Benjamin Tillman
Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American Democratic Party politician who served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign.
In the 1880s, Tillman, a wealthy landowner, became dissatisfied with the Democratic leadership and led a movement of white farmers calling for reform. He was initially unsuccessful, though he was instrumental in the founding of Clemson University as an agricultural land-grant college. In 1890, Tillman took control of the state Democratic Party, and was elected governor. During his four years in office, 18 black Americans were lynched in South Carolina; in the 1890s, the state had its highest number of lynchings of any decade. Tillman tried to prevent lynchings as governor but also spoke in support of the lynch mobs, alleging his own willingness to lead one. In 1894, at the end of his second two-year term, he was elected to the U.S. Senate by vote of the state legislature, who elected senators at the time.
Tillman was known as "Pitchfork Ben" because of his aggressive language, such as when he threatened to use a pitchfork to prod that "bag of beef", referring to President Grover Cleveland. Considered a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1896, Tillman lost any chance after giving a disastrous speech at the convention. He became known for his virulent oratoryespecially against black Americansbut also for his effectiveness as a legislator. The first federal campaign finance law, banning corporate contributions, is commonly called the Tillman Act. Tillman was repeatedly re-elected, serving in the Senate for the rest of his life. One of his legacies was South Carolina's 1895 constitution, which disenfranchised most of the black majority and many poor whites, and ensured white Democratic Party rule for more than six decades into the 20th century.
Early life and education
Benjamin Ryan Tillman Jr. was born on August 11, 1847, on the family plantation "Chester", near Trenton, in the Edgefield District, sometimes considered part of upcountry South Carolina. His parents, Benjamin Ryan Tillman Sr. and the former Sophia Hancock, were of English descent. In addition to being planters with 86 slaves, the Tillmans operated an inn. They owned 2,500 acres of land and were among the largest slaveholders in the district. Benjamin Jr. was the last-born of seven sons and four daughters.The Edgefield District was known as a violent place, even by the standards of antebellum South Carolina, where matters of personal honor might be addressed with a killing or duel. Before Tillman Sr.'s death from typhoid fever in 1849, he had killed a man and been convicted of rioting by an Edgefield jury. One of his sons died in a duel; another was killed in a domestic dispute. A third died in the Mexican–American War; a fourth at the age of 15 from disease. Of Benjamin Jr.'s two surviving brothers, one died of Civil War wounds after returning home, and the other, George, killed a man who accused him of cheating at gambling. Convicted of manslaughter, George continued to practice law from his jail cell during his two-year sentence, and was elected to the state senate while still incarcerated. He later served several terms in Congress.
From an early age, Ben showed a developed vocabulary. In 1860, he was sent to Bethany, a boarding school in Edgefield where he became a star student, and he remained there after the American Civil War began. In 1863, he came home for a year to help his mother pay off debts. He returned to Bethany in 1864, intending a final year of study prior to entering the South Carolina College. The South's desperate need for soldiers ended this plan. In June 1864, not yet 17, Tillman withdrew from the academy, making arrangements to join a coastal artillery unit. These plans were scuttled as well when he fell ill at home. A cranial tumor required the removal of his left eye. It was not until 1866, months after Confederate forces had disbanded, that Ben Tillman was again healthy.
After the war, Ben Tillman, his mother, and his wounded brother James worked to rebuild Chester plantation. They signed the plantation's freedmen as workers. They were confronted with the circumstance of several men refusing to work for them and legally leaving the plantation. From 1866 to 1868, Ben Tillman went with several workers from the plantation to Florida, where a new cotton cultivation belt had been established. The Tillmans purchased land there. Tillman was unsuccessful in Florida: after two marginal years, the 1868 crop was destroyed by caterpillars.
During his convalescence, Tillman had met Sallie Starke, a refugee from Fairfield District. They married in January 1868 and she joined him in Florida. The Tillmans returned to South Carolina, where the following year they settled on of Tillman family land, given to him by his mother. They would have seven children together: Adeline, Benjamin Ryan, Henry Cummings, Margaret Malona, Sophia Oliver, Samuel Starke, and Sallie Mae.
Though he was not very religious, Tillman was a frequent churchgoer as a young adult. He was a Christian, but did not identify with a particular sect; as a result, he never formally joined a church. His religious skepticism also led to his avoidance of any further churchgoing almost immediately following his becoming a politician.
Tillman proved an adept farmer, who experimented with crop diversification and took his crops to market each Saturday in nearby Augusta, Georgia. In 1878, Tillman inherited from Sophia Tillman, and purchased at Ninety Six, some from his Edgefield holdings. Having inherited a large library from his uncle John Tillman, he spent part of his days reading.
Although his workers were no longer slaves, Tillman continued to apply the whip to them. By 1876, Tillman was the largest landowner in Edgefield County. He rode through his fields on horseback like an antebellum overseer, and stated at the time that it was necessary that he do so to "drive the slovenly Negroes to work".
Red Shirts and Reconstruction
Resistance to Republican rule
With the Confederacy defeated, South Carolina ratified a new constitution in 1865 that recognized the end of slavery, but basically left the pre-war elites in charge. African-American freedmen, who were the majority of South Carolina's population, were given no vote, and their new freedom was soon restricted by Black Codes that limited their civil rights and required black farm laborers to bind themselves with annual labor contracts. Congress was dissatisfied with this minimal change and required a new constitutional convention and elections with universal male suffrage. As African Americans generally favored the Republican Party at the time, their votes resulted in that party controlling the biracial state legislature beginning with the 1868 elections. That campaign was marked by violence; 19 Republican and Union League activists were killed in South Carolina's 3rd congressional district alone.In 1873, two Edgefield lawyers and former Confederate generals, Martin Gary and Matthew C. Butler, began to advocate what became known as the "Edgefield Plan" or "Straightout Plan". They believed that the previous five years had shown it was not possible to outvote African Americans. Gary and Butler deemed compromises with black leaders to be misguided; they believed that white men must be restored to their antebellum position of preeminent political power in the state. They proposed that white men form clandestine paramilitary organizations—known as "rifle clubs"—and use force and intimidation to drive African Americans from power. Members of the new white groups became known as Red Shirts. Tillman was an early and enthusiastic recruit for his local organization, dubbed the Sweetwater Sabre Club. He became a devoted protégé of Gary.
From 1873 to 1876, Tillman served as a member of the Sweetwater club, members of which assaulted and intimidated black would-be voters, killed black political figures, and skirmished with the African-American-dominated state militia. Economic coercion was used as well as physical force: most Edgefield planters would not employ black militiamen or allow them to rent land, and ostracized whites who did.
Hamburg massacre; campaign of 1876
In 1874, a moderate Republican, Daniel Henry Chamberlain, was elected South Carolina's governor, attracting even some Democratic votes. When Chamberlain sought re-election in 1876, Gary recruited Wade Hampton III, a Confederate war hero who had moved out of state, to return and run for governor as a Democrat. That election campaign of 1876 was marked by violence, of which the most notorious occurrence was what became known as the Hamburg massacre. It occurred in Hamburg, a mostly black town across the Savannah River from Augusta, in Aiken County, bordering Edgefield County. The incident grew out of a confrontation on July 4 when a black militia marched in Hamburg and two white farmers in a buggy tried to ride through its ranks. Both sides filed criminal charges against the other, and dozens of armed out-of-uniform Red Shirts, led by Butler, traveled to Hamburg on the day of the hearing, July 8. Tillman was present, and the subsequent events were among his proudest memories.The hearing never occurred, as the black militiamen, outnumbered and outgunned, refused to attend court. This upset the white mob, which expected an apology. Butler demanded that the militiamen give one, and as part of the apology, surrender their arms. Those who attempted to mediate found that neither Butler nor the armed men who backed him were interested in compromise. If the militiamen surrendered their arms, they would be helpless before the mob; if they did not, Butler and his men would use force. Butler brought additional men in from Georgia, and the augmented armed mob, including Tillman, went to confront the militiamen, who were barricaded in their drill room, above a local store. Shots were fired, and after one white man was killed, the rest stormed the room and captured about thirty of the militia. Five were murdered as having white enemies; among the dead was a town constable who had arrested white men. The rest were allowed to flee, with shots fired after them. At least seven black militiamen were killed in the incident. On the way home to Edgefield, Tillman and others had a meal to celebrate the events at the home of the man who had pointed out which African Americans should be shot.
File:Hamburg cartoon.jpg|thumb|right|Harper's Weekly cartoon decrying the Hamburg massacre
Tillman later recalled that "the leading white men of Edgefield" had decided "to seize the first opportunity that the Negroes might offer them to provoke a riot and teach the Negroes a lesson" by "having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many of them as was justifiable". Hamburg was their first such opportunity. Ninety-four white men, including Tillman, were indicted by a coroner's jury, but none was prosecuted for the killings. Butler blamed the deaths on intoxicated factory workers and Irish-Americans who had come across the bridge from Augusta, and over whom he had no control.
Tillman raised his profile in state politics by attending the 1876 state Democratic convention, which nominated Hampton as the party's candidate for governor. While Hampton presented a fatherly image, urging support from South Carolinians, black and white, Tillman led fifty men to Ellenton, intending to join more than one thousand rifle club members who slaughtered thirty militiamen, with the survivors saved only by the arrival of federal authorities. Although Tillman and his men arrived too late to participate in those killings, two of his men murdered Simon Coker, a black state senator who had come to investigate reports of violence. They shot him as he knelt in final prayer.
On Election Day in November 1876, Tillman served as an election official at a local poll, as did two black Republicans. One arrived late and was scared off by Tillman. As there was as yet no secret ballot in South Carolina, Tillman threatened to remember any votes cast for the Republicans. That precinct gave 211 votes for the Democrats and 2 for the Republicans. Although almost two-thirds of those eligible to vote in Edgefield were African Americans, the Democrats were able to suppress the African-American vote, reporting a win for Hampton in Edgefield County with over 60 percent of the vote. Bolstered by this result, Hampton gained a narrow victory statewide, at least according to the official returns. The Red Shirts used violence and fraud to create Democratic majorities that did not exist, and give Hampton the election.
Tillman biographer Stephen Kantrowitz wrote that the unrest in 1876 "marked a turning point in Ben Tillman's life, establishing him as a member of the political and military leadership". Historian Orville Vernon Burton stated that the violence "secured his prominence among the state's white political elite and proved to be the deathblow to South Carolina's Republican Reconstruction government." The takeover, by fraud and terror, of South Carolina's government became known to whites as the state's "Redemption".
In 1909, Tillman addressed a reunion of Red Shirts in Anderson, South Carolina, and recounted the events of 1876: