John Hemphill

John Hemphill

John Hemphill (born December 18, 1803 in Blackstock , South Carolina , †  January 3, 1862 in Richmond , Virginia ) was an American lawyer and politician ( Democratic Party ) who represented the state of Texas in the US Senate and later in the Confederate Congress sat.

Early years

Hemphill's father, John, a Presbyterian clergyman, had immigrated from County Tyrone , Ireland ; his mother Jane was from Pennsylvania . The future Senator was born in the Chester District , attended the public schools there and then worked as a teacher himself before continuing his education at Jefferson College in Washington (Pennsylvania), where he graduated in 1825. After being with a lawyer in Columbia , the law had studied and had been admitted to the bar in South Carolina in 1829, he started in Sumter to practice as a lawyer. During the nullification crisis , he published a newspaper in 1832 and 1833 in which the position of the South Carolina-born US Vice President John C. Calhoun was supported.

Lawyer in Texas

In 1836 Hemphill volunteered in the Second Seminole War and made it up to Second Lieutenant . Two years later he moved to Texas and worked as a lawyer in Washington-on-the-Brazos . From 1840 to 1842 he was an elected judge in the fourth legal district of the young republic ; During this time he also served as a senior officer on a military expedition to the Rio Grande . In 1845 he took part in the constitutional convention of the future state in the run-up to the accession of Texas to the Union. In December 1840 he was also elected Chief Justice at the Supreme Court of Texas , which he remained until 1858. After joining the United States , he was initially confirmed by the first governor , James Pinckney Henderson ; later the decision on this post was again up to the voters, who in 1851 and 1856 each voted for a further term of office.

As Chief Justice , Hemphill made a name for himself with his liberal legal opinion, for example in matters of women's rights . He dealt intensively with the Spanish and Mexican legal systems and incorporated suggestions from them into his work. Because of his importance for the development of the jurisdiction of his state, he was also referred to by contemporaries as the " John Marshall of Texas".

Political career

In November 1857 Hemphill was nominated by the Democratic Party in Texas to succeed US Senator Sam Houston , whose political views no longer coincided with those of the party leadership. After a successful election by the State Senate , Hemphill took up his mandate in Washington, DC on March 4, 1859. After he had given a speech to the plenum in the run-up to the civil war in which he granted the individual states the right to secession , on January 6, 1861, one of 14 senators was in favor of the immediate resignation of the southern state representatives from the Senate. It was on February 4 of that year from the Texas secession convention as a delegate for in Montgomery ( Alabama dispatched meeting participants) Southern Convention little later from the Provisional Konföderiertenkongress emerged. On July 11, 1861, Hemphill was expelled from the US Senate by resolution.

In the Confederate Congress, Hemphill was a member of the trade, finance and justice committees, mainly concerned with adapting US law to the needs of the Confederation . He also applied for a seat as a senator in the first regular congress of the Confederation in November 1861 , but was narrowly defeated by Williamson Simpson Oldham .

Hemphill passed away in Richmond before the end of the session. He was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin . The Hemphill County and the city of Hemphill in Sabine County are named after him.

Web links

• John Hemphill in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• John Hemphill in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Handbook of Texas