78 Facts About Langdon Cheves

Langdon Cheves was an American politician, lawyer and businessman from South Carolina.

Langdon Cheves represented the city of Charleston in the United States House of Representatives from 1810 to 1815, where he played a key role on the home front of the War of 1812.

Langdon Cheves served as chairman of the Committees on Naval Affairs and Ways and Means under Speaker of the House Henry Clay, then succeeded Clay as Speaker in the war's final stages.

Originally, Langdon Cheves advocated for a convention of Southern states to pressure Congress into adopting these positions, but eventually became one of the earliest advocates for outright regional secession from the United States.

Langdon Cheves's father, Alexander, was a native of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Langdon Cheves was born in Bulltown Fort amidst an ongoing war between the Scots-Irish settlers and the Cherokee, which settlers attributed to British instigation at the onset of the American Revolution.

Langdon Cheves later described standing at his mother's grave as his earliest childhood memory.

Langdon Cheves was shortly thereafter placed in the care of his paternal aunt and uncle, Thomas and Margaret Cheves.

Langdon Cheves's father Alexander enlisted in the Loyalist cause under Major John Hamilton, but his brother Thomas was a Patriot who fought under Andrew Pickens at the Battle of Kettle Creek.

Langdon Cheves entered exile, first in Nova Scotia and then in London.

Langdon Cheves was not received favorably by British courts and was not remunerated for his service and decided to return to America.

Langdon Cheves was raised by his aunt and uncle on their family farm with four younger cousins.

Langdon Cheves continued his formal education from 1786 to 1788 with a Scottish schoolmaster who eliminated his backcountry drawl through corporal punishment.

At age 12, Langdon Cheves's father withdrew him from school and apprenticed him to James Jaffray, a merchant, Glasgow native, and fellow member of the city's St Andrew's Society.

Langdon Cheves started by performing menial tasks at the Charleston shop before being promoted to supercargo to accompany shipments to and from Edisto Island.

In spite of the advice of his friends, who thought him "born to be a merchant," Langdon Cheves began studying law at age 18.

Langdon Cheves applied to read law in Marshall's office, and his apprenticeship began in early 1796.

Langdon Cheves opened an office in Charleston which he rented from Elihu H Bay and shared with Robert James Turnbull.

Langdon Cheves had purchased a slave to serve as a personal servant, improved his dress, and applied to practice before the United States Court for District of South Carolina.

Langdon Cheves planned to retire from law, but first accepted a one-year partnership with Amos B Northrup.

In summer 1798, stemming from outrage over French mistreatment of American ambassador and Charleston native Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Langdon Cheves joined and became a treasurer of the Charleston Federalist Company, an informal social-military group formed to defend the harbor in the event of an ostensible French invasion.

On March 9,1802, Langdon Cheves was elected to the Charleston City Council to succeed William Lee.

Langdon Cheves was not actively involved in the business of the House, focusing instead on his legal practice and declining to run for re-election in 1804.

Langdon Cheves returned to politics in 1806, running for the House again at the head of the Republican ticket.

Langdon Cheves anonymously wrote editorials in support of President Thomas Jefferson and the Embargo of 1807.

Langdon Cheves endorsed James Madison over Charles Pinckney, urged the election of pro-Madison Representatives, and stood for re-election as one such Representative.

Langdon Cheves was elected by the legislature to head the electoral ticket and cast his vote for Madison.

On December 7,1808, Langdon Cheves was elected South Carolina Attorney General.

Langdon Cheves won unopposed and took his seat early in the 11th Congress.

Langdon Cheves's opponent was the leader of the South Carolina Federalists, John Rutledge Jr.

Langdon Cheves became acting chair of Ways and Means on April 27,1812.

Immediately upon his arrival in Washington, Langdon Cheves was faced with the brewing international crisis that eventually resulted in the War of 1812.

Langdon Cheves proceeded to appoint War Mess men to key committee posts.

Calhoun and Grundy were appointed on the Foreign Relations Committee, Lowndes on Commerce and Manufactures, and Langdon Cheves was given the chairmanship of the Select Committee on Naval Affairs.

Langdon Cheves was made second man on the powerful Committee on Ways and Means.

Langdon Cheves began by submitting detailed requests to Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton and Secretary of War William Eustis.

In November 1812, following the July recess and his re-election to a second term, Langdon Cheves returned to the House to secure funding for the war.

Langdon Cheves was outvoted in committee but refused to defend the proposal in front of the House, deferring to Richard Mentor Johnson to advocate in his place.

Langdon Cheves extended his criticism to Clay's general program of restrictive economics, arguing that it devastated the American coastal economy in striking at the British.

Langdon Cheves voted against President Madison's proposed embargo, which passed regardless and further alienated New England Federalists.

The Federalists threw their support to Langdon Cheves, who won a slight majority over Felix Grundy, who had the support of the majority of the Republican caucus, and former Speaker Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina.

Langdon Cheves demanded members confine their remarks to the motion pending and did not tolerate personal attacks, as had been frequent under Clay.

Langdon Cheves made only one speech, lamenting losses in the war but urging the government to continue to prosecute it vigorously.

Langdon Cheves argued instead for an independent bank, as the Calhoun plan provided.

When Vice President Elbridge Gerry died on November 23,1814, the office of President pro tempore of the Senate was vacant, and so Langdon Cheves briefly became next in line for the presidency.

Langdon Cheves was appointed chief commissioner of claims under the Treaty of Ghent.

Shortly after Langdon Cheves left office in March 1815, President Madison successfully lobbied the new 14th Congress to re-charter the National Bank, headquartered in Philadelphia and governed along much the same lines as its 1791 predecessor.

Langdon Cheves accepted his seat with hopes that he would be elevated in 1820 when Jones, then ill, retired.

The day after Cheves took office, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Marshall delivered his opinion in the case McCulloch v Maryland, upholding the Bank's exemption from state taxation, harboring the Bank against its political opponents at the state level.

Shortly after he entered office, Langdon Cheves presided over the establishment of a new bank building at Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.

Langdon Cheves reduced salaries and opened a correspondence with Secretary of the Treasury William H Crawford.

Langdon Cheves himself acknowledged that the curtailment of loans was only a temporary measure adopted at the insistence of Bank officers; he determined to lift the restriction as soon as possible.

Say, Langdon Cheves anonymously defended his policies an essay titled Inquiry into the Causes of Public Prosperity and Distress.

In January 1821, in an effort to placate the South and West, Langdon Cheves proposed a more lenient loan policy provided it was compatible with maintenance of a sound currency.

Also in 1819, Cheves deputized director Nicholas Biddle to investigate James A Buchanan, George Williams, and James W McCulloch for illegally purchasing bank stock worth nearly $3,500,000 and accumulating large and unauthorized personal indebtedness against the Bank.

Langdon Cheves called for investigations into the business policies of western branches and legal protections for the Bank by Congress amending the charter:.

Langdon Cheves made his decision known to Secretary Crawford in May 1822 and announced it at the stockholders meeting on October 1, after which a struggle to succeed him ensued.

Langdon Cheves first fended off a challenge by Jones supporters who sought to reverse his policies; the board he nominated was elected unanimously.

Langdon Cheves gained support from John Quincy Adams, John C Calhoun, Stephen Girard, and powerful Philadelphia stockholders.

Langdon Cheves returned his family to South Carolina in 1830 to become rice planters and continued to engage in public debate, writing occasional essays and reviews.

Langdon Cheves was a leading advocate for the idea of a unified Southern resistance to national government, particularly in opposition to tariffs and the abolition of slavery.

Langdon Cheves resigned the commission early after approving two claims.

In contrast to many of his allies Langdon Cheves spoke highly of regional union in opposition to "the metaphysics of nullification" as a distinctly South Carolinian issue.

Langdon Cheves framed the issue as "a great Southern question, in which South Carolina is not more interested than the rest of the Southern States" and therefore urged the formation of a convention of States to present a unified front of resistance and pressure Congress into tariff reduction.

Langdon Cheves recalled the failure of Georgia in resistance to the Supreme Court decision Worcester v Georgia.

Langdon Cheves decried both factions as divisive and the popular rancor over the issue a betrayal of representative constitutional democracy.

Langdon Cheves stayed aloof from the intrastate conflict over the crisis until 1832, when he joined the Unionists after they adopted his call for a convention of Southern states and were successful in reducing the tariff, over the Nullifiers' objections.

In 1844, amid renewed calls for nullification over the Tariff of 1842, Langdon Cheves emphatically revived his prior position, calling for no action by South Carolina without the backing of the entire South.

At the state convention of 1852, Langdon Cheves worked to prevent South Carolina from seceding unilaterally, maintaining his belief in Southern unity.

Langdon Cheves's plantation, called Delta, made heavy use of slave labor; when his daughter was married in late 1830, Langdon Cheves gifted her forty-one slaves and three house servants.

Langdon Cheves met his wife, Mary Elizabeth Dulles, on a return trip from Montreal.

Langdon Cheves was a young Charleston resident at boarding school in Philadelphia, rooming with Cheves's law partner's sister-in-law.

Langdon Cheves's party agreed to escort the two girls home to Charleston.

Alexander Langdon Cheves attended the United States Military Academy at West Point before studying and practicing law in Baltimore.

Langdon Cheves later succumbed to alcoholism and became estranged from his father.

In 1821, Langdon Cheves was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society and Mercantile Library Association in Philadelphia.

Langdon Cheves moved to Columbia, South Carolina with his daughter Louisa, and lived there until his death on June 26,1857.

Langdon Cheves was laid in state in Charleston City Hall and was buried at the Scots Presbyterian Church.