| Laurence M. Keitt |
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Laurence Massillon Keitt ( October 4 , 1824 – June 4 , 1864 ) was a South Carolina politician who served as a United States Congressman . He is included in several lists of Fire-Eaters —men who adamantly urged the secession of southern states from the United States, and who resisted measures of compromise and reconciliation, leading to the American Civil War . Keitt was born in Orangeburg County, South Carolina . A member of the Democratic Party , he was representative to the South Carolina state house, 1848, and then U.S. Representative from South Carolina's 3rd District, 1853-55, 1855-56, 1856-60. Keitt was censured by the House in 1856 for aiding Rep. Preston S. Brooks in his caning attack on Sen. Charles Sumner , after which he resigned and was re-elected to his seat within a month. Perhaps Keitt's most famous quotation best summarized his political views. In 1860, Congressman Keitt said, "The anti-slavery party contends that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: Taken from a photocopy of the Congressional Globe supplied by Steve Miller. That same year, Keitt was involved in a fight on the House floor with Galusha A. Grow after calling him a "black Republican puppy". Keitt served as a delegate from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate Congress , 1861-62, and a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. Mortally wounded at the Battle Of Cold Harbor on June 3 , 1864 , Keitt died the next day near Richmond, Virginia . REFERENCES
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