Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — HAMPTON IS RETIRED. [ARTICLE]

HAMPTON IS RETIRED.

A FARMERS’ ALLIANCE MAN ELECTED TO THE SENATE. J. L. M. Irby Chosen by the Legislature ol South Carolina to Succeed Wade Hampton— Col. Irby Has the Record of a Hard Fighter in His Early Days. [Columbia (S. C.) dispatch.] South Carolina politics is more mixed than ever. Senator Wade Hampton, the State’s heretofore idolized hero and bat-tle-scarred warrior, has been ignominiously defeated by John Laurens Irby, the chief lieutenant of the farmers’ movement. The General Assembly, after three days’ of balloting, elected him over i Gen. Hampton by a heavy majority. There were three candidates in the field—lrby and Donaldson, representing the farmers’ movement, and Wade Hampton, the present incumbent. The vote stood on all ballots as follows, with slight fluctuations: Irby, 66; Donaldson, 51; Hampton, 37. On the seventh ballot Irby lacked only two votes of the nomination, and then most of Donaldson’s friends deserted their man and went over making the vote: Irby, 105; Donaldson, 10; Hampton 42. The election of Irby was received with cheers by the- reformers, while the straightouts and galleries hissed him to their hearts’ content. There was an immense crowd present. Although a young man, Col. Irby has a history, and not a very savory one. He has the reputation of being “a bad man,” although it is said he has since reformed and joined the Baptist Church. Baek in the seventies he was outlawed by the Democratic Governor, Simpson, who succeeded Hampton, for murdering a man named Kilgore in Laurens County. A reward of $l5O was ottered for his arrest, but he fled the State and remained away until the thing blew over, when he returned to Laurens, and, with the aid of G. W. Shell, then Clerk of the court and now Alliance member of Congress, secured an acquittal.

Wade Hampton, whose seat Irby will take, has represented South Carolina in the United States Senate since 1879. He is the grandson of a Major General in the revolutionary war. He was one of the first to enlist on the Confederate side in the war of the rebellion, and led the “Hampton legion” at Bull Run, where he was wounded but won a Brigadier Generalship. He served gallantly all through the war and came out as Lieutenant General. In 1876 South Carolina had two Governors for a time.,. Hampton was one, Chamberlain the other. United States soldiers came to Chamberlain’s aid, but eventually President Hayes withdrew Federal support from Chamberlain, leaving Hampton in the gubernatorial chair, to which he was re-elected in 1878, and served until elevated to the United States Senate.