James F. Byrnes - United States Senate and Supreme Court

United States Senate and Supreme Court

In 1924, Byrnes declined renomination to the House, and instead sought nomination for the Senate seat held by incumbent Nathaniel B. Dial, though both were former allies of the now deceased Benjamin Tillman. Anti-Tillmanite and extreme racist demagogue Coleman Blease, who had challenged Dial in 1918, also ran again. Blease led the primary with 42 percent; Byrnes was second with 34 percent.

Byrnes was opposed by the Ku Klux Klan, which preferred Blease. Byrnes had been raised as a Roman Catholic, and the Klan spread rumors that he was still a secret Catholic. Byrnes countered by citing his support by Episcopalian clergy. Then, three days before the run-off vote, twenty Catholics who said they had been altar boys with Byrnes published a professed endorsement of him. The leader of this group was a Blease ally, and the "endorsement" was circulated in anti-Catholic areas. Blease won the run-off 51% to 49%.

After his House term ended in 1925, Byrnes was out of office. He moved his law practice to Spartanburg, in the industrializing Piedmont region. Between his law practice and investment advice from friends such as Bernard Baruch, Byrnes became a wealthy man, but he never took his eyes off of a return to politics. He cultivated the Piedmont textile workers, who were key Blease supporters. In 1930, he challenged Blease again. Blease again led the primary, with 46 percent to 38 percent for Byrnes, but this time Byrnes won the run-off 51 to 49 percent.

During his time in the US Senate, Byrnes was regarded as the most influential South Carolinian since John C. Calhoun. He had long been friends with Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he supported for the Democratic nomination in 1932, and made himself the President's spokesman on the Senate floor, where he guided much of the early New Deal legislation to passage. He won an easy reelection in 1936, promising:

"I admit I am a New Dealer, and if takes money from the few who have controlled the country and gives it back to the average man, I am going to Washington to help the President work for the people of South Carolina and the country."

Since the colonial era, South Carolina's politicians had dreamed of an inland waterway system that would not only aid commerce, but also control flooding. By the 1930s, Byrnes took up the cause for a massive dam building project, the Santee Cooper, that would not only accomplish those tasks, but also electrify the entire state with hydroelectric power. With South Carolina financially strapped by the Great Depression, Senator Byrnes managed to get the Federal government to authorize a loan for the entire project, which was completed and put into operation in February 1942. The loan was later paid back to the Federal government with full interest and at no cost to the South Carolina taxpayers. Santee Cooper has continued to be a model for public owned electrical utilities world-wide.

In 1937, he supported Roosevelt on the highly controversial court packing plan, but voted against the minimum wage law of 1938 that would have made, as he argued, the textile mills in his state uncompetitive. He opposed Roosevelt's efforts to purge conservative Democrats in the 1938 primary elections. On foreign policy, Byrnes was a champion of Roosevelt's positions of helping Great Britain and France against Nazi Germany in 1939–1941, and of maintaining a hard diplomatic line against Japan.

Byrnes despised his fellow South Carolina Senator Cotton Ed Smith, who strongly opposed the New Deal. He privately sought to help his friend Burnet R. Maybank, then the mayor of Charleston, defeat Smith in the 1938 Senate primary. During the primary, however, Olin Johnston, who was limited to one term as governor, decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Because Johnston was also a pro-Roosevelt New Dealer, he would have divided the New Deal vote with Maybank and ensured a victory for Smith. Johnston was also supportive of the New Deal's labor legislation, whilst Byrnes' support was limited. Taking advice from Byrnes, Maybank decided to instead run for governor, and Byrnes made the reluctant decision to support Smith. Byrnes envisioned that Smith would retire in 1944 and that Maybank would successfully run for Smith's Senate seat and build a strong political machine in the state with him.

In part as a reward for his crucial support on many issues, Roosevelt appointed Byrnes an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in July 1941. He was the last Justice appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States who had been admitted to practice by reading law; he did not attend law school. Byrnes resigned from the Court after only fifteen months to head the Office of Economic Stabilization.