Hugh Swinton Legare

Legaré, Hugh Swinton

(1797–1843) lawyer, public official; born in Charleston, S.C. Left permanently crippled after a childhood bout with smallpox, he graduated first in his class at the University of South Carolina, studied law in Europe, and served several terms in the state legislature in the 1820s. He opposed Calhoun and nullification in 1828. A man of wide learning and broad views, he served as coeditor of the influential Southern Review (1828–32). He served two years as his state's attorney general (1830–32), sat in the U.S. House of Representatives (Whig, 1837–39); and was attorney general in President Tyler's cabinet (1841–43).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.