Hugh Swinton Legaré
1797=1843.
Hugh Swinton Legaré (pronounced Le-grēe´) was born in Charleston, South Carolina, of Huguenot and Scotch descent. He was educated at South Carolina College which he entered at the age of fourteen, and became an excellent scholar, especially in the languages both ancient and modern. He studied law, and then completed his education in the good old way by a course of travel and study in Europe. His learning is said to have been almost phenomenal: he was one of the founders of the “Southern Review.”
On his return from Europe, 1820, he was elected to the State Legislature: 1830, he was made Attorney-General of the State; from 1832 to 1836 he was chargé d’affaires at Brussels; in 1836 he was elected to Congress, and in 1841 appointed Attorney-General of the United States. He died in Boston, whither he had gone to take part in the Bunker Hill Celebration.
Chief-Justice Story said of him: “His argumentation was marked by the closest logic; at the same time he had a presence in speaking which I have never seen excelled.” See Life, by Paul Hamilton Hayne.