James Francis Byrnes ( ; May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, most prominently as the 49th U.S. Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman. Byrnes was also the 104th governor of South Carolina.
Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Byrnes pursued a legal career with the help of his cousin, Governor Miles Benjamin McSweeney. Byrnes won election to the U.S. House of Representatives and served from 1911 to 1925. He became a close ally of President Woodrow Wilson and a protégé of Senator Benjamin Tillman. He sought election to the U.S. Senate in 1924 but narrowly lost a runoff election to Coleman Livingston Blease, who had the backing of the Ku Klux Klan. Byrnes then moved his law practice to Spartanburg, South Carolina and prepared for a political comeback. He narrowly defeated Blease in the 1930 Democratic primary and was elected to the Senate in 1931.
Historian George E. Mowry called Byrnes "the most influential Southern member of Congress between John Calhoun and Lyndon Johnson".David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (1994), p. 126 In the Senate, Byrnes supported the policies of his longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Byrnes championed the New Deal and sought federal investment in South Carolina water projects, in addition to supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, calling for a hard line against the Axis powers. However, he also opposed some of the labor laws proposed by Roosevelt, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage that hurt his state's competitive advantage of very low factory wages. Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the Supreme Court in 1941 but asked him to join the executive branch after America's entry into World War II after only 1 year and 87 days, making him the shortest-serving Supreme Court justice in history. Byrnes was also the last Supreme Court justice not to earn a law degree. During the war, Byrnes led the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization. He was a candidate to replace Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1944 election, but instead Harry S. Truman was nominated by the 1944 Democratic National Convention.
After Roosevelt's death, Byrnes served as a close adviser to Truman and became U.S. Secretary of State in July 1945. In that capacity, Byrnes attended the Potsdam Conference and the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947. However, relations between Byrnes and Truman soured, and Byrnes resigned from the Cabinet in January 1947. He returned to elective politics in 1950 by winning the election as the governor of South Carolina. As governor, he opposed the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and sought to establish "separate but equal" as a realistic alternative to the desegregation of schools.
Early life and career Byrnes was born at 538 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina, and was reared in Charleston. Byrnes's father, James Francis Byrnes, died shortly after Byrnes was born. His father was Catholic of English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish ancestry. He was descended from Sir John Stawell, Ralph Hopton, 1st Baron Hopton and William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who all played significant roles in the English civil war as well as the Irish aristocrats Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare and Margaret Butler, Countess of Ormond.The Making of a Cold Warrior: James F. Byrnes and American-Soviet Relations, 1945–1946 by Robert Louis Messer: University of California, Berkeley, 1978. pg. 3 His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was a dressmaker who was born in 1859.The Making of a Cold Warrior: James F. Byrnes and American-Soviet Relations, 1945–1946 by Robert Louis Messer: University of California, Berkeley, 1978 In the 1880s, a widowed aunt and her three children came to live with them; one of the children was Frank J. Hogan, later president of the American Bar Association. At 14, Byrnes left St. Patrick's Catholic School to work in a law office, and became a court stenographer. Notably, he transcribed the 1903 trial of South Carolina Lieutenant Governor James H. Tillman for murdering a newspaper editor. In 1906, he married the former Maude Perkins Busch of Aiken, South Carolina; they had no children. He was the godparent of James Christopher Connor. At this time, Byrnes converted from the Catholic Church to the Episcopal Church.
In 1900, Byrnes's cousin, Governor Miles B. McSweeney, appointed him as a clerk for Judge Robert Aldrich of Aiken. As he needed to be 21 to take this position, Byrnes, his mother, and McSweeney changed his date of birth to that of his older sister, Leonora. He later apprenticed to a lawyer, then a common practice, read for the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1903. In 1908, he was appointed solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina and served until 1910. Byrnes was a protégé of Senator and former governor "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman and often had a moderating influence on the fiery segregationist Senator.
In 1910, he narrowly won the Democratic primary for U.S. Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district, which was then tantamount to election. He was formally elected in the general election and was re-elected six times, serving from 1911 to 1925.
The platform Byrnes stood on for Congress had several progressive points, such as better conditions for workers in textile mills.South Carolina Historical Magazine, Volume 84, Number 2, April 1983, James F. Brynes: The Road to Politics, 1882–1910, by Winfred B. Moore, Jr., P.84 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 became a close ally of US President Woodrow Wilson, who often entrusted important political tasks to the capable young Representative, rather than to more experienced lawmakers. In the 1920s, he was a champion of the "Good Roads Movement", which attracted motorists and politicians to large-scale road building programs.
United States Senate and Supreme Court In 1924, Byrnes declined renomination to the House and instead sought nomination for the Senate seat held by incumbent Nathaniel B. Dial, though both were former allies of the now-deceased "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman. Anti-Tillmanite and extreme racist demagogue Coleman Blease, who had challenged Dial in 1918, also ran again. Blease led the primary with 42 percent. Byrnes was second with 34 percent. Dial finished third with 22 percent."Report of the Secretary of State to the General Assembly of South Carolina. Part II." Reports of State Officers Boards and Committees to the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. Volume I. Columbia, SC: 1925, p. 59.
Byrnes was opposed by the Ku Klux Klan, which preferred Blease. Byrnes had been raised as a Roman Catholic, and the Klan spread rumors that he was still a secret Catholic. Byrnes countered by citing his support by Episcopal clergy. Three days before the run-off vote, 20 Catholics who said that they had been altar boys with Byrnes published a professed endorsement of him. That group's leader was a Blease ally, and the "endorsement" was circulated in anti-Catholic areas.Pope, Thomas H. The History of Newberry County, South Carolina: 1860–1990. p. 110 Blease won the runoff 51% to 49%.
After his House term ended in 1925, Byrnes was out of office. He moved his law practice to Spartanburg, in the industrializing Piedmont region. Between his law practice and investment advice from friends such as Bernard Baruch, Byrnes became a wealthy man, but he never excluded himself from a return to politics. He cultivated the Piedmont textile workers, who were key Blease supporters. In 1930, he challenged Blease again. Blease again led the primary, with 46 percent to 38 percent for Byrnes, but this time, Byrnes won the runoff 51 to 49 percent."Supplemental Report of the Secretary of State to the General Assembly of South Carolina." Reports of State Officers Boards and Committees to the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. Volume I. Columbia, SC: 1931, p. 3.
During his time in the Senate, Byrnes was regarded as the most influential South Carolinian since John C. Calhoun. He had long been friends with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he supported for the Democratic nomination in 1932, and made himself Roosevelt's spokesman on the Senate floor, where he guided much of the early New Deal legislation to passage.Herald-Journal 28 Jan 1940 BYRNES FILLS IMPORTANT ROLE
He won an easy re-election 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.
Byrnes also criticized those who spoke out against the interventionist policies of the Roosevelt administration by making references to Thomas Jefferson and states' rights, arguing that Jefferson was a progressive and liberal as well a "champion of the masses." Adding to his point, Byrnes asserted that
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, Santee Cooper, that would not only accomplish those tasks but also electrify the entire state with hydroelectric power. With South Carolina financially strapped by the Great Depression, Byrnes managed to get the federal government to authorize a loan for the entire project, which was completed and put into operation in February 1942. The loan was later repaid to the federal government with full interest and at no cost to South Carolina taxpayers. Santee Cooper has continued to serve as a model for public-owned electric utilities worldwide.
In 1937, Byrnes supported Roosevelt's highly controversial court-packing plan, but he voted against the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, as a minimum wage would potentially make the textile mills in his state uncompetitive. He opposed Roosevelt's efforts to purge conservative Democrats in the 1938 primary elections. On foreign policy, Byrnes was a champion of Roosevelt's positions of helping the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany in 1939 to 1941 and of maintaining a hard diplomatic line against Japan. In this context, he denounced isolationist Charles Lindbergh on several occasions.Those Angry Days by Lynn Olson pg. 103
Byrnes played a key role in blocking anti-lynching legislation, notably the Costigan–Wagner Bill of 1935 and the Gavagan bill of 1937.Walter Francis White#Anti-Lynching Legislation Byrnes said that "rape is responsible, directly and indirectly, for most of the lynching in America."