After leaving public office, Cheves was an active advocate for unified Southern resistance to protective tariffs and any attempt to abolish slavery, though an opponent of unilateral action by South Carolina or any one state.

[5] Cheves's father Alexander enlisted in the Loyalist cause under Major John Hamilton, but his brother Thomas was a Patriot who fought under Andrew Pickens at the Battle of Kettle Creek.

When they reached an appropriate age, the children began studies under Andrew Weed, a community leader and ruling elder in the local Presbyterian Church.

[8] At age 12, Langdon's father withdrew him from school and apprenticed him to James Jaffray, a merchant, Glasgow native, and fellow member of the city's St. Andrew's Society.

He had purchased a slave to serve as a personal servant, improved his dress, and applied to practice before the United States Court for District of South Carolina.

In this role, he advised Governor John Drayton on legal matters, personally represented the state in the eastern circuit courts, and expanded his private practice.

The building came to be called the "War Mess" and served as a meeting place for pro-War leaders of Congress and Secretary of State James Monroe, who acted as liaison to the President.

By December, he had catalogued the nation's limited naval strength and begun to plan, with Hamilton's and Eustis's advice, appropriations for additional ships and fortifications.

"[29] Cheves delivered a speech on behalf of the committee on January 17, 1812, defending a reinvigorated Navy as the only effective protection for American "commerce and our neutral rights on the ocean."

Ways and Means chair Ezekiel Bacon, took a leave of absence on April 27, making Cheves the acting chairman of the powerful committee as the war began.

[31] One of Cheves's primary goals on Ways and Means was to persuade those who feared higher internal taxes or the restraining commercial effect on tariffs to join the war effort.

The ensuing debate divided the War Mess between the South Carolinians, who favored free trade and internal taxes, and the Speaker Clay, Felix Grundy and other Republicans.

When Clay attempted to introduce a measure to preserve the protective system but exempt the bonds at issue, Cheves, Calhoun, and Lowndes maintained their opposition.

[33] After Cheves was unable to push through any internal tax increase by the end of the term in March, the House approved a $5,000,000 issue of Treasury notes and a $16,000,000 loan at Secretary Gallatin's request.

[34] On January 14, 1814, President Madison nominated a commission to negotiate peace with Britain, including Albert Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, and Speaker Henry Clay.

By April, with Napoleon on the verge of apparent defeat and Britain threatening total domination over maritime commerce, Cheves successfully saw repeal of Clay's restrictive system.

John C. Calhoun, with Cheves's backing, counter-proposed a bank to serve the financial community that would bar investors from buying stock using Treasury notes issued during the war.

Shortly after Cheves left office in March 1815, President Madison successfully lobbied the new 14th Congress to re-charter the National Bank, headquartered in Philadelphia and governed along much the same lines as its 1791 predecessor.

[38] Under Jones's leadership, the Bank was soon overextended through branch loans and the decision to accept promissory notes, often backed in its own stock, from subscribers in lieu of specie.

Instead, Jones and the board were indicted by a House select committee chaired by John Canfield Spencer for violations of the Bank charter, poor management, and speculation.

Cheves was his natural successor; he briefly considered, but declined, the chance to succeed William Johnson on the U.S. Supreme Court and accepted the presidency on February 15 and was sworn in on March 6.

[43] In 1820, drawing on the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and J.B. Say, Cheves anonymously defended his policies (under the pen name "Say") an essay titled Inquiry into the Causes of Public Prosperity and Distress.

[44] In January 1821, in an effort to placate the South and West, Cheves proposed a more lenient loan policy provided it was compatible with maintenance of a sound currency.

Baltimore directors lobbied heavily for a resident of that city, but were split between Thomas Ellicott and John White, who had succeeded McCulloch as branch cashier, and were unable to overcome Cheves's preference for a Philadelphian.

[50] After a series of delays and disagreements, the British agreed to pay a lump sum for the seized slaves, which would be distributed to American slaveowners by a commission consisting of Cheves, Henry Seawell, and James Pleasants.

[53] Cheves stayed aloof from the intrastate conflict over the crisis until 1832, when he joined the Unionists after they adopted his call for a convention of Southern states and were successful in reducing the tariff, over the Nullifiers' objections.

[54] In 1837, he opposed a recharter of the National Bank, arguing that excessive centralization threatened to snap the taut binds between the States: "Those who wish the Union to last, should not desire to make the Government stronger.

This time, he added that such action was also necessary to defend slavery, without which the South would become "blackened ruins, with a remanent of the African race wandering amidst them in all the mistery of desolation and hopelessness."

Throughout the following decade, Cheves's idea of unified Southern action became increasingly popular, leading to a series of informal commercial and political conventions throughout the region.

In the convention's second, more radical session, Cheves took a leading role by personally offering and advocating for a resolution that "secession by the joint action of the slave-holding States is the only efficient remedy for the aggravated wrongs which they now endure and the enormous evils which threaten them in future, from the usurped and unrestrained power of the federal government.