Scandals in Presidential History: James Henry Hammond
James Henry Hammond was an antebellum southern politician and political leader who once had presidential aspirations. He was a prominent attorney, politician, and planter. He served as a United States Representative from 1835 to 1836, as the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and as United States Senator from 1857 to 1860. He was considered one of the major spokesmen in favor of slavery in the United States during his life. He was also a sexual predator who blamed his victims.
Hammond was born November 15, 1807 in Newberry County, South Carolina, the son of a teacher from Massachusetts. He graduated from South Carolina College in 1825, where he was a member of the Euphradian Society. In the late 20th century, historians discovered that while he was a young man in college, Hammond had a homosexual relationship with a college friend named Thomas Jefferson Withers. Withers wrote sexually explicit letters to Hammond in 1826 and today the letters are held among the Hammond Papers at the South Carolina Library. They were first published in 1981 and are cited as rare documentary evidence of same-sex relationships in the antebellum United States. In one letter, Withers wrote "I feel some inclination to learn whether you yet sleep in your Shirt-tail, and whether you yet have the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with your long fleshen pole – the exquisite touches of which I have often had the honor of feeling?" The relationship appears to have been consensual, and this is not the reason why Hammond came to be considered as a reprehensible character in political history.
There had been a history of sexual dysfunction in Hammond's family. Hammond's father Elisha hoped to win the patronage of his wife Catherine’s wealthy uncle, John Fox, for financial help in furthering his son's career. But the two men fell out. According to Elisha, He had turned against Uncle John because John Fox had attempted to be sexually inappropriate with Hammond's sisters. Elisha Hammond wrote to John that he had severed the family ties with Fox "for attempting to destroy the chastity of your sisters – a thing I never intended to have related to you, but he did it more than once, twice or thrice."
After graduation, Hammond taught school, wrote for a newspaper, and went on to study law. Hammond was admitted to the bar in 1828 and started a law practice in Columbia, South Carolina. While practicing law, Hammond also established a newspaper in Columbia. When the nullification crisis was ongoing between Andrew Jackson and his Vice-President, the prominent South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun, Hammond's newspaper came out strongly in support of nullification.
Although Hammond made a good living as a lawyer and newspaper publisher, he achieved financial independence by marrying Catherine Elizabeth Fitzsimmons in 1833. She is described as being a "shy, plain 17-year-old with a substantial dowry". He became a wealthy man through this marriage and entered the planter class. As a result of the marriage he gained a plantation of 7500 acres, along with 147 slaves. He would ultimately own 22 square miles, a number of plantation houses, and over 300 slaves.
After his marriage, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Nullifier Party, serving from 1835 until his resignation the next year due suffering from an ulcerous stomach. He and Catherine and their son Harry took a 15 month trip to Europe to relieve his stress. They toured around the British Isles and on the Continent. He brought with him his sense of entitlement.. In one unfortunate incident on this trip in Belgium, Hammond believed that he was being overcharged for his family's stay at an inn. He told his coachman to drive away without paying. When an employee of the inn grabbed the horse’s reins to prevent this, Hammond beat the man severely with his cane. He would later explain that he felt entirely justified in doing so because he was of a higher class, and a mere servant owed him unquestioning obedience. As a result of the incident, Hammond spent a night in jail. When he paid a bail of five hundred francs the next day he was released, and promptly fled the country to avoid facing any charges.
He returned to South Carolina and engaged in running his plantation. He was elected as Governor of South Carolina, serving from 1842 to 1844. The legislature chose him for the United States Senate in 1857 following the death of Andrew P. Butler, and he served from 1857 until his resignation in 1860. Hammond became known as one of the strongest and most outspoken defenders of slavery and of states' rights. He coined the phrase that "Cotton is King" in his March 4, 1858, speech to the US Senate, saying: "In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. It constitutes the very mudsill of society. You dare not make war on cotton — no power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is king."
Hammond justified his views on slavery on religious grounds. He said "I firmly believe that American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles." He also disparaged fellow southerner Thomas Jefferson, saying: "I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson that 'all men are born equal.'" In his writings, he often compared the South's "well compensated" slaves with labor in the North, calling the latter "scantily compensated". Hammond's claims ignore the fact that the death rate among his slaves was far above average.
Hammond co-authored The Pro-Slavery Argument with William Harper, Thomas Roderick Dew, and William Gilmore Simms, a so-called "sacred circle" of pro-slavery intellectuals. This group justified slavery in terms that described it as a sort of stewardship of inferior beings. He said that Redcliffe, his plantation in Beech Island, South Carolina, was his ideal of the perfectly run plantation, and he published a Plantation Manual in 1858 that included a detailed rules regulating treatment of pregnant and nursing slaves (whom he allowed to nurse their infants for 12 months), old slaves no longer fit for heavy field work, together with rules about clothing, quarters, and food for slaves.
His views on slavery were not the only reprehensible thing about Hammond. In 1989 his "Secret and Sacred Diaries" were published. They reveal a predatory sexual appetite, which he describes in the diaries, without apology or embarrassment. In the diaries he described his "familiarities and dalliances" over two years with four teenage nieces, the daughters of his sister-in-law Ann Fitzsimmons and her husband Wade Hampton II. He saw nothing wrong with his conduct and blamed his behavior on what he describes as the seductiveness of the "extremely affectionate" young women.
In 1843 Hammond's conduct came to light when his daughter Harriet finally told her father about what Uncle James had been doing to his nieces for all those years when they came to visit. The scandal temporarily hampered Hammond's political career" for a decade after Wade Hampton III publicly accused Hammond of the abuse in 1843. Hammond was Governor of South Carolina at the time. At first he was "ostracized by polite society", but in the late 1850s, all seemed to have been forgotten and Hammond was elected by the state legislature as US senator.
Hammond's damage to his nieces was devastating. In addition to the shame they suffered following the public disclosure of Hammond's conduct, their social prospects were destroyed. They were considered to have tarnished social reputations and in an age when the victims of sexual abuse were seen to be at fault, none of the four were ever married.
At first, Hammond's wife Catherine adopted a "stand by your man" approach to the problem. But by 1850 she had finally had enough. As was the case with many slave-owners of the day, Hammond began sexually assaulting one of his slaves, a woman named Sally Johnson. This began in 1839 when she he purchased her aged 18. Sally had a daughter named Louisa, and it is believed that the child was fathered by Hammond. When Louisa reached the age of 12 years old in 1850, Hammond began sexually assaulting her as well. When Catherine learned of this, she gave Hammond an ultimatum: sell the two women, or else she would leave. When he refused to do so, she left, and took their children with her. Hammond blamed her mother for this. He wrote: "I trace it all to the horrible connection, which Satan seduced me into forming with the vulgar Fitzsimmons family, whose low Irish descent and hypocrisy can only be compared with their low-Irish pride, selfishness and utter want of refinement and tone." Louisa also bore several of his children.
Hammond and Catherine reconciled in 1853, likely because Hammond owed his entire fortune to Catherine's family. He transferred his "ownership" of Louisa Johnson to Catherine’s mother, and he gave Sally (and the children the two had borne) to his son Harry. Like father, like son, it was later discovered that Harry had also apparently been abusing Louisa.
In 1857 the scandal surrounding Hammond had faded enough and he received his seat in the Senate, where he became an outspoken pro-slavery advocate. He went so far as to advocate the death penalty for abolitionists. In a speech he gave to the Senate on the 4th March 1858, he set out what became known as his “Mudsill Theory”, in which he said: "In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government."
Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President and the Southern states chose to secede, Hammond resigned from the senate and lived on his plantation. The collapse of the cotton market left him with no source of income. In November 1864, Hammond died. At the time of his death he owned 300 slaves, all of whom would be freed within a few weeks when the Union armies reached his plantation.
In time, Hammond's conduct came to light and his legacy was put in its proper perspective. Hammond School in Columbia, South Carolina, was originally named after him, as the James H. Hammond Academy, when founded in 1966. It was one of a number of private schools known as "segregation academies". In the late 1970s, it changed its admission policy to be non-discriminatory. The school also changed its name distance itself from this reprehensible man.
Hammond was born November 15, 1807 in Newberry County, South Carolina, the son of a teacher from Massachusetts. He graduated from South Carolina College in 1825, where he was a member of the Euphradian Society. In the late 20th century, historians discovered that while he was a young man in college, Hammond had a homosexual relationship with a college friend named Thomas Jefferson Withers. Withers wrote sexually explicit letters to Hammond in 1826 and today the letters are held among the Hammond Papers at the South Carolina Library. They were first published in 1981 and are cited as rare documentary evidence of same-sex relationships in the antebellum United States. In one letter, Withers wrote "I feel some inclination to learn whether you yet sleep in your Shirt-tail, and whether you yet have the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with your long fleshen pole – the exquisite touches of which I have often had the honor of feeling?" The relationship appears to have been consensual, and this is not the reason why Hammond came to be considered as a reprehensible character in political history.
There had been a history of sexual dysfunction in Hammond's family. Hammond's father Elisha hoped to win the patronage of his wife Catherine’s wealthy uncle, John Fox, for financial help in furthering his son's career. But the two men fell out. According to Elisha, He had turned against Uncle John because John Fox had attempted to be sexually inappropriate with Hammond's sisters. Elisha Hammond wrote to John that he had severed the family ties with Fox "for attempting to destroy the chastity of your sisters – a thing I never intended to have related to you, but he did it more than once, twice or thrice."
After graduation, Hammond taught school, wrote for a newspaper, and went on to study law. Hammond was admitted to the bar in 1828 and started a law practice in Columbia, South Carolina. While practicing law, Hammond also established a newspaper in Columbia. When the nullification crisis was ongoing between Andrew Jackson and his Vice-President, the prominent South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun, Hammond's newspaper came out strongly in support of nullification.
Although Hammond made a good living as a lawyer and newspaper publisher, he achieved financial independence by marrying Catherine Elizabeth Fitzsimmons in 1833. She is described as being a "shy, plain 17-year-old with a substantial dowry". He became a wealthy man through this marriage and entered the planter class. As a result of the marriage he gained a plantation of 7500 acres, along with 147 slaves. He would ultimately own 22 square miles, a number of plantation houses, and over 300 slaves.
After his marriage, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Nullifier Party, serving from 1835 until his resignation the next year due suffering from an ulcerous stomach. He and Catherine and their son Harry took a 15 month trip to Europe to relieve his stress. They toured around the British Isles and on the Continent. He brought with him his sense of entitlement.. In one unfortunate incident on this trip in Belgium, Hammond believed that he was being overcharged for his family's stay at an inn. He told his coachman to drive away without paying. When an employee of the inn grabbed the horse’s reins to prevent this, Hammond beat the man severely with his cane. He would later explain that he felt entirely justified in doing so because he was of a higher class, and a mere servant owed him unquestioning obedience. As a result of the incident, Hammond spent a night in jail. When he paid a bail of five hundred francs the next day he was released, and promptly fled the country to avoid facing any charges.
He returned to South Carolina and engaged in running his plantation. He was elected as Governor of South Carolina, serving from 1842 to 1844. The legislature chose him for the United States Senate in 1857 following the death of Andrew P. Butler, and he served from 1857 until his resignation in 1860. Hammond became known as one of the strongest and most outspoken defenders of slavery and of states' rights. He coined the phrase that "Cotton is King" in his March 4, 1858, speech to the US Senate, saying: "In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. It constitutes the very mudsill of society. You dare not make war on cotton — no power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is king."
Hammond justified his views on slavery on religious grounds. He said "I firmly believe that American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles." He also disparaged fellow southerner Thomas Jefferson, saying: "I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson that 'all men are born equal.'" In his writings, he often compared the South's "well compensated" slaves with labor in the North, calling the latter "scantily compensated". Hammond's claims ignore the fact that the death rate among his slaves was far above average.
Hammond co-authored The Pro-Slavery Argument with William Harper, Thomas Roderick Dew, and William Gilmore Simms, a so-called "sacred circle" of pro-slavery intellectuals. This group justified slavery in terms that described it as a sort of stewardship of inferior beings. He said that Redcliffe, his plantation in Beech Island, South Carolina, was his ideal of the perfectly run plantation, and he published a Plantation Manual in 1858 that included a detailed rules regulating treatment of pregnant and nursing slaves (whom he allowed to nurse their infants for 12 months), old slaves no longer fit for heavy field work, together with rules about clothing, quarters, and food for slaves.
His views on slavery were not the only reprehensible thing about Hammond. In 1989 his "Secret and Sacred Diaries" were published. They reveal a predatory sexual appetite, which he describes in the diaries, without apology or embarrassment. In the diaries he described his "familiarities and dalliances" over two years with four teenage nieces, the daughters of his sister-in-law Ann Fitzsimmons and her husband Wade Hampton II. He saw nothing wrong with his conduct and blamed his behavior on what he describes as the seductiveness of the "extremely affectionate" young women.
In 1843 Hammond's conduct came to light when his daughter Harriet finally told her father about what Uncle James had been doing to his nieces for all those years when they came to visit. The scandal temporarily hampered Hammond's political career" for a decade after Wade Hampton III publicly accused Hammond of the abuse in 1843. Hammond was Governor of South Carolina at the time. At first he was "ostracized by polite society", but in the late 1850s, all seemed to have been forgotten and Hammond was elected by the state legislature as US senator.
Hammond's damage to his nieces was devastating. In addition to the shame they suffered following the public disclosure of Hammond's conduct, their social prospects were destroyed. They were considered to have tarnished social reputations and in an age when the victims of sexual abuse were seen to be at fault, none of the four were ever married.
At first, Hammond's wife Catherine adopted a "stand by your man" approach to the problem. But by 1850 she had finally had enough. As was the case with many slave-owners of the day, Hammond began sexually assaulting one of his slaves, a woman named Sally Johnson. This began in 1839 when she he purchased her aged 18. Sally had a daughter named Louisa, and it is believed that the child was fathered by Hammond. When Louisa reached the age of 12 years old in 1850, Hammond began sexually assaulting her as well. When Catherine learned of this, she gave Hammond an ultimatum: sell the two women, or else she would leave. When he refused to do so, she left, and took their children with her. Hammond blamed her mother for this. He wrote: "I trace it all to the horrible connection, which Satan seduced me into forming with the vulgar Fitzsimmons family, whose low Irish descent and hypocrisy can only be compared with their low-Irish pride, selfishness and utter want of refinement and tone." Louisa also bore several of his children.
Hammond and Catherine reconciled in 1853, likely because Hammond owed his entire fortune to Catherine's family. He transferred his "ownership" of Louisa Johnson to Catherine’s mother, and he gave Sally (and the children the two had borne) to his son Harry. Like father, like son, it was later discovered that Harry had also apparently been abusing Louisa.
In 1857 the scandal surrounding Hammond had faded enough and he received his seat in the Senate, where he became an outspoken pro-slavery advocate. He went so far as to advocate the death penalty for abolitionists. In a speech he gave to the Senate on the 4th March 1858, he set out what became known as his “Mudsill Theory”, in which he said: "In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government."
Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President and the Southern states chose to secede, Hammond resigned from the senate and lived on his plantation. The collapse of the cotton market left him with no source of income. In November 1864, Hammond died. At the time of his death he owned 300 slaves, all of whom would be freed within a few weeks when the Union armies reached his plantation.
In time, Hammond's conduct came to light and his legacy was put in its proper perspective. Hammond School in Columbia, South Carolina, was originally named after him, as the James H. Hammond Academy, when founded in 1966. It was one of a number of private schools known as "segregation academies". In the late 1970s, it changed its admission policy to be non-discriminatory. The school also changed its name distance itself from this reprehensible man.