Benjamin Ryan Tillman

Background

Tillman was born on August 11, 1847 in Edgefield County, S. C. He was the youngest of the seven sons of Sophia (Hancock) and Benjamin Ryan Tillman. His ancestors, both paternal and maternal, had settled in South Carolina before the Revolution.

His father, a farmer who supplemented his income by using his house as an inn for stage passengers, died in 1849; two brothers were killed in war; one died of fever; two others were killed in personal encounters; and in 1856 Tillman's brother George, who had become a lawyer and politician at Edgefield Court House, killed a bystander in a gambling feud and as a consequence served two years in jail. Ben aided his mother in the management of her many slaves.

Education

He studied in a local private school, and in 1861 entered Bethany, a rustic academy near his home. An apt student of English and Latin, he left school in 1864 to join the Confederate army, but was prevented from carrying out his plan by an illness which incapacitated him for two years and resulted in the loss of his left eye.

Career

Tillman did not allow his disability to prevent his participation in the political battles of the day. He joined a paramilitary effort to overthrow Republican rule in South Carolina, taking part in the "Hamburg Massacre" of 1876, in which armed citizens overwhelmed the federal militia. Tillman's leadership in this event established him as a leading white supremacist and launched his political career.

Tillman was elected governor of South Carolina in 1890, serving for a single term. During this time, he established an agricultural school that would become Clemson College, as well as Winthrop College.

Having served a full term as governor, Tillman was elected to the United States Senate in 1894. He held the office until his death in 1918. In Washington, Tillman developed a reputation as a hot-tempered presence. He threatened to stab President Cleveland with a pitchfork, earning the nickname "Pitchfork Ben, " and received a formal censure for assaulting another senator. Tillman was barred from entering the White House and inspired a number of new guidelines for decorum on the Senate floor.

Tillman died on July 3, 1918, in Washington, D. C.

Achievements

• Benjamin Ryan Tillman served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for blacks, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U. S. Senate, he frequently ridiculed blacks, and boasted of having helped to kill them during that campaign. Tillman was known as "Pitchfork Ben" because of his aggressive language, as when he threatened to use one to prod that "bag of beef", 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 oratory (especially against African Americans) but also as an effective 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 ensured white rule for more than half a century. A statue of the former governor was erected outside the South Carolina State House in 1940.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Independence of Cuba: No Reconstruction or Carpet-Bag Government Under Pretense of Patriotic Motives; Cuban Patriots Must Not Be Made to Pay Spain's ... Senate of the United States; Friday, April

    (Excerpt from Independence of Cuba: No Reconstruction or C...)

  • The Race Issue and Annexation of the Philippines: Speech of Hon. B. R. Tillman of South Carolina in the Senate of the United States; January 29, 1900 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Race Issue and Annexation of the Philipp...)

  • Memorial adresses

    (Benjamin Ryan Tillman. Memorial adresses This book, "Memo...)

  • book

  • The Race Problem. the Brownsville Raid. Speech of Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina in the Senate of the United States, Saturday, January 12, 1907

Politics

Benjamin Tillman used his newfound political clout to help defeat the Republican government and establish white supremacist laws in South Carolina. These laws resulted in the suppression of the African-American vote. White voters divided along economic class lines, with Tillman emerging as a spokesman for poor white farmers.

Along with Jim Crow laws, Tillman advocated for the education and empowerment of poor whites.

Tillman also tirelessly promoted a culture of race-based discrimination and violence. Tillman's supporters dubbed him the "Champion of White Men's Rule and Woman's Virtue" for his support of lynching as a punishment for alleged sexual misconduct by African Americans. The decade of the 1890s saw a spike in mob violence, particularly lynching, that was tolerated and even encouraged by Tillman and his allies.

Connections

On January 8, 1868, he married Sallie Starke of Elbert County, Ga. , by whom he had seven children. Tillman and his wife lived on a four-hundred acre estate adjoining his mother's property, and for the next seventeen years he gave most of his time to wresting a meager living from his red lands.

Father:

Benjamin Ryan Tillman, Sr.

Mother:

Sophia Hancock

Spouse:

Sallie Starke

References

• Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (The Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies)
• Benjamin Ryan Tillman
• Pitchfork Ben Tillman: South Carolinian (Southern Classics)