James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery
- ISBN-10
- 080715248X
- ISBN-13
- 9780807152485
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 432
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1985-07-01
- Publisher
- LSU Press
- Author
- Drew Gilpin Faust
Description
From his birth in 1807 to his death in 1864 as Sherman's troops marched in triumph toward South Carolina, James Henry Hammond witnessed the rise and fall of the cotton kingdom of the Old South. Planter, politician, and partisan of slavery, Hammond built a career for himself that in its breadth and ambition provides a composite portrait of the civilization in which he flourished. A long-awaited biography, Drew Gilpin Faust's James Henry Hammond and the Old South reveals the South Carolina planter who was at once characteristic of his age and unique among men of his time. Of humble origins, Hammond set out to conquer his society, to make himself a leader and a spokesman for the Old South. Through marriage he acquired a large plantation and many slaves, and then through shrewd management and progressive farming techniques he soon became one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served as governor of his state. A scandal over his personal life forced him to retreat for many years to his plantation, but eventually he returned to public view, winning a seat in the United States Senate that he resigned when South Carolina seceded from the Union. James Henry Hammond's ambition was unquenchable. It consumed his life, directed almost his every move, and ultimately, in its titanic calculation and rigidity, destroyed the man confined within it. Like Faulkner's Thomas Sutpen, Faust suggests, Hammond had a "design," a compulsion to direct every moment of his life toward self-aggrandizement and legitimation. Hammond envisioned himself as the benevolent, paternal, but absolute master of his family and his slaves. But in reality, neither his family, his slaves, nor even his own behavior was completely under his command. Hammond ardently wished to perfect and preserve the southern way of life. But these goals were also beyond his control. At the time of his death it had become clear to him that his world, the world of the Old South, had ended.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery
By Drew Gilpin Faust"In this finely drawn and gracefully written biography ... Faust has done much more than provide us with a badly needed full-length study of a key political figure and proslavery ideologue in antebellum South Carolina.
-
Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder
By James Henry HammondThe thoughts, triumphs, travails, and, at times, despicable actions of a leading antebellum politician.
-
The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830–1860
By Drew Gilpin FaustThe works in this collection portray the development, mature essence, and ultimate fragmentation of the proslavery argument during the era of its greatest importance in the American South.
-
Slavery and Freedom
By Willie Lee RoseEssays on slavery and emancipation in the U.S. are joined with reviews of the current opinions of historians on these controversial subjects
-
Psychometrics in Coaching: Using Psychological and Psychometric Tools for Development
By Jonathan PassmoreWhether you are new to using psychometric tests or an experienced practitioner, this book provides you with a deep understanding of the models, the theory and research behind them, their reliability and validity, and how to implement them ...
-
McClellan, Sherman, and Grant
By Harry T. WilliamsHere are the characters and personalities of the three great Union generals, explored with intelligence and wit by one of our most distinguished historians of the Civil War.
-
Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History with Documents
By Paul FinkelmanThis new edition of Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South introduces the vast number of ways in which educated Southern thinkers and theorists defended the institution of slavery.
-
Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee
By David W. BlightAs literary critic Houston Baker , Jr. , has demonstrated , language helped to " liberate " Frederick Douglass . As Douglass became a " public " man after his escape from slavery , his ability to speak and write not only allowed him to ...
-
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
By Drew Gilpin Faust22. since the work of S. L. A. Marshall on nonfirers in World War II. See Grossman's response to these debates on p. 333. See also S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War (New York: Morrow, ...
-
Southern Stories: Slaveholders in Peace and War
By Drew Gilpin FaustStories were collective, as in the case of the antebellum proslavery argument or Confederate discourses about women.