The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined; And the Charges Against John Adams Refuted
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William Loughton Smith was an American lawyer, politician, political pamphleteer, and diplomat.
Background
Smith was born in Charleston, South Carolina, United States in 1758. He was the great-grandson of William Smith who was in South Carolina as early as 1690 and the son of Benjamin Smith who held many provincial offices, made a fortune in trade, and gave generously to welfare work. His mother, Anne (Loughton) Smith, died when William was but two years old. At the age of twelve, a few months before his father's death, he was sent to London.
Education
On May 12, 1774, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, but from 1774 to 1778 he studied at Geneva. Returning to England in 1779, he studied law until the fall of 1782, when he left London to seek passage for America. He received an honorary LL. D. from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton.
Career
In 1783 Smith reached Charleston, where he was admitted to the bar in January 1784 and in November was elected to the legislature.
After holding various local offices, he was elected to the First Congress, where his seat was contested by David Ramsay on the ground that he was not an American citizen, the first of the congressional contested elections. He was seated and soon became a leading Federalist. A heavy speculator in government paper, he vigorously supported assumption of state debts by the federal government, and it is said that after the reading of Hamilton's report he was one of those who sent fast-sailing vessels down the coast to purchase all the certificates that could be had from discouraged holders. In the summer of 1790, he set out from New York with Washington's party for Rhode Island, an episode of which he has left an interesting journal (post).
He published his first pamphlet in 1792, in which he has been erroneously attributed to Alexander Hamilton, The Politicks and Views of a Certain Party, Displayed, an attack on Jefferson. In 1796 it was probably he who attacked Jefferson anonymously in The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined. His Comparative View of the Constitutions of the Several States with Each Other, and with That of the United States (1796) was much admired and is said to have been used as a text at Princeton.
In the spring of 1794, his political enemies in Charleston expressed their dislike by burning him in effigy in the company of Arnold and the Devil.
However, he was elected to Congress five times and served until July 10, 1797, when he resigned to become minister to Portugal. There he entertained handsomely, worked smoothly with the British diplomats, and, as attested by voluminous letters, followed intelligently the progress of Napoleon in Europe. He was relieved on September 9, 1801, but remained in Europe.
Upon his return to Charleston in December 1803 he resumed the practice of law and at the next election was defeated for Congress. About this time he included his mother's name with his own to distinguish him from William Smith, with whom he has usually been confused. In February 1806 under the name of "Phocion, " he began a series of letters in the Charleston Daily Courier.
Smith was opposed to the emancipation of slaves, believing it would benefit neither whites nor blacks. In 1808, his politics shifted away from Alexander Hamilton and toward Thomas Jefferson.
Views
Quotations:
"If the blacks did not intermarry with the whites, they would remain black until the end of time; for it was not contended that liberating them would whitewash them; if they did intermarry with the whites, then the white race would be extinct, and the American people would all be of mulatto breed. In whatever light, therefore, the subject was viewed, the folly of emancipation was manifest. "
Connections
On May 1, 1786, he married Charlotte Izard, the daughter of Ralph Izard. She bore him a son and a daughter and died in 1792. On December 19, 1805, he married Charlotte Wragg, the daughter of William Wragg, by whom he had a son.