Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina’s violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches.
About Benjamin Tillman in brief
Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina’s violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign. Tillman’s 1895 constitution disenfranchised most of the black majority and many poor whites, and ensured white Democratic Party rule for more than six decades into the twentieth century. He was known as ‘Pitchfork Ben’ because of his aggressive language, as when he threatened to use a pitchfork to prod that \”bag of beef,\” President Grover Cleveland. The first federal campaign finance law, banning corporate contributions, is commonly called the Tillman Act, and Tillman served in the Senate for the rest of his life. He later served several terms in Congress, and was a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina. He died in 1918 at the age of 83. He is buried in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where he was born in 1847, and where his father was a plantation owner. He had seven sons and four daughters, including one who died in a duel and another who was killed in a domestic dispute. The Tillmans owned 2500 acres of land and were among the largest slaveholders in the Edgefield District, where they operated an inn.
The Edgefield district was known to be a violent place, even by the standards of antebellum South Carolina; matters of personal honor might be addressed with a killing or duel. One of his surviving brothers, one died of Civil War wounds after returning home, and the other, George, killed a man who accused him of cheating at gambling. He worked to rebuild the Chester plantation with his mother and his wounded brother James. In June 1864, Ben Tillman withdrew from a coastal artillery unit, making arrangements to join the South Carolina College. These plans were scuttled as he fell ill at home with a cranial tumor. In 1866, after Confederate forces had disbanded, Ben was healthy again, and he went to work with his brother James on the plantation. He signed the release of freedmen refusing to work for them legally and left the plantation for several months until 1868, when he was able to return to work. He went on to become a wealthy landowner and land-grant college owner. In the 1880s, he became dissatisfied with the Democratic leadership and led a movement of white farmers calling for reform. In 1890, he was elected governor. He tried to prevent lynchings as governor, but also spoke in support of the lynch mobs, alleging his own willingness to lead one. He became known for his virulent oratory—especially against black Americans—but also for his effectiveness as a legislator.
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