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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—South CarolinaLaurence Massillon KEITT
(1824-1864)
KEITT, Laurence Massillon,
a Representative from South Carolina; born in Orangeburg District,
S.C., October 4, 1824; pursued classical studies and was graduated
from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina)
at Columbia in 1843; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1845
and commenced practice in Orangeburg; member of the state house of
representatives, 1848-1853; elected as a Democrat to the
Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Congresses and served from March 4,
1853, to July 16, 1856, when he resigned after the Thirty-fourth
Congress censured him on July 15, 1856, for his role in the assault
made upon Senator Charles Sumner on May 22, 1856; again elected to
the Thirty-fourth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by his own
resignation; reelected to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth
Congresses and served from August 6, 1856, until his retirement in
December 1860; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds
(Thirty-fifth Congress); delegate to the secession convention of
South Carolina; member of the Provisional Congress of the
Confederacy in Montgomery, Ala., in February 1861 and in Richmond,
Va., in July 1861; raised the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment of
Volunteers and was commissioned its colonel on January 11, 1862;
subsequently promoted to the rank of brigadier general; wounded in
the Battle of Cold Harbor, near Richmond, Va., and died as a result
of his wounds the following day, June 4, 1864; interment in the
family cemetery, near St. Matthews, S.C.
Bibliography
Merchant, John H., Jr. “Laurence M. Keitt: South Carolina
Fire Eater.” Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1976.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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