Philip Phillips

Philip Phillips (December 13, 1807 – January 14, 1884) was an American lawyer and politician from Cheraw, South Carolina, Mobile, Alabama, and Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. representative from Alabama. Subsequently, he was a prominent lawyer in Washington, D.C., much involved in the political events surrounding the American Civil War. Family and early life Philip Phillips was born December 13, 1807, in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Aaron Phillips and Caroline Lazarus, prominent members of the Jewish community there. His father had changed his name from Pfeiffer when he immigrated around 1800 from Ansbach, Bavaria. The family were members of the Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, and in 1825, Aaron Phillips was the first president of the Reformed Society of Israelites, early leaders in the Jewish Reform movement. Philip Phillips' mother Caroline was the daughter of Marks Lazarus, a Sephardic Jewish veteran of Fort Moultrie, the siege of Savannah, and the siege of Charleston in the American Revolution. He was held as a British prisoner of war. Educated at the Middletown Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut, Phillips was a roommate of Thomas H. Seymour, later the "hero of Chapultepec," Governor of Connecticut, Ambassador to Russia, and opponent of military action against the South. Phillips returned to Charleston in 1825, where he studied law under John Gadsden, the U.S. District Attorney. He was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1829. He began his legal practice at the town of Cheraw, South Carolina, living with his uncle, Joshua Lazarus. Political career From Cheraw, Phillips rode the circuit of the local courthouses, becoming the partner of John Coit. During the controversy in South Carolina regarding the Tariff of 1832, he was among the leaders in rallying what is now known as Chesterfield County to the Union cause, in opposition to nullification. He was a member of the Nullification Convention in the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and continued to represent Chesterfield County in the South Carolina General Assembly in 1834/35.