WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.200 Welcome to the deep dive. I am. I'm so incredibly 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:05.440 glad you are here with us today because we are 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.519 looking at a historical figure whose life is 00:00:08.519 --> 00:00:10.900 frankly just hard to wrap your head around. Oh, 00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:12.640 it really is. It's a staggering contradiction. 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:16.600 Imagine a man who was literally famous for getting 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:19.399 into a physical fistfight on the floor of the 00:00:19.399 --> 00:00:21.600 United States Senate. Yeah, and a man who openly, 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.379 loudly, and proudly boasted about leading lynch 00:00:24.379 --> 00:00:28.079 mobs. Exactly. Now take that exact same man and 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:30.780 imagine him as the founding father of modern 00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:33.539 federal campaign finance reform and the founder 00:00:33.539 --> 00:00:36.679 of two major universities. It's wild. How does 00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:39.859 that even happen? How do those two absolute extremes 00:00:39.859 --> 00:00:43.399 exist in the exact same person? Well, to really 00:00:43.399 --> 00:00:46.020 understand the foundation of so many institutions 00:00:46.020 --> 00:00:48.899 and political norms you see today, you kind of 00:00:48.899 --> 00:00:50.479 have to look closely. the people who built them, 00:00:50.539 --> 00:00:52.460 even when it's really uncomfortable. Completely 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:56.079 agree. So today we are relying on a single, incredibly 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:58.700 detailed source. It's the Wikipedia article on 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:00.899 Benjamin Tillman, widely known to history as 00:01:00.899 --> 00:01:03.640 Pitchfork Ben. And our mission for this deep 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:06.780 dive is to unpack the life of one of America's 00:01:06.780 --> 00:01:10.040 most controversial, destructive and yet undeniably 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:12.519 effective demagogues. We're going to explore 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:15.640 how his legacy of populism, violence and institutional 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:20.159 racism wasn't just a product of its time, but 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:22.180 something that actually shaped the political 00:01:22.180 --> 00:01:24.799 structures of the world around you today. But 00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:27.099 before we dive in, we need to set some ground 00:01:27.099 --> 00:01:30.019 rules with you. Because of exactly who Benjamin 00:01:30.019 --> 00:01:32.840 Tillman was, our source material covers deeply 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:35.760 charged political history, violent white supremacy, 00:01:35.939 --> 00:01:38.439 and organized campaigns of racial terror. Yeah, 00:01:38.459 --> 00:01:40.849 it gets very dark. It does. And I want to be 00:01:40.849 --> 00:01:42.689 perfectly clear right from the start. We are 00:01:42.689 --> 00:01:44.650 not endorsing any of these viewpoints or taking 00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:47.390 any political sides. Our goal here is strictly 00:01:47.390 --> 00:01:50.030 to impartially analyze the facts, the rhetoric 00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:52.430 and the historical events exactly as they are 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:54.609 documented in the text. OK, let's unpack this, 00:01:54.709 --> 00:01:56.430 starting with where Benjamin Tillman actually 00:01:56.430 --> 00:01:58.329 came from, because looking at his early environment, 00:01:58.469 --> 00:02:00.650 it really seems to explain a lot about his later 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:03.609 tactics. It absolutely does. He was born in 1847 00:02:03.609 --> 00:02:06.069 in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. 00:02:06.469 --> 00:02:09.770 And from what I was reading. Edgefield was notoriously 00:02:09.770 --> 00:02:12.530 violent, even by the standards of Antebellum, 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:14.789 South Carolina. Oh yeah, matters of personal 00:02:14.789 --> 00:02:17.650 honor were routinely settled with duels or killings 00:02:17.650 --> 00:02:19.900 there. His own family history basically reads 00:02:19.900 --> 00:02:23.080 like a true crime saga. That is putting it mildly 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:26.319 honestly. The political and moral ecosystem Benjamin 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:29.099 Tillman was raised in was just steeped in bloodshed. 00:02:29.219 --> 00:02:31.800 I mean, before his father died, he had killed 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.560 a man and been convicted of rioting. Wow. One 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:37.280 of Ben's brothers died in a duel. Another was 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:39.319 killed in a domestic dispute. And then there 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:41.620 was his brother, George, who is a fascinating 00:02:41.620 --> 00:02:44.560 case study in Edgefield politics all on his own. 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:46.800 Right. George was the one who killed a man who 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:48.409 accused him of. Cheating at gambling, correct? 00:02:48.650 --> 00:02:51.090 Yes. And he was actually convicted of manslaughter 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:54.409 for it. But a two -year prison sentence didn't 00:02:54.409 --> 00:02:57.490 stop his career at all. Which is crazy to think 00:02:57.490 --> 00:03:00.150 about. Right. George actually continued to practice 00:03:00.150 --> 00:03:03.229 law from his jail cell. And the local voters 00:03:03.229 --> 00:03:05.310 elected him to the state Senate while he was 00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:08.090 still incarcerated. That is the world Benjamin 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:10.710 grew up in. Where violence wasn't a career ender, 00:03:10.789 --> 00:03:12.990 in some ways it was a credential. But when the 00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:17.180 Civil War broke out, Benjamin didn't fight. Which 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:19.180 really surprised me, given his family's highly 00:03:19.180 --> 00:03:22.259 militant background. Did he just refuse to go? 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:25.699 He didn't fight, but it wasn't by choice. In 00:03:25.699 --> 00:03:29.599 1864, just shot of his 17th birthday, he actually 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:32.060 withdrew from school to join a coastal artillery 00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:35.400 unit. But before he could see action, a cranial 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:38.400 tumor made him severely ill. Oh, wow. Yeah, the 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.319 tumor was so advanced it required the removal 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.139 of his left eye. And by the time he fully recovered 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:46.550 in 1866, the war was over. So instead of fighting, 00:03:46.629 --> 00:03:48.550 he stayed home and managed the family plantation. 00:03:49.150 --> 00:03:50.729 And the family was wealthy. I mean, they had 00:03:50.729 --> 00:03:53.490 owned 86 slaves prior to the war. Afterwards, 00:03:53.669 --> 00:03:55.870 they signed freedmen as workers to keep the plantation 00:03:55.870 --> 00:03:58.669 running. But the historical record actually shows 00:03:58.669 --> 00:04:00.750 that although his workers were no longer legally 00:04:00.750 --> 00:04:03.330 enslaved, Tillman's treatment of them didn't 00:04:03.330 --> 00:04:05.930 really change. Not at all. He continued to apply 00:04:05.930 --> 00:04:08.330 the whip to them. He even boasted later that 00:04:08.330 --> 00:04:10.289 he would ride through his fields on horseback 00:04:10.289 --> 00:04:12.550 just to drive them to work. Which brings us to 00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:17.110 a massively pivotal year, 1876. South Carolina 00:04:17.110 --> 00:04:19.670 was under a biracial Republican Reconstruction 00:04:19.670 --> 00:04:23.329 government. And the pre -war conservative elites 00:04:23.329 --> 00:04:26.310 were absolutely determined to take power back. 00:04:26.870 --> 00:04:29.750 Tillman, who had missed out on the war, became 00:04:29.750 --> 00:04:32.870 an enthusiastic recruit for a local white paramilitary 00:04:32.870 --> 00:04:36.009 group known as a rifle club. These groups quickly 00:04:36.009 --> 00:04:38.879 became known as the Red Shirts. I've heard the 00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:41.120 term red shirts before, but how did they actually 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:43.519 operate? Were they just an intimidation tactic 00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:45.459 or? If you want to understand the red shirts, 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:47.560 you really have to look past the uniforms and 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:49.420 look at their actual strategy, which was called 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:51.439 the straight out plan. The straight out plan. 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.120 Right. Former Confederate leaders in Edgefield 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:56.660 realized they couldn't simply outvote the African 00:04:56.660 --> 00:04:59.139 -American majority in the state. So they devised 00:04:59.139 --> 00:05:02.040 a plan to use clandestine paramilitary organizations 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:05.339 to violently overthrow the Reconstruction government 00:05:05.339 --> 00:05:08.040 through force intimidation and murder. They just 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:10.899 bypassed the democratic process entirely. Exactly. 00:05:10.899 --> 00:05:12.939 They wanted absolute white political supremacy 00:05:12.939 --> 00:05:15.120 and they were willing to kill for it. And Tillman 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:16.420 was right in the middle of it. I was reading 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:19.300 the source notes on 1876 and it mentioned something 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:22.339 called the Hamburg Massacre in July of that year. 00:05:22.500 --> 00:05:25.360 And disturbingly, Tillman apparently considered 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:27.779 this one of his proudest memories. What exactly 00:05:27.779 --> 00:05:30.100 happened there? It's incredibly grim. Hamburg 00:05:30.100 --> 00:05:33.920 was a mostly black town. An armed white mob, 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:36.720 which included Tillman, went there to deliberately 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:39.839 provoke a confrontation with a local black militia. 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:42.439 Just looking for a fight. Exactly. The militiamen 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:44.540 ended up barricaded in a drill room, totally 00:05:44.540 --> 00:05:48.000 outnumbered and outgunned. The white mob stormed 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.540 the room. At least seven black militiamen were 00:05:50.540 --> 00:05:53.079 murdered, including five who were dragged out 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:55.759 and killed execution style, simply because the 00:05:55.759 --> 00:05:58.589 mob considered them enemies. Wow. Just completely 00:05:58.589 --> 00:06:00.750 lawless execution. And this wasn't an isolated 00:06:00.750 --> 00:06:03.089 incident, was it? Not at all. Later that same 00:06:03.089 --> 00:06:05.709 year, there was the Ellington riot. A black state 00:06:05.709 --> 00:06:08.009 senator named Simon Coker went to investigate 00:06:08.009 --> 00:06:10.829 reports of violence in the area. Two of Tillman's 00:06:10.829 --> 00:06:13.069 men found him and murdered him, shooting him 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:14.949 as he knelt on the ground in his final prayer. 00:06:15.269 --> 00:06:19.230 That is brutal. It is. Now, Tillman himself wasn't 00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:22.120 present for that specific shooting. But he openly 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.899 supported the campaign. In fact, decades later, 00:06:24.980 --> 00:06:27.959 addressing a reunion of redshirts, he explicitly 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:30.699 boasted about their goals. Wait, he bragged about 00:06:30.699 --> 00:06:32.779 it? He did. He stated that the leading white 00:06:32.779 --> 00:06:35.439 men of Edgefield decided to seize the first opportunity 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:39.480 to provoke a riot to, quote, strike terror and 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:42.240 teach the Negroes a lesson. To just say the quiet 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.040 part out loud like that at a reunion, it is jarring 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:47.500 to hear a politician openly admit to domestic 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:50.959 terrorism. It is jarring. And it's vital to consider 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:53.019 the broader historical impact here for you as 00:06:53.019 --> 00:06:55.660 a listener. These weren't random, spontaneous 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:58.899 acts of chaos. They were highly organized, raw, 00:06:59.079 --> 00:07:01.519 violent paramilitary tactics. Right. And the 00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:03.800 terrifying part is they worked. By suppressing 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:05.730 the Republican vote through sheer terror. The 00:07:05.730 --> 00:07:07.689 Democrats took complete control of the state 00:07:07.689 --> 00:07:10.649 government. That violence effectively ended Reconstruction 00:07:10.649 --> 00:07:12.970 in South Carolina and set the stage for decades 00:07:12.970 --> 00:07:15.329 of systemic oppression. Right. The white elites 00:07:15.329 --> 00:07:17.589 called it redemption. But even with the Democrats 00:07:17.589 --> 00:07:19.170 back in charge, I think the notes referred to 00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:21.430 them as bourbon planters. What exactly does that 00:07:21.430 --> 00:07:24.149 mean? Bourbon planters was a term used for the 00:07:24.149 --> 00:07:26.959 wealthy conservative Southern elite. They were 00:07:26.959 --> 00:07:30.240 the old money plantation owners who reclaimed 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:32.959 political power after Reconstruction. They were 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:35.939 very pro -business, very conservative, and mostly 00:07:35.939 --> 00:07:37.560 looked out for their own financial interests. 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:39.899 Which didn't leave much room for the average 00:07:39.899 --> 00:07:43.500 white farmer in South Carolina. By the 1880s, 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:46.079 the economy was really struggling. Crop prices 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:48.720 were falling. Tillman himself actually had a 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:51.420 few bad years with his crops and had to sell 00:07:51.420 --> 00:07:53.899 off a chunk of his land to cover his debts. Yeah, 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:56.360 he felt the squeeze. So he pivoted. He started 00:07:56.360 --> 00:07:58.939 uniting poor white dirt farmers against those 00:07:58.939 --> 00:08:01.759 wealthy bourbon politicians in the state capitol. 00:08:01.879 --> 00:08:04.699 He realized there was immense, untapped political 00:08:04.699 --> 00:08:08.879 power in agricultural discontent. In 1885, he 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:10.540 was invited to speak at a joint agricultural 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:13.199 meeting in Dependenceville. And he completely 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:15.199 electrified the crowd. He didn't just talk about 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:17.300 farming, did he? No. Instead of giving a boring 00:08:17.300 --> 00:08:19.939 speech about crop yields, he blamed the farmers 00:08:19.939 --> 00:08:22.379 crushing debt on corrupt politicians and lawyers 00:08:22.379 --> 00:08:24.740 who were in the pockets of financial interests. 00:08:25.220 --> 00:08:27.439 He told these farmers they were being actively 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:30.579 duped by the elite. The speech was an absolute 00:08:30.579 --> 00:08:33.440 sensation. Suddenly, he wasn't just a farmer 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:36.360 from Edgefield. The press dubbed him the Agricultural 00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:38.960 Moses. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:39.580 --> 00:08:42.399 Tillman's brand of populism was totally bizarre. 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.220 For one, he wasn't really a struggling dirt farmer. 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:47.659 He was actually a wealthy landowner managing 00:08:47.659 --> 00:08:51.120 massive properties. But even stranger, he constantly 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.360 insulted his own followers. I couldn't believe 00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:55.519 reading this part, but he routinely called his 00:08:55.519 --> 00:08:58.440 own supporters ignorant, backward, imbecilic 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:00.840 and apathetic. And yet the crowds absolutely 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:02.679 loved him for it. Why would they cheer for a 00:09:02.679 --> 00:09:05.279 guy calling them imbeciles? It's a fascinating. 00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:09.080 psychological dynamic? By insulting them, he 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:11.220 positioned himself as the only person willing 00:09:11.220 --> 00:09:13.779 to tell them the harsh truth. He was saying you 00:09:13.779 --> 00:09:15.500 are ignorant, but it's because the system has 00:09:15.500 --> 00:09:17.779 kept you ignorant. Ah, so he redirected the blame. 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.940 Exactly. It framed the political elites as the 00:09:20.940 --> 00:09:23.399 real enemy. But he didn't just want to complain 00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:26.559 he had specific demands to fix it. His primary 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:28.759 demand was the establishment of a state college 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:31.559 exclusively for the practical education of farmers. 00:09:31.779 --> 00:09:34.279 Which leads directly to the creation of Clemson 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.250 University. Tillman ended up meeting with Thomas 00:09:37.250 --> 00:09:39.529 G. Clemson, who was the son -in -law of John 00:09:39.529 --> 00:09:42.610 C. Calhoun, to discuss a bequest for this new 00:09:42.610 --> 00:09:46.330 agricultural school. When Clemson died in 1888, 00:09:46.570 --> 00:09:49.210 his will left money and land for the college. 00:09:49.769 --> 00:09:52.470 But the crucial detail here is the governance 00:09:52.470 --> 00:09:55.330 structure they set up. The will made Tillman 00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:58.570 one of seven trustees for life, and those lifetime 00:09:58.570 --> 00:10:02.129 trustees had the power to appoint their own successors. 00:10:02.269 --> 00:10:04.169 That seems like a lot of concentrated power. 00:10:04.370 --> 00:10:06.580 It was. And this wasn't just an administrative 00:10:06.580 --> 00:10:09.879 quirk. Tillman explicitly stated that this provision 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:12.000 keeping the lifetime trustees as an unbreakable 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:14.399 majority of the board was designed specifically 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:16.960 to prevent any future integrated Republican government 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:19.460 from ever admitting black students to the college. 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:21.600 He engineered it right into the foundation. He 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:23.460 engineered the institution from the ground up 00:10:23.460 --> 00:10:25.960 to legally guarantee it remains segregated forever. 00:10:26.220 --> 00:10:28.919 So armed with this massive agricultural movement 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:32.000 and a new university project, Tillman sets his 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:34.659 sights on the governor's office. In 1890, he 00:10:34.659 --> 00:10:36.940 completely takes over the state Democratic Party, 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:39.940 ousting the bourbon elites. He wins the gubernatorial 00:10:39.940 --> 00:10:42.659 election and is sworn in, literally declaring 00:10:42.659 --> 00:10:44.879 his victory as a triumph of white supremacy. 00:10:44.940 --> 00:10:47.620 Right. He has absolute control of the statehouse. 00:10:47.740 --> 00:10:49.840 So what does he actually do with all that power? 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:54.340 He uses that control to execute what was arguably 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:57.340 his most devastating political achievement. the 00:10:57.340 --> 00:11:00.059 1895 South Carolina Constitutional Convention. 00:11:00.379 --> 00:11:02.620 Throughout his time as governor, his primary 00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:05.279 goal was the absolute legal disenfranchisement 00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:07.100 of African -Americans. So he couldn't just ban 00:11:07.100 --> 00:11:09.679 them outright? No, because the federal 15th Amendment, 00:11:09.779 --> 00:11:11.679 he couldn't explicitly write black men cannot 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:14.720 vote. So his committee crafted an intricate maze 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:17.379 of legal obstacles designed to do exactly that. 00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:19.039 I want to dig into the mechanics of this because 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:21.039 it's diabolical. First, they set up poll taxes, 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:22.919 but they required them to be paid six months 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:24.980 in advance of the election, specifically in May. 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:28.379 Why May? Because May was the exact time of year 00:11:28.379 --> 00:11:31.759 when agricultural farm laborers who were disproportionately 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.580 black had the least amount of cash on hand. It 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:37.460 was planting season long before the harvest. 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:40.240 They also implemented strict residency requirements, 00:11:40.519 --> 00:11:43.240 knowing tenant farmers moved frequently. But 00:11:43.240 --> 00:11:45.399 the real weapon was the literacy test or the 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:47.960 understanding clause, right? How did that actually 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:49.960 work on the ground? The understanding clause 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:53.309 was the key mechanism of suppression. A voter 00:11:53.309 --> 00:11:56.269 had to prove to a white registrar that they could 00:11:56.269 --> 00:11:58.549 read, or if they couldn't read, that they could 00:11:58.549 --> 00:12:00.269 understand a section of the state constitution 00:12:00.269 --> 00:12:02.590 when it was read to them. Which is entirely subjective. 00:12:03.049 --> 00:12:05.350 Exactly. This gave local politically appointed 00:12:05.350 --> 00:12:08.750 officials immense unchecked leeway. A registrar 00:12:08.750 --> 00:12:11.190 could read a highly complex legal statute to 00:12:11.190 --> 00:12:13.730 a black college graduate and declare they didn't 00:12:13.730 --> 00:12:15.470 understand it. Then they could read a simple 00:12:15.470 --> 00:12:17.629 sentence to an illiterate white farmer, ask what 00:12:17.629 --> 00:12:19.610 it meant, and pass them. It was a completely 00:12:19.610 --> 00:12:22.840 rigged game. Yes. And Tillman made no secret 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:25.779 of this. Defending the Constitution on the U 00:12:25.779 --> 00:12:29.039 .S. Senate floor in 1900, he stated plainly that 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:31.399 they convened the convention deliberately and 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:34.019 avowedly with the purpose of disenfranchising 00:12:34.019 --> 00:12:36.500 as many African Americans as they could. While 00:12:36.500 --> 00:12:38.440 he was governor, his stance on lynching was an 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:41.940 absolute paradox. The 1890s saw the highest number 00:12:41.940 --> 00:12:44.340 of lynchings in South Carolina of any decade. 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:47.059 And officially, as the governor sworn to uphold 00:12:47.059 --> 00:12:49.539 the law, he sometimes took action against it. 00:12:49.789 --> 00:12:52.230 He actually called out the state militia multiple 00:12:52.230 --> 00:12:55.070 times to stop lynchings, and he sent a state 00:12:55.070 --> 00:12:57.110 solicitor to investigate the lynching of a black 00:12:57.110 --> 00:12:59.970 man named Dick Lundy. Yet simultaneously, he 00:12:59.970 --> 00:13:02.009 was completely beholden to his political base, 00:13:02.110 --> 00:13:05.190 who fervently believed in mob justice. So he 00:13:05.190 --> 00:13:07.690 attempted to finesse it. He publicly declared 00:13:07.690 --> 00:13:10.169 that while he demanded the law be followed, he 00:13:10.169 --> 00:13:13.279 would, quote, willingly lead a mob in lynching 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:15.480 a Negro who had committed an assault on a white 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:17.500 woman. He was trying to be the chief law enforcement 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:20.000 officer of the state while openly volunteering 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.539 to act as a vigilante. It's an incredible contradiction. 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:25.080 So he's completely rewritten the Constitution 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:27.860 to control the vote. He's trying to control mob 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:30.620 violence while still appeasing the mob. Did this 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:33.360 obsessive need for control bleed into everyday 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:36.659 life? It did. And nothing shows that better than 00:13:36.659 --> 00:13:40.620 how he handled alcohol. To avoid outright statewide 00:13:40.620 --> 00:13:43.840 prohibition, which he feared would divide his 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:46.379 white voter base and leave an opening for Republicans 00:13:46.379 --> 00:13:49.299 to win, he created something called the dispensary. 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:52.620 It was a complete state monopoly on alcohol sales. 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:54.580 It sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare. Oh, 00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:56.659 it was incredibly controversial. Yeah. By banning 00:13:56.659 --> 00:13:58.879 private saloons and having the state sell liquor 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:01.659 in sealed containers, he sparked massive resistance. 00:14:02.519 --> 00:14:04.980 Illegal bootlegging exploded overnight. Of course 00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:07.500 it did. Right. So Tillman hired state constables 00:14:07.500 --> 00:14:09.919 to crack down on the illegal saloons. And because 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:12.500 all his constables were white, they had trouble 00:14:12.500 --> 00:14:15.240 infiltrating the black community to bust bootleggers, 00:14:15.340 --> 00:14:17.460 leading some of them to literally go undercover 00:14:17.460 --> 00:14:19.710 by blacking their faces. You're kidding. No. 00:14:19.929 --> 00:14:22.190 And the tension culminated in the Darlington 00:14:22.190 --> 00:14:25.129 riot of 1894, where a massive gunfight broke 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:27.090 out between his constables and local citizens, 00:14:27.289 --> 00:14:29.870 leaving dead on both sides and forcing Tillman 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:31.750 to call out the state militia against his own 00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:34.049 people. When you look at his tenure as governor, 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:36.909 you see a politician who pushes for major agricultural 00:14:36.909 --> 00:14:39.809 reforms and progressive institutions like founding 00:14:39.809 --> 00:14:42.529 Winthrop University for Women, while simultaneously 00:14:42.529 --> 00:14:45.789 engineering a constitutional masterpiece of racial 00:14:45.789 --> 00:14:48.830 suppression and a police state for alcohol. This 00:14:48.830 --> 00:14:50.570 raises an important question for you listening. 00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:52.909 What stands out to you? When you look at historical 00:14:52.909 --> 00:14:55.870 figures who champion the common man, how often 00:14:55.870 --> 00:14:57.830 is that definition of the common man brutally 00:14:57.830 --> 00:15:01.009 exclusive? Tilghman's populism was entirely dependent 00:15:01.009 --> 00:15:04.700 on absolute racial subjugation. By 1894, Tillman 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:07.360 has outgrown South Carolina. He engineers his 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:09.440 election to the U .S. Senate, taking down the 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:12.200 conservative incumbent Matthew Butler. And it 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:13.940 didn't take long for Washington to figure out 00:15:13.940 --> 00:15:16.039 exactly who they were dealing with. He actually 00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:18.759 earned the nickname Pitchfork Ben during his 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:21.919 1892 gubernatorial campaign. Right. The Pitchfork 00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:24.320 story. Yeah. He threatened to go to Washington 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:27.360 with a pitchfork to prod President Grover Cleveland 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.379 in his fat ribs, calling the president an old 00:15:30.379 --> 00:15:33.559 bag of beef. His entrance into national politics 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:37.039 was disruptive, to put it mildly. By 1896, the 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:39.320 country was in a deep recession, and the Democratic 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:42.059 Party was fracturing over a massive economic 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.980 debate, the gold standard versus the free coinage 00:15:44.980 --> 00:15:47.820 of silver. Tillman, a fierce proponent of free 00:15:47.820 --> 00:15:50.000 silver, believed he could unite the South and 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:52.419 the West and actually win the presidency. Wait, 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:55.480 I have to ask. Why would poor dirt farmers care 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:57.779 so much about silver versus gold? It's a great 00:15:57.779 --> 00:16:00.350 question. Pumping more silver into the economy 00:16:00.350 --> 00:16:03.190 would create inflation. For a wealthy banker 00:16:03.190 --> 00:16:05.429 on the gold standard, inflation is terrible. 00:16:05.610 --> 00:16:08.490 But for a poor farmer buried in debt, inflation 00:16:08.490 --> 00:16:10.529 is great because the money you use to pay back 00:16:10.529 --> 00:16:12.590 your loans becomes cheaper. It was a massive 00:16:12.590 --> 00:16:14.570 class struggle. That makes perfect sense. So 00:16:14.570 --> 00:16:17.250 he goes to the 1896 Democratic National Convention 00:16:17.250 --> 00:16:20.230 in Chicago and he demands the closing slot for 00:16:20.230 --> 00:16:22.090 the platform debate. He settles for the opening 00:16:22.090 --> 00:16:24.759 slot. And it is a total disaster. A total disaster. 00:16:25.100 --> 00:16:28.320 He delivers a 50 -minute curse -filled, highly 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:31.639 sectional rant that alienated almost everyone 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:34.620 in the room. He framed the silver issue as a 00:16:34.620 --> 00:16:37.279 literal war between the wealthy East and the 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:40.039 oppressed South and West. The delegates hated 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:42.700 it. They wanted a unifying patriotic message, 00:16:42.779 --> 00:16:46.000 not a divisive regional grievance. They shouted 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:47.899 for him to stop a band, even started playing 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:49.679 just to drown him out, but he just kept yelling. 00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:52.759 A band started playing. That is amazing. Yeah, 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.519 they really wanted him off the stage. The historical 00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:57.840 record notes that his speech effectively destroyed 00:16:57.840 --> 00:16:59.919 any chance he had to become a national candidate. 00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:03.000 But ironically, his total failure set the stage 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:05.880 for the very next speaker, William Jennings Bryan, 00:17:06.180 --> 00:17:08.339 who delivered his famous cross of gold speech 00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:10.660 and instantly won the presidential nomination. 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:13.099 Back in the Senate, Tillman's behavior only got 00:17:13.099 --> 00:17:16.220 wilder. In 1902, he was giving a speech and accused 00:17:16.220 --> 00:17:18.480 his junior colleague from South Carolina, John 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:20.940 L. McLaurin, of corruption. McLaurin called him 00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:23.730 a liar. So Tillman literally rushes across the 00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:25.829 Senate floor and punches McLaurin right in the 00:17:25.829 --> 00:17:28.710 face. McLaurin punched him back in the nose before 00:17:28.710 --> 00:17:31.730 the sergeant at arms broke it up. The Senate 00:17:31.730 --> 00:17:34.109 immediately went into closed session and held 00:17:34.109 --> 00:17:36.430 both men in contempt. They were both censured. 00:17:36.750 --> 00:17:39.289 And the fallout went way beyond Congress. Oh, 00:17:39.309 --> 00:17:41.069 yeah. It reached the White House. Right. President 00:17:41.069 --> 00:17:43.750 Theodore Roosevelt had recently invited Tillman 00:17:43.750 --> 00:17:46.150 to a White House dinner. But after the fistfight, 00:17:46.349 --> 00:17:48.930 Roosevelt publicly revoked the invitation. Which 00:17:48.930 --> 00:17:52.200 Tillman never forgave. And it's worth noting 00:17:52.200 --> 00:17:55.319 that his rhetoric in the Senate and on the speaking 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:58.460 circuit was incredibly toxic. I read that in 00:17:58.460 --> 00:18:01.279 1901, he joined the Chautauqua Circuit. Wait, 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:02.980 the Chautauqua Circuit. That was basically the 00:18:02.980 --> 00:18:05.599 TED Talks of the early 1900s, right? People traveling 00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:07.759 around giving educational lectures. Exactly. 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:10.460 It was a highly respectable, massively popular 00:18:10.460 --> 00:18:13.559 national platform for adult education. And Tillman 00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:15.920 used it to travel the country, getting paid to 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:18.839 tell massive crowds that segregation was divinely 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:21.460 imperative and actively defending the use of 00:18:21.460 --> 00:18:23.539 violence to maintain white supremacy. He was 00:18:23.539 --> 00:18:26.279 monetizing hate, essentially. If we connect this 00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:28.619 to the bigger picture, this is where the historical 00:18:28.619 --> 00:18:31.119 assessment of Tillman becomes intensely complex. 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.880 Because despite being known as the wild man of 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:36.319 the Senate and despite his violent, virulently 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:39.220 racist rhetoric, he was actually a highly effective 00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:42.549 legislator. Really? Yeah. When President Roosevelt 00:18:42.549 --> 00:18:45.690 backed the Hepburn Bill in 1906 to regulate railroads, 00:18:45.869 --> 00:18:48.250 the Republican leadership actually entrusted 00:18:48.250 --> 00:18:50.529 the bill to Tillman, hoping his erratic nature 00:18:50.529 --> 00:18:54.490 would kill it. Instead, Tillman soberly and competently 00:18:54.490 --> 00:18:56.529 guided the bill through the legislative process, 00:18:56.869 --> 00:18:59.390 earning considerable respect from northern politicians. 00:18:59.809 --> 00:19:02.170 And that leads us to a massive piece of irony. 00:19:02.809 --> 00:19:05.089 The very first federal campaign finance law, 00:19:05.210 --> 00:19:07.970 the 1907 law that banned corporate contributions 00:19:07.970 --> 00:19:10.670 to federal political campaigns, is commonly called 00:19:10.670 --> 00:19:12.890 the Tillman Act. He was its primary sponsor. 00:19:13.130 --> 00:19:15.589 The motivations behind the Tillman Act are endlessly 00:19:15.589 --> 00:19:18.630 fascinating. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas 00:19:18.630 --> 00:19:21.410 later suggested that Tillman's motivation wasn't 00:19:21.410 --> 00:19:24.380 purely about clean government. Thomas posited 00:19:24.380 --> 00:19:26.400 that Tillman introduced the legislation specifically 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:29.720 to reduce the power of corporations, because 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:31.779 at the time, corporations tended to favor the 00:19:31.779 --> 00:19:34.339 Republican Party. which in turn favored African 00:19:34.339 --> 00:19:36.279 -Americans. Let me get this straight. This is 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:39.880 the ultimate historical paradox. The very bedrock 00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:42.500 of modern clean money in politics, the foundation 00:19:42.500 --> 00:19:45.240 of how we regulate super PACs and corporate lobbying 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:47.920 today, was originally weaponized to bankrupt 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:50.579 the only political party defending black voters 00:19:50.579 --> 00:19:53.240 in the South. Exactly. It forces you to look 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:55.799 at every piece of progressive legislation and 00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:58.660 ask, who is this actually designed to hurt? Precisely. 00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:01.779 Even a landmark piece of progressive reform was 00:20:01.779 --> 00:20:04.500 deeply rooted in his desire to undercut his political 00:20:04.500 --> 00:20:07.059 and racial opponents. Tillman suffered a series 00:20:07.059 --> 00:20:09.500 of strokes late in his career and died in Washington, 00:20:09.619 --> 00:20:13.490 D .C. in 1918. But the immense shadow he cast 00:20:13.490 --> 00:20:16.150 over South Carolina and the nation lasted for 00:20:16.150 --> 00:20:19.190 decades. For a long time, he was treated as an 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:22.369 outright hero. In 1940, future Supreme Court 00:20:22.369 --> 00:20:25.150 Justice James F. Burns dedicated a statue of 00:20:25.150 --> 00:20:27.250 Tillman outside the South Carolina Statehouse. 00:20:27.410 --> 00:20:29.849 And both Clemson University and Winthrop University, 00:20:30.089 --> 00:20:31.950 the schools he helped found, named their main 00:20:31.950 --> 00:20:35.569 buildings Tillman Hall. However, historical memory 00:20:35.569 --> 00:20:38.119 is constantly evolving. In recent years, there 00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:40.119 has been a significant modern reckoning regarding 00:20:40.119 --> 00:20:42.859 his legacy. In 2020, both Winthrop University 00:20:42.859 --> 00:20:45.839 and Clemson University's boards of trustees unanimously 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:48.519 passed resolutions requesting the state legislature 00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:50.799 allow them to change the names of those buildings 00:20:50.799 --> 00:20:53.400 back to main building. Wow. It's a profound irony 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:55.440 that today men and women of all races walk through 00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:58.119 the doors of the institutions he built, repudiating 00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:00.539 the exact legacy he tried to cement. So what 00:21:00.539 --> 00:21:02.920 does this all mean? How do we evaluate a life 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:05.619 like this? I keep thinking about a quote from 00:21:05.619 --> 00:21:08.000 President Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said of 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:10.200 Tillman he might have been president. I'd like 00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:12.400 to sit down with him and ask how it was to throw 00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:14.799 it away for the sake of hating. It's a profound 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:17.579 observation. And it leaves us with one final 00:21:17.579 --> 00:21:20.339 thought. We spent this whole time looking back 00:21:20.339 --> 00:21:22.900 at the 1890s at physical violence and literacy 00:21:22.900 --> 00:21:26.180 tests designed to keep people out of the system. 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:28.579 But think about the digital systems and algorithms 00:21:28.579 --> 00:21:30.720 being built today. Yeah, that's a great point. 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.240 When you look at modern data -driven redlining 00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:36.680 or AI biases in hiring and lending, are we still 00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:38.880 building understanding clauses into our systems 00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:41.680 today, just hidden behind code instead of state 00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:44.579 constitutions? When the foundations of modern 00:21:44.579 --> 00:21:47.039 systems are built by individuals driven by the 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:50.440 desire to exclude, how do we untangle the value 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:52.480 of the institution from the malicious intent 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.299 of its architect? Does the good of the institution 00:21:55.299 --> 00:21:58.420 eventually outgrow the sins of its creator, or 00:21:58.420 --> 00:22:00.700 is it forever poisoned by the soil in which it 00:22:00.700 --> 00:22:02.819 was planted? Something for you to mull over. 00:22:03.019 --> 00:22:04.779 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.