early sujmner, Hammond's health broke down completely. He was usually, it r-ust be confessed, grumibling about expecting to die in a month or so, but this time he w:.s less bitter and more specific. He told Simms casually that his wife and > is son Spann, had read ijinooln's inaugural tc him. "My eyes grow gradually weaker & I have the alm.ost

39

Hammond to M. C. Y. Hammond, February 2, IB'^1.

"iiYhy do you trouble yourself so much about v;hat they do in Charles- ton? V/hy, I have not written a letter to or received one from, any member of the Convention during its Session nor have I had any political communica- tion v/ith any member of the Legislature during its regular session." (Ham.- mond to Simms, February f^ , 23 , ISd.)

He was much pressed to go to the Confederate Senate, and cold cer- tainly have done so, had his health perriitted . T'-ere was a very strong movem.ent- to make him governor in I'^'^E, but again he refused to consider it. Courier, November 25, 1P.62.

40

Hammond tc A. E. Allen, February 2, 13^1, Df. Allen was a New York merchant and agricultural publisher, who had a large Southern trade. He had written to HaiTimond since secession: "why did not Buchanan Pisrce & their cowardly brawling profligate supporters make the North dc its constitutional duty... It is they a they alone who have brot the country to this miserable

1^1

,,42 certain prospect of blindness close at hand. That surrner he went

to the Virginia Springs, but it did net benefit his health.""

Throughout the war, and in spite of his invalidism, he was ir.uch interested in economic matters. Letter after letter he wrote on finance, to Toom.bs, to Davis, to I.Iemminger, but he may have sent only a few of them. The gist of them all was that planters never had or ought to have ready money on hand, but that he y/ould turn in his rail- road stock for Confederate loan at par. He thoupht all Confederate bonds and treasury notes should be based on stock or produce deposited, or at least on mortgaged land and nef^roes, and he v;ould morteape all he had. j]ven so early as this he saw in the reluctance of people to give up specie a source of extreme dauiger and possible collapse, "people don't seem to understand that if for want of money the Government went down, everjrthing would go down."

pas s . " (a. B. Allen to Hammond, January 22, IS^l.)

41

Hajmnond to Simms, March 24, 1B61.

"a Southern Confederacy has been the cherished dream and hope of my life. Yet it his been accomplished without apparent ac^ency of mine... I did not see how the m.ovement could succeed, ard fully believed that So Ca would again have to eat dirt ... God s work. For Good, I have no doubt. I do homage, however uninspired, ignorant and .eft out of the record." (Hammond to J. D. Ashmore , April 8, 13P1, Dfi

42

Hajnmond to Simms, "arch 5, May 1, 19P1. 43

Passport signed by the Secretary of V/ar, L. P. Walker, July 2'', IP^^l. 44

Hammond to Toombs, 24, 18*^1, Df. Konth not ^iven, but probably Vay.

Hammond to I.femminger, !'ay 24, 18^1, Df., ''ay, ISi^l, Df".

Hamjnond tr Jefferson Davis, May 2^-, l""^!, Df.

Hammond to Toombs, June 8, 1^61, Df.

Endorsem.ent on Davis draft, by Spann Hammond.

Hammond to W. D. Porter. June l'^, 15^1, A. Df. S.

"a Ot-tJntryiran" (Harmond) Courier, Auftust-Septem.ber , IS^l.

"a Back Countr:,Tnan" (Hammond), y'ercury, October 5, 18«2.

s

\

16 J

The formation of the Confederate States had already caused hici to modify, to chance completely his views on another important subject, the tariff, "a thoroughly free trade man in the late union I am not so in the Confederate Union," he told Simjns before the firing on Sumter. About taxes Hammond was vigorously fluent. Because the act of August 19, 186lf^had proved unsatisfactory in method and insufficient in am.ount , a decidedly searching and stringent tax was levied on all that a m.an had or did or m^de. Hammond reappeared from Redclifie with a vigorous, caustic letter to R. M. T. Hunter, nember of the finance cormittee of the Confederate Congress. The bill was "crude a inquisitorial," full of "preposterous absurdities... impracticable." "Some m.aligr influence seems to preside over your councils. Pardon me, is the majority always drunk."

Throughout the war Hammond shewed a frarticallv unreasonin>^ bitterness against Jefferson Davis. From the time they had met in the United States Senate he had believed Davis was trying to be president of the United States. "He is the most irascible men I ever knew... Quick tempered, arbitrary overbearing he is lost when excited, & is easily

excited... He has no breadth of political views or solid judgem.ent about

1.4.0 them."*"

In April, 1H62 occurred the battle of Shiloh, the loss of Island

V'O. 10, and Parragut's exploit of opening, the I'ississippi throu'^h New

45

Hammond to Simms, March 23, 18*^1.

Hammond to H. V. Johnson, September 12, l^^^l.

4fi

South Carolina Acts, December 21, 18^1.

Courier, December 24, IRPl , January 8, 15, November 27, 19,FZ.

Schwab: Confederate States of /•jnerica,' p. 239.

47

Act of April 24, 18^3, Public Laws, C. S. A., 18'"^3-18'^4 . It is well summarized in Schwab, pp. 291-293.

48

Hammond to R. M. T. Hunter, Anril '^ , 1"'".'^.

IPS

Orleans. !.:ay 1, Norfolk vfith the Navv Yari fell into Union hands. It does not appear hovr it could ha/e been a^joided; yet said Hammond, "if Davis had been bribed to abort our effort to achieve our liberties, he

could not without help from abler heads, have acted so effectively for

11 50 that irJ'araous purpose .

Through the years of the war Hammond often had trouble y;ith

Confederate officials. In the spring of 1862, at a very bad time for

planting, he was ordered to send down his negro men with tools, and

equi^iment to Shell Bluff to work on fortifications. He replied that

the place selected had no advantages and was probably the worst place

on the river that could have been selected. " His prime fellows were

taken and --.'orked on the fortifications under fire. His corn they

bought at less than current prices, mi then tried to back out because

the boat could not get up the rive^. " Ths summer of 18'^4, the last of

Hammond s life, brought an acute conflict v/ith the Quartermaster's.

Hammond had offered the army for jlO.OO corn for which he was then

getting §15.00, only to have it impressed at iJS.OO. He protested and

49

Hammond to I. V/. Hayne , April 21, IS'^l, Df. 50

Hammond to Simms, May 17, 18f^2, December 14, 1S''3.

See also Hammond to Simms, May 1, November 2'^, 1"''2, January (^ , 1863, June 13, 1864.

Harmond to \'. . G. M. Hammond, August 11, 1B«1, Yarch ?A , 18^2, October 6, 1S63.

Hairjuond to J. L. Orr , January 10, Df.; December 11, 13^3, A. Df. 3.; January 8, 18''-4, A. Df. S.

51

Viller E. Grant to Hammond, Varch 3, 18*^2.

Hammond to Miller B. Grant, i^'arch 3, 1362, Df.

Hammond to Col. G. '.V. Rains, May 21, 1862, A. Df. 3.

52

Hammond to James Chesnut, April 20, May 30, 1862, Df. Hammond to Gen. Pemberton, April 28, f'av 2P, 186*, ^\ . Hammond to Gen. Ripley, April 30, Vay 8, 18^2, Df. J. C. Pemberton to Hamjnond , //ay 23, i''^2. Hammond to \l, C. 11, Hammond, Vav 5, 1°«2. Hammond to Simms, July 10, June 17, 13'^2.

M. S. Hanckel to Kairmond Aupiicsf 7 t c; o ^ i

a.njjiuiia, AUGUST, /, 1 .^ , September '^ , 12, 19 18*^

1«4

both sides agreed to an appraisal. A board of t.hree fixed or !;10.00. After removing the corn, Captain Hanokel appealed from the decision of the appraisers, and was sustained on $5.00, "thereby robbin|^ me of

Kg

§12,000 outright/' '

But it would be an immense mistake to judge Hammond s at- titude to the South, ever beloved, still beloved, by his opinion of Davis, or his treatm.ent of an arbitrary, inflated Captain of Quarter- masters. As soon as the war began he cut his cotton crop to the bone

in order to plant corn for the army. At once he subscribed two hundred

54 bales of cotton for Confederate States defence-. ViTiat he had to sell,

he sold at cost. "l have rot made & do not intend to make a farthing by ttie war if I can help it. He sold provisions, bacon and corn and salt, 30 hard to get, freely and cheaply to all his small neighbors when they were almost unobtainable elsevrhere. By 13*^4 ?!alf his Edge- field estate consisted of Confederate bonds. At his deat;^ he oy.'ned only land, negroes, and C. S. securities. His ov/n loved Redcliffe es- caped Sherman s attention in his march north from Savannah, though for a time it was in danger. Thither refugeed family and friends and ac- quaintances from Charleston and the devastated regions. In those trying

days, he used to send a carriage to Augusta every day to m^et trains

57 whether he expected anyone or not.

The reverses of 13*^4 affected hin deeply. He seemed to go to

Hammond to M. C. Hanckel, August 12, September 17, 18, lBfi2. 53

Hammond papers, June-August, 13^4. 54

T. F. Drayton to Hammond, July 11, ISi''!. 55

Hammond to J. L. Orr , December 11, IT^i^, A. Df. S. 56

Paul Hamm.ond: Memoirs of J. H. Hamriond , p. 13, Autograph document of 1364 (sheet no. 2509fi) in Hammond papers.

57

Clay: Belle of the Fifties, n. 217.

I'' 5

pieces at the fall of Atlanta. "He seemed not simply desirous but determined not to be a witness to what he was powerless to prevent, & as if he sought <k hastened his death, not by any act, but by force of will."'^" The day before he died he called to him his son 3pann who alone of his children was with him.

"'Over in the woods,' pointing the direction 'are two large hickory trees... They are notable trees, larger than any others around .... I wish to be buried near those trees... on the highest ground around... But mind,' he uttered it with thrilling earnestness, looking at me S: pointing his finger, 'if we are subjugated, run a plow over my grave.' He... repeated again rrost impressively the last injunction."

The man who lay dead in the library of Redcliffe had been a fine-looking man. In h.is j^outh he had been destinctly handsome, tall and slender. To his dress there is only one reference. He himself speaks of it not at all. An unfriendly newspaper commenting on his iraT^ !■:. 111., "Cotton is King", speech in the Senate, speaks of seeing^there. tall, long-legged, bald, spectacled, dressed in black, v;ith his legs stretched at length on the top of Ms desk like a gorged boa-con- stricter.'^' In later years, as his friends admitted, he became a little too stout.

As an orator his powers are known to have been good, as a -&f**isa£^ a conversationalist, they were excellent. He never aimed at oratorical display. "His conversational poY^ers v.-cre something more than

58

Undated note by J.'aior Spann Hammond. 59

f3d. Spann Hammond] to fHarrv Ham.mondl , November 15, 13«4. 60

Undated clipping from the Boston Traveller, in the clipping book, evidently referring to this speech.

61

Perry: Reminiscences, pp. 101-111,

Ifip.

excellent, they were brilliant... there were few admitted to his intimacy who did not feel the spell Ox"* his musical voice."

To an unusual degree Haminond was sure of himself, of his ability to guide add to rule. "Could I count on myself Had I confi- dence that stomach & bv consequence, nerve a muscle were at any time under my control, I would throw every obstacle ripht & left as a lion shakes the dew drops from his mane, & rule this vrorld .

"V/ith the help of God & tolerable health I could guide the state ic the South through all their present difficulties. And if there is another man who could do it I do not know him. — he is un- known now.

And so he speaks throughout his life.

He had not - and probably his self-confidence was a reason - the gift of making friends, close and intimate ores. Of all the people with whom he wame into contact, cnl" his brother Marcellus and Gilmore GimmiS cam.e really close to him. His Toth-^r he thought censorious, his wife, though loving, unable to appreciate him. But Simms and the Major did stick by him, when he was in trouble or disfavor or disgrace. He helped Simms with money and aid when he was sick and poor. He got i^cellus into West Point in his youth and stood by ever after.

His children he loved dearly, though his morbid temper makes him speak bitterly of them at times. The boys ahen he set them up as planters wasted his money and disobeyed his advice. He had a large

"^2

Paul F. Hajnmond, Memoir of J. H. HaT.mond , p. 14, quoting remarks by Jas. R. Randall after Hajmiiond's death. Randall was the author of ".Maryland, ■my I/aryland." He married Hammond's niece. Also Simms in the f.'ercurv," November 2°,, 1864.

63

Hsumnond's Diarv, October 9, 1857, 64

Hammond s Diary, December 14, 1^50.

jr. „

1«7

family, Harry born in 1832, Christopher in 1B33, Edward Spann in 1-34,

V/illiam Cashel , in 1S35, Charles Julius l«?i«, Paul F. 1^38, iCatherine

PI 1S40, Elizabeth 1R49. V/hile they were small he was always hu'-tine

tutors for them, and his moving to Columbia in 1B41 was done to put them to school. "Betty is still the brightest creature in the world. . . .Cattie. . .is not deficient in beatuty, do the most modest &. purest craattire .

The cardinal interest of Hammond's life was his planting.

"planting. . .in this country is the only independent cc realjy honorable

„70 occupation. The planters here... stand at the head of society. At

first he raised cotton, but by 1841 he had concluded that that was no longer profitable. Ke went in then for stock and ho^ raising and im- proving his land, and he was thinking of sending half his force to Texas. He cajne to believe that the eld idea of many hoes and few

plows was the reverse of correct. The secret of a large planting was

72 a big plow force.

Hammond was -.ore than a large planter, he v.-as a scientific one,

in the day when scientific ones v/ere few. He vvas largely instrumental

in forming in 1339 the State Agricultural Society. As one result of that

activity he became interested in inorganic rranures, especially in that

Hammond to I'.. C. ■'. Hammond, March 20, 1*^49. Hamjnond's Diarv, December 15, ISSO.

ei

Hammond Genealogy (sometim.es incorrect), tombstone inscriptions at Redcliffe and references scattered through the papers.

63

Simms to Hamm.ond , Septem.ber 14, 1''.48.

h. R. Gibbes to Hammond, November 29,' 1^:47.

Ham.mond to Simms, December 14, 1849.

69

Hammond to Simms, July 29, 18*^0. 70

Hammond to ?/. C. :,'!. Hammond, 'v5ay 9, 1^48.

IP p.

lime manure known as marl. In lf^41, led by Edrr.und Ruff in of Virginia, he began to haul marl from 3hell Bluff up the river to Silver Bluff, and in four years hauled more than three hundred thousand bushels. Twenty-three hundred acres he narlad. But he soon found that to use too much marl was to burn out the land, and he began to add vegetable manure for the marl to act upon, and to rest a third of his land every year. He manured very heavily at first, five hundred bushels to the acre, but the returns to this were inadequate. For a year of two he barely made a support, not a fortune. He did not give up marling by anu means, but he slackened up a bit, used less of it. He wrote a letter to V*'. B. Seabrook, also an enthusiastic planter, about marl, cautioning against oversnthusiasTr about it, and another letter in 134^ in response to an inquiry, giving all he knev/ about it. His neighbors all listened attentively to his advice.

The swamps from which he had drawn most of the hundreds of thousands of bushels of manure he used, attracted his attention. They v7ere thick with vegetable matter to a depth of fifteen feet. V/ithout ceasing marling, he gradually paid lass attention to it and began to drain and clear the swamps. Some swamp he owned, some he had only to enter, for some he paid as much as fifty cents an acre. First crops were bad. He said later that all during the forties he made barely a quarter crop. By 1B50 it was better. Snlendid success was evident.

71

HamjTiond to I. Y,'. Havne , January 1°., 1841, Df. 72

Hammond to Simms, Iv'arch 19, 1341, 73

Haunmond to Simms, June 4, 1^49.

IP.9

"my cotton [in the drainei landl there is breaking down with fruit... I can work on them with pleasure.

"my swamps are under way at last. I an anxious to penetrate

,,75 my 1000 acre swamp which lies in a body & is as rich as anv.

The difficulties of the nev,- swamp were great but the ditches

deepened and lengthened and the claerings increased. In 1^57 it pro-

TP.

duced thirty-five thousand bushels of corn.

„77 "Reclaiming swsunps has become my passion. It is creative.

Having got his swamps successfully under way, Kamm.ond turned

his attention to sugar making. It was no trick at all to make a very

78 delectable syrup quite cheaply, cut to crystallize it was hard indeed.

He contracted with Leonard 'lYray, supposed English sugar expert, to be

taught sugar making from the cane, and at Vi'ray s direction laid out

some ten thousand dollars in labor and machinery. V/ray, however, did

74

Hamjnond to Simms, August 20, 1350. He was evidently also re- turning to cotton again.

75

Hammond to Simirs, Novemter 11, 1S50. IP

Paul F. Hammond: Memoir to J. H. Hammond, pp. B-9. 77

Hammond to Simrns, May 14, 1^52.

Hamjnond on i^^arl , 184'^ pamphlet.

Hammond's Diary, August 22, Nover.ber 13, 1841.

Ruff in: Agricultural Survey, p. 22, appendix p. 43-49 contains HaEimond s letter to Seabrook.

Plantation books, 1«41-1S49.

Hammond to Simr.s, November 12, 1S42, October 4, 1^4,'^, February 14, 1344, April 1, 1345, April 4, March 20, lB4fi.

Edmund Ruff in to Hammond, ^ulv P, September 7, October 24, 1"45, August 1-3, 1347.

M. Tuomey to Hammond, September 13, 1-45.

R. F. vV. Allston to Hamjnond, July 24, lS4r^.

Hammond to !■.'. C. M. Hammiond , February 1, 1850.

78

Hammond to Cimms, Aufnist 29, 1351^. Simms to Ham.mond , September 7, 185*?.

170

not succeed in making crystallized supar and Hammond felt badly used. He thouglit V/ray had deliberately failed to do his best. He v;as in- tensely interested in sugar-making and during the summer of 1857 gave

up everything for it. At last he realized it was a failure and

79 charged his ten thousand dollars to experience.

Far more successful than his sugar experiment was his vine- yard, begun seriously in ISS*^. He im.ported a vinter from Cincinnati, and made thousands of experiments with im.ported and native sorts. The vineyard was a success, and the wine from it found ready sale. Hamjr.ond gave it much of his personal attention. "My onl-" pleasure & exercise is in my vineyard. Every decent dav I have spent from 2 to 4 hours in my vineyard trimminp, vines with r.y own hand."

Despite the bad crops of the forties, despite the failure of the natural increase of his slaves, Har-mond reckoned him.self at ^500,000 specie in IS'^O. A good part of this was in land - he owned

in 1857 more than eleven thousand acres - but he had over three hundred

82 slaves and they were worth certainly not less than §150,000. Cf this

valuable property Hammond took the best of care. Except for a slave or

two escaping from the overseer into the swamp while he himself was in Europe, there is but one instance of a runaway from Hamjiond and no case: of discipline after the severity of tfee early years had been miti~ated.

79

Hammond papers, February-December 1S57. 80

Hammond to Simm.s, January 10, 1861. 81

Hammond to !.!. C. '.:. Hammond, February 3, 18'^1. 82

Hammond to J. L. Orr , January 10, 18^-3, Df.

Hamburg Journal, December, 18 57,

In 1852 he listed a hundred and fifty slaves, eighty of them full hands, at |J80,000 and slaves were worth much more in ISf'O than eight years before. Autographed document signed, of Ham.r'iond , undated except as 1852.

171

His negroes were well fed, lightly tasked, well clothed, and kindly treated ^Then well or ill. Especially did he look after the sick and the women with babies. Marriage was encouraged and even rewarded with weddin'" gifts. The religious needs were abundantly considered. He built a number of churches on his plantation and paid preachers for them. He used to say that if the doctrine of transmigration of souls were true, he would like to return and inhabit the body of one of his darkies. His daughter-in-law founi his people exclusive, looking at her very carefully and weirrhing her thoroughly before

accepting her as a member of the family. 7rhen emancipation cane,

negroes

although he was dead, the did not waver in their allegiance to his

family. They remained in the homes in whic'^ he had placed them on the plantations, and continued to be good and faithful servants.

83

Mercury, February Zf^ , 1840, 84

Hammond to Calhoun, August IS, lf^40. Plantation manual.

Hammond papers, running references.

Clay; Belle of the Fifties, pp. 215-219. I.'rs. Clay was an older cousin of Miss Loijla Comer, who married Paul Hammoni.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Manuscript sources.

Hammond MSS. The Library of Congress has bv far the largest proportion, and the most important part of Hammond's Tr.anu- script remains. There are thirty-three bound vclumes of his correspondence, what diary material there is for 1831-1844, plantation account books, the fullest plantation manual known to exist, clipping books, and a few rare pamphlets. They are indispensable source for the life of Hamrriond. Of Hammond manuscript, the South Carolina Historical Commission, in Columbia has a handful, of slight im.portance . Major Spann Hammond, the Governor's only child now living, has the im- mensely important Diary of 134^-13^^1. Mrs. A. C. Ham.m.ond of Columbia had the letters which Hammond wrote to her grand- father, Paul Quattlebum, but these she has been induced to give the Library of Congress. At Redcliffe there are more plantation account books.

W. B. Seabrook MSS. Library of Congress. Of som.e real use.

E. M. Seabrook fJSS. Library of Congress.

F. H. Elmore MSS. Library of Congress.

Calhoun MSS. Library of Congress.

W. J. Grayson: Manuscript autobiography, in the custody of Snowden .

II. Newspapers.

Charleston Mercury, Library of Congress and Charleston Library.

Charleston Courier, Library of Congress.

Charleston Evening News, Charleston Library.

Columbia South Carolinian. Library of Congress.

Greenville Southern Patriot, Library cf Congress.

Colum.bia Southern Times. University of Gouth Carolina.

III. Pamphlet material.

It would be impractical to list separately by title and author all the pamphlets consulted. Suffice it to say that the Library of Congress has a few, Yates Snowden a goodly number, and the libraries of Charleston and the University of South Carolina a number of valuable ones.

IV. Hammond s Printed Vi'ritingB.

Hammond: Letters and Speeches, (^'er;/^ rare.)

Hammond: Speech on the Admission of Kansas, ''arch 4, 1858.

Hammond: An Address before the South Carolina Institute, November 20, ir.49.

Hammond; College Societies Oration, 1?49,

Hammond: Marl, 184*^^.

Hammond: Review of Elwood Fisher's North and South, 1849.

Hammond: Calhoun, 1850.

Hammond: Speech, J.'ay 21, 18*^0.

V. Published Sources.

J. Q. Adams: Memoirs.

Allston, J. B.: Petigru. in the Charleston Sunday Kews, Januar}'- June , 1900. Largely Petigru' s letters.

Benton: Thirty Years View.

Calhoun: Correspondence. [Jameson, editor]

Calhoun: \7orks. fCralle, editor]

Davis, Jefferson: Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

Davis; Varina H.: Davis.

DePow: Industrial Resources.

Clay: Belle of the Fifties.

The Proslavery Argument.

Cotton is King and Proslavery Argunents.

Phillips, U. E.: Toon'.bs, Stephens anr! Cobb Corn.

Documentary Kictcry of American Industrial Society, I, II,

VI. Public Documents.

Am.es: State Documents on Federal Relations.

Congressional Debates.

Congressional i^lobe.

Congressional Documents.

Biographical Congressional Directory.

South Carolina Reports and Resolutions.

South Carolina Jci:rnals.

South Carolina Convention Journals, 1B33, 1852.

'II. Special Secondary Sources.

Ambler: Sectionalism in Virginia.

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.

Boucher: Nullification Controversy.

Sectionalism, Representation and the Electoral Question

in South Carolina.

Ante-bellum attitude of South Carolina towards Manu- facturing.

Secession Movement in Scuth Carolina, 1^4^-"} "52 .

South Carolina on the i've of Secession, 1952-lS^O.

Carwile,: Reminiscences of Newberry.

Christy: Cotton is King.

Cole: Whig Party in the South.

Cyclopedia of Eminent Men of the Carolines .

Capers, H. D.: Memminger.

Dewey: Financial Ki;;tcry of the United States.

DuBose: Wm. L. Yancej?-.

Elliot: Carolina Sports.

Fite; Presidential Campaign cf 1860.

Grayson: J. L. Petirru.

Green, E. L.: History of the University of Sc^th Carolina.

Hamer, P. M.: Secession V'cvement in South Carolina, 1^4"-1R52.

Hamn'.ond, M. P.: Cotton Ind'jstry.

Hammond, Rolands Hammond Genealogy.

Henry, K. K.: Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina.

Herndon, D. T. :"Nashville Ccrvention of l-.50', in Alabama

Historical Society Transactions, 1?04, pp. 203-239.

Houston: Critical Stud^' of Kullif ice.tion in South Carolina.

Howe: Presbyterian Church in South Carolina.

Hunt: John C. Calhoun.

Ingle: Southern Sidelights.

Irving, John Beaufain: South Carolina Jockey Club.

Jervey: Hayne and Ms Tirr.es.

LaEorde; History of the South Carolina College.

McMaster: People cf the United States.

Meigs: John C. Calhoun.

Werinether: Higher Education ir South Carolina.

Kiles' Register.

Olmsted: Seaboard Slave States.

O'Neall: Annals of Newberry.

O'Neall: Bench and ^ar of South Carolina.

O'Neall: Kegro Law of South Carolina.

Pendleton: Alexander Stephens.

Perry, B. F.: Reminiscences of Public Ven.

Perry, T. S.: Francis Lieber.

Phillips: American Negro Slavery.

Toombs.

Quincy: Figvjres of the Past.

Rhodes: United States, vols, i-iii.

Rviffin: Agricultural Survey of South Carolina.

Scherer: Cotton as a V/orld Power.

Schwab: Confederate States cf America.

Sioussat, St. tr. L.: "Kashville Convention" . in Vississio-^i Valley Historical Revien, vol. ii, p. 313 ff.

South Carolina Historical and Genealo|!;ical Magazine.

Trent: Simms.

Southern Statesmen of t>'e Cld Regime .

Sians: Geography of South Carolina, 1^42.

Troup (pseud.): Senator Harttr.ond and the Tribune.

Turner, J. A.: Cotton Planters' Manual.

VITA

Elizabeth Kerritt T?as born in Baltimore ir l'?90, and re- ceived her secondary education in the public schoclE. In 1911 she graduated frcir. Goucher College and in 1P14 she received a master's degree froni Srith College. In 1915 she entered the history depart- ment of the Johns Hopkins University, where the reirainder of her graduate work has been done. In 1918-193 9 she was University Fellow in history.

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