Mentioned in 18490314WHS_FMS as the Secretary of Treasury. Presidential Cabinet Secretary. A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature and served between 1824-1828. He was a delegate to the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention in 1837. He was named U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern part of Pennsylvania in 1840 as a reward for his lobbying on behalf of William Henry Harrison for President. Meredith failed to be elected Senator from Pennsylvania in 1848, but soon after was appointed to be President Zachary Taylor's Secretary of the Treasury. He held this position from 1849 until Taylor's death in 1850, at which point he returned to practice law in Philadelphia. Meredith tried to prevent the South's secession, and after the war in 1870 was a member of the commission negotiating the Alabama Claims settlement at President Ulysses S. Grant's request.