Representative John Myers Felder

John Myers Felder (July 7, 1782 – September 1, 1851) was a United States politician who served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing South Carolina from 1831 to 1835. He was born in the vicinity of Orangeburg, South Carolina, into a family of Swiss origin. His grandfather, a native of Switzerland, had emigrated to South Carolina around 1720 and was killed during the American Revolution while defending his house against an attack by Tories. This family background, rooted in early settlement and revolutionary sacrifice, helped shape Felder’s identity within South Carolina’s political and social elite.

Felder received a rigorous education that prepared him for a career in law and public life. He attended Yale University, from which he graduated in 1804. While at Yale, he was a roommate and close friend of John Caldwell Calhoun, who would later become a leading national statesman and a central figure in the nullification movement. After completing his undergraduate studies, Felder pursued legal training at the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, one of the most prominent law schools in the United States at the time. He was admitted to the bar in 1808 and returned to South Carolina to begin practicing law.

Felder’s public career began in state politics. After establishing himself in the legal profession, he entered the South Carolina House of Representatives, to which he was elected in 1812. His early legislative service coincided with the War of 1812 and the subsequent period of political realignment in the United States. During these years he built a reputation as a capable lawyer and legislator. By 1830, having practiced law for more than two decades, he retired from the legal profession and turned his attention to business and agriculture, becoming a prosperous mill owner and planter in South Carolina. His success as a planter and industrialist further solidified his standing among the state’s influential landholding class.

In 1830, Felder was elected to the United States House of Representatives, taking his seat in March 1831. He served in the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses, from March 4, 1831, to March 3, 1835, during a significant and contentious period in American history marked by debates over states’ rights, federal authority, and economic policy. Initially, Felder served as a Jacksonian, aligning himself with the supporters of President Andrew Jackson. From 1833, as sectional tensions over the tariff and nullification intensified, he identified with the Nullifier Party, a political group centered in South Carolina that advocated the doctrine that a state could nullify federal laws it deemed unconstitutional. As a member of the Nullifier Party representing South Carolina, he contributed to the legislative process during his two terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents in the context of the nullification controversy and broader national debates.

After declining renomination in 1834, Felder left Congress at the conclusion of his second term in 1835 and returned to South Carolina. Resuming his role as a leading citizen of Orangeburg, he focused on his milling and planting enterprises while remaining active in public affairs. In 1840, the voters of Orangeburg County again elected him to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He served in the state legislature from 1840 until his death in 1851, taking part in state-level deliberations during a period of continued sectional strain and ongoing discussion of states’ rights and the institution of slavery in the South.

John Myers Felder never married and had no children, but he maintained close ties with his extended family; his sister Eliza survived him and has many descendants. He died in South Carolina on September 1, 1851, while still serving in the South Carolina House of Representatives. His life spanned from the early national period through the height of the antebellum era, and his career as lawyer, planter, state legislator, and congressman reflected the political and social currents that shaped South Carolina and the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.