US Congressman, US Senator, Banker. He was a prominent figure of South Carolina politics in the years before the Civil War. Born in the state's Laurens District, he graduated from the South Carolina College at Columbia in 1819, was admitted to the bar two years later and set up practice in Walterboro. From 1822 to 1836 he was a solicitor for the Southern Circuit, and from 1824 to 1826 he was a Colonel on the Governor's staff. A State Rights Democrat, Elmore won a special 1836 election to the Twenty-Fourth Congress to fill the vacancy left by Representative James H. Hammond, who had resigned; he was subsequently reelected to the Twenty-Fifth Congress and served until 1839. He did not seek a third term, returning instead to Columbia for what turned out to be a more influential position. As President of the Bank of the State of South Carolina from 1839 until his death, Elmore wielded power that rivaled the governorship. Governor Benjamin Franklin Perry would later write, "The Bank of the State became, in a measure, a political machine, and the politicians were very freely accommodated with loans by the Board of Directors. The Bank controlled the State, and Colonel Elmore controlled the bank". His commitment was such that in 1845 he declined an appointment by President James Polk to serve as Minister to Great Britain, but attacks on the institution from rival pols eventually led him to consider fortifying his position from Washington. With the death of John C. Calhoun in 1850, Elmore accepted appointment to complete his term in the US Senate. He served less than seven weeks, from April 11 to May 29, before his unexpected death from erysipelas. Following temporary interment in the public vault at Congressional Cemetery, his remains were brought back to Columbia for burial. The Bank of the State of South Carolina remained active until the end of the Civil War.