Jamison

the political necessity for toleration in such a
colony as New York, "made up chiefly of For-
eigners and Dissenters," and advanced the legal
argument that the acts of Uniformity and Tol-
eration did not apply to the colonies. He point-
ed out—being himself one of the original ves-
trymen of Trinity Church—that "when we did
set about erecting a Church of England Congre-
gation ..., it was the care of those members who
promoted it [the charter] to get such clauses in-
serted in it as should secure the Liberty of the
Dutch and French congregations." Makemie
was acquitted, but he had spent two months in
prison and was obliged to pay costs. (See A
Narrative of a New and Unusual American Im-
prisonment of Two Presbyterian Ministers and
Prosecution of Mr. Francis Makemie, 1707.)

In 1711 Jamison was appointed chief justice
of New Jersey by Gov. Robert Hunter [#.z/.], in
whom the executive functions of New York and
New Jersey were united, and in the following
year he was named recorder of New York City,
and was commissioned to execute the office of
attorney-general of New York, some years later
receiving the commission in full. In 1723 he
was removed from the chief justiceship of
New Jersey, that province demanding a resident
chief justice. For seventeen years he held al-
ternately the offices of vestryman and warden
of Trinity Church. Governor Hunter, in a letter
to the Lords of Trade, Oct. 2, 1716, pronounced
him "the greatest man I ever knew; and I think
of the most unblemished life and conversation of
any of his rank in these parts" (Documents, V,
479). He added the assertion that it was due to
Jamison's zeal and management that the Church
of England had any establishment in New York.
His enemy Bellomont accused Jamison of big-
amy (Ibid., IV, 400), but Hunter refuted the
charge, though admitting that "there was a wo-
man by whom he had a child in his wild days"
(Ibid., V, 479). He married Mary Harden-
brook in New York City, May 7, 1692, and a
decade later, Jan. 16, 1703, married Johanna
Meech (or Meek). He left several descendants.

[E. B. O'Callaghan, Docs. Relating to the Colonial
Hist, of the State of N. Y., vols. IV-VI (1854-55) J
records of Trinity Church; Wm. Smith, The Hist, of
the Late Province of N. Y., I (1829), 161-64; Calendar
of Council Minutes, 1668-1783 (1902); N. Y, Geneal.
and Biog. Record, Oct. 1874; Colls. N. Y. Hist. Soc.,
Pub. Fund Ser., vols. I (1868), XXVI (1894); R. S.
Field, "The Provincial Courts of New Jersey," Colls.
N. J. Hist. Soc., vol. Ill (1849) ; Robert Wodrow,
Hist, of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland (2
vols., 1721-22), volf II (bk. Ill), pp. 220-21, App.,
79-82; K B. O'Callaghan, in Mag. of Am. Hist.f Jan.
1877; E, 0. Jameson, The Jamesons in America

R.E.D.

Jamison

JAMISON, DAVID FLAVEL (Dec. 14,
i8io-Sept 14, 1864), author, South Carolina
leader, was the son of Van de Vastine Jamison,
a physician and planter of Orangeburg District,
and his wife, Elizabeth (Rumph) Jamison. He
was descended from Henry Jamison, of Scottish
birth, who came from the province of Ulster,
Ireland, to Philadelphia about 1708. From Platt
Springs Academy in Lexington District, David
entered the sophomore class at the South Caro-
lina College, but did not graduate. He practised
law for two years, but in 1832, when he married
his first cousin, Elizabeth Ann Carmichael
Rumph, he gave up his practice and was for the
rest of his life a planter. In 1836 he was elected
to the state House of Representatives from
Orange Parish, Orangeburg District, and served
in that body till 1848. For almost the whole of
this period he was chairman of the committee
on military affairs. In his fourth term he in-
troduced the bill for the formation of the South
Carolina Military Academy. In 1844 he voted
with the minority against the resolutions de-
claring that the annexation of Texas was of
paramount importance and the tariff of 1842 un-
constitutional. It was probably this attitude that
led to his retirement; in the election of 1846 he
ran second, instead of first as in 1844, and in
1848 gave place to the fiery Lawrence M. Keitt

Meanwhile Jamison had been pursuing what
was perhaps his chief interest — historical studies.
In the Southern Quarterly Review for January
and July 1843, January, April, and October 1844,
and October 1849 there were reviews of Guizot,
Mignet, Herder, Michelet, and Lamartine which
either by signature or internal evidence are to
be ascribed to him. They are lengthy and schol-
arly essays, elaborately fortified with references,
chiefly to French authors and sources. To the
Southern planter the lessons of modern Euro-
pean history seemed plain, and it was doubtless
these studies as much as the long controversy
over the Wilmot Proviso that matured his po-
litical philosophy. In articles for the Review
for September and November 1850 he argued
that slavery was the indispensable basis for a
successful republic, and that the abolition cam-
paign and the excesses of Northern democracy
made separation as necessary as it was desirable.
He was a delegate to the Nashville Convention
of 1850, and during 1851 and 1852 was active in
the movement for separate action by South Caro-
lina. In 1859 he bought a plantation in Barn-
well District and became the near neighbor as
he was already the intimate friend of William
Gilmore Simms [q.v.]. He represented Barn-

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