David Barton

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under David Barton (disambiguation) .

David Barton

David Barton (born December 14, 1783 in Greeneville , North Carolina , †  September 28, 1837 in Boonville , Missouri ) was an American politician . He was one of the first two US Senators for the state of Missouri.

David Barton was born in Greeneville in what is now Tennessee , which was then part of North Carolina. After training as a lawyer, he was inducted into the Tennessee Bar Association. In 1809 he moved to the Missouri Territory , where he was elected Attorney General in 1813. From 1815 he was a district judge in Howard County , the following year he took over the presidency of that court.

In 1818 he began to be politically active and became a member of the territorial House of Representatives, to whose speaker he also rose. Two years later he was a member and president of the Constitutional Convention for the new state of Missouri. After his admission into the Union, Barton, who at that time belonged to the Democratic Republican Party , and Thomas Hart Benton took up their senatorial office in Washington, DC on August 10, 1821 . By the time he was re-elected in 1825, the Democratic Republicans had split into several factions ; Barton belonged to the wing around President John Quincy Adams , the Adams Democrats , from which the National Republican Party emerged during his second term in office , for which he ultimately sat in the Senate until March 3, 1831. In an attempt to be reelected, he was defeated by Alexander Buckner in 1830 . During his time as senator he was, among other things, chairman of the Committee on Public Lands .

In 1823 David Barton opposed the reappointment of William Rector as Surveyor General for the area of ​​the states of Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas because he accused him of filling high positions in his agency with relatives and these too high Pay salaries. His brother Joshua , from 1820 to 1821 first Secretary of State of Missouri, published the allegations in a newspaper, whereupon he was challenged by Rector's brother Thomas to a duel in which he lost his life. US President James Madison did not nominate William Rector again for office.

David Barton was a member of the Missouri Senate from 1834 to 1835 , then retired into private life and died in 1837. Barton County , Missouri, is named after him.

Web links

• David Barton in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• David Barton in the database of Find a Grave (English)