Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

"A" is for Adams, James Hopkins (1812-1861)

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

"A" is for Adams, James Hopkins (1812-1861). Governor. A native of lower Richland District, Adams was a Yale graduate and cotton planter. In 1834, he was elected to represent Richland District in the South Carolina House of Representatives. He served three terms in the House and two terms in the South Carolina Senate. In 1854, the General Assembly elected him governor. Seeking a cause to unify southerners and accelerate the division of North and South, he addressed the General Assembly in 1856 and called for the reopening of the international slave trade. His message asserted that if the slave trade were wrong then so was the institution of slavery. In 1860 Richland District selected James Hopkins Adams as a delegate to the Secession Convention, where he advocated South Carolina’s immediate secession from the Union.

Stay Connected
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.