One of the most powerful political figures in Mississippi history, LQC Lamar was born in Georgia. He moved to Oxford, Mississippi, in 1849 to practice law. He taught for a tear at the University of Mississippi, where his father-in-law was chancellor, before returning to Georgia. He moved back to Mississippi in 1855 and was elected to serve in the United States Congress. In 1860, he left Congress to join the secession convention in Mississippi and drafted the Ordinance of Secession. Lamar served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army and later as a diplomat for the Confederacy. After the war, he resumed teaching at Ole Miss and also directed the law school. He served again in Congress from 1873 until 1877, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. President Grover Cleveland named him Secretary of the Interior in 1885 and appointed him associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1888, a post he held until his death.