Lamar, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus [key], 1825–93, American statesman, b. Putnam co., Ga. He practiced law in Oxford, Miss., and sat (1857–60) as a Democrat in Congress. Although he at first opposed secession, Lamar drafted the Mississippi ordinance of secession. In Nov., 1862, he was appointed Confederate commissioner to Russia but was recalled from Paris before reaching Russia. He returned to the Army of Northern Virginia, in which he had previously served as lieutenant colonel of a Mississippi regiment, as a judge advocate. After the Civil War he resumed his practice at Oxford and taught at the Univ. of Mississippi. He was a U.S. Representative (1873–77), Senator (1877–85), and Secretary of the Interior in President Cleveland's cabinet from 1885 to 1888, when he resigned to serve (1888–93) as associate justice of the Supreme Court. His efforts after the war to restore friendly relations between North and South brought him into particular prominence.
See biographies by E. Mayes (1896) and J. B. Murphy (1973).
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