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10th President of the Confederate States | |
| Predecessor | Benjamin Tillman |
| Successor | Thomas E. Watson |
| Vice President | Thomas E. Watson |
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C.S. Representative from Tennessee | |
| Predecessor | Richard Warner |
| Successor | William C. Houston |
| Born | March 10, 1843 Rutherford County, Tennessee, US |
| Died | November 11, 1905 (aged 62) Richmond, Virginia, CS |
| Spouse | Alabama Rebecca Pippen |
| Political Party | Confederate |
James Daniel Richardson (March 10, 1843 – November 11, 1905) was a Confederate politician who served as the 10th President of the Confederate States. He was the first Confederate President to be assassinated, and the second to die in office.
Early Life[]
Southern War of Independence[]
Richardson served in the majority of the Southern War of Independence, though he was barely an adult when it started.
Postbellum Career[]
Richardson graduated college after the war ended and began a law practice in Tennessee. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1871 and served in local state politics until 1875. In 1883, Richardson ran for a CS House of Representatives seat and won, going on to serve twenty years in the body.
Richardson decided to run for president in the 1903 election. He placed his entire political future on this election, as he planned to retire from the House of Representatives whether he won the nomination or not. With a crowded field, Richardson stood out to the delegates at the convention as a good alternative to the brash and vulgar demeanor of the incumbent President Tillman. He was a good, measured orator who was also a Freemason. He expressed plans for the Confederacy that were more than the simple, pro-slavery plans his presidential predecessors had championed. He was still pro-slavery, but he chose to focus instead on industrializing the South and putting slaves to work in innovative ways. As more of the minor candidates dropped out, more and more delegates switched their support to Richardson. He won the nomination on the 15th ballot.
The Confederate Party had already decided prior to the convention that they would strike a deal to run a combined ticket with the People's Agrarian Party, who nominated Thomas E. Watson to be Richardson's running mate. The pair won a unanimous victory against Augustus Octavius Bacon, as the public had lost faith in the Southern Party.
Presidency[]
President Richardson went into his term with the hopes of redefining the political and economic face of the Confederacy. He formed an unexpectedly good rapport with Vice President Watson, though the two men did disagree on many things. Watson did his best to mix his progressive ideals with Richardson's plan in a way that would be unoffensive to him and his party.
Among Richardson's initiatives were efforts to industrialize cities, lending government slaves to work in newly opened factories. He hoped that this extremely cheap labor would attract businesses from the Union and other countries. This mostly did not happen, as any company that did this would be relocating into a country with a deep economic depression and also earn the ire of their Northern countrymen. Still, Southern businesses did begin to pop up. Richardson also began to lease government-owned slaves at cheap prices to upstart plantations, mostly in the Mexican Territories.
Revolts in Cuba and the Philippines forced the president to let them secede from the Confederacy, but a widespread revolt in Mexico was violently put down. Richardson placed a high value on the CSA's Mexican lands, since he saw them as the future farmlands of the Confederacy as industry moved into the Old South. He used whatever limited government funds he had to promote and subsidize the development of railroads and telephone lines across Confederate Mexico.
Richardson's reforms seemed to make a difference, and the economy did begin to gradually improve. He was not appreciated by all, though, and many hardcore supporters of slavery thought that he was trying to phase the institution out by moving jobs to the cities. They also thought he was disregarding states' rights by subsidizing businesses and taking direct control of business ventures around the country. One Southern Party extremist named Micah Sayers decided to do something about it. On November 11, 1905, Sayers was able to track Richardson down in the streets of Richmond, outside the Confederate Capitol Building. He was able to slip through the crowd and past the president's entourage, coming face to face with Richardson before pulling out his pistol and shooting him in the forehead. President Richardson died instantly, though he was soon taken to a nearby physician.
The incident was the first political assassination in Confederate history. The Southern Party was disgraced; as much as they tried to distance themselves from the incident and call Sayers a lone madman, the people now saw them as a party of violence. Richardson's death also ended the president's reforms and replaced them with far more extreme reforms at the hands of the new president, Thomas E. Watson. Thus, President Richardson's assassination is seen in many ways as an important turning point in Confederate history, leading to the rise of progressivism and the temporary downfall of the Southern Party.
Legacy[]
The relatively short length of Richardson's presidency makes it hard for historians to pass judgement on him; it is hard to say what would have happened if he was able to serve out his term. While the economy did see a slight upturn during his term, it was a very gradual improvement. It is thought by many historical scholars that the progressive policies of President Watson were necessary for the Confederacy to truly dig out of its hole. Thus, James D. Richardson is seen as a necessary stepping stone to the reforms that truly ended the Panic of 1896. His assassination also changed the political face of the Confederacy, as politics became much more partisan over the ensuing years and the Southern Party saw a decade-long fall in popularity.
Among regular people, Richardson is remembered mainly for his assassination. Not many of his policies had a long term effect. It could be argued that his longest lasting decisions were his relinquishing of Cuba and the Philippines and his actions in Mexico.
Richardson was the first president from Tennessee, where he is honored more than anywhere else in the Confederacy.
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