Benjamin Ryan Tillman (August 11, 1847 – July 3, 1918) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign.<!-- Reference sources last sentence only -->
In the 1880s, Tillman, a wealthy landowner, became dissatisfied with the Democratic leadership and led a movement of white farmers calling for reform. He was initially unsuccessful, though he was instrumental in the founding of Clemson University as an agricultural land-grant college. In 1890, Tillman took control of the state Democratic Party, and was elected governor. During his four years in office, 18 black Americans were lynched in South Carolina; in the 1890s, the state had its highest number of lynchings of any decade. Tillman tried to prevent lynchings as governor but also spoke in support of the lynch mobs, alleging his own willingness to lead one. In 1894, at the end of his second two-year term, he was elected to the U.S. Senate by vote of the state legislature, who elected senators at the time.
Tillman was known as "Pitchfork Ben" because of his aggressive language, such as when he threatened to use a pitchfork to prod that "bag of beef", referring to 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 oratoryespecially against black Americansbut also for his effectiveness as a 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 many poor whites, and ensured white Democratic Party rule for more than six decades into the 20th century.
Early life and education
Benjamin Ryan Tillman Jr. was born on August 11, 1847, on the family plantation "Chester", near Trenton, in the Edgefield District, sometimes considered part of upcountry South Carolina. His parents, Benjamin Ryan Tillman Sr. and the former Sophia Hancock, were of English descent. In addition to being planters with 86 slaves, the Tillmans operated an inn. They owned 2,500 acres of land and were among the largest slaveholders in the district. Benjamin Jr. was the last-born of seven sons and four daughters.
The Edgefield District was known as a violent place, even by the standards of antebellum South Carolina, where matters of personal honor might be addressed with a killing or duel. Before Tillman Sr.'s death from typhoid fever in 1849, he had killed a man and been convicted of rioting by an Edgefield jury. One of his sons died in a duel; another was killed in a domestic dispute. A third died in the Mexican–American War; a fourth at the age of 15 from disease.
From an early age, Ben showed a developed vocabulary. In 1860, he was sent to Bethany, a boarding school in Edgefield where he became a star student, and he remained there after the American Civil War began. In 1863, he came home for a year to help his mother pay off debts. He returned to Bethany in 1864, intending a final year of study prior to entering the South Carolina College (today, the University of South Carolina). The South's desperate need for soldiers ended this plan. In June 1864, not yet 17, Tillman withdrew from the academy, making arrangements to join a coastal artillery unit. These plans were scuttled as well when he fell ill at home. A cranial tumor required the removal of his left eye. It was not until 1866, months after Confederate forces had disbanded, that Ben Tillman was again healthy. He became a devoted protégé of Gary. Hamburg was their first such opportunity. Ninety-four white men, including Tillman, were indicted by a coroner's jury, but none was prosecuted for the killings. Butler blamed the deaths on intoxicated factory workers and Irish-Americans who had come across the bridge from Augusta, and over whom he had no control.
Tillman raised his profile in state politics by attending the 1876 state Democratic convention, which nominated Hampton as the party's candidate for governor. While Hampton presented a fatherly image, urging support from South Carolinians, black and white, Tillman led fifty men to Ellenton, intending to join more than one thousand rifle club members who slaughtered thirty militiamen, with the survivors saved only by the arrival of federal authorities. Although Tillman and his men arrived too late to participate in those killings, two of his men murdered Simon Coker, a black state senator who had come to investigate reports of violence. They shot him as he knelt in final prayer.
On Election Day in November 1876, Tillman served as an election official at a local poll, as did two black Republicans. One arrived late and was scared off by Tillman. As there was as yet no secret ballot in South Carolina, Tillman threatened to remember any votes cast for the Republicans. That precinct gave 211 votes for the Democrats and 2 for the Republicans. Although almost two-thirds of those eligible to vote in Edgefield were African Americans, the Democrats were able to suppress the (Republican) African-American vote, reporting a win for Hampton in Edgefield County with over 60 percent of the vote. Bolstered by this result, Hampton gained a narrow victory statewide, at least according to the official returns. The Red Shirts used violence and fraud to create Democratic majorities that did not exist, and give Hampton the election.
Tillman biographer Stephen Kantrowitz wrote that the unrest in 1876 "marked a turning point in Ben Tillman's life, establishing him as a member of the political and military leadership". Historian Orville Vernon Burton stated that the violence "secured his prominence among the state's white political elite and proved to be the deathblow to South Carolina's Republican Reconstruction government."
Alcohol and the dispensary
thumb|Edgefield monument to the governors and lieutenant governors from there, including Tillman and his second lieutenant governor, [[Washington H. Timmerman. Seen in 2020.]]
The question of prohibition of alcohol was a major issue in South Carolina during Tillman's governorship. Tillman opposed banning alcohol, but was careful to speak well of temperance advocates, many of whom were women. The concern Tillman had with alcohol issues was that they divided the white community, leaving openings for black Republicans to exploit.
In the 1892 election, South Carolinians passed a non-binding referendum calling for prohibition. Bills were introduced into both houses of the state legislature that December to accomplish this, and passed the House of Representatives. Before the House bill could be passed by the Senate, Tillman sent a proposal in the form of an amendment, with instructions to pass the amended bill, and enact nothing else on the subject. Based on a system that had been successful in Athens, Georgia, the bill banned the private sale of alcohol, setting up a system of dispensaries that would sell alcohol in sealed containers—sale by the drink, and consumption on the premises, would not be permitted. Both houses passed Tillman's amendment, though there was opposition both within and outside the legislature. The dispensary system went into effect on July 1, 1893.
The new law was met with considerable resistance, especially in the towns and cities, where Tillman had less support. Dozens of clandestine saloons opened, fueled by barrels of illicit liquor, often transported by railroad. Tillman appointed dispensary constables, who tried to seize such shipments, to be frustrated by the fact that the South Carolina Railroad was in federal receivership, and state authorities could not confiscate goods entrusted to it. All of Tillman's constables were white, placing him at a disadvantage in dealing with the alcohol trade among African Americans. Some of the constables tried going undercover by blacking their faces like minstrels; later, Tillman hired an African-American detective from Georgia.
The small city of Darlington became a center of the bootlegging trade, with many illegal saloons. Tillman repeatedly warned the local mayor to crack down; when this did not occur, in April 1894, Tillman sent a train full of constables and other enforcement personnel to Darlington. They were repelled by gunfire, with dead on both sides. Tillman called out the state militia, which put down the unrest, though some units refused to serve. After the incident, Tillman disbanded the units of the militia that had refused his orders, and organized new companies to serve in their place. The Darlington riot divided the state politically as Tillman prepared to seek Butler's seat in the Senate, which would be filled by the legislature in December 1894.
Only weeks after the Darlington affair, the South Carolina Supreme Court declared the act creating the dispensary system in violation of the state constitution on the grounds that the government had no right to run a profit-making business. The vote was 2–1, with Justice Samuel McGowan in the majority. McGowan was a lame duck in office; Lieutenant Governor Gary had been elected to fill his seat effective August 1, 1894. Tillman closed the dispensaries temporarily, resulting in prohibition in South Carolina, and fired the constables. He had taken the precaution, once the court agreed to take the dispensary case, of having the 1893 legislature pass a revised dispensary law. When Gary took the bench, the Tillmanites would have a majority on the state Supreme Court, and Tillman instructed trial justices not to hear challenges to the 1893 law until after August 1. Tillman kept the law suspended until then, afterwards reopening the dispensaries under that statute. The high court declared the 1893 act constitutional on October 8, 1894, 2–1, with Gary voting in the majority.
Agriculture and higher education
thumb|right|The side of Tillman's grave marker mentions his role in the foundings of Clemson and Winthrop. Seen in 2020.
Elected with support from the Farmers' Alliance and as a result of agricultural protest, Tillman was thought likely to join the Populists in their challenge to the established parties. Tillman refused, and generally opposed Populist positions that went beyond his program of increasing access to higher education and reform of the Democratic Party (white supremacy was not a Populist position). The Alliance (and Populists) demanded a system of subtreasuries under the federal government, that could accept farmers' crops and advance them 80 percent of the value interest-free. Tillman, not wanting more federal officeholders in the state (that in Republican administrations might be filled by African Americans), initially opposed the proposal. Many farmers felt strongly about this issue, and in 1891, Tillman was censured by the state Alliance for his opposition. Attuned to political necessities, Tillman gradually came to support the subtreasuries in time for his re-election campaign in 1892, though he was never an active proponent.
Tillman spoke at the opening of Clemson College on July 6, 1893. He fulfilled his campaign promise to start a women's college. In 1891, the legislature passed a bill creating the South Carolina Industrial and Winthrop Normal College (today Winthrop University). He took a personal interest in the bidding by various towns around the state for the new school, and supported the successful candidate, the progressive town of Rock Hill, on the state's northern border. Rock Hill officials had offered land, cash, and building materials. The school, then admitting only white women, opened in October 1895, after Tillman had become a senator.
Re-election in 1892
Tillman sought election to a second two-year term in 1892, presenting himself as a reforming alternative to the Conservatives. In the campaign, Tillman was a strong supporter of free silver or bimetallism, making silver legal tender at the historic ratio to gold of 16:1. Such a policy would inflate the currency, and Tillman felt that would make it easier for the farmer to repay debts. The rhetoric of free silver suited Tillman as well, as he could make himself appear the champion of the farmer against the powerful interests that had committed the "Crime of '73" (as silver supporters termed the act ending bimetallism in the United States).
Senator (1895–1918)
thumb|upright|Tillman as a senator
Disenfranchising the African American: 1895 state constitutional convention
Throughout his time as governor, Tillman had sought a convention to rewrite South Carolina's Reconstruction-era constitution. His main purpose in doing so was to disenfranchise African Americans. They opposed Tillman's proposal, as did others, who had seen previous efforts to restrict the franchise rebound against white voters. Tillman was successful in getting the legislature to place a referendum for a constitutional convention on the November 1894 general election ballot. It passed by 2,000 votes statewide, the narrow margin gained, according to Kantrowitz, most likely through fraud. John Gary Evans was elected Tillman's successor as governor.
Opponents sued in the courts to overturn the referendum result; they were unsuccessful. During the convention, Tillman hailed it as "a fitting capstone to the triumphal arch which the common people have erected to liberty, progress, and Anglo-Saxon civilization since 1890". To assure white unity, Tillman allowed the election of Conservatives as about a third of delegates. The convention assembled in Columbia in September 1895, consisting of 112 Tillmanites, 42 Conservatives, and six African Americans. Tillman called black disenfranchisement "the sole cause of our being here".</blockquote>
1896 presidential bid
By early 1896, many in the Democratic Party were bitterly opposed to President Cleveland and his policies. The United States was by then in the third year of a deep recession, the Panic of 1893. Cleveland was a firm supporter of the gold standard, and soon after the recession began forced through repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which he believed had helped cause it. Sherman's act, although not restoring bimetallism, had required the government to purchase and coin large quantities of silver bullion, and its repeal outraged supporters of free silver. Other Cleveland policies, such as his forcible suppression of the Pullman Strike, led to the Democrats losing control of both houses of Congress in the 1894 midterm elections, and to a revolt against him by silver supporters within his party.
thumb|left|upright|This 1896 political cartoon suggests that though Tillman's speech might outrage President Cleveland (center), it was just what westerners (center right) wanted to hear.
From the time of his swearing-in in December 1895 (when Congress began its annual session), Tillman was seen as the voice of the dissatisfied in the nation; the New York Press stated Tillman would voice the concerns of "the masses of the people of South Carolina far more faithfully than did the Bourbon politician Butler". He shocked the Senate with dramatic attacks on Cleveland, calling the president "the most gigantic failure of any man who ever occupied the White House, all because of his vanity and obstinacy". The New York Times deemed Tillman "a filthy baboon, accidentally seated in the Senate chamber".
Tillman believed that the nation was on the verge of major political change, and that he could be elected president in 1896, uniting the silver supporters of the South and West. He was willing to consider a third party bid if Cleveland kept control of the Democratic Party, but felt the Populists, by allowing African Americans to seek office, had destroyed their credibility among southern whites. The stinging oratory of the South Carolina senator brought him national prominence, and with the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago likely to be controlled by silver supporters, Tillman was spoken of as a possible presidential candidate along with others, such as former Missouri representative Richard P. Bland, Texas Governor Jim Hogg, and former Nebraska congressman William Jennings Bryan.
Tillman was his state's favorite son candidate, and its representative on the Committee on Resolutions (often called "the Platform Committee"). The platform had the support of the pro-silver majority of the committee, but the gold minority, led by New York Senator David B. Hill, opposed its support of free silver, and wanted to take the disagreement to the convention floor. With one hour and fifteen minutes allocated to each side, Tillman and Bryan were selected as the speakers in favor of the draft platform. Bryan asked Tillman if he wanted to open or close the debate; the senator wanted to close, but sought fifty minutes to do so. The Nebraskan replied that Hill would oppose such a long closing address, and Tillman agreed to open the debate, with Bryan to close it.
When the platform debate began in the Chicago Coliseum on the morning of July 9, 1896, Tillman was the opening speaker. Although met with applause and shouts of his name, he "spoke in the same manner that had won him success in South Carolina, cursing, haranguing his enemies, and raising the specter of sectionalism. He, however, thoroughly alienated the national audience". Tillman was one of many prominent Democrats advocating use of violence to win the 1898 election. The resulting coup expelled opposition black and white political leaders from Wilmington, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the Civil War, including the only black newspaper in the city, and killed an estimated 60 to more than 300 people. Terror and intimidation again won the day for the Democrats, who were elected statewide. South Carolina saw violence as well: an effort to register black voters in Phoenix led whites to provoke a confrontation, after which a number of African Americans were murdered. Tillman warned African Americans and those who might combine with them that black political activism would provoke a murderous response from whites.
Beginning in 1901, Tillman joined the Chautauqua circuit, giving well-paid speeches throughout the nation. Tillman's reputation, both for his views and his oratory, attracted large crowds. Tillman informed them that African Americans were inferior to the white man, but were not baboons, though some were "so near akin to the monkey that scientists are yet looking for the missing link". Given that in Africa, they were an "ignorant and debased and debauched race" with a record of "barbarism, savagery, cannibalism and everything that is low and degrading", it was the "quintessence of folly" to believe that the black man should be placed on an equal footing with his white counterpart. Tillman "embraced segregation as divinely imperative".
thumb|upright|left|Tillman in 1906
Tillman told the Senate, "as governor of South Carolina, I proclaimed that, although I had taken the oath of office to support the law and enforce it, I would lead a mob to lynch any man, black or white, who ravished a woman, black or white." He told his colleagues, "I have three daughters, but, so help me God, I had rather find either one of them killed by a tiger or a bear [and die a virgin] than to have her crawl to me and tell me the horrid story that she had been robbed of the jewel of her womanhood by a black fiend." In 1907, he told the senators about the Ellenton riot of 1876, "it was then that we shot them; it was then that we killed them; it was then that we stuffed the ballot-boxes."
As South Carolina's economy changed in the early 20th century, with textile mills being built, Tillman complained that some African Americans were evading the supervision they would have on the farm, fearing the threat to white women. He admitted that it would be unjust to kill all of these workers, "because we might kill some innocent men, but we can keep them on the chain gang".
Legislative activities and re-elections
thumb|right|Tillman (center left) with [[Woodrow Wilson]]
Tillman was an early and fervent backer of war with Spain in 1898. However, he opposed taking the Spanish colonies such as Puerto Rico and the Philippines, both because he considered it wrong to annex people to the United States without their consent and out of opposition to adding territories with large numbers of non-whites. Tillman mocked the Republicans, most of whom supported annexation rather than self-determination, stating that it was that party that since 1860 had claimed "that all men, including the Negro, are free and equal," and was annoyed when they refused to admit their positions were inconsistent.
In 1906, Roosevelt backed the Hepburn Bill, imposing railroad regulation. Many Republicans initially wanted nothing to do with the bill, and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich entrusted management of the bill to Tillman. Aldrich hoped that the outspoken South Carolinian would cause the defeat of the bill. To Aldrich's surprise, Tillman soberly and competently conducted the bill through much of the legislative process. Tillman withdrew from the bill (though he voted for it) after Roosevelt obtained inclusion of a provision for federal court review of agency decisions, which Tillman opposed. The president and the Southern senator ended on worse terms than before, but there was great public attention on the Hepburn Bill, and Tillman gained considerable respect for his role.
This activity caused a public reassessment of Tillman, who was best known for giving speeches that shocked the North and made even Southerners cringe. Writers suggested that he was merely presenting an image as "Pitchfork Ben" that he could turn on and off as needed. He came to be regarded in the North as acceptable and even respectable, with some suggesting that he had matured during his time in the Senate. The Saturday Evening Post compared Tillman with a coconut; hard, rough, and shaggy on the outside, but within, "the milk of human kindness".
Tillman was the primary sponsor of the Tillman Act, the first federal campaign-finance reform law, which was passed in 1907 and banned corporate contributions in federal political campaigns. Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested that Tillman's motivation in introducing this legislation was to reduce the power of corporations, which tended to favor Republicans and African Americans.
When Tillman entered the Senate in 1895, he was opposed to expansion of the United States Navy, fearing that the expenditure would cause the issuance of bonds by the president, which he felt would only enrich the wealthy. Tillman sat on the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and soon came to understand that South Carolina could benefit from naval appropriations steered towards her. A flow of federal funds to his home state resulted, beginning in 1900, followed by the establishment, in 1909, of the Charleston Naval Shipyard. Once Democrats took control of the Senate for the first time in Tillman's tenure, in 1913, he became chairman of the committee and allied with others from the Southeast (such as Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels, a North Carolinian) to see that the bulk of naval appropriations would be spent there.
Tillman also served as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims (57th through 59th Congresses) and on the Committee on Five Civilized Tribes of Indians (61st and 62nd Congresses). Strokes in 1908 and 1910 decreased his influence and ability in the Senate; his seniority entitled him to become Senate Appropriations Committee chairman in 1913, but his health did not permit it.
thumb|left|upright|Tillman in 1918, shortly before his death
President Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated in 1913, the first Democrat to hold the office since Cleveland. Tillman supported Wilson's legislation in the Senate, except on women's suffrage, where he was a strong opponent.
Legacy and historical view
thumb|Statue of Benjamin Tillman on the grounds of the [[South Carolina Statehouse.]]
According to Orville Burton, "Tillman's legacy for South Carolina and the nation is controversial and disturbing. White and black South Carolinians interpret Tillman's accomplishments in contradictory ways." Protestors have since asked for that statue to be removed. Others who knew and at one time admired Tillman included Strom Thurmond, son of Tillman's Edgefield attorney, who saw and was inspired by Tillman's campaigning style as a boy. On June 19, 2020, Winthrop University's Board of Trustees passed unanimously a resolution requesting South Carolina state legislators to consider amending the Heritage Act of 2000 to "allow Winthrop to restore Tillman Hall to its original name of Main Building." Clemson University also has a Tillman Hall, though efforts have been made to change the name, and on June 12, 2020, the university's board of trustees requested the legislature to authorize a name change back to "Main Building". Kantrowitz argued that Tillman deserves little credit for what have become important Southern schools, integrated and coeducational: