Hiram Lafferty (1 November 1801-23 May 1868) was an American Democratic politician from South Carolina.
Biography[]
Hiram Lafferty was born in Andrews, Georgetown County, South Carolina in 1801, the son of an Irish immigrant father. Lafferty was raised in the Baptist church, shaping his political views; he opposed the political power of the Anglican Federalist establishment of the state, even as his economic interests coincided with the wealthy conservative planters of South Carolina. Lafferty practiced law before founding the Hopestead plantation near Salters, and he became active in Democratic politics during the 1820s. He welcomed the departure of the Nullifiers from the Democratic Party during the 1830s, viewing them as reactionaries bent on preserving their political and economic power through secession. Lafferty came to be at odds with the state Democratic Party due to his criticisms of large planters, while the state Whigs disliked him due to his distrust of wealthy planters and the Anglican establishment. In 1848, Lafferty - while a slave-owner himself - cast his ballot for the Free Soil Party due to its desire to restrict the spread of slavery and the plantocracy's political power. Lafferty secretly joined the Republican Party in 1854 as an alternative to supporting the increasingly conservative Democrats, whose ideals had become diluted by an influx of former Whigs and pro-slavery stalwarts. Lafferty lost his plantation as a result of the American Civil War, but he was rewarded by the Reconstruction authorities for his GOP loyalties by being appointed a tax collector in Andrews. He died in 1868.