Waddy Thompson

Waddy Thompson

Waddy Thompson Jr. (born January 8, 1798 in Pickens , Pickens County , South Carolina , †  November 23, 1868 in Tallahassee , Florida ) was an American politician . Between 1835 and 1841 he represented the state of South Carolina in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Waddy Thompson came to Greenville with his parents while still growing up . There he attended public schools. He then studied until 1814 at South Carolina College in Columbia , from which the University of South Carolina emerged . After a subsequent law degree and his admission as a lawyer in 1819, he began to work in Edgefield in his new profession. He later moved his residence and law firm to Greenville.

From the 1820s, Thompson was also politically active. He joined the movement around President John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay , from which the Whig Party emerged in 1835 , of which Thompson became a member. Between 1816 and 1829 he was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives . In 1830 he became a prosecutor in the western part of his home state. Thompson was also active in the state militia. In 1832 he was appointed brigadier general there.

In 1835, Thompson was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in a by-election in the ninth constituency of South Carolina . There he took up his new mandate on September 10, 1835. After he had been confirmed in his mandate in the two subsequent regular congressional elections, he could remain in Congress until March 3, 1841 . Between 1839 and 1841 he was chairman of the military committee there. In 1840, Thompson declined to run again. Between 1842 and 1844 he was the United States Ambassador to Mexico , which was no easy task at the time, given the mounting tensions over the question of the future of the Republic of Texas, which had been independent of Mexico since 1836 .

After serving in the diplomatic service, Thompson moved to Madison , Florida. There he dealt with the cultivation of cotton. In 1868 he was a district attorney for a short time. He died on November 23, 1868 while visiting Tallahassee, the capital of Florida.

Web links

• Waddy Thompson in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Waddy Thompson in the database of Find a Grave (English)