Background
HARRISON, James Thomas was born on November 30, 1811 in Pendleton, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Thomas and (Earle) Harrison. His father, a lawyer, had been an officer during the War of 1812.
HARRISON, James Thomas was born on November 30, 1811 in Pendleton, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Thomas and (Earle) Harrison. His father, a lawyer, had been an officer during the War of 1812.
Private school, southern university.
The younger Harrison graduated with distinction from the University of South Carolina in 1829, studied law under James Louis Petigru, and was admitted to the Charleston bar in 1832. He was a cousin of Wiley Pope Harris. His marriage to Regina Elewett on February 11, 1840, produced several daughters, one of whom married General Stephen Dill Lee.
Harrison practiced law in Macon, Noxubee County, Georgia, from 1834 until 1836, when he moved to Columbus, Mississippi, his residence for the rest of his life. He was little interested in public life before the war, and he developed an excellent law practice. He was a Baptist. A Democrat (earlier he was a Whig), he was a delegate to the Montgomery Confederate convention of 1861, where he was a member of the Postal Affairs and Printing Committees of the provisional Confederate Congress.
He devised rules on governing the convention. He was one of the most distinguished lawyers at the convention, but his talents were never used properly during the war. He was also a chief advisor to Governor Charles Clark of Mississippi, but he saw little further service in the Confederacy.
Harrison was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1865, the same year he declined the chancellorship of his district. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1867 but was refused admittance. Harrison was a geologist in his later years.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
