Spain attended South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) after leaving R-MC, graduating in 1841. He became a lawyer in Columbia, SC and later in Sumter, SC, and served as 1st lieutenant in Captain Sumter's company of the First Regiment South Carolina Volunteer Infantry during the Mexican American War. He carried the honorific title "major" afterwards. Spain practiced law and served in the SC legislature in the years before the Civil War.
An ardent secessionist and slaveholder who publicly advocated southern rights from the late 1840s, Spain represented Sumter, SC as a delegate at the state's 1860 Secession Convention, signing the Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina. Spain was appointed to represent the state of SC at Arkansas' secession convention in March of 1861. Spain moved to Darlington, SC during the war. In March 1865 after Union soldiers had passed through Darlington and then Confederates returned, one of Spain's slaves, Amy Spain, who had declared herself free and taken household goods, was arrested and hung. Amy was immortalized in an article in the September 30, 1865 issue of Harper's Weekly.
After the war, he continued to practice law in Darlington, SC. Spain died in 1881 and was buried in the "old Methodist cemetery" in Darlington. A marker for him is located in Darlington's Grove Hill Cemetery, which was opened a number of years later. It is unknown whether he was re-interred or remains in his original burial place.
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