David Wyatt Aiken (March 17, 1828 – April 6, 1887) was a slave owner,[1] Confederate army officer during the American Civil War and a reconstruction era five-term United States Congressman from South Carolina.

He taught college for two years before marrying Mattie Gaillard in 1852 and engaging in agricultural pursuits, owning a plantation and traveling extensively in Europe and throughout the United States, where he spoke in defense of slavery to large crowds.

[2] He became the editor of the Winnsboro News and Herald, and was married a second time to Miss Smith of Abbeville, where Aiken settled and continued to farm.

However, lingering effects of his wound soon forced Aiken to administrative duty in Macon, Georgia for a year, before he resigned from the Confederate army in mid-1864 and returned home.

[3] Aiken was a prominent figure in the Reconstruction-era Democratic party, and a leader in efforts to suppress the voting rights of recently emancipated slaves, and an advocate of "white man's government.