A different state of mind

Abstract

This dissertation examines Benjamin Ryan Tillman’s political activity in the late 1880s, and governorship in South Carolina from 1890 to 1894. While many historians have focused primarily on Tillman’s white supremacy and class-based demagoguery, this project, through a series of case studies focusing on prominent political issues, suggests that Tillman’s administration understood the role of state government in a dramatically different manner than his Conservative, or “Bourbon,” predecessors, who exhibited reluctance to employ the power of state in most cases. Where Conservatives preferred a minimalist state and elite rule, Tillman and his lieutenants attempted to bolster the power of the state government to empower white agricultural “producers.” The chapters include analyses of the agricultural college debate, reforms to the penitentiary and lunatic asylum, governmental approaches to railroad and phosphate monopolies, the state alcohol dispensary, and the constitutional disfranchisement of African Americans. Despite the reality that many of Tillman’s objectives were not realized by his vision of a sovereign and active state government—such as widespread landownership and prosperity for white, small farmers—his overall philosophy of the active and energetic state, which was in line with many Progressive-era conceptions of government, is worth taking seriously.