Jacob Thompson

Jacob Thompson

Jacob Thompson (born May 15, 1810 in Leasburg , Caswell County , North Carolina , † March 24, 1885 in Memphis , Tennessee ) was an American politician . He was a member of the cabinet of US President James Buchanan between 1857 and 1861 as Secretary of the Interior .

Life

Jacob Thompson first attended Bingham Academy , a private school in Orange County , before continuing his education at the University of North Carolina , where he graduated in 1831. As a result, he was even for a short time the teaching staff of the University of before it the rights studied and was admitted to the bar in the 1834th He then worked as a lawyer in Pontotoc ( Mississippi ).

MP and Minister

Thompson also became active as a politician. In 1839 he ran for the first time as a Democrat for the US House of Representatives , to which he belonged until 1851 after a successful election and repeated confirmation. In the meantime he was in 1845 before the appointment to the US Senate , which was not carried out; the Senate seat fell to Joseph W. Chalmers .

After a failed re-election in 1850, he worked as a lawyer again before President Buchanan appointed him to his cabinet as Minister of the Interior in 1857 . Buchanan's four-year tenure was marked by disputes within the cabinet over the issue of slavery and the secession of the South. Thompson sympathized with the southern states and finally announced his resignation in January 1861. The post remained vacant until the new President Abraham Lincoln took office in March of the same year, who named Caleb Blood Smith as the new Secretary of the Interior.

In the Civil War

Jacob Thompson served as Inspector General of the Confederate Army during the Civil War . Between 1864 and 1865 he represented the interests of the Confederate in Canada ; It was from there that the planning of a terrorist attack on New York City started . It was planned to burn the city down on November 25, 1864; this was supposed to be in retaliation for the destruction campaigns of Northern Generals Philip Sheridan and William T. Sherman . However, the plan was not implemented; for this, Thompson's own country estate Home Place in Oxford was burned down by Union troops in the same year .

After the war, Thompson settled in Memphis in order to control his numerous possessions from there. He died there in March 1885.

Web links

Commons : Jacob Thompson  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jacob Thompson in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Jacob Thompson in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• Jacob Thompson in the database of Find a Grave (English)