James McCallum (politician)

James McCallum

James McCallum (born October 3, 1806 in Robeson County , North Carolina , † September 16, 1889 in Pulaski , Tennessee ) was an American lawyer , plantation owner and politician .

Career

James McCallum, son of Sarah Smith and Daniel McCallum, was born in Robeson County about six years before the outbreak of the British-American War . Nothing is known about his youth. At some point he moved to Tennessee. On February 14, 1829, he married Elizabeth Brown. The couple had eleven children together: Daniel Jerome, Katherine, Mary Elizabeth, James Joseph, Sarah Anne, William Hugh, John Neill, George Burder, Neill Brown and two unnamed toddlers who died in childhood. The McCallum family lived in Pulaski, Giles County during the 1820s . In 1828 he held the rank of Master Mason in the local Masonic Lodge . As of the 1860 census, he owned 25  slaves and his property was valued at $ 46,000.

McCallum studied law and then practiced as a lawyer in Pulaski between 1842 and 1861. His student days were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the following years by the Mexican-American War . McCallum was a Clerk and Masters in Chancery for a while.

He was a member of the Whig Party first and, after its dissolution, of the Constitutional Union Party . He was a secessionist at the time of the Tennessee Secession. Between 1861 and 1863 he represented Giles County in the General Assembly . In 1863 he was elected to the Second Confederate Congress, in which he attended from 1864 to 1865. During this time he sat on the following committees: Committee of Public Accounts, Committee on Medical Department and Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. McCallum put resolutions to the vote in which he advocated the state confiscation of all major railways and all gold and silver bars. He also wanted to reduce the high inflation by issuing new federal bonds. With his mood, he advocated that the Confederate States should use every possible resource to continue the war.

After the end of the war he returned to Pulaski. In 1870 he became the director of Pulaski Savings Bank. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Churches as well as a teacher and superintendent in Sunday School. He died in Pulaski in 1889 and was buried there in Maplewood Cemetery .

literature

• Powell, William S .: Dictionary of North Carolina Biography , Volume 4, LO, University of North Carolina Press, 1991, ISBN 9780807867129 , p. 125

Web links

• James McCallum in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• James McCallum on The Political Graveyard website