US Congressman. Elected as a Democrat to represent South Carolina's 4th District in the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Congresses, he served from 1845 until his death. The nephew of US Congressman George Coke Dromgoole, Sims was born near Randals Ordinary, Virginia. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in 1823 graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1826 he moved to Darlington, South Carolina, where he headed the Academy for two years before setting up a private law practice. Prior to serving in Congress he was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. Sims was an adamant supporter of slavery, which he first defended in his book "A View of Slavery, Moral and Political" (1834), and as a Congressman was frequently challenged by his Abolitionist colleagues. During an 1847 speech, when asked about the growing opposition to slavery's expansion, he remarked, "I have no idea that the North or the West will resist to the death. This Union will never be dissolved on that question". In November 1848 Sims won a third term in the US House, but died of a heart attack in Kingstree, South Carolina two weeks after the election. He was buried in Darlington; there is also a cenotaph in his memory at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.
US Congressman. Elected as a Democrat to represent South Carolina's 4th District in the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Congresses, he served from 1845 until his death. The nephew of US Congressman George Coke Dromgoole, Sims was born near Randals Ordinary, Virginia. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in 1823 graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1826 he moved to Darlington, South Carolina, where he headed the Academy for two years before setting up a private law practice. Prior to serving in Congress he was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. Sims was an adamant supporter of slavery, which he first defended in his book "A View of Slavery, Moral and Political" (1834), and as a Congressman was frequently challenged by his Abolitionist colleagues. During an 1847 speech, when asked about the growing opposition to slavery's expansion, he remarked, "I have no idea that the North or the West will resist to the death. This Union will never be dissolved on that question". In November 1848 Sims won a third term in the US House, but died of a heart attack in Kingstree, South Carolina two weeks after the election. He was buried in Darlington; there is also a cenotaph in his memory at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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