Francis Wilkinson Pickens
(1805-1869)

Died aged c. 64

Francis Wilkinson Pickens (1805/1807 – January 25, 1869) was a political Democrat and Governor of South Carolina when that state became the first to secede from the United States. A cousin of US Senator John C. Calhoun, Pickens was born into the culture of the antebellum plantocracy. He became an ardent supporter of nullification of federal tariffs when he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before he was elected to Congress and then the state senate. As state governor during the Fort Sumter crisis, he sanctioned the firing on the ship bringing supplies to the beleaguered Union garrison, and to the bombardment of the fort. After the war, it was Pickens who introduced the motion to repeal South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession, a short speech received in silence, in notable contrast with the rejoicing that had first greeted the Ordinance.

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