{{Short description|American politician (1787–1838)}} {{Infobox officeholder |name = Stephen Decatur Miller |image = Stephen Decatur Miller.jpg |jr/sr = United States Senator |state = South Carolina |term_start = March 4, 1831 |term_end = March 2, 1833 |predecessor = William Smith |successor = William C. Preston |order2 = 52nd |office2 = Governor of South Carolina |term_start2 = December 10, 1828 |term_end2 = December 9, 1830 |predecessor2 = John Taylor |successor2 = James Hamilton, Jr. |lieutenant2 = Thomas Williams |office3 = Member of the South Carolina Senate from Claremont District |term3 = November 25, 1822 – December 10, 1828 |predecessor3 = Robert Witherspoon |successor3 = John Isham Moore |state4 = South Carolina |district4 = 9th |predecessor4 = William Mayrant |successor4 = Joseph Brevard |term_start4 = January 2, 1817 |term_end4 = March 3, 1819 |birth_date = {{birth date|1787|5|8}} |birth_place = Waxhaws, South Carolina, US |death_date = {{death date and age|1838|3|8|1787|5|8}} |death_place = Raymond, Mississippi, US |party = Nullifier }} '''Stephen Decatur Miller''' (May 8, 1787{{spaced ndash}}March 8, 1838) was an American politician, who served as the 52nd governor of South Carolina from 1828 to 1830. He represented South Carolina as a U.S. representative from 1817 to 1819, and as a U.S. senator from 1831 to 1833.
==Life and career== He was born in Waxhaw settlement, South Carolina and graduated from South Carolina College in 1808. After he studied law, he practiced in Sumterville.<ref>[http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1a161b968514a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD NGA Biography of Stephen Decatur Miller] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930035825/http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1a161b968514a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD |date=2007-09-30 }}</ref> Stephen Decatur Miller was married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Dick, died in 1819. None of their three children lived to adulthood. Miller remarried in 1821; his second wife was a girl sixteen years his junior, Mary Boykin. They had four children together. Despite the age difference, their marriage was happy and passionate.<ref>Muhlenfeld, ''Mary Boykin Chesnut'', chapter 2.</ref>
During his successful campaign for the Senate on a platform of abolishing tariffs, he made a speech at Stateburg, South Carolina in September 1830 where he said, "There are three and only three ways, to reform our congressional legislation. The representative, judicial and belligerent principle alone can be relied on; or as they are more familiarly called, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartouche box."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/04/09/ballot/ | title=Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box – Quote Investigator | date=9 April 2018 }}</ref> Stephen Miller renounced his political career in 1833 and ventured into farming in Mississippi. He died in Raymond, Mississippi, in 1838, leaving his wife and children in debt.<ref>Muhlenfeld, ''Mary Boykin Chesnut'', chapter 2.</ref>
Their daughter Mary Boykin Miller married James Chesnut, Jr., who later became a U.S. Senator and a Confederate general. Mary Chesnut became famous for her diary documenting life in South Carolina during the Civil War.<ref>[http://www.sciway.net/hist/governors/miller.html SCIway Biography of Stephen Decatur Miller]</ref><ref>[http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1a161b968514a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD NGA Biography of Stephen Decatur Miller] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930035825/http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1a161b968514a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD |date=2007-09-30 }}</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth, ''Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography'' (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 1992).
==External links== *[http://www.sciway.net/hist/governors/miller.html SCIway Biography of Stephen Decatur Miller] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070930035825/http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1a161b968514a010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD NGA Biography of Stephen Decatur Miller] *{{Find a Grave|20756356}} {{CongBio|M000755}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|us-hs}} {{US House succession box |state=South Carolina |district=9 |before=William Mayrant |years=1817–1819 |after=Joseph Brevard}} {{s-off}} {{succession box |before=John Taylor |title=Governor of South Carolina |years=1828–1830 |after=James Hamilton, Jr.}} {{s-par|us-sen}} {{U.S. Senator box |state=South Carolina |class=3 |before=William Smith |after=William C. Preston |alongside=Robert Young Hayne, John C. Calhoun |years=1831–1833}} {{s-end}}
{{Governors of South Carolina}} {{USSenSC}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Stephen Decatur}} Category:1787 births Category:1838 deaths Category:University of South Carolina alumni Category:South Carolina lawyers Category:Democratic Party South Carolina state senators Category:Democratic Party governors of South Carolina Category:University of South Carolina trustees Category:United States senators from South Carolina Category:High Hills of Santee Category:Nullifier Party politicians Category:Nullifier Party United States senators Category:Democratic-Republican Party United States representatives from South Carolina Category:Nullifier Party state governors of the United States Category:19th-century American lawyers Category:19th-century United States representatives Category:19th-century United States senators Category:19th-century members of the South Carolina General Assembly