S. Carolina Intros Bill to Execute Women Who Seek An Abortion : stupidpol

Legacy of James H. Hammond

Hammond's Secret and Sacred Diaries (not published until 1989) described, without embarrassment, his sexual abuse[1] over two years of four teenage nieces, daughters of his sister-in-law Ann Fitzsimmons and her husband Wade Hampton II.[1][12] He blamed his behavior on what he described as the seductiveness of the "extremely affectionate" young women.[1] The scandal "derailed his political career" for a decade to come after Wade Hampton III publicly accused him in 1843 when Hammond was governor.[13] He was "ostracized by polite society" for some time, but in the late 1850s, he was nonetheless elected by the state legislature as a U.S. senator.[14]

Hammond's damage to the girls was far-reaching, destroying their social prospects. Considered to have tarnished social reputations as a result of his behavior, none of the four ever married.[1]

Hammond was known to have repeatedly r*ped two enslaved women, one of whom may have been his daughter. He r*ped the first enslaved woman, Sally Johnson, when she was 18 years old.[1] Such behavior was rampant among white men of power at the time; their mixed-race children were born into slavery and remained there unless the fathers took action to free them.[14] Later, Hammond r*ped Sally Johnson's daughter, Louisa, who was a year old baby when he bought her mother. The first r*pe occurred when Louisa was 12; she also bore several of his children.

Hammond's wife, Catherine, left him for a few years after he repeatedly r*ped the enslaved girl, taking her children with her. She later returned.[1]

In the late 20th century, historians learned that Hammond, as a young man, had a homosexual relationship with a college friend, Thomas Jefferson Withers, which is attested by two sexually explicit letters sent from Withers to Hammond in 1826. The letters, held among the Hammond Papers at the University of South Carolina, were first published by researcher Martin Duberman in 1981; they are notable as rare documentary evidence of same-s*x relationships in the antebellum United States.[15]

Hammond rejected any government regulation of slavery, even in wartime. When the South Carolina government requisitioned 16 of the people Hammond enslaved to improve fortifications for Charleston, he refused, calling it "wrong every way and odious." Also, when a Confederate army officer stopped by to requisition some grain, Hammond tore up the requisition order, tossed it out a window, and wrote about it, that it compensated him too little and that it was like "branding on my forehead: 'Slave'".

Snapshots:

https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1hjftzu/s_carolina_intros_bill_to_execute_women_who_seek/:

• undelete.pullpush.io

• ghostarchive.org

• archive.org

• archive.ph (click to archive)