Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918.
133 Facts About Benjamin Tillman
2.
Benjamin Tillman was initially unsuccessful, though he was instrumental in the founding of Clemson University as an agricultural land-grant college.
3.
In 1890, Benjamin Tillman took control of the state Democratic Party, and was elected governor.
4.
Benjamin Tillman tried to prevent lynchings as governor but spoke in support of the lynch mobs, alleging his own willingness to lead one.
5.
Benjamin Tillman was known as "Pitchfork Ben" because of his aggressive language, as when he threatened to use a pitchfork to prod that "bag of beef", President Grover Cleveland.
6.
Benjamin Tillman was repeatedly re-elected, serving in the Senate for the rest of his life.
7.
Benjamin Tillman returned to Bethany in 1864, intending a final year of study prior to entering the South Carolina College.
8.
In June 1864, not yet 17, Benjamin Tillman withdrew from the academy, making arrangements to join a coastal artillery unit.
9.
From 1866 to 1868, Ben Benjamin Tillman went with several workers from the plantation to Florida, where a new cotton cultivation belt had been established.
10.
Benjamin Tillman was unsuccessful in Florida: after two marginal years, the 1868 crop was destroyed by caterpillars.
11.
Benjamin Tillman was a Christian, but did not identify with a particular sect; as a result, he never formally joined a church.
12.
In 1878, Benjamin Tillman inherited 170 acres from Sophia Benjamin Tillman, and purchased 650 acres at Ninety Six, some 30 miles from his Edgefield holdings.
13.
Benjamin Tillman rode through his fields on horseback like an antebellum overseer, and stated at the time that it was necessary that he do so to "drive the slovenly Negroes to work".
14.
Benjamin Tillman was present, and the subsequent events were among his proudest memories.
15.
Butler brought additional men in from Georgia, and the augmented armed mob, including Benjamin Tillman, went to confront the militiamen, who were barricaded in their drill room, above a local store.
16.
Ninety-four white men, including Benjamin Tillman, were indicted by a coroner's jury, but none was prosecuted for the killings.
17.
Benjamin Tillman raised his profile in state politics by attending the 1876 state Democratic convention, which nominated Hampton as the party's candidate for governor.
18.
On Election Day in November 1876, Benjamin Tillman served as an election official at a local poll, as did two black Republicans.
19.
In 1909, Benjamin Tillman addressed a reunion of Red Shirts in Anderson, South Carolina, and recounted the events of 1876:.
20.
Benjamin Tillman played a modest role in Edgefield's political and social life, and in 1881 was elected second in command of the Edgefield Hussars, a rifle club that had been made part of the state militia.
21.
Benjamin Tillman supported Gary's unsuccessful candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1880, and after Gary's death in 1881, as a delegate to the 1882 Democratic state convention Tillman backed former Confederate general John Bratton for the nomination, again unsuccessfully.
22.
Benjamin Tillman never forgot what he deemed the "betrayal" of Gary.
23.
Undeterred, Benjamin Tillman tried again in January 1885, beginning the Edgefield County Agricultural Society.
24.
When Benjamin Tillman spoke at Bennettsville, he was not widely known except as the brother of Congressman George Benjamin Tillman.
25.
Ben Benjamin Tillman called for the state government to do more for farmers, and blamed politicians and lawyers in the pay of financial interests for agricultural problems, including the crop lien system that left many farmers struggling to pay bills.
26.
Benjamin Tillman assailed his listeners for letting themselves be duped by hostile interests, and told of the farmer who was elected to the legislature, only to be dazzled and seduced by the elite.
27.
The speech was printed in several newspapers, and Benjamin Tillman began to receive more invitations to speak.
28.
Benjamin Tillman continued to speak to audiences, and was dubbed the "Agricultural Moses".
29.
Benjamin Tillman made political demands, such as primary elections to determine who would get the Democratic nomination rather than the leaving the decision to the Bourbon-dominated state nominating convention.
30.
Benjamin Tillman principally promoted the establishment of a state college for the education of farmers, where young men could learn the latest techniques.
31.
Kantrowitz pointed out that the term "farmer" is flexible in meaning, allowing Benjamin Tillman to overlook distinctions of class and unite most white men in predominantly rural South Carolina under a single banner.
32.
Benjamin Tillman sought to mold local farmers' groups into a statewide organization to be a voice for agriculturalists.
33.
Benjamin Tillman initially was unsuccessful, though he came within thirty votes of controlling the 1886 state Democratic convention.
34.
Benjamin Tillman stated that this provision, which made the lifetime trustees a majority of the board, was intended to forestall any attempt by a future Republican government to admit African Americans.
35.
The targets of Benjamin Tillman's oratory were again politicians in Columbia and the Conservative elements based in Charleston and elsewhere in the lowcountry of South Carolina.
36.
Benjamin Tillman was a highly talented stump speaker, and when given the opportunity to debate, accused Richardson of being irreligious, a gambler and a drunkard.
37.
Benjamin Tillman proposed the customary gracious motion that Richardson's nomination be made unanimous.
38.
Conservatives were certain that once Benjamin Tillman's voters understood how wealthy he was while speaking for debt-ridden farmers, they would abandon him; they did not.
39.
Those who submitted to Benjamin Tillman's rule included Hampton and Butler, the state's two US senators.
40.
The Charleston News and Courier, not always a friend to Benjamin Tillman, urged, "stand by the ticket, not for the ticket's sake, but for the party and the State".
41.
The Haskell campaign reached out to black voters, pledging that he would not disturb the limited political role played by African Americans in the state, a promise Benjamin Tillman was unlikely to make.
42.
Haskell's appeals for support, added to speculation that Benjamin Tillman was trying to form a biracial coalition through the Farmers' Alliance made race an issue.
43.
Benjamin Tillman boasted of his deeds at Hamburg and Ellenton, but it was Gary who made race the focus of his campaign.
44.
On Election Day, November 4,1890, Benjamin Tillman was elected governor with 59,159 votes to 14,828 for Haskell.
45.
Benjamin Tillman was sworn in as governor in Columbia on December 4,1890, before a crowd of jubilant supporters, the largest to see South Carolina's governor inaugurated since Hampton's swearing-in.
46.
Benjamin Tillman made it clear he was not content that African Americans were allowed even a limited role in the political life of South Carolina:.
47.
The legislature, at Benjamin Tillman's recommendation, reapportioned itself, costing Charleston County four of its twelve seats, and other lowcountry counties one each, with the seats going to the upcountry.
48.
Benjamin Tillman was embittered against Hampton for a number of slights, including the senator's neutrality in the race against Haskell.
49.
The ouster of Hampton was controversial, and remained so for decades afterwards; according to Simkins, "to future generations of South Carolinians, Benjamin Tillman's act was a ruthless violation of cherished traditions of which Hampton was a living symbol".
50.
Benjamin Tillman called out the militia multiple times to prevent lynchings, and corresponded with sheriffs, passing along information and rumors of contemplated lynchings.
51.
Benjamin Tillman's calls to redistrict away the one congressional district dominated by African Americans, and for a constitutional convention to disenfranchise them fell in the Senate, where the convention proposal failed to attract the necessary two-thirds majority.
52.
Benjamin Tillman sent the state solicitor to Edgefield to investigate the matter, and ridiculed the coroner's jury verdict.
53.
Benjamin Tillman was taken by the mob, put on "trial", and after the mob found him guilty, was murdered.
54.
Benjamin Tillman thereafter ignored the issue of the Denmark lynching.
55.
Benjamin Tillman attempted to finesse the matter by seeking to appeal to both sides, demanding that the law be followed, but that he would, as he stated in 1892, "willingly lead a mob in lynching a Negro who had committed an assault on a white woman".
56.
Benjamin Tillman used this law to oust black officials even where that race held a voting majority.
57.
Benjamin Tillman supported a provision that held the county where the lynching occurred liable for damages of $2,000 or more to be paid to the heirs of the victim.
58.
Benjamin Tillman opposed banning alcohol, but was careful to speak well of temperance advocates, many of whom were women.
59.
The concern Benjamin Tillman had with alcohol issues was that they divided the white community, leaving openings for black Republicans to exploit.
60.
The new law was met with considerable resistance, especially in the towns and cities, where Benjamin Tillman had less support.
61.
Benjamin 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.
62.
All of Benjamin Tillman's constables were white, placing him at a disadvantage in dealing with the alcohol trade among African Americans.
63.
Some constables tried going undercover by blacking their faces like minstrels; later, Benjamin Tillman hired an African-American detective from Georgia.
64.
Benjamin Tillman repeatedly warned the local mayor to crack down; when this did not occur, in April 1894, Benjamin Tillman sent a train full of constables and other enforcement personnel to Darlington.
65.
Benjamin Tillman called out the state militia, which put down the unrest, though some units refused to serve.
66.
The Darlington riot divided the state politically as Benjamin Tillman prepared to seek Butler's seat in the Senate, which would be filled by the legislature in December 1894.
67.
Benjamin Tillman closed the dispensaries temporarily, resulting in prohibition in South Carolina, and fired the constables.
68.
Benjamin Tillman had taken the precaution, once the court agreed to take the dispensary case, of having the 1893 legislature pass a revised dispensary law.
69.
Benjamin Tillman kept the law suspended until then, afterwards reopening the dispensaries under that statute.
70.
Benjamin Tillman refused, and generally opposed Populist positions that went beyond his program of increasing access to higher education and reform of the Democratic Party.
71.
Benjamin Tillman, not wanting more federal officeholders in the state, initially opposed the proposal.
72.
Many farmers felt strongly about this issue, and in 1891, Benjamin Tillman was censured by the state Alliance for his opposition.
73.
Benjamin Tillman spoke at the opening of Clemson College on July 6,1893.
74.
Benjamin Tillman fulfilled his campaign promise to start a women's college.
75.
Benjamin Tillman 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.
76.
The school, then admitting only white women, opened in October 1895, after Benjamin Tillman had become a senator.
77.
Benjamin Tillman sought election to a second two-year term in 1892, presenting himself as a reforming alternative to the Conservatives.
78.
Such a policy would inflate the currency, and Benjamin Tillman felt that would make it easier for the farmer to repay debts.
79.
When former senator Hampton attempted to speak on Sheppard's behalf, he was shouted down by Benjamin Tillman partisans; opponents complained that Benjamin Tillman's supporters had formed a mob, and that the governor was a true son of violent Edgefield.
80.
The Conservatives had agreed not to bolt the party, and Benjamin Tillman won uncontested re-election.
81.
Benjamin Tillman had long seen a Senate seat as a logical next step once he concluded his time as governor.
82.
Senator Butler, whose term expired in March 1895, had soon after the 1890 election begun to shift his positions towards Benjamin Tillman's, hoping to retain Conservative backing while appealing to the governor's supporters.
83.
Benjamin Tillman, who had already finalized his plans to win in the legislature, refused.
84.
Benjamin Tillman shot back that when Butler had testified before Congress about Hamburg, he had downplayed his role in the events.
85.
Benjamin Tillman's partisans shouted down Butler when he tried to speak at some debates.
86.
On December 11,1894, Benjamin Tillman was elected to the Senate by the new legislature with 131 votes.
87.
Benjamin Tillman was successful in getting the legislature to place a referendum for a constitutional convention on the November 1894 general election ballot.
88.
Benjamin Tillman called black disenfranchisement "the sole cause of our being here".
89.
Benjamin Tillman was the dominant figure of the convention, chairing the Committee on the Rights of Suffrage, which was to craft language to accomplish the disenfranchisement.
90.
Benjamin Tillman is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got.
91.
Benjamin 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.
92.
Benjamin Tillman 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.
93.
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.
94.
Benjamin Tillman was his state's favorite son candidate, and its representative on the Committee on Resolutions.
95.
The Nebraskan replied that Hill would oppose such a long closing address, and Benjamin Tillman agreed to open the debate, with Bryan to close it.
96.
Benjamin Tillman deemed silver a sectional issue, pitting the wealthy East against the oppressed South and West.
97.
The senator alternately offended, confused, and bored the delegates, who shouted for Benjamin Tillman to stop even though less than half of his time had expired.
98.
Benjamin Tillman campaigned for Bryan, but was a favorite target of cartoonists denigrating the Democratic candidate and supporting the Republican, former Ohio governor William McKinley.
99.
Benjamin Tillman was active in efforts to get Watson to withdraw, having a 12-hour meeting with the candidate, apparently without result.
100.
Benjamin Tillman traveled widely to speak on Bryan's behalf, and drew large crowds, but his speeches were of little significance.
101.
Simkins suggested that Benjamin Tillman, by helping forge an image of the Democratic Party as anarchic, contributed to Bryan's defeat.
102.
In 1902, Tillman accused his junior colleague from South Carolina, John L McLaurin, of corruption in a speech to the Senate.
103.
The Senate considered suspending them, but Benjamin Tillman argued that it was unfair to deprive South Carolina of her representation, though the body could have expelled the two men, knowing he had enough Democratic votes to prevent this.
104.
Benjamin Tillman never forgave this slight, and became a bitter enemy of Roosevelt.
105.
Benjamin Tillman addressing the Senate on the Brownsville affair, January 12,1907.
106.
Benjamin Tillman believed, and often stated as senator, that blacks must submit to either white domination or extermination.
107.
Benjamin Tillman was reluctant to undertake the latter, fearing hundreds of whites would die accomplishing it.
108.
Benjamin Tillman campaigned in the violent 1898 North Carolina elections, in which white Democrats were determined to take back control from a biracial Populist-Republican coalition elected in 1894 and 1896 on a fusion ticket.
109.
Benjamin Tillman spoke widely in North Carolina in late 1898, often to crowds wearing red shirts, disheartening his Populist supporters.
110.
On October 20,1898, Benjamin Tillman was the featured speaker at the Democratic Party's Great White Man's Rally and Basket Picnic in Fayetteville.
111.
Benjamin Tillman spoke furiously to the crowd of white men, asking them why North Carolina had not rid itself of black office holders as South Carolina had in 1876.
112.
Benjamin Tillman chastized the audience for not lynching Alex Manly, the black editor of the Wilmington Daily Record.
113.
Benjamin Tillman was one of many prominent Democrats advocating use of violence to win the 1898 election.
114.
Benjamin Tillman warned African Americans and those who might combine with them that black political activism would provoke a murderous response from whites.
115.
Benjamin 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".
116.
Benjamin Tillman 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".
117.
Benjamin Tillman was an early and fervent backer of war with Spain in 1898.
118.
Benjamin 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.
119.
Benjamin Tillman withdrew from the bill after Roosevelt got a provision for federal court review of agency decisions included, which Benjamin Tillman opposed.
120.
The president and the southern senator ended on worse terms than before, but there was great public attention on the Hepburn Bill, and Benjamin Tillman gained considerable respect for his role.
121.
Benjamin Tillman came to be regarded in the North as acceptable and even respectable, with some suggesting he had matured during his time in the Senate.
122.
Benjamin Tillman was the primary sponsor of the Benjamin Tillman Act, the first federal campaign finance reform law, which was passed in 1907 and which banned corporate contributions in federal political campaigns.
123.
When Benjamin Tillman entered the Senate in 1895, he was opposed to expansion of the United States Navy, fearing the expenditure would cause the issuance of bonds by the president, which he felt would only enrich the wealthy.
124.
Benjamin 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.
125.
In 1912 Benjamin Tillman requested the US Navy determine the maximum size of battleship that could be produced.
126.
Benjamin Tillman served as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims and on the Committee on Five Civilized Tribes of Indians.
127.
Benjamin Tillman supported Wilson's legislation in the Senate, except on women's suffrage, where he was a strong opponent.
128.
Benjamin Tillman was uneasy when Wilson's Secretary of State, Bryan, tried to prevent war through treaty-making, describing the former presidential candidate as the "evangel of peace at any price".
129.
Benjamin Tillman got Wilson to persuade one of his rivals, Congressman Asbury F Lever, to abandon the race, and considered how to do the same to Blease.
130.
Benjamin Tillman's death generated a large number of tributes to him in the Senate, which were afterwards collected in book form.
131.
One copy came into the hands of Blease, who was angry that Benjamin Tillman was being lauded, and stated that the late senator was not what he had seemed.
132.
Simkins noted that Benjamin Tillman "rose above the handicap of his radical views, his obstreperousness, and the insularity of his issues to become a considerable force in national politics".
133.
Kantrowitz argued that Benjamin Tillman deserves little credit for what have become important Southern schools, integrated and coeducational:.