James Hamilton of South Carolina.

James Hamilton of South Carolina. By Robert Tinkler. Southern Biography. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 294. $59.95, ISBN 0-8071-2936-4.)

Unlike most leaders of the nullification crisis in South Carolina and with the exception of a couple of dissertations, James Hamilton has not been the subject of a full-length historical biography. Robert Tinkler's book attempts to fill this historiographical gap. The author, however, claims that he does not simply want to shed light on the life and career of a forgotten figure but also hopes to "enrich our understanding of the antebellum South and of the internal crises the region faced as it approached the precipice of civil war" (p. 8). Ironically, this book succeeds more as a straightforward biography than in fulfilling the author's broader purpose.

Tinkler carefully traces the ancestral roots of James Hamilton on his maternal side among the aristocratic slaveholding Lynches, who, like many of their counterparts in the South Carolina Lowcountry, were not particularly enamored of the democratic republicanism of the American Revolution. His father and namesake, Major James Hamilton of Pennsylvania, distinguished himself through military service in the revolution and transformed himself into a Carolina planter by marrying Elizabeth Lynch Harleston. Hamilton grew up as a Federalist and, like his father, married a Lowcountry heiress, Elizabeth Heyward, mistress of three plantations with over two hundred slaves. By blood and marriage, Hamilton was very much a part of South Carolina's planter class that dominated the social and political fortunes of the state. Hamilton's father, however, lost most of his land and slaves to indebtedness and mismanagement. Hamilton himself left the plantations and slaves, bought a house in Charleston, and set up a law practice there.

The focus of this biography is relentlessly political. We learn much about Hamilton's public career but little about his personal life or his relationship with his slaves. Hamilton first rose to prominence when as intendant (mayor) of Charleston in 1822 he was credited with vigorously putting down the Denmark Vesey conspiracy. He pushed for stronger regulation of free blacks and slaves and was elected to congress on the basis of his strong proslavery politics. Much of what follows will be familiar to historians of South Carolina and nullification: Hamilton's rise in national politics as an ally of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, his conversion from nationalism to states' rights, and his role as the governor of the state and the so-called manager of nullification. It is somewhat disappointing that Tinkler does not uncover anything new about Hamilton the nullifier and repeatedly attributes his advocacy of nullification simply to a desire to live up to the heritage of the American Revolution. While he clearly recognizes the deferential and undemocratic nature of state politics and the movement for nullification, Tinkler rarely uses this insight in his assessment of Hamilton.

Tinkler is adept at tracing Hamilton's later career as a booster for Texas and his chronic indebtedness and financial difficulties. It was Hamilton's support for the Compromise of 1850 that resulted in his fall from grace in South Carolina. Personally interested in the funding of Texas debt and bonds, Hamilton's pro-compromise stance alienated the secessionist political gentry of his home state. He was offered a senatorial seat, but the offer was promptly withdrawn. When he died dramatically in 1857--giving his life jacket to a young mother after an explosion on a steamer en route to Texas--South Carolina took no official notice of his death. Tinkler's book is a competent if old-fashioned rendition of Hamilton's life. And, unfortunately, it has an out-of-date bibliography. Except for Hamilton's surprising dalliance with spiritualism in later life, it tells us little that is new about its subject.

MANISHA SINHA

University of Massachusetts, Amherst