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HAMMOND, James Henry

HAMMOND, James Henry

Courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office
HAMMOND, James Henry
1807–1864

Office

Representative, Senator

State/Territory

South Carolina

Party

Democrat, Nullifier

Congress(es)

24th (1835–1837), 35th (1857–1859), 36th (1859–1861)

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Biography

HAMMOND, James Henry, (son–in–law of Wade Hampton [1752–1835], uncle of Wade Hampton [1818–1902]), a Representative and a Senator from South Carolina; born in Newberry District, S.C., November 15, 1807; graduated from the South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) at Columbia in 1825; taught school and wrote for a newspaper; studied law, admitted to the bar in 1828 and practiced in Columbia; established a newspaper to support nullification; planter; elected as a Nullifier to the Twenty-fourth Congress in 1834 and served from March 4, 1835, until February 26, 1836, when he resigned because of ill health; spent two years in Europe; returned to South Carolina and engaged in agricultural pursuits; Governor of South Carolina 1842-1844; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1857 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Andrew P. Butler and served from December 7, 1857, to November 11, 1860, when he withdrew; died at "Redcliffe," Beach Island, S.C., November 13, 1864.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Boston Public Library

Boston, MA
Papers: 1 letter.

Clemson University
Special Collections

Clemson, SC
Papers: Ca. 10 items in the John Caldwell Calhoun papers, 1784-1888. Finding aid. Restricted.

Duke University
Special Collections Library

Durham, NC
Papers: 21 items in United States Senators' papers, 1779-1946.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Papers: 1774-1875 (bulk 1823-1864). 10 linear feet. Correspondence, diaries (1831, 1836-1838, 1841-1846), plantation account books and manuals (1832-1858), scrapbooks, and manuscript and printed copies of speeches chiefly reflecting state and national politics prior to the Civil War. Topics include states' rights, slavery, state banks, the Southern Convention at Nashville in 1850, secession, nullification, and the tariff. Available on 20 microfilm reels. Finding aid.

South Carolina Department of Archives and History

Columbia, SC
Papers: Photograph.

University of North Carolina
Southern Historical Collection

Chapel Hill, NC
Papers: 1831-1845. 12 items. Chiefly about family, plantation matters, politics, and travels. Finding aid.

University of South Carolina
South Caroliniana Library

Columbia, SC
Papers: 1785-1939. 5,237 items and 53 volumes. Personal, business, and congressional papers and correspondence. Volumes are selections of poetry, student lecture notes, scrapbooks, letterbook (1831-1833), plantation journal (1831-1887), diary (1836-1837), stud books (1833-1840) regarding horses and their winnings, and personal, travel and plantation account books. Finding aid. Available on microfilm.
Additional Papers: Estate papers in Hammond-Bryan-Cumming family papers, 1737-1961; and correspondence in Lewis Malone Ayer papers, 1768-1870. Finding aid.

Virginia Historical Society

Richmond, VA
Papers: Ca. 50 items in Mason family and Edmund Ruffin papers. Finding aid.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Barnwell, John, ed. " 'In the Hands of the Compromisers': Letters of Robert W. Barnwell to James H. Hammond." Civil War History 29 (June 1983): 154-68.

Bleser, Carol, ed. Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

___, ed. The Hammonds of Redcliffe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Faust, Drew Gilpin. James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

___. "A Slaveowner in a Free Society: James Henry Hammond on the Grand Tour, 1836-1837." South Carolina Historical Magazine 81 (July 1980): 189-206.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, and Eugene D. Genovese. "Political Virtues and the Lessons of the French Revolution: The View from the Slaveholding South." In Virtue, Corruption, and Self-Interest: Political Values in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Richard K. Matthews, pp. 202-17. Bethlehem: Leigh University Press, 1994.

Hammond, James Henry. Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, of South Carolina. 1866. New ed., with introduction and notes by Clyde N. Wilson. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Co., 1978.

___. "Two Letters on Slavery." In The Pro-Slavery Argument, as Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States, pp. 99-174. 1852. Reprint. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968.

Jameson, John Franklin, ed. "Letters on the Nullification Movement in South Carolina, 1830-1834." American Historical Review 6 (July 1901): 736-65; 7 (October 1901): 92-119.

McDonnell, Lawrence T. "Struggle against Suicide: James Henry Hammond and the Secession of South Carolina." Southern Studies 22 (Summer 1983): 109-37.

Merritt, Elizabeth. James Henry Hammond, 1807-1864. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1923.

Stegmaier, Mark J. "Intensifying the Sectional Conflict: William Seward versus James Hammond in the Lecompton Debate of 1858." Civil War History 31 (September 1985): 197-221.

Tucker, Robert Cinnamond. "James Henry Hammond, South Carolinian." Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1958.

Wakelyn, Jon L. "The Changing Loyalties of James Henry Hammond: A Reconsideration." South Carolina Historical Magazine 75 (January 1974): 1-13.

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