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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—South CarolinaBYRNES, James Francis
(1882—1972)
Senate Years of Service:
1931-1941
Party:
Democrat
BYRNES, James Francis, a Representative and a Senator from South Carolina; born in Charleston, S.C., May 2, 1882; attended the public schools; official court reporter for the second circuit of South Carolina 1900-1908; editor of the Journal and Review, Aiken, S.C. 1903-1907; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1903 and commenced practice in Aiken, S.C.; solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina 1908-1910; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second Congress, reelected to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1911-March 3, 1925); was not a candidate for renomination in 1924, but was an unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator; resumed the practice of law in Spartanburg, S.C.; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate on November 4, 1930; reelected in 1936 and served from March 4, 1931, until his resignation on July 8, 1941, having been appointed to the Supreme Court; chairman, Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses); Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from July 1941 until his resignation on October 3, 1942, to head the wartime Office of Economic Stabilization until May 1943; director of the Office of War Mobilization, May 1943 until his resignation in April 1945; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Harry Truman 1945-1947; resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C.; Governor of South Carolina 1951-1955; retired and resided in Columbia, S.C., where he died April 9, 1972; interment in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Cemetery.
Bibliography
American National Biography
; Byrnes, James Francis. All in One Lifetime
. New York: Harper, 1958; Robertson, David. Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes
. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1994.
Brown, Walter J. James F. Byrnes of South Carolina: A Remembrance
. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1991.
Byrnes, James F. All in One Lifetime
. New York: Harper Brothers, 1958.
___. Speaking Frankly
. 1947. Reprint. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974.
Moore, Winfred B., Jr. “James F. Byrnes: The Road to Politics, 1882-1910.” South Carolina Historical Magazine
84 (April 1983): 72-88.
___. “New South Statesman: The Political Career of James Francis Byrnes, 1911-1941.” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1976.
___. “ ‘Soul of the South’: James F. Byrnes and the Racial Issue in American Politics, 1911-1941.” Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association
(1978): 42-52.
Morgan, Thomas S. “James F. Byrnes and the Politics of Segregation.” Historian
56 (Summer 1994): 645-54.
Robertson, David. Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes
. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1994.
U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses and Other Tributes in the Congress of the United States on the Life and Contributions of James F. Byrnes
. 92d Cong., 2d sess., 1972. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1972.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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