MACDUFF, malt-diir, Scottish thane, or Earl of Fife, a half-mythical personage, com memorated in Shakespeare's play, 'Macbeth.' He is said to have been the principal agent in the overthrow of the usurper Macbeth and the restoration of Malcolm Canmore to the throne of Scotland. For this he was granted many privileges, among them that of a place of refuge to which he and his descendants could flee in case of committing unpremeditated murder. This sanctuary, in the form of a cross, stood till 1559, near Newburgh in Fife, in the pass leading to Strathearn. It was then demolished by the Reformers, but its pedestal yet remains.
McDUFFIE, mak-dilei, George, American statesman and orator : b. in Columbia (now Warren) County, Ga., 1788; d. in Sumter Dis trict, S. C., 11 March 1851. He was graduated at South Carolina College in 1813, admitted to the bar in 1814 and in 1818 elected to the South Carolina legislature. From 1821 to 1834 he was a member of Congress, and from 1834 to 1836 governor of South Carolina. In 1843 he took his seat in the United States Senate, resigning on account of impaired health in 1846.
In his political views and in his Congressional career, he was a close follower of J. C. Cal houn (q.v.), being at the outset a liberal con structionist in constitutional questions, but afterward becoming a strong opponent of the tariff and other economic policies of the govern ment, and also a bold advocate of nullification. Although a supporter of Andrew Jackson (q.v.) in 1828, he became bitterly antagonistic to him, not only in respect to the tariff and State rights, but especially so on the question of the United States Bank, which, as chairman of the Com mittee on Ways and Means, he strongly de fended against the hostile policy of the Presi dent. In 1832, as a member of the South Caro lina Nullification Convention, he drafted the ad dress of South Carolina to the people of the United States. He was one of the ablest orators of his day, and his prominence in pub lic affairs was maintained in spite of an early wound received in a duel, from whioh he suf fered for the remainder of his life.