Theodore Gourdin

Theodore Gourdin (March 20, 1764 – January 17, 1826) was an American slaveholder and politician who served one term as a U.S. Representative from South Carolina from 1813 to 1815. He was born near Kingstree in the Province of South Carolina, then a British colony, on March 20, 1764. Little is recorded about his immediate family background, but his early life unfolded in the Lowcountry plantation society that would shape his later career and interests.

Gourdin received his education in Charleston, South Carolina, a major commercial and cultural center of the region, and subsequently pursued further studies in Europe. This combination of local and European education was relatively uncommon for the period and suggests that he came from a family of some means and social standing. His education likely prepared him for both the management of agricultural enterprises and participation in public affairs in the post-Revolutionary era.

After completing his studies, Gourdin established himself as a planter. He owned a plantation in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, where he enslaved people to work the land, reflecting the entrenched system of slavery that underpinned the state’s agricultural economy. As a member of the South Carolina planter class, he was part of the social and economic elite that exerted significant influence over the state’s political life in the early nineteenth century. He devoted much of his non-political life to agricultural pursuits and plantation management.

Gourdin entered national politics as a member of the Republican Party, commonly known at the time as the Democratic-Republican Party. He was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Thirteenth Congress and served as a U.S. Representative from South Carolina from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1815. His single term in Congress coincided with the War of 1812, a significant period in American history marked by conflict with Great Britain, debates over military policy, and questions of national sovereignty and economic independence. During this time, he participated in the legislative process, representing the interests of his South Carolina constituents and contributing to the broader democratic process in the young republic.

After the conclusion of his term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Gourdin did not return to national office. Instead, he resumed his agricultural pursuits, returning to the management of his plantation and local affairs. Like many planters of his era, his post-congressional life appears to have been centered on the maintenance and operation of his estate and continued participation in the social and economic networks of the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Theodore Gourdin died in Pineville, South Carolina, on January 17, 1826. He was interred in the Episcopal Cemetery at St. Stephen, South Carolina. His life and career reflect the intertwined histories of plantation agriculture, slavery, and politics in early nineteenth-century South Carolina, and his brief service in the Thirteenth Congress placed him among those who helped shape federal policy during a formative period of the United States.