George Washington Jones (politician, 1806)

George Washington Jones (1859)

George Washington Jones (born March 15, 1806 in King and Queen County , Virginia , †  November 14, 1884 in Fayetteville , Tennessee ) was an American politician . Between 1843 and 1859 he represented the state of Tennessee in the US House of Representatives .

Career

In his youth, George Jones came to Fayetteville, Tennessee with his parents, where he attended public schools. He then received an academic education. After finishing school he completed a saddlery apprenticeship. Between 1832 and 1835 Jones was a justice of the peace in Fayetteville. Politically, he became a member of the Democratic Party . From 1835 to 1839 he was a member of the House of Representatives from Tennessee ; then he sat in the State Senate until 1841 . Between 1840 and 1843 Jones was also a clerk at the Lincoln County District Court .

In the congressional elections of 1842 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the fifth constituency of Tennessee , where he succeeded Hopkins L. Turney on March 4, 1843 . After seven re-elections, he was able to complete eight legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1859 . Since 1853 he represented the sixth district of his state as the successor to William Hawkins Polk . During his time as Congressman, the Mexican-American War fell . In the 1850s, the work of Congress was shaped by the discussions and events leading up to the Civil War . From 1849 to 1853 Jones was chairman of the Committee on Rules ; from 1857 to 1859 he headed the committee that dealt with roads and canals.

In the spring of 1861 he was scheduled as a delegate to a conference in Washington at which attempts were unsuccessful to prevent the outbreak of the civil war. But Jones did not take up this mandate. Between 1862 and 1864 he represented the state of Tennessee in the House of Representatives at the first Confederate Congress . In 1870 he was a delegate to a meeting to revise the Tennessee Constitution. Then he withdrew from politics. He died on November 14, 1884 in Fayetteville, where he was also buried.

Web links

• George Washington Jones in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• George Washington Jones in the database of Find a Grave (English)