George McDuffie

George McDuffie

George McDuffie, the namesake of McDuffie County, Ga, is best remembered as a representative and a senator from South Carolina. He was born in Columbia County in Georgia on Aug. 10, 1790, and attended an old-field school and a private academy.

McDuffie graduated from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) at Columbia in 1813. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1814. He commenced practice in Pendleton, Anderson County, S.C.

McDuffie was a member of the state house of representatives 1818-1819. He was then elected to the Seventeenth and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1821, until his resignation in 1834.

McDuffie was chairman of the powerful Committee on Ways and Means in the Nineteenth through Twenty-second Congresses. He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1830 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck.

A determined opponent of Jackson's initiatives for a high-protective tariff, McDuffie threw his influence as chairman of ways and Means behind his state in the Nullification Crisis.

This event was precipitated when South Carolina attempted to nullify duties on wool, cotton, hemp and other goods imposed by the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. A three-term chairman, McDuffie earned fame with his "forty-bale" theory. It was held that under the tariff, 40 out of every 100 bales of Southern cotton went to the enrichment of Northerners.

McDuffie was elected as Governor of South Carolina 1834-1836. He went on to serve as president of the board of trustees of South Carolina College.

He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William C. Preston, then reelected, and served from Dec. 23, 1842, until Aug. 17, 1846, when he resigned. He served as the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations for the Twenty-ninth Congress.

McDuffie died at Cherry Hill in Sumter District, S.C., on March 11, 1851.