Ben Tillman, arguably the worst racist in Senate history, took guns from black Americans, wrote the first federal campaign finance law, & was anti-business populist & vigorous backer of William Jennings Bryan's populist campaign in 1896, & a loyal Senate ally of Woodrow Wilson.https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1155886305630400513 …
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Tillman's 1902 fistfight with a Senate colleague from his own state was the reason why the Senate passed the rule against disparaging a fellow Senator https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Fistfight.htm …
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Teddy Roosevelt disinvited Tillman from the White House after that fistfight, then poured salt in the wound by inviting Booker T. Washington. Tillman: “entertaining that n------ will necessitate our killing a thousand n------s in the South before they learn their place again.”
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He was the most openly pro-lynching figure in American political history. Truly a vile person. He represented the grim endpoint of placing identity politics & populism above the classical liberal principles of the American Founding.https://twitter.com/JarrettStepman/status/1155893713492750338 …
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Yeah, the pandering-to-racists parts of the Woodrow Wilson & FDR Administrations were not at all subtle or incidental.https://twitter.com/MickGMick/status/1155894659497037825 …
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Justice Thomas on Ben Tillman & how the Court's refusal to enforce the Privileges & Immunities Clause empowered him & his ilk: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/08-1521P.ZC1 …pic.twitter.com/6rmJbnktJW
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Talk about adding insult to injury.https://twitter.com/dustbury/status/1155920828594348032 …
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South Carolina was a total loss for Republicans at the presidential level between Grant & Eisenhower. In 1952, Ike almost won a state where no Republican had even drawn 10% of the vote in 56 years.pic.twitter.com/q4RJl1NDR6
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Another vivid example of the awfulness of Ben Tillman, the florid racist who dominated South Carolina's one-party Democratic politics for four decades:pic.twitter.com/r5CcnaouMz
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But the fine folk at Clemson still hold him in high esteem with his name on their most recognizable building on Campus
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Byrnes was also Roosevelt’s Secretary of State.
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