James F. Byrnes

James F. Byrnes
James F. Byrnes, c. 1941
104th Governor of South Carolina
In office January 16, 1951 – January 18, 1955
Lieutenant	George Bell Timmerman, Jr.
Preceded by	Strom Thurmond
Succeeded by	George Bell Timmerman, Jr.
49th United States Secretary of State
In office July 3, 1945 – January 21, 1947
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Edward Stettinius, Jr.
Succeeded by	George Marshall
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office July 8, 1941 – October 3, 1942
Nominated by	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	James Clark McReynolds
Succeeded by	Wiley Blount Rutledge
United States Senator from South Carolina
In office April 5, 1931 – July 8, 1941
Preceded by	Coleman L. Blease
Succeeded by	Alva M. Lumpkin
U.S. Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district
In office March 4, 1911 – March 4, 1925
Preceded by	James O'H. Patterson
Succeeded by	Butler B. Hare
Personal details
Born	May 2, 1882(1882-05-02) Charleston, South Carolina
Died	April 9, 1972(1972-04-09) (aged 89) Columbia, South Carolina
Political party	Democratic; later Republican
Spouse(s)	Maude Perkins Busch
Religion	Episcopalian

James Francis Byrnes (May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American politician from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a US Representative (1911–1925), a US Senator (1931–1941), a Justice of the Supreme Court (1941–1942), Secretary of State (1945–1947), and 104th Governor of South Carolina (1951–1955). He is one of very few politicians to serve in all three branches of the federal government while also being active in state government. He was also a confidant of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 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 Charleston, South Carolina. Byrnes' father died shortly after Byrnes was born. His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was an Irish-American dressmaker. 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 Carolina, 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. In 1900, when his cousin Governor Miles B. McSweeney appointed him as a clerk for Judge Robert Aldrich of Aiken, he needed to be 21. Byrnes, his mother and Governor McSweeney just changed his date of birth to that of his older sister Leonora. He later apprenticed to a lawyer – a not uncommon practice then – and was admitted to the bar in 1903. In 1908, he was appointed solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina, serving until 1910. Byrnes was a protegé of "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, and often had a moderating influence on the fiery segregationist Senator.

In 1910, he narrowly won the state's third Congressional District in the Democratic primary, 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 roadbuilding programs in the 1920s. He became a close ally to President Woodrow Wilson, and Wilson often entrusted important political tasks to the capable young Representative, rather than more experienced lawmakers.

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 Tillman. Anti-Tillmanite and extreme racist demogogue Coleman Blease, who had challenged Dial in 1918, also ran again. Blease led the primary with 42%; Byrnes was second with 34%.

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 Episcopalian clergy. Then, three days before the run-off vote, 20 Catholics who said they had been altar boys with Byrnes published a professed endorsement of him. The leader of this group was a Blease ally, and the "endorsement" was circulated in anti-Catholic areas. Blease won the run-off 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 took his eyes off of 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% to 38% for Byrnes, but this time Byrnes won the run-off 51% to 49%.

He had long been friends with Franklin D. Roosevelt, 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 Deal legislation to passage. He won an 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 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, Senator 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 paid back to the Federal government with full interest and at no cost to the South Carolina taxpayers. Santee Cooper has continued to be a model for public owned electrical utilities world-wide.

In 1937, he supported Roosevelt on the highly controversial court packing plan, 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, Byrnes was a champion of Roosevelt's positions of helping Great Britain and France against Nazi Germany in 1939–1941, and of maintaining a hard diplomatic line against Japan.

Byrnes strongly despised his fellow South Carolina Senator Cotton Ed Smith, who strongly opposed the New Deal. He privately sought to help his friend Burnet R. Maybank, then the Mayor of Charleston, defeat Smith in the 1938 Senate primary. During the primary, however, Governor Olin Johnston, who was limited to one term as governor, decided to run for Senate. Because Johnston was also a pro-Roosevelt New Dealer, he would've divided the New Deal vote with Maybank and ensured a victory for Smith. Johnston was also very supportive of the New Deal's labor legislation, whilst Byrnes' support was limited. Taking advice from Byrnes, Maybank decided to instead run for Governor and Byrnes made the reluctant decision to support Smith. Byrnes envisioned that Smith would retire in 1944 and that Maybank would successfully run for Smith's Senate seat and build a strong political machine in the state with him.

In part as a reward for his crucial support on many issues, Roosevelt appointed Byrnes an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in July 1941. This position did not suit him; he became bored and resigned from the Court after only 15 months.

World War II and beginning of the Cold War

1946 newsreel

Potsdam Conference: Sitting (from left) Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Joseph Stalin, William Daniel Leahy, James F. Byrnes and Harry S. Truman.

Sitting (from left): Clement Attlee, Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin; behind: William Daniel Leahy, Ernest Bevin, James F. Byrnes and Vyacheslav Molotov.

The Foreign Ministers: Vyacheslav Molotov, James F. Byrnes and Anthony Eden, July 1945.

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 Mobilization. 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."

Many expected that Byrnes would be the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate with Roosevelt in 1944. replacing Henry A. Wallace. However, Byrnes was regarded as too conservative for the labor unions, the big city bosses opposed him as an ex-Catholic who would offend Catholics, and blacks were wary of his opposition to racial integration. The nomination went to Senator Harry S. Truman. Roosevelt brought Byrnes to the Yalta Conference in early 1945, where he seemed to favor Soviet plans. Written 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, Byrnes having been a mentor to Truman from Truman's earliest days in the U.S. Senate. Indeed, Jimmy Byrnes was one of the first people whom Truman saw on the first day of his presidency. It was Byrnes, who shared information with the new President on the atomic bomb project (Truman had known nothing about the Manhattan Project beforehand). When Truman met Roosevelt's coffin in Washington, he asked Byrnes and former Vice President Wallace, the two other men who might well have succeeded Roosevelt, to join him at the train station. Truman, originally, intended that both men would play leading roles in his administration, signaling continuity with Roosevelt's policies. While Truman quickly fell out with Wallace, he retained a good working relationship with Byrnes and increasingly turned to him for support.

Truman appointed Byrnes as Secretary of State on 3 July 1945. He played a major role at the Potsdam Conference, the Paris Peace Conference, 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. Russell and Benjamin V. Cohen. Byrnes and his small group paid little attention to the Department and similarly ignored the President.

Although Byrnes's 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. An early instance of this friction was the Moscow Conference in December 1945. Truman considered the “successes” of the conference to be “unreal” and was highly critical of Byrnes’s failure to protect Iran, which was not mentioned in the final communiqué. “I had been left in the dark about the Moscow conference,” Truman told Byrnes bluntly. In a subsequent letter to Byrnes, Truman took a harder line in reference to Iran, saying in part, "Without these supplies furnished by the United States, Russia would have been ignominiously defeated. Yet now Russia stirs up rebellion and keeps troops on the soil of her friend and ally—Iran… Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand—“how many divisions do you have?” I do not think we should play compromise any longer …I am tired of babying the Soviets". This led to the Iran crisis of 1946, and Byrnes took an increasingly hardline position in opposition to Stalin, culminating in the speech held in Stuttgart on 6 September 1946. "Restatement of Policy on Germany", also known as the "Speech of hope" it set the tone of future U.S. policy as it repudiated the Morgenthau Plan economic policies and gave the Germans hope for the future. Byrnes was named TIME Man of the Year. Truman and others believed that Byrnes had grown resentful that he had not been Roosevelt's running mate and 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.

Governor of South Carolina

At an age when most of his contemporaries retired from politics, Byrnes was not yet ready to give up public service. At age 68 he was elected governor of South Carolina, serving from 1951 to 1955, in which capacity he vigorously criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Ironically, Byrnes was initially seen as a relative moderate on race issues. Recognizing that the South could not continue with its entrenched segregationist policies much longer, but fearful of Congress imposing sweeping change upon the South, he opted for a course of change from within. To that end, he sought to fulfill at last the "separate but equal" policy which the South had put forward in Supreme Court civil rights cases, particularly in regard to public education. Byrnes 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 Klan by passing a law that prohibited adults from wearing a mask in public on any day other than Halloween; 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 follow in modifying their "Jim Crow" policies. Nonetheless, the NAACP sued South Carolina to force the state to desegregate its schools. Byrnes requested Kansas, a northern state which also segregated its schools, to provide an Amicus curiae brief in supporting the right of a state to segregate its school. This gave the NAACP's lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, the idea to shift the suit from South Carolina over to Kansas, which led directly to Brown v. Board of Education.

The South Carolina state constitution limited governors to one four-year term, and Byrnes retired from active political life following the 1954 election.

Later political career

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 South" for granted at election time, yet otherwise ignored the region and its needs), and to realign it with the Republican Party. Though Byrnes did not officially switch his own party affiliation until much later.

Byrnes endorsed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968 and Barry Goldwater in 1964. He gave his private blessing to South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond to bolt the Democratic Party in 1964 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

Byrnes is memorialized at several South Carolina universities and schools.

• The James F. Byrnes Building housing the Byrnes International Center at the University of South Carolina.
• The James F. Byrnes Professorship of International Studies at USC, its first endowed professorship.
• Byrnes Auditorium at Winthrop University.
• Byrnes Hall, a dormitory at Clemson University (where Byrnes was a Life Trustee).
• James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, South Carolina.
• The Byrnes Schools (formerly the James F. Byrnes Academy) in Quinby, South Carolina.

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 University Libraries.

Electoral history

Main article: Electoral history of James F. Byrnes

See also

• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by court composition
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by education
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by time in office
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of United States Chief Justices by time in office
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Stone Court

References

• Messed, Robert L. The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (1982).
• Robertson, David. Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (1994)
• Annotated bibliography for James Byrnes from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

Primary sources

• Byrnes, James. Speaking Frankly (1947)
• Byrnes, James. All in One Lifetime (1958).

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
• Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789–1995 (2nd ed.) (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly Books, 2001) ISBN 1568021267; ISBN 9781568021263.
• Frank, John P., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions (Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors) (Chelsea House Publishers: 1995) ISBN 0791013774, ISBN 978-0791013779.
• Martin, Fenton S. and Goehlert, Robert U., The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography, (Congressional Quarterly Books, 1990). ISBN 0871875543.
• Urofsky, Melvin I., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing 1994). 590 pp. ISBN 0815311761; ISBN 978-0815311768.

External links

• Excerpts from Speaking Frankly on the subjects of: (Yalta Conference), (Potsdam Conference) ("Flash Player" is required)
• James Francis Byrnes and U.S. Policy towards Germany 1945–1947 Deutsch-Amerikanische Zentrum / James-F.-Byrnes-Institut e.V
• Text of the famous "Stuttgart speech", September 6, 1946 The speech marked the change in U.S. occupation policy in Germany towards reconstruction.
• Time Magazine, September 16, 1946. "Journey to Stuttgart"
• SCIway Biography of James Francis Byrnes
• NGA Biography of James Francis Byrnes
• James F. Byrnes at Find-A-Grave
• A film clip Byrnes Sets U.S. Policy for Germany, 1946/09/10 (1946) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• A film clip Byrnes Wants All To Share Peacemaking, 1946/10/17 (1946) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• A film clip Byrnes Denies Atom Threat, 1946/10/10 (1946) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by James O'H. Patterson	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district 1911 – 1925	Succeeded by Butler B. Hare
United States Senate
Preceded by Coleman L. Blease	United States Senator (Class 2) from South Carolina 1931 – 1941 Served alongside: Ellison D. Smith	Succeeded by Alva M. Lumpkin
Legal offices
Preceded by James Clark McReynolds	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1941 – 1942	Succeeded by Wiley Blount Rutledge
Political offices
Preceded by Edward Stettinius Jr.	United States Secretary of State Served under: Harry S. Truman 1945 – 1947	Succeeded by George C. Marshall
Preceded by Strom Thurmond	Governor of South Carolina 1951 – 1955	Succeeded by George Bell Timmerman, Jr.