LAMAR, Muir, Lucius Quintus Cincin natus, American jurist : b. Eatonton, Putnam County, Ga., 1 Sept. 1825; d. Macon, Ga., 23 Jan. 1893. He was graduated from Emory Col lege (Oxford, Ga.), studied law at Macon, was admitted to the bar in 1847, removed in 1849 to Oxford, Miss., was there professor of mathe matics in the University of Mississippi (1850 52), in 1852-55 practised at Covington, Ga., was elected to the Georgia legislature in 1853, and having returned in 1855 to Mississippi, was there elected representative in Congress in 1857 and 1859. In 1860 he resigned his seat in Con gress; drafted Mississippi's ordinance of seces sion; and was a member of the State conven tion that passed it (9 Jan. 1861). Chosen lieu tenant-colonel of the first Confederate regi ment organized in Mississippi, serving with his regiment at Yorktown and Williamsburg, he resigned from military service in October 1862, and in 1863-64 was in Europe, whither he had gone as commissioner to Russia, though he did not proceed to his post. From December 1864, until the close of the war, he was judge-advo cate of the military court of the 3d Army Corps with the rank of colonel. After the war he held the chairs of ethics and metaphysics (1866-67) and of law (1867-70) in the Univer sity of Mississippi; he resigned when the Re publicans secured control of the university upon the readmission of the State into the Union.
He was a representative in Congress (1873-77) and a United States senator (1877-85) ; and Secretary of the Interior in President Cleve land's Cabinet (1885-88). From 1888 he was an associate justice of the United States Su preme Court. He bent his efforts to bring about a reconciliation and a better understand ing between the South and the North. On 27 April 1874 he pronounced before the House a eulogy on Charles Sumner, highly praised for its eloquence and generally for its liberal tone, but so displeasing in that respect to many of his constituency that they endeavored to defeat his re-election. His strong opposition to the debasement or inflation of the national currency caused the Mississippi legislature formally to direct him to renounce either his views or his seat in the Senate, both of which he declined to do. He was re-elected to the Senate by an in creased majority. His oration at the dedication of the monument to John C. Calhoun at Charleston, S. C. (1887), was one of the best of his public addresses. Consult the study by Mayes, including Lamar's speeches (Nashville, Term., 1896).