James Francis Byrnes (May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American politician from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a US Representative (1911–1925), a US Senator (1931–1941), a Justice of the Supreme Court (1941–1942), Secretary of State (1945–1947), and 104th governor of South Carolina (1951–1955). He is one of very few politicians to serve in all three branches of the American national government while also being active in state government. He was a confidant of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was one of the most powerful men in American domestic and foreign policy in the mid-1940s.

Byrnes was born and reared in Charleston, South Carolina. Byrnes' father died shortly after Byrnes was born. His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was an Irish-American dressmaker. At the age of fourteen, he left St. Patrick's Catholic School to work in a law office, and became a court stenographer. In 1906, he married the former Maude Perkins Busch of Aiken, South Carolina, and became an Episcopalian. Though they had no children, he was the godparent of James Christopher Connor.