American politician (c. 1762–1840) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Smith (c. 1762 – June 26, 1840), name often rendered Judge Wm. Smith in written records of his era, was an American lawyer, plantation owner, and politician. He served two discontinuous terms in the United States Senate, from 1816 to 1823, and from 1826 to 1831, representing the state of South Carolina. Smith was one of the major figures of South Carolina politics during the first third of the 19th century.[1] He formed an intense rivalry with John C. Calhoun, arguing against Calhoun's nationalist views, and advocating for states' rights.[2] He was also a leading voice in the Senate against the movement to abolish slavery in the United States. Smith left both the Senate and South Carolina in the 1830s, and moved west. He developed massive plantations along the Alabama River and along the Red River of the South in Louisiana, as well as acquiring hundreds of slaves to plant those lands with the profitable cash crop cotton. After relocating to Huntsville, he served in the Alabama state legislature until his death. When he died in 1840 he was said to be "almost a millionaire in wealth,"[3] which would be equivalent to a net worth of approximately $30 million in 2023.
William Smith | |
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| United States Senator from South Carolina | |
| In office November 29, 1826 – March 3, 1831 | |
| Preceded by | William Harper |
| Succeeded by | Stephen Miller |
| In office December 4, 1816 – March 3, 1823 | |
| Preceded by | John Taylor |
| Succeeded by | Robert Hayne |
| Member of the South Carolina Senate from the York district | |
| In office November 28, 1831 – December 17, 1831 | |
| Preceded by | Benjamin Person |
| Succeeded by | William Hill |
| Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the York district | |
| In office November 22, 1824 – November 29, 1826 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | William McGill |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1762 York County, South Carolina |
| Died | June 26, 1840 (aged 77–78) Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican (Before 1825) Democratic (1828–1840) |
Smith was born c. 1762 in either North Carolina or York County, South Carolina. A memoirist called "Septugenarian," writing in 1870, referred to the historic Tryon County, North Carolina, which included parts of present-day South Carolina, and stated "I always thought he was from Lincoln," meaning the vicinity of Lincolnton, in what is now Lincoln County, North Carolina. Lincolnton was connected to Yorkville (present-day York, South Carolina) by what was called the King's Mountain Road.[4] Not much is known about Smith's early life outside of his education. According to his granddaughter, "Judge Smith's father was, at one time, a man of considerable property, but his fortune was greatly impaired by the depreciation of the continental money. He, however, was able to give his sons as good classical educations as the academies of those days afforded. Judge Smith was a good Latin and Greek scholar...His father started him in the world with only one negro, Priam, well known here as a foreman, and now living on the farm, adjacent to the town of Huntsville, which Judge Smith left to Mrs. Calhoun."[3] He first attended a school in the neighborhood of Bullock's Creek, where he befriended classmates and fellow future national politicians Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford.[3]: 106 The school at Bullock's Creek was located in the "District between Broad and Catawba Rivers," and taught by Rev. Mr. Joseph Alexander, who also had a school in the Waxhaws.[5] Over a century later, another Carolinian described Smith as "a strong personal friend of President Jackson."[6] Smith reportedly had at least one brother "who was a lawyer also, and, unfortunately, intemperate."[3] This may be Bennett Smith (or there may be other brothers).[7]
Smith then attended Mt. Zion College in Winnsboro, South Carolina, which was the first preparatory school in the region.[8] He once stated to a friend stated that his life could be described as "wild, reckless, intemperate, rude and boisterous, yet resolute and determined."[3]: 107 To that same friend he also credited all of his success to a promise he once made to his wife, Margaret Duff, to forego alcohol.[3]: 107
Smith's law career began on January 6, 1784 when he was admitted to the bar. In one notable case, his client who had been charged for killing a horse failed to appear before the court. Smith did not see the man for a number of years until he ran into him in the Hall of the House of Representatives. The man, known to Smith by the surname "Elchinor", now went by the name John Alexander and was a Representative for the state of Ohio. Smith ensured that Representative Alexander paid him for his previous services.[3]: 108
He may have been resident in the York District during his South Carolina days,[9] but also dwelled for a time in Pinckneyville in the Union District.[4] The South Carolina local historian "Septugenarian" described Smith as an angry, violent man, widely feared as a controlling power within the community:[4]
His resentments were strong, and sometimes he allowed his irascible temper to get the better of him, and he would use his cane as well as the biting sarcasm for which he was famous. Fisticuffs, too, were rather more dignified then than now; but though I have seen the Judge several times attempt to take things high-handed in a dispute, some one always interfered, after one or two blows, and stopped the combatants...From his early residence, high position and dogmatical character, Judge Smith was long the autocrat of York. True, he was tyrannical to some extent; but for many years he was the pride of our district. Early in life she bestowed on him her honors; later he showed the wisdom of her trust, winning high places for himself and from them reflecting hack on her his fame. So if not loved, he was universally looked up to and respected.
According to the Bench and Bar of South Carolina, "Judge Smith was a member of the Legislature of South Carolina for many years. In 1805, he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina College."[3] He was elected to the South Carolina Senate from York District in 1804.[10] In 1806 he was elected president of the South Carolina State Senate.[11] In 1808 he became a judge. As a jurist his temperament was considered "tyranical but fair."[12]: 97
According to a South Carolina newspaper, in about 1815 he built a grand house in Yorkville: "The lot on which it stood comprises a beautiful pack of twelve acres...In the construction of the house, only the best heart lumber was used, and at that period carving and ornamental work being the rage on all houses of pretension, no expense was spared by the builder in this style of ornamentation. We have heard it stated that the cost of the house was US$17,000 (equivalent to $283,004 in 2023), and after it was finished was regarded as the finest residence then in the upper part of the State, and persons were known to travel & distance of sixty miles or more for no other purpose but to see the wonderful piece of architecture."[13]
Then in 1816, Smith was elected a United States Senator, after defeating James R. Pringle for the seat, 101 to 51.[14] He served his first term as a U.S. Senator was 1817 to 1823, when he was replaced by Robert Y. Hayne.[3] At some point, perhaps in the 1820s, he also built a fine house at Turkey Creek.[4]
Shortly after taking office, Smith began a political feud with John C. Calhoun which would last the duration of his political career in South Carolina.[12]: 98 The feud between Calhoun and Smith resided in their different political philosophies, when Smith joined the Senate, Calhoun was still a nationalist who believed in internal infrastructure improvements and a "broad construction" of the Constitution, two concepts which Smith found repugnant.[12]: 98 In response to Calhoun's growing popularity, Smith formed a coalition of States' Rights allies which included Thomas Cooper, Stephen Decatur Miller, Josiah J. Evans, and David Rogerson Williams.[12]: 98 The South Carolina nationalists led by Calhoun "favored a few national roads because of national military necessity", they repudiated small-scale local appropriations.[12]: 98 But, to the Smith faction, even roads for purported military use would instead be used to bolster the economy of other states.[12]: 99 This concept of South Carolina in competition with the nation for economic prosperity was common at the time in the South Carolina elite.[15]
Between 1823 and 1826, Smith returned to the South Carolina House of Representatives.[3][16] He was sent to the U.S. Senate a second time in December 1826 "for the unexpired term of John Galliard."[3] Thirty years later he was remembered as "one of the earliest and most able opponents of the Northern abolition movement in the Senate of the United States."[3] By 1826 he was a strong Jacksonian,[1] and "their sameness of political creed cemented and strengthened their earlier ties."[4] Defeated for reelection to the U.S. Senate by Stephen D. Miller in 1830, he was then elected back to the South Carolina Senate.[4]
In 1831 he aligned himself with the Union and State Rights Party.[3] He traveled to Yorkville in company with "Gen. Tucker" of South Carolina and Lumpkin of Georgia.[citation needed] In 1832, he moved to Louisiana, having lost his political base in South Carolina. At this time he may have purchased a sugar plantation in the vicinity of Lafourche, Louisiana.[3] In 1836, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, in which region he had long held property,[4] and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives for Madison County from August 1, 1836, holding that seat for the rest of his life. He was said to have established a farm in East Huntsville that came to know as Calhoun Grove.[6] During the 1830s, Smith paid a reported US$75,000 (equivalent to $2,145,938 in 2023) for the construction of a mansion in central Huntsville that came to be known as Calhoun House; the grounds covered the entire city block bounded by Randolph, Eustis, Greene, and Lincoln streets.[17][6] The same year he bought a massive plantation on the Red River of the South in Louisiana from Edward Gilliard, heir of Joseph Gilliard. By one account the property, split into four sub-plantations, covered 14,000 acres and was worked by 1,000 enslaved men, women and children.[18]
A member of the planter class, Smith owned several plantations and at least 71 slaves.[19] Smith was one of the first Southerners to argue, at the time of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, that American slavery was a "positive good", arguing that the enslaved were "so domesticated, or so kindly treated by their masters, and their situations so improved" that few would express discontent with their condition.
Smith was a contender at the presidential–vice presidential during both the 1828 and 1836 electoral cycles. In 1828, seven electors from Georgia chose him for vice president, instead of Calhoun, the Democratic nominee. He was also a splinter candidate for vice president of the United States in 1836: Virginia refused to accept Richard Mentor Johnson as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and voted for the ticket of Martin Van Buren and William Smith, putting Johnson one electoral vote short of a majority; the Senate went on to elect Johnson.
On March 3, 1837, outgoing President Andrew Jackson nominated Smith to the Supreme Court. Five days later, the newly seated Senate of the 25th Congress confirmed Smith's nomination by a vote of 23–18. However, Smith declined the appointment and did not serve.[20]
Smith died in Huntsville of "congestive fever" in 1840.[21] He was buried in Madison County, Alabama.[1] In 1842, Smith's grandson-in-law Calhoun listed for sale two cotton plantations, located across from each other at Burand's Bend along the Alabama River, both of which had formerly been owned by Smith. One was 1800 acres in the jurisdiction of Autauga County, Alabama, and the other was 1400 acres lying within Dallas County. The 63 slaves that worked the two properties could be expected to produce 450–500 bales of cotton, each bale weighing 500 pounds (230 kg).[22]
William Smith's brother Bennett Smith was married to a daughter of Congressman Joseph Dickson.[7] Bennett Smith's daughter Mary became the wife of John Hutchings, Andrew Jackson's nephew and one of his slave-and-horse-trading business partners.[7] Bennett Smith's son William Hunter Smith lived at the Hermitage for a time, as one of Andrew Jackson's many wards.[23]
Smith and his wife had one child who survived to adulthood.[3] She married John Taylor, Esq. of Pendleton.[3] Taylor was in the South Carolina House of Representatives, and was a Congressman from South Carolina for one term (1815–1817).[24] Mary Smith died young but her only child, another daughter, was raised and educated by her grandparents.[3] Thus Smith's heir was his granddaughter, Mary Taylor, who married Meredith Calhoun.[6] Judge Smith reportedly kept the bones of his daughter in a box and carried them with him wherever he went; they were buried with him when he died.[25]
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