Thomas Lee was an American jurist and banker. He was a President of the Bank of South Carolina from 1817 to 1839 and a Federal district judge for South Carolina from 1823 to 1839.
Background
Thomas Lee was born in Charleston, South Carolina. His father was William Lee, a watchmaker, who as a captain in the South Carolina militia during the Revolution was exiled to St. Augustine in 1780 by the British. His mother was Anne, daughter of Jeremiah Theus, the artist.
Education
Thomas attended the classical school of Thompson and Baldwin in Charleston, and after he studied law under J. J. Pringle.
Career
Lee was admitted to the bar about 1790. He made his first public appearance as an orator in 1789, at the Bastille celebration in Charleston; later he displayed a facility in French that enabled him to examine French witnesses without an interpreter. In 1791 he began his public service as associate justice or judge of the courts of sessions and of common pleas, and a few months later was elected solicitor for the southern circuit; in 1796 he was cashier of the lower house of the legislature, and in 1798, 1800, and 1802 he was its clerk; in 1804 he resigned as associate judge, but soon after was elected comptroller general, to which office he was repeatedly reëlected. He was presidential elector in 1816.
He became president of the Bank of South Carolina in 1817, and six years later was appointed federal district judge for South Carolina; in both these offices he continued until his death. In politics Lee favored the principles of the Jeffersonian Republicans, but although he held public office for forty-five years, he showed too much independence ever to be rated a party man. During the nullification controversy he not only declined to contribute for the purchase of votes, but in a case involving the payment of duties under the tariff "in which it was intended to give a triumph to Nullification, by overriding the Act of Congress in the verdict of a jury" he "ruled out the defence, and thus defeated the project" (O'Neall, post, I, 85).
In 1817, when the pastor and certain members of the Congregational Church seceded and formed the Unitarian Church, he was chairman of the joint committee of ten that drew the articles of separation. He became a deacon, and one summer during the absence of the pastor he conducted the services. He was also identified with the rise of the temperance movement in Charleston, showing zeal without fanaticism. He was about to make a lecture tour in its interest through the upper districts of the state when he "closed his virtuous and useful life after several days illness of country fever" (Charleston Courier, October 25, 1839) and was buried in the Unitarian churchyard. The organizations with which he was identified voted formal mourning and published eulogistic tributes to his benevolence, business ability, oratorical powers, and judicial integrity (Charleston Mercury, October 25, 28, 29, 1839).
Achievements
Personality
Lee is described as a man of "fine person, powerful voice, and elegant elocution" (O'Neall, loc. cit).
Connections
Lee was married on February 9, 1792, to Kezia, daughter of John Miles of Horse Savannah. He named her executrix of his will, suggesting that their five surviving sons dutifully counsel her. One of these sons, Thomas, became the father of Stephen Dill Lee.