Government and Law

In 1832 Harper was a delegate to the convention that nullified the tariff and quickly established himself as a leading figures in the nullification debate.

As governor he advocated the construction of concrete highways and higher educational standards in the public schools. He was a confirmed, enthusiastic prohibitionist and was dismayed that the Eighteenth Amendment received lukewarm support in South Carolina.

In 1876 Haskell helped organize the aggressive Red Shirt campaign that brought a narrow victory for Wade Hampton in the race for governor; he was also a prominent business leader in the state for several decades.

He represented Marion County in the state Senate from 1868 to 1872, and as South Carolina’s secretary of state from 1872 to 1877. He was also the first black student in the history of the University of South Carolina and inaugurated the institution’s first attempt at integration.

For taking up arms after acknowledging himself a subject of the crown, Hayne was charged with treason and hanged by the British on August 4, 1781.

In December of 1818, he was appointed South Carolina’s attorney general, serving until 1822. That year the legislature elected Hayne to the U.S. Senate over William Smith, a political rival of John C. Calhoun.

Haynsworth rose in South Carolina legal circles to become a federal appeals court judge, but he is best remembered nationally for his 1969 rejection by the U. S. Senate for a seat on the United States Supreme Court.

The Heath Charter is important because it was the model for the successful 1663 Carolina Charter, and it was the first colonial charter that included the area of modern South Carolina.

Heller championed the desegregation of city hall and membership of municipal commissions, and the building of community centers. To provide more economical public transportation, he led the creation of the Greenville Transit Authority.

In late 1963 President Kennedy decided to appoint Hemphill to the federal bench, United States Fourth Judicial Court. The appointment papers, however, were still on his desk when the president was assassinated that November in Dallas.

While governor, he urged the improvement of public education. His accusations that corrupt legislators sold “their votes for money and for whiskey” did not win him many friends in the General Assembly.

Education was his top priority, particularly the encouragement of white children to take advantage of educational opportunities. Despite some success in education, most of Heyward’s progressive agenda was frustrated by state legislators.

Early in 1776 he was chosen to replace the resigning Christopher Gadsden in the Second Continental Congress. That summer Thomas Heyward, Jr., was one of four South Carolinians who signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

The 1929 Highway Bond Bill authorized the State Highway Commission to sell bonds to build a system of hard-surfaced roads throughout the state.

A slowing economy, declining state revenues, and tax cuts by the Republican-controlled General Assembly severely limited Hodges’s role as an “activist” governor.

In 1958 Hollings was elected governor on a multifaceted platform that focused on balancing the state budget, bringing new industry to South Carolina, improving public education, and promoting technical education. Inaugurated in January 1959, Hollings’s administration represented a major transitional period in state government.

Eventually Horry owned plantations on Winyah Bay and the Santee River as well as land in Ninety Six District and a house in Columbia (later called the Horry-Guignard House). At his death he owned as many as 116 slaves.

As a legislator, Huger vigorously espoused the doctrine of representative democracy over the doctrine of instruction by constituents.

Huger represented St. George’s Dorchester Parish in the Jacksonborough Assembly in January 1782 and served in the legislature until his election as sheriff of Charleston District in 1785. Familial ties led to his appointment as the first federal marshal for South Carolina in 1789, a position which he held for five years.

Taking his seat on January 27, 1797, Hunter served in the U.S. Senate until November 26, 1798, when he resigned and returned to his agriculture pursuits. He served as a presidential elector for the George Washington–John Adams ticket in 1792 and for the Thomas Jefferson–Aaron Burr ticket in 1800.