Memminger, C. G. (Christopher Gustavus), 1803-1888

South Carolina legislator and Confederate Secretary of the Treasury; from Charleston, S.C.

Lawyer and politician of Charleston, S.C.; member of: S.C. House, 1836-1852, 1855-1860, 1877; Secession convention, 1861; Board of Free School Commissioners of Charleston; drafter of Confederate constitution; Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, 1861-1864; President of the Etiwan Phospate Company, Charleston; graduated S.C. College, 1819; native of Wurttemberg, Germany.

Confederate States of America secretary of treasury.

South Carolina legislator, member of Confederate Constitutional Convention and chair of the committee to draft the provisional constitution. Confederate secretary of the treasury 1861-1864.

Public official in South Carolina and Confederate secretary of the treasury.

C.G. Memminger, lawyer of Charleston, S.C., and Secretary of the Treasury, Confederate States of America.

Christopher Gustavus Memminger was born 9 January 1803, in the town of Nayhinger, Duchy of Wurtemburg, Germany. His father, Gotfried Memminger, was an officer in the Prince Elector's Battalion of Foot Jaegars and was killed in action less that one month after the birth of his only son. His mother, Eberhardina Kohler Memminger, emigrated shortly thereafter with her father's family to Charleston, S.C., where she contracted became ill and died. In 1807, Memminger's grandparents placed him in the Orphan House in Charleston. There he attracted the attention of Thomas Bennett, a wealthy Charlestonian who later became governor of South Carolina. At age eleven, Memminger was taken into the Bennett home on a basis of equality with Bennett's own children. He entered South Carolina College in 1815 at the age of twelve, and was graduated four years later, second in his class. He studied law in the office of Joseph Bennett and, after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, was admitted to the bar in 1825. He became a successful attorney and began a long career in state politics, aligning himself with the Unionist group. He served in the state legislature from 1836 until 1860, with the exception of the years 1853 and 1854, and was elected again for one term in 1877. He was a staunch opponent of nullification and a grudging supporter of the Compromise of 1850. In 1860, he was chosen, partly because he was known to be a moderate opposed to secession, to present to Virginia the South Carolina proposals for common defense measures following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. By December of that year, however, he had become a secessionist and was a member of the convention called by the South Carolina legislature for the purpose of enacting an ordinance of secession. Memminger was named to the committee which drafted a statement of the causes which justified the secession. Memminger was named to the committee which drafted a statement of the causes which justified the secession of South Carolina from the Union. He also was a representative from South Carolina to the provisional congress of the seceded states and was the chairman of the committee of that body which drafted the constitution of the Confederate States of America.

In 1861, Memminger became the first Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederacy, holding that difficult position until 14 June 1864, when he resigned and retired to private life at his summer home in Flat Rock, N.C. After the war, he returned to Charleston, applied for and, in 1866, received a presidential pardon, and resumed the practice of law. He became involved in a number of business enterprises, including a sulfuric acid and super-phosphate plant and the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad Company. He continued his service to public schools, which had its beginnings in 1834 when he was first named to the Board of Free School Commissioners of Charleston. Memminger was characterized in his own lifetime as the founder of the public school system of Charleston and has since been recognized for his influence upon the public school system of the entire state.

Biographical Note is taken from Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Christopher G. Memminger Papers . Southern Historical Collection: 1966.