An esteemed planter, politician, and military leader influential in the
affairs of both South Carolina and Texas, James Hamilton (1786--1857) so
declined in reputation during the last twenty years of his life that his
home state refused to acknowledge him when he died. Robert Tinkler's
superb, first-published biography of Hamilton conveys the enormous
drama, dignity, and pathos that marked Hamilton's pursuit of the
greatness achieved by his prominent Revolutionary-era forebears and his
subsequent profound reversal brought on by debt.
While a member of Congress during the 1820s, Hamilton came to champion
states' interests over a strong central national government. As governor
of South Carolina, 1830--1832, he reached the pinnacle of his political
and social glory when he presided over the Nullification Crisis of 1832.
Hamilton's undoing began with a series of ill-advised cotton
speculations that left him deeply and very publicly in arrears by 1839.
He desperately sought relief -- even supporting the Compromise of 1850
in hopes of monetary benefit, while alienating his old allies in the
process. To his fellow southerners, Hamilton became a scourge and
embarrassment as one who compromised his political beliefs because of
fiscal distress.
Perhaps even more than his political apostasy, Hamilton's unforgivable
offense may have been to remind planters of their own struggles with
chronic debt. Tinkler's extraordinary research into both Hamilton's life
and the dynamics of reputation and debt in the antebellum South suggests
that many contemporaries simply wished to forget Hamilton's plight so as
to avoid facing their own financial reality. Possessing the weight of
tragedy, James Hamilton of South Carolina documents a powerful man's
achievements and the events and personal flaws that led to his fall.
