Christopher Memminger was born in Germany in 1803. His family moved to South Carolina when he was a child. He became a lawyer and state legislator in South Carolina. Memminger joined the secessionist movement after Abraham Lincoln was elected President. He wrote the legal justification for South Carolina's secession from the Union. In 1861 he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy. He resigned (was driven?) from his position in 1864. He opened a law practice in South Carolina after the War. In his personal life Memminger married twice, and fathered twelve children.