James H. Slater

James H. Slater

James Harvey Slater (born December 28, 1826 in Springfield , Illinois , †  January 28, 1899 in La Grande , Oregon ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) who represented the state of Oregon in both chambers of the US Congress .

Slater attended schools in his home in Sangamon County . In 1849 he moved to California before he settled in Corvallis in the Oregon Territory in 1850 . There he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1854. From 1853 to 1856 he was employed as a clerk at the Benton County District Court .

As a politician, he was initially a member of the territorial legislature from 1857 to 1858, before he belonged to the House of Representatives of the new federal state from 1859 to 1860 after Oregon was admitted to the Union . During the same period he served as Corvallis postmaster; he also published the Corvallis Union newspaper there. Until 1863 Slater worked again as a lawyer before he moved on to Walla Walla in Washington Territory ; he later returned to Oregon, where he lived first in Auburn and then in La Grande in Union County . There he was appointed District Attorney for the Fifth Judicial District of Oregon in 1868; In the same year he was a member of the Electoral College for the Democrats , which did not elect Horatio Seymour , who was victorious in his state , but the Republican Ulysses S. Grant as US President .

On March 4, 1871, James Slater took his seat in the US House of Representatives in Washington . After a two-year term, he left Congress and worked as a lawyer in La Grande. In 1878 he won the election to the US Senator for Oregon, which he remained from March 4, 1879 to March 3, 1885. He then worked again as a lawyer and was a member of the Oregon State Railroad Commission from 1889 to 1891.

Web links

• James H. Slater in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• James H. Slater in the database of Find a Grave (English)