I am James Henry Hammond

I am an attorney, politician and planter from South Carolina. I served as a United States Representatives from 1835 to 1836, the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and United States Senator from 1857 to 1860. I inherited property through marriage and ultimately owned 22 square miles, several plantations and houses, and more than 300 slaves.

The legislature chose him for the Unites States Senate in 1857 following the death of Andrew P. Butler, and I served from 1857 until my resignation in 1860 in light of South Carolina's secession from the Union. I popularized the phrase that "Cotton is king" on March 4, 1858, during my speech to the US Senate.

I owned a plantation in Beech Island, South Carolina, and I based my book off that as the ideal of the perfectly run plantation in my plantation manual, it includes a wide range of material, with detailed rules regulating treatment of pregnant and nursing slaves, old slaves no longer fit for heavy field work, together with rules about clothing, quarters, and food, in addition to livestock and crop management.

I still firmly believe , "that American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles."