James Francis Byrnes (2 May 1882-9 April 1972) was a member of the US Senate from South Carolina (D) from 4 March 1931 to 8 July 1941 (succeeding Coleman Blease and preceding Alva Lumpkin), Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court from 25 June 1941 to 3 October 1942 (succeeding James McReynolds and preceding Wiley Rutledge), Secretary of State from 3 July 1945 to 21 January 1947 (succeeding Edward Stettinius and preceding George Marshall), and Governor of South Carolina from 16 January 1951 to 18 January 1955 (succeeding Strom Thurmond and preceding George Timmerman).
Biography[]
James Francis Byrnes was born in Charleston, South Carolina on 2 May 1882, coming from a modest background. He trained as a lawyer and built up a practice to become a public prosecutor in 1908, and he sat in the US House of Representatives as a Southern Democrat from 1911 to 1925 and in the US Senate from 1931 to 1941. He was on the right of the Democratic Party, but he strongly supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, piloting a number of projects through the US Congress and masterminding Roosevelt's campaign for a third term in 1940. Briefly a US Supreme Court justice, he became a director of the Office of War Mobilization from 1943 to 1945, and he was appointed Secretary of State by President Harry S. Truman. A strong believer in the United Nations, he helped to ensure economic recovery in Germany and was reluctant to accept the division of that country. He was no enthusiast for the Truman Doctrine, however, and he was succeeded by George Marshall and was later elected Governor of South Carolina. He supported racial segregation during his governorship; he endorsed most Republican Party presidential nominees after 1948 and supported Strom Thurmond's defection to the Republican Party in 1964. He died in 1972 at the age of 89.
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