Financier; born in
Wurtemberg,
Germany, Jan. 9, 1803; was taken to
Charleston, S. C., in infancy; graduated at South Carolina College in 1820, and began to practise law in 1826.
In the nullification movement in
South Carolina (see
nullification) he was a leader of the
Union men. In 1860 he was a leader of the
Confederates in that State, and on the formation of the Confederate government was made
Secretary of the Treasury.
He had been for nearly twenty years at the head of the finance committee of the South Carolina legislature.
He died March 7, 1888.
In January, 1860, as a representative of the political leaders in
South Carolina, he appeared before the legislature of Virginia as a special commissioner to enlist the representatives of the “Old Dominion” in a scheme to combat the abolitionists.
In the name of
South Carolina, he
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proposed a convention of the slave-labor States to consider their grievances and to “take action for their defence.”
In an able plea he reminded the Virginians of their narrow escape from disaster by
John Brown's raid, and the necessity of a Southern union to provide against similar perils.
He concluded by saying: “I have delivered into the keeping of
Virginia the cause of the
South.”
He reported that he “found it difficult to see through” the Virginia legislature, for they hesitated to receive his gospel.
The slave-holders of that State who were deriving a princely revenue from the inter-State slave-trade—
from $12,000,000 to $20,000,000 a year— were averse to forming a part of a confederacy in which the African slave-trade was to be reopened and encouraged.
Mr. Memminger, in his report, said: “I see no men, however, who would take the position of leaders in a revolution.”
