Secret and Sacred
Bleser, Carol
A t my family's plantation in Buckingham County, Virginia, there's a graveyard for the white folks and one for the slaves. Most of the slave graves are marked by cracked bare slates, but one marker,...
...Hammond's mature religious convictions were recorded in 1853, and reflect just a touch of arrogance...
...And on October 9, 1857, his head burst into flames: "It is wonderful that God should have made and placed in this world such a Soul as mine, to be quenched, aborted, and ended in Nothingness...
...I was always looking to thefuture . . ." Later that year the temperature had risen: "Great God what have I done...
...Negroes, cattle, mules, hogs, everything that has life around me seems to labor under some fated malediction...
...In January 1839, he spent $900 on an 18-year-old seamstress named Sally and her one-year-old daughter, Louisa...
...H ow hot did it get...
...But at a cost...
...Slavery in the family will be their happiest earthly condition...
...Carol Bleser, who teaches history at Clemson, points out that Hammond "never agonized" about slavery...
...with a big dowry, showed more promise...
...He also worked hard to increase his other holdings: fields were cleared, swamps were drained, crops were worked...
...Few readers will fail to conclude that this man was a blue-ribbon skunk...
...I have long apprehended, but until now not fully believed it...
...At 34 he gave a taste of what was to come: "The Demon of Dyspepsia—the cognomen under which are classed all the horrors of indigestion, nervous excitement or lassitude, weakness, giddiness, and sinking of the soul and body—has been my companion from my earliest recollection, and whenever I look back I see nothing but his wan visage and despairing frown...
...Down on the plantation, we'd say he reaped what he sowed...
...I leave them to your charge, believing that you will best appreciate and most independently carry out my wishes in regard to them...
...By 1845, he complained that "when it became necessary for God to help me, He failed...
...But as Hammond no doubt knew, you can't conceal greatness forever...
...That seems to have nothing to do with human affairs...
...I was never allowed to realize anything...
...But I see men more so who flourish and men less so who do not...
...I am too disgusted with them to be able to trace them...
...Hammond and his wife had eight children, five of whom lived to maturity...
...And his abuse was not confined to his slaves...
...Hammond demanded that he choose between her and Louisa, he chose the latter...
...Petty, pitiful trains of instances have brought about the catastrophe...
...Catherine Fitzsimons, a plain girl Dave Shiflett is a writer living in Virginia...
...When Louisa turned 12, Hammond took her as his mistress as well, again fathering children...
...Hammond was obviously sold on the peculiar institution, which he considered a "great good...
...SECRET AND SACRED: THE DIARIES OF JAMES HENRY HAMMOND, A SOUTHERN SLAVEHOLDER Edited by Carol Bleser/Oxford University Press/$22.95 Dave Shiflett THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989 43...
...Down on the plantation, we'd say there's a decent chance Hammond is currently experiencing exceptional difficulties...
...It is therefore my privilege as much as that of Moses and the Prophets, of Christ and the Apostles, to seek God and search after his Designs and Will through Nature and the workings of the Human Mind and Sentiments and Passions—my own and others...
...Do not let Louisa or any of my children or possible children be slaves of Strangers...
...You might send such a man to Congress, but would you leave him alone with your daughters...
...Ten percent...
...Thankfully, they were nothing like Hammond, who was an exceptional man, and an exceptional slaveowner...
...On December 13, 1853, Hammond blew his stack: "If God—that is a Superior and Designing Being—created me and placed me here...
...Never was a man so cursed...
...But Hammond persevered, and accomplished much...
...They blighted every joy in its bud...
...If they were anything like James Henry Hammond—well, even the thought of it is enough to make a descendant break into a sweat...
...But whither Betty Stevens's owners...
...Through his diaries he rises again, a towering figure in his proud and pathetic enormity...
...He became a lawyer but that didn't take him where he wanted to be...
...Nor would I like that any but my own blood should own as Slaves my own blood or Louisa...
...I cannot free these people and send them North," he wrote his son...
...Some might say his fate was tragic...
...Catherine's parents, who considered Hammond to be nothing more than a fortune hunter, asked him to renounce her dowry, but he hung tough and got Silver Bluff plantation (7,500 acres), other properties totaling 10,800 acres, 147 slaves, a residence, household furniture, twenty-six farm animals, ninety to 100 head of cattle, 180 to 190 hogs, some corn, potatoes, wheat, and cotton, and lots of hams and poultry...
...Brains, money, power—he had it all...
...I know I am very wicked and unworthy," he wrote on August 30, 1842...
...But this side the grave I have No Hope...
...I wholly believe all men are Inspired more or less according to their intellectual Endowments...
...It would be cruelty to them...
...And so his fortunes rose...
...Never has death been so easy in any spot of earth," he wrote on November 2, 1841...
...Good heavens they have been decimated...
...James Henry Hammond spent his life in the existential frying pan...
...I have a tolerable clear conscience," he wrote a month later...
...But that any One who ever trod the Earth had any direct communication with God any more than I have had and all have had, I do not believe and never can be made to believe...
...N either was he hesitant to take a poke at the Almighty, at Whom he fired his fiercest salvos...
...Hammond later admitted to sexual relationships with his four nieces, ages 13-19, that lasted two years and included "everything short of direct sexual intercourse...
...And this: "If there is a hereafter, then the God who placed me here owes me large compensation for the suffering I have involuntarily undergone on Earth...
...His treatment of his own mixed-blood children, who in his eyes were inferior, was consistent...
...in fact, he was one of its more famous advocates...
...When Mrs...
...I wish I could hope that the New Year would open with better omens," he wrote on the last day of 1850...
...Plus Catherine, who was 17 at the time of her marriage...
...I despise, I loath, I vomit on them...
...Did they depart these rolling hills for the fiery lake...
...What about the children...
...Hammond's beginnings were common enough: his father was a schoolteacher, his mother raised the children, and he went to South Carolina College, where his motto was "Women, wine, and cigars...
...But one thing was missing: peace of mind...
...Hammond made Sally his mistress and fathered several children by her...
...what do you say about a man who ordered his own childrento be kept in bondage...
...If God would only allow my negroes to live and thrive and give me reasonable health, I could stand the rest and fight it out with the world," he wrote early in his career...
...He thumped the drum for King Cotton and slavery, dined with the President, and was praised by great men both here and abroad...
...But if Hammond professed the golden rule, the record shows he didn't live by what you'd call a strict interpretation...
...Thirteen deaths and three still births in 10 months in a population of 160 [slaves] is unparalleled...
...The meltdown continued throughout his life...
...In fact, Hammond thought himself a pretty decent fellow...
...if this is all or the best, I do not thank him...
...While Hammond had a rare talent for describing his anguish, he couldn't figure out Why Him...
...His wealth and intellect helped him gain office as a congressman, U.S...
...Hammond's brother-in-law did, and lived to regret it...
...But even on his own terms, Hammond was guilty of procreating with sub-humans—and choosing them over his wife...
...I can truly say that I have at least endeavored to do unto all men as I wished them to do unto me...
...Consider how he treated his slaves and family, who, in some cases, were one and the same...
...He lived until 1864, dying two days before his fifty-seventh birthday as the Yankees closed in for the kill...
...senator, and governor of South Carolina...
...October 3, 1854, found him bleaker still: "The result of my experience of life and Him is that I pant for Annihilation...
...Most of the slave graves are marked by cracked bare slates, but one marker, an ancient creek rock, radiates in the weeds: "Betty Stevens Only Read The Bible" it says, and the plantation consensus is that her departing soul flew first class to the Pearly Gates, where Saint Peter—and maybe even Number One—were personally on hand to wave her through...
...If we are subjugated," he told an attending son, "run a plow over my grave...
...These diaries, covering the years 1841-1864, do little to glamorize The Cause or its foulest institution, and additional material included by Bleser (whose The Hammonds of Redcliffe compiled four generations of family correspondence) does not improve his reputation—even among those who pine for the CSA...
...To say that James Henry Hammond was a different breed of slaveowner from a Thomas Jefferson or a George Washington (or most others) is to put it mildly...
Vol. 22 • January 1989 • No. 1
