James Francis Byrnes (May 2, 1882 April 9, 1972) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
statesman from the state of
South CarolinaSouth Carolina is a U.S. state that borders Georgia to the south and North Carolina to the north. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was...
. During his career, Byrnes served as a member of the
House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
(1911–1925), as a
SenatorThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
(1931–1941), as Justice of the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
(1941–1942), as
Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence. The current Secretary of...
(1945–1947), and as
Governor of South CarolinaThe Governor of the State of South Carolina is the head of state for the State of South Carolina. Under the South Carolina Constitution, the Governor is also the head of government, serving as the chief executive of the South Carolina executive branch. The Governor is the ex officio...
(1951–1955). He therefore became one of very few politicians to be active in all three branches of the federal government while also being active in state government. He was also a confidant of President
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, and was one of the most powerful men in American domestic and foreign policy in the mid-1940s.
Early life and Career
James Francis Byrnes was born and raised in
CharlestonCharleston is a city in Charleston County, South Carolina in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is the largest city and county seat of Charleston County. The city was founded as Charlestown or Charles Towne, Carolina in 1670, and moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of...
, South Carolina. Byrnes' mother was an Irish-American dressmaker; Byrnes' father died shortly after Byrnes was born. At age 14 he left St. Patrick's Catholic School to work in a law office, and became a court stenographer. In 1906 he married Maude Perkins Busch of
Aiken, South CarolinaAiken, South Carolina is a city in the United States state of South Carolina.It is the county seat of Aiken County, and with Augusta, Georgia is one of the two largest cities of the Central Savannah River Area. It is also part of the Augusta-Richmond County Metropolitan Statistical Area. Aiken is...
and became an Episcopalian. Though they had no children, he was the godparent of James Christopher Connor.
Byrnes never attended high school, college or law school, but apprenticed to a lawyer - a not uncommon practice - and was admitted to the bar in 1903. In 1910 he narrowly won the Democratic primary for the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
from the state's 3rd Congressional District, which was tantamount to election. Byrnes proved a brilliant legislator, working behind the scenes to form coalitions and avoiding the high-profile oratory that characterized much of Southern politics. He was a champion of the "good roads" movement that attracted motorists, and politicians, to large-scale road building programs in the 1920s. He became a close ally to President
Woodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, and Wilson often entrusted important political tasks to the capable young Congressman, rather than turning to more experienced lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Byrnes was also a protege of "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, and often had a moderating influence on the fiery segregationist Senator.
United States Senate and Supreme Court
Thanks largely to the opposition of his candidacy by the
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan , informally known as The Klan, is the name of several past and present hate group organizations in the United States whose avowed purpose was to protect the rights of and further the interests of white Americans by violence and intimidation. The first such organizations originated in...
, Byrnes lost the 1924 Senate primary to
Coleman L. BleaseColeman Livingston Blease was a politician from the U.S. state of South Carolina known for his populist appeals and racism. He served as a state legislator, as governor of South Carolina, and as a U.S...
, often considered a notorious demagogue. Out of office, he moved his law practice to
SpartanburgSpartanburg is the largest city in and the county seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. It is the second-largest city of the three primary cities in the Upstate region of South Carolina....
, in the industrializing Piedmont region. Between his law practice and investment advice from friends such as
Bernard BaruchBernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising Democratic U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D...
, Byrnes became a wealthy man, but he never took his eyes off of a return to politics. He used his new base to gain the support of factory workers, and defeated Blease in 1930.
He had long been friends with
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, whom he supported for the Democratic nomination in 1932, and made himself the President's spokesman on the Senate floor, where he guided much of the early
New DealThe New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to his complex package of economic programs 1933-36 with the goals of what historians call the 3 Rs, of giving Relief to the unemployed and badly hurt farmers, Reform of business and financial practices, and promoting...
legislation to passage. He won easy reelection in 1936, promising:
"I admit I am a New Dealer, and if [the New Deal] takes money from the few who have controlled the country and gives it back to the average man, I am going to Washington to help the President work for the people of South Carolina and the country."
Since the colonial era, South Carolina's politicians had dreamed of an inland waterway system that would not only aid commerce, but also control flooding. By the 1930s, Byrnes took up the cause for a massive dam building project, the
Santee CooperSantee Cooper, also known officially from the 1930s as the South Carolina Public Service Authority, is South Carolina's state-owned electric and water utility that came into being during the New Deal as both a rural electrification and public works project that created two lakes and cleared large...
, that would not only accomplish those tasks, but also electrify the entire state with hydroelectric power. With South Carolina financially strapped by the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Senator Byrnes managed to get the Federal government to pay for the entire project, which was completed and put into operation in February 1942.
In 1937 he supported Roosevelt on the highly controversial
court packing planThe Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937, frequently called the Court-packing plan, was a legislative initiative to add more justices to the Supreme Court proposed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt shortly after his victory in the 1936 presidential election...
, but voted against the minimum wage law of 1938 that would have made, as he argued, the textile mills in his state uncompetitive. He opposed Roosevelt's efforts to purge conservative Democrats in the 1938 primary elections. On foreign policy, however, he was a champion of Roosevelt's positions of helping
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
and
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
against
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
in 1939-41, and of maintaining a hard diplomatic line against
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
In part as a reward for his crucial support on many issues, Byrnes was named as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by FDR in 1940, a role which quickly bored him at a time when the country was about to go to war. He only served in that position for a year and a half from 1941 to 1942, whereupon he resigned in order to serve Roosevelt in a new, and in many ways unprecedented, capacity.
World War II and beginning of the Cold War
Byrnes left the Supreme Court to head Roosevelt's Economic Stabilization Office, which dealt with the vitally important issues of prices and taxes. How powerful the new office would become depended entirely on Byrnes's political skills, and Washington insiders soon reported he was in full charge. In May 1943 he also became head of the
Office of War MobilizationOffice of War Mobilization - Federal agency headed by Former Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes that coordinated all government agencies involved in the war effort during World War II...
. Thanks to his political experience, his probing intellect, his close friendship with Roosevelt, and in no small part to his own personal charm, Byrnes was soon exerting influence over many facets of the war effort which were not technically under his departmental jurisdiction. Many in Congress and the press began referring to Byrnes as the "Assistant President."
He was a serious possibility for vice president in 1944. However, he was too conservative for the labor unions, big city bosses vetoed any ex-Catholic, and blacks were wary of his opposition to
racial integrationRacial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. The nomination went to Senator
Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. Roosevelt brought Byrnes to the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D...
in early 1945, where he seemed to favor Soviet plans. Writing in shorthand, his notes comprise one of the most complete records of the "Big Three" Yalta meetings.
Upon his succession to the presidency after Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, Truman relied heavily on Byrnes's counsel, he (Byrnes) having been a mentor to Truman from Truman's earliest days in the U.S. Senate. One of the first people whom Truman saw on the following day was Byrnes, who shared information with the new President on the atomic bomb project (Truman had known nothing about the
Manhattan ProjectThe Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb. The project was led by the United States, and included scientists from Denmark, The United Kingdom and Canada...
beforehand). When Truman met Roosevelt's coffin in Washington, he asked Byrnes and former vice-president
Henry A. WallaceHenry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the 11th Secretary of Agriculture , and the tenth Secretary of Commerce...
, the two other men who might well have been FDR's successor, to join him at the train station, and he intended for them to play leading roles in his administration as a sign of continuity with Roosevelt's policies; while Truman quickly fell out with Wallace, he began turning more and more to Byrnes for support.
Truman appointed him as
Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence. The current Secretary of...
on July 3, 1945. He played a major role at the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, the
Paris Peace ConferenceThe Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The treaties allowed Italy,...
, and other major postwar conferences. According to historian Robert H. Ferrell, Byrnes knew little more about foreign relations than Truman. He made decisions after consulting a few advisors, such as
Donald S. RussellDonald Stuart Russell was a Democratic Senator from South Carolina. He served from 1965 to 1966. He also served as Governor of South Carolina, 1963-1965. Russell was a protege of former Secretary of State James F. Byrnes. From 1952 to 1957 he served as president of the University of South...
and Benjamin V. Cohen, and Byrnes and his small group paid little attention to the department and similarly ignored the president.
In 1946 he took an increasingly hardline position in opposition to Stalin, culminating in the speech held in
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
September 6, 1946. "
Restatement of Policy on Germany"Restatement of Policy on Germany" is a famous speech by James F. Byrnes, the United States Secretary of State, held in Stuttgart on September 6, 1946.Also known as the "Speech of hope" it set the tone of future U.S...
", also known as the "
Speech of hope" it set the tone of future U.S. policy as it repudiated the
Morgenthau PlanThe Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war...
economic policies and gave the Germans hope for the future. Byrnes was named
TIMETime is a component of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects...
magazine's
Person of the YearPerson of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the...
. Although his tough position against the Soviets paralleled the feelings of the President, personal relations between the two men grew strained, particularly when Truman felt that Byrnes was attempting to set foreign policy by himself, and only informing the President afterward; Truman and others believed that Byrnes had grown resentful that he had not been FDR's running mate and Oval Office successor, and in his resentment he was disrespecting Truman. Whether this was true or not, Byrnes felt compelled to resign from the Cabinet in 1947 with some feelings of bitterness.
Later political career
At an age when most of his contemporaries were retiring from political life, Byrnes was not yet ready to give up public service, and at age 72 he was elected governor of
South CarolinaSouth Carolina is a U.S. state that borders Georgia to the south and North Carolina to the north. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was...
, serving from 1951 to 1955, in which capacity he vigorously criticized the Supreme Court's decision in
Brown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied...
.
Ironically, Byrnes was initially seen as a strong moderate voice for Negro rights. Recognizing that the South could not continue with its entrenched segregationist policies much longer, but fearful of Congress imposing sweeping civil rights upon the South, he opted for a course of change from within. To that end, he sought to at last fulfill the Supreme Court's promise of "separate but equal," particularly in regard to public education, and he poured state money into improving Negro schools, buying new textbooks and new buses, and hiring additional teachers. He also sought to curb the power of the
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan , informally known as The Klan, is the name of several past and present hate group organizations in the United States whose avowed purpose was to protect the rights of and further the interests of white Americans by violence and intimidation. The first such organizations originated in...
by passing a law that prohibited adults from wearing a mask in public on any day other than
HalloweenHalloween is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Gaelic pagan festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a secular celebration but some have expressed strong feelings about perceived religious overtones...
; by this measure, he knew that many Klansmen feared exposure, and would not appear in public in their robes unless their faces were hidden as well. Byrnes hoped to make South Carolina an example for other Southern states to modify their "Jim Crow" policies. That didn't stop the NAACP from filing a suit against South Carolina to force the state to desegregate its schools. Byrnes turned to
KansasKansas is a state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa tribe, who inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind," although this was...
, a Northern state which also segregated its schools, to provide a "friend of the court" statement supporting the right of school segregation on his state's behalf in the trial. This gave the NAACP's lawyer,
Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of...
, the idea to shift the suit from South Carolina over to Kansas, which led directly to
Brown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied...
.
The South Carolina state constitution limited governors to one four-year term, and Byrnes retired from active political life following the 1954 election.
In his later years, Byrnes foresaw the South as a much more important player in national politics, and to hasten that development, he sought to end the South's automatic support of the Democratic Party (which Byrnes felt had grown too liberal, and which took the "
Solid SouthSolid South refers to the electoral support of the Southern United States for the Democratic Party candidates for nearly a century from 1877, the end of the Reconstruction, to 1964, during the middle of the Civil Rights era....
" for granted at election time, yet otherwise ignored the region and its needs), and to realign it with the Republican Party. This was despite the fact that Byrnes remained a Democrat for much of the rest of his life.
Byrnes endorsed
Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the...
in 1952 and 1956,
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and is the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States ....
in 1960 and 1968 and
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
in 1964. He gave his private blessing to South Carolina Senator
Strom ThurmondJames Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral...
to bolt the Democratic Party in '64 and declare himself a Republican, but Byrnes himself remained a Democrat that year. He eventually switched formal allegiances to the Republican Party. In 1968, he secretly advised Nixon on how to win over old-time Southern Democrats to the Republican Party.
He is interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
Legacy
Today, a building housing international programs is named after Byrnes at the
University of South CarolinaThe University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational, research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States...
in
ColumbiaColumbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 116,278 according to the 2000 census . Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into Lexington County. The city is the center of a metro area of 728,063...
, South Carolina, and former U.S. ambassador to
South KoreaSouth Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often simply referred to as Korea, is a country in East Asia, located on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul, the second largest...
,
Richard L. WalkerRichard Louis "Dixie" Walker was an American scholar, author, and ambassador to South Korea. He was married to the late Celeno Kenly Walker for 45 years and had three children. His Chinese name was 吳克 and in Korean was transliterated as 리처드 워커 .Walker was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. He...
, was the James F. Byrnes Professor Emeritus of International Studies there. An auditorium is named after him at
Winthrop UniversityWinthrop University is an American public, four-year liberal arts college in Rock Hill, South Carolina, United States. In 2006-07, Winthrop University had an enrollment of 6,292 students. The University is South Carolina's top-rated university according to evaluations conducted by the South...
in
Rock HillRock Hill is the largest city in York County of South Carolina, and the fourth largest city in the state. The 2008 population estimate was 67,339 residents. Rock Hill is located at , approximately 25 miles south of Charlotte, North Carolina and approximately 50 miles north of Columbia, South...
, South Carolina. A dormitory on the east campus of
Clemson UniversityClemson University is a public, coeducational, land-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States.Founded in 1889, the University is academically divided into five colleges: Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences; Architecture, Arts and Humanities; Business and...
in
ClemsonClemson is a city in Anderson and Pickens counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 11,939 at the 2000 census and center of an urban cluster with a total population of 42,199. It is best known as the home of Clemson University...
, South Carolina is named for him and he was on the board of trustees there. A high school in
Duncan, South CarolinaDuncan is a town in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,870 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Duncan is located at ....
,
James F. Byrnes High SchoolJames F. Byrnes High School is located in Duncan, South Carolina. The school has 2289 students enrolled as of the 2008-2009 school year. It is the only high school in Spartanburg District 5....
, is also named after him, as well as a school in
Quinby, South CarolinaQuinby is a town in Florence County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 842 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Florence Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Quinby is located at ....
, called James F. Byrnes Academy (remaned The Byrnes Schools around 2000). In 1948, Byrnes and his wife established The James F. Byrnes Foundation Scholarships and since then more than 1,000 young South Carolinians have been assisted in obtaining a college education. His papers are in the Special Collections of the
Clemson Universities LibrariesClemson University is a public, coeducational, land-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States.Founded in 1889, the University is academically divided into five colleges: Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences; Architecture, Arts and Humanities; Business and...
.
External links
Primary sources
- Byrnes, James. Speaking Frankly (1947)
- Byrnes, James. All in One Lifetime (1958).
See also