Thomas Smith Grimké
Thomas Smith Grimké (September 22, 1786 – October 12, 1834) was an American attorney, author, orator and social activist. Grimké served as a member of the South Carolina State Senate in 1826-30.
Thomas Grimké graduated from Charleston College, and entered the study of law under John Julius Pringle, then Attorney General of South Carolina, in 1804. He suspended his legal studies to enter Yale in the fall of 1805. After completing courses at Yale, Grimké expressed a desire to prepare for the ministry, but yielded to the wishes of his jurist father and was admitted to the bar in May 1809. Grimké practiced law in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1830, Grimké received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale.
Grimké died of cholera on October 12, 1834, while on a lecture tour and a visit with family members in Ohio. He was buried in Columbus, Ohio. A sermon preached in Charleston on the occasion of his death was subsequently printed in the Episcopal publication “Gospel Messenger” (volume 11, December, 1834).
Legal Career
Grimké had a distinguished career in the Carolina courts. He is perhaps best known for the case of M'Cready v. Hunt, focusing on States Rights, which was brought before the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 1834. The case involved a "test oath" passed by the South Carolina legislature in November of 1832. The oath required that members of the state milia pledge "faithful and true allegiance" to the State of South Carolina. The law was vague on the underlying and contentious issue of sovereignty, and did not specifically state whether allegiance to the state was superior to allegiance to the federal government. However, dispute over the oath immediately erupted. The "Nullifier" faction asserted that allegiance to states had precedence over allegiance to the federal government, while "Unionists" asserted that the federal government had primacy over all states.
Eventually, a legal case on the validity of the test oath reached the state Court of Appeals in Columbia. Attorney Robert Barnwell Rhett, of Beaufort, argued for the test oath with the support of state Governor Robert Y. Hayne. He was opposed by a trio of young Unionist attorneys, James L. Petigru, of Charleston, business attorney Abram Blanding, of Columbia, and Thomas S. Grimké. The June 2nd, 1834 decision from the three judges fell 2 to 1 for the Unionists. "Nullifiers" immediately called for the impeachment of the two jurists. "Nullifier" legislators responded to the decision by calling for a constitutional amendment to legalize the test oath and assert the primacy of allegiance to South Carolina. (Ford, pp. 148-149)
Social Activism
Grimké was an active advocate and donor to the temperance movement and a prominent member of the American Peace Society. He was also an advocate and lecturer upon the reformation of education in America, particularly urging the use of the Bible as a text-book in schools. He was an early advocate of reformed spelling, as a means of simplifying education, and used his original spelling method in his own publications after 1833.
Family
Thomas Smith Grimké was the second of fourteen children borne to jurist John Faucheraud Grimké, and Mary (or Polly), daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Moore) Smith, of Charleston, South Carolina. The Grimké family were German by descent, and his paternal grandmother's family was French Huguenot. On January 25, 1810, he married Sarah Daniel Drayton, of Charleston, who died on July 23, 1867. The couple had six sons. His siblings included the noted orators and abolitionists Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld. His brother, and law partner, Henry W. Grimké was the father of journalist and diplomat Archibald Grimké and Francis J. Grimké, a Presbyterian minister.
See also
External links
- Orations and publications [1]
References
- Ford, Lacy K., Jr., Origin of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800 to 1860, Oxford University Press, U.S., 1991, ISBN 0195069617