Why did James F. Byrnes change his date of birth?

Byrnes changed his date of birth to match that of his older sister Leonora because he needed to be 21 years old to serve as a clerk for Judge Robert Aldrich in 1900.

James F. Byrnes: the story on HearLore

Q: How long did James F. Byrnes serve on the United States Supreme Court?

James F. Byrnes served on the United States Supreme Court from the 8th of July 1941 until the 3rd of October 1942, making his tenure the shortest of any justice in history.

Q: When did James F. Byrnes die and where is he buried?

James F. Byrnes died at age 89 on the 9th of April 1972 and was interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia.

James Francis Byrnes was born at 538 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 2nd of May 1882. His father died shortly after his birth, leaving a widowed mother named Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes to raise him alone. She worked as a dressmaker and had been born in 1859. The family home became crowded when a widowed aunt moved in with her three children during the 1880s. One of those children was Frank J. Hogan, who would later become president of the American Bar Association. Byrnes left St. Patrick's Catholic School at age 14 to work in a law office. He became a court stenographer and transcribed the trial of Lieutenant Governor James H. Tillman in 1903. That trial involved the murder of a newspaper editor. In 1906, he married Maude Perkins Busch from Aiken, South Carolina. They never had children together. During this period, he converted from the Catholic Church to the Episcopal Church. His cousin Miles B. McSweeney appointed him as a clerk for Judge Robert Aldrich of Aiken in 1900. Since he needed to be 21 years old for that position, Byrnes changed his date of birth to match his older sister Leonora. He read for the law and was admitted to the bar in 1903. In 1908, he became solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina and served until 1910.

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James F. Byrnes narrowly won the Democratic primary for U.S. Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district in 1910. He was formally elected in the general election and re-elected six times, serving from 1911 to 1925. His platform included better conditions for workers in textile mills. He proved a brilliant legislator who worked behind the scenes to form coalitions without high-profile oratory. He became a close ally of President Woodrow Wilson during these years. Wilson often entrusted important political tasks to the young representative rather than more experienced lawmakers. In the 1920s, he championed the Good Roads Movement which attracted motorists and politicians to large-scale road building programs. Byrnes declined renomination to the House in 1924 and sought nomination for the Senate seat held by incumbent Nathaniel B. Dial. Anti-Tillmanite and extreme racist demagogue Coleman Blease also ran again. Blease led the primary with 42 percent while Byrnes came in second with 34 percent. Dial finished third with 22 percent. The Ku Klux Klan opposed Byrnes because they preferred Blease. They spread rumors that he was still a secret Catholic since he had been raised as a Roman Catholic. Three days before the run-off vote, 20 Catholics published an endorsement of him. Their leader was actually a Blease ally, so the endorsement circulated in anti-Catholic areas. Blease won the runoff 51% to 49%. After his House term ended in 1925, Byrnes moved his law practice to Spartanburg in the industrializing Piedmont region.

On the 12th of June 1941, Roosevelt nominated James F. Byrnes as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was confirmed that same day. He served on the Court for only 15 months from the 8th of July 1941 until the 3rd of October 1942. His Supreme Court tenure remains the shortest of any justice in history. Many in Congress and the press began referring to Byrnes as the Assistant President due to his political skills and personal charm. The program provided employment needed to bring an official end to the Great Depression. He exerted influence over many facets of the war effort not technically under his departmental jurisdiction. Many expected him to be the Democratic nominee in 1944 for vice president but Roosevelt refused to endorse anyone other than Henry A. Wallace. As head of the wartime Office of War Mobilization, James F. Byrnes provided oversight and financial resources for the Manhattan Project. He served on an Interim committee making recommendations on the use of the atomic bomb during and after the war. The committee was headed by War Secretary Henry L. Stimson and included Vannevar Bush, James Conant, Karl T.

Compton, Ralph Austin Bard, and William L. Clayton. The scientific panel consisted of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, and Ernest Lawrence. A business leaders branch included Walter S. Carpenter Jr. and James A. Rafferty. George C. Marshall represented the US Military voice on the committee. It was Byrnes who shared information with the new president Truman on the atomic bomb project until then known only to a few insiders. Truman originally intended both Byrnes and former Vice President Wallace to play leading roles in his administration. Truman quickly fell out with Wallace but retained a good working relationship with Byrnes. When Truman met Roosevelt's coffin in Washington, he asked Byrnes and Wallace to join him at the train station. Despite personally objecting to any guarantees of retaining Hirohito, Byrnes remained ambiguous on that point in a draft reply to Japan's offer of surrender of August 10. Byrnes and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin issued a joint statement announcing they were combining U.S. and British occupation zones of Germany. General Lucius D. Clay heavily influenced Byrnes' famous September 1946 speech in Stuttgart, Germany. The speech marked the formal transition away from the Morgenthau Plan of economic dismantlement toward one of economic reconstruction.

Truman was rapidly moving toward a hard-line position on Soviet intentions but Byrnes was much more conciliatory. The distance between them grew and ties of personal friendship weakened. In late 1945, Byrnes argued with Soviet Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov over pressures on Bulgaria and Romania. Truman read Mark Ethridge's damning report and decided that Byrnes's soft-line approach was a failure. At age 68, James F. Byrnes was elected Governor of South Carolina in the 1950 gubernatorial election and served from 1951 to 1955. Supporting segregation in education, he stated in his inaugural address that he sought to fulfill separate but equal policy as a realistic alternative to desegregation. He poured state money into improving black schools by buying new textbooks and buses while hiring additional teachers. He also sought to curb the power of the Ku Klux Klan by passing a law prohibiting adults from wearing masks in public except on Halloween. Many Klansmen feared exposure and would not appear in public without their robes covering their faces. Byrnes hoped to make South Carolina an example for other Southern states to follow in modifying Jim Crow policies.

Nonetheless, the NAACP sued South Carolina to force the state to desegregate its schools. Byrnes requested Kansas provide an amicus curiae brief supporting the right of a state to segregate its schools. That gave Thurgood Marshall the idea to shift the suit over to Kansas which led directly to Brown v. Board of Education. Byrnes vigorously criticized that decision. In his later years, James F. Byrnes became a conservative with one historian noting how in 1949 he publicly lashed out at the growth of the welfare state. He foresaw that the American South could play a more important role in national politics. To hasten that development, he sought to end the region's nearly automatic support of the Democratic Party which had grown too liberal. Byrnes endorsed Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, segregationist candidate Harry Byrd in 1956, Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968, and Barry Goldwater in 1964. He gave his private blessing to US Senator Strom Thurmond to bolt from the Democratic Party in 1964 and declare himself a Republican while Byrnes himself remained a Democrat.

In 1965, Byrnes spoke out against the punishment and humiliation of South Carolina Representative Albert Watson who had been stripped of his congressional seniority after endorsing Goldwater for president. Watson then resigned from the House and became a Republican. Byrnes endorsed Watson in the 1965 special election which Watson won. He died at age 89 on the 9th of April 1972 and was interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia.

James F. Byrnes.

The Road To The Senate

The Road To The Senate

The Shortest Tenure

The Atomic Decision

The Stuttgart Speech

The Governor's Gambit

The Conservative Turn

The Shortest Tenure

The Atomic Decision

The Stuttgart Speech

The Governor's Gambit

The Conservative Turn

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Common questions

James F. Byrnes.

1. The Road To The Senate

1. The Road To The Senate

2. The Shortest Tenure

3. The Atomic Decision

4. The Stuttgart Speech

5. The Governor's Gambit

6. The Conservative Turn

2. The Shortest Tenure

3. The Atomic Decision

4. The Stuttgart Speech

5. The Governor's Gambit

6. The Conservative Turn

Continue Browsing

Common questions

The Road To The Senate

The Road To The Senate

The Shortest Tenure

The Atomic Decision

The Stuttgart Speech

The Governor's Gambit

The Conservative Turn

The Shortest Tenure

The Atomic Decision

The Stuttgart Speech

The Governor's Gambit

The Conservative Turn