The attorney general of South Carolina is a statewide elected attorney and

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

's chief legal officer and prosecutor. They are a constitutional officer responsible for providing legal opinions to the legislative and executive branch, represent state officers in civil suits, and appear on behalf of the State in all cases before the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

and all appellate courts.

History

On February 5, 1698, Nicholas Trott was appointed as the first attorney general of South Carolina during its time as a British colony. He arrived in Charleston and assumed his duties the following year.

Alexander Moultrie Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are A ...

, half-brother of Revolutionary War figure and future governor

William Moultrie William Moultrie (; November 23, 1730 – September 27, 1805) was an American slaveowning planter and politician who became a general in the American Revolutionary War. As colonel leading a state militia, in 1776 he prevented the British from t ...

, was named the state's first attorney general under its first state "president",

John Rutledge John Rutledge Jr. (September 17, 1739 – June 21, 1800) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, politician, and jurist who served as one of the original Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ...

, in 1776. Rutledge had been provincial attorney general himself for 10 months before independence. Moultrie was impeached and resigned in 1792 for diverting state funds into the Yazoo land company fraud. After the

1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election The 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1876, to select the governor of the state of South Carolina. The election campaign was a referendum on the Radical Republican-led state government and their Reconstruction p ...

, the state was left with a contested election and a dual government, from the election in November through April 1877. Republican

Robert B. Elliott Robert Brown Elliott (August 11, 1842August 9, 1884) was a British-born American politician of British Afro-Caribbean ethnic background. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving from 1871 to 18 ...

served briefly in this situation under Republican governor

Daniel Henry Chamberlain Daniel Henry Chamberlain (June 23, 1835April 13, 1907) was an American planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1876 or 1877. The federal government withdrew troops from the state and ended Reconstruction ...

, while James Conner held office under fellow Confederate officer and Democrat

Wade Hampton III Wade Hampton III (March 28, 1818April 11, 1902) was an American politician from South Carolina. He was a prominent member of one of the richest families in the antebellum Southern United States, owning thousands of acres of cotton land in Sout ...

. Hampton and Conner prevailed.

His Majesty's attorneys-general of South Carolina

The colonial

province of South Carolina The Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of the Kingdom of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the Thirteen Colonies i ...

was first organized under a royal governor in 1720. * Benjamin Whitaker (1721–1731) * James Abercrombie (1731–1732) * Charles Pinckney (1732–1733) * James Abercrombie (1733–1742) * Sir James Wright (1742–1757)assistant / acting AG from 1742 through 1747; official term 1747 – 1757. See http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/james-wright-1716-1785 * David Graeme (1757–1764) * James Moultrie (1764) *

(1764) *

Sir Egerton Leigh, 1st Baronet Sir Egerton Leigh, 1st Baronet (11 October 1733 – 15 September 1781), was a British colonial jurist, who served as HM Attorney-General of South Carolina. A Loyalist, Sir Egerton fled South Carolina permanently for England in 1774. Biogra ...

(1765–1774) * James Simpson (1774–1775)

U.S. state of South Carolina attorneys general

References

{{South Carolina statewide elected officials South Carolina law-related lists