James Henry Hammond (1807-1864) was governor of South Carolina and a U.S. senator. He was a radical proponent of the doctrine of states' rights.

James Henry Hammond was born on Nov. 17, 1807, in the Newberry district of South Carolina. After graduating from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina), he established a successful law practice in Columbia. In 1831 he married Catherine E. Fitzsimmons, an heiress, and moved to a large cotton plantation on the Savannah River.

In 1832 Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, outraged by new tariffs, engineered a state convention that passed an ordinance nullifying the federal policies and preparing the state for armed resistance to federal attempts to enforce them. During this crisis Hammond took an extreme position, advocating secession from the Union if the tariff was not repealed. As a member of the House of Representatives from 1834 to 1836, Hammond bitterly attacked the...