Benjamin Tillman

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Benjamin Tillman

Benjamin Ryan Tillman (born August 11, 1847 in Trenton , South Carolina , † July 3, 1918 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician and Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894. He then had a seat in the United States Senate . He was nicknamed Pitchfork ( pitchfork ). He was an avowed racist, at times a member of the White Supremacist terrorist group "Red Shirts" and, for example, defended the lynching of African Americans in the Senate.

Early years

The young Benjamin Tillman, brother of the politician George D. Tillman , dropped out of school in 1864 in order to be able to take part in the civil war on the Confederate side . He was not accepted into the army because of an eye disease that later resulted in the loss of his left eye. For the next twenty years he ran a large farm. He helped set up a political representation for this profession. The resulting Farmers Association became increasingly influential in the 1880s. Tillman used this movement to accelerate his political rise.

Governor of south carolina

In 1890, Benjamin Tillman had enough power and influence to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for governor. He won the subsequent election with 80% of the vote against Alexander Cheves Haskell . Two years later, he was confirmed in office without a candidate. In his four-year tenure, he was able to achieve some economic and socio-political progress in South Carolina. The Railway Committee was able to redefine tariffs and the budget for education was increased. Working hours in the cotton processing industry have been reduced to 66 hours a week and 11 hours a day. A new law gave the state a monopoly on selling alcohol. During his tenure, the Clemons Agricultural College at Fort Hill and the Winthrop School were also opened.

Tillman went down in history primarily as a racist and power politician. He gradually removed his opponents in the Democratic Party and from government offices and filled all judicial posts with his followers until 1893. Tillman turned out to be a sharp opponent of racial equality and the right to vote for blacks. The blacks, he explained, had to be subordinate to the whites or be exterminated ("must remain subordinate or be exterminated"). In 1895 he made a significant contribution to undoing the equality rights for African Americans that had been won by the Civil War (also known as the American Civil War, 1861–1865) in order to disempower them politically. Among other things, blacks were deprived of their right to vote in so-called black codes by linking them to education and property. When President Theodore Roosevelt invited the well-known author and politician Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House in 1901 , Tillman declared: "That President Roosevelt invited this nigger inevitably means that we have to kill a good thousand niggers in the south until they have understood where they stand again "(“ The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again. ”)

Tillman was proud of his demeanor throughout his life and is revered in South Carolina to this day. Despite numerous protests from around the world, his statue stands in front of the South Carolina parliament building in Columbia. The universities of Winthrop University and Clemson University are named in honor of his halls.

Another résumé

After the end of his second term as governor, he was from March 4, 1895 until his death in July 1918 in the US Senate in Washington. There he was represented in various committees such as the Naval Committee. In the Senate, too, he remained true to his racist stance. After the American-Spanish War of 1898 he spoke out against the annexation of the Philippines because he feared a wave of immigration from this country and saw it as a threat to white supremacy. However, his contradiction went unnoticed. Tillman died as a senator in July 1918. His nephew James Tillman (1869-1911) was Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina from 1901 to 1903 .

literature

  • Kantrowitz, Stephen: Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
  • Robert Sobel and John Raimo (Eds.): Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789–1978. Volume 4. Meckler Books, Westport, CT, 1978. 4 volumes.
  • The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 12. James T. White & Company, New York.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. / Article on Racist Politicians in the Southern States ( Memento from July 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Simkins, Francis Butler: Pitchfork Ben Tillman, 1967: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 396-397.
  3. Kantrowitz, Stephen. Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Walter Edgar: South Carolina. A history. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 2000, 430-482; http://thetandd.com/news/article_1060d99f-f2dc-5669-86e5-736bf93ff61d.html
  4. ^ [Kantrowitz, Stephen. "Book Review of Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy"] New York Times May 21, 2000.
  5. ^ Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris, 2002 Random House, Kindle Edition, location 21341
  6. See the report by Bob Herbert in the citation