John Y. Mason

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John Y. Mason

John Young Mason (born April 18, 1799 in Greensville County , Virginia , † October 3, 1859 in Paris ) was an American lawyer , diplomat , politician , Minister of the Navy and Attorney General .

Studies and professional career

Mason first completed a general education course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , which he completed in 1816 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) . He then studied law in Connecticut and was admitted to the bar in Southampton County of Virginia in 1819 . After the marriage of the daughter of a large landowner, he also became a farmer.

In 1837 he was appointed judge at the US District Court of East Virginia , of which he was a member until 1844.

Political career

MPs in Virginia and Washington

Mason began his political career in 1823 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Representatives , to which he was a member until 1827. He was then from 1827 to 1831 a member of the State Senate and also from 1829 to 1830 delegate of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia.

From March 4, 1831 to January 11, 1831 he was a member of the US House of Representatives for the Democrats . There he represented the interests of the second congressional electoral district and was also chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1835 to 1836. During this time he was on the one hand an active supporter of the policies of President Andrew Jackson , but on the other hand a passionate fighter for the rights of the individual states .

In 1850 he was again a delegate and in 1851 President of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia. As an old-school politician in Virginia, he advocated the maintenance of slavery and firmly opposed abolitionism .

Navy and Justice Ministers

On 26 March 1844 it appointed President John Tyler as Marine Minister in his Cabinet . He held this office until March 4, 1845.

The tenure as Secretary of the Navy was marked in particular by intense economic pressure from the US Congress , which demanded the decommissioning of the ships of the line of the United States Navy , but made it difficult for them to be permanently present at outposts. Furthermore, his first term as Minister of the Navy was marked by the construction of floating dry docks for several naval shipyards, the simplification of the naval equipment system, an expansion of the navy's scientific experiments and the formalization of the status of naval engineers.

Then president named him James K. Polk for Attorney General (Attorney General) .

As early as September 10, 1846, however, Polk reassigned him to head of the Ministry of the Navy, replacing his previous successor, George Bancroft . As such, he remained in office until the end of Polk's tenure on March 4, 1849.

USS Mason (DD-191)

This second term was marked by efforts to strengthen the naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Pacific coast , the start of construction of new steamships and an effort to procure potential warships as civilian mail ships. This was an early, but unsuccessful, experiment of a public-private partnership model.

The destroyer USS Mason , which was commissioned in 1920 and was sunk by a German submarine as HMS Broadwater (H-81) on October 18, 1941, was named in his honor .

Envoy to France

After a renewed activity as a lawyer from 1849 to 1853, he was appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary to France on October 10, 1853 by President Franklin Pierce , whose election campaign he had previously supported . There he represented the interests of the USA until his death in Paris .

For violating the dress code of the US State Department at a reception at the court of Emperor Napoleon III. he was reprimanded by then Secretary of State William L. Marcy . Together with the US envoy in Great Britain and Ireland , James Buchanan , as well as in Spain , Pierre Soulé , he was co-author of the so-called manifesto of Ostend , which provided for the purchase of Cuba from Spain.

After his death in Paris, he was transferred to Richmond and buried in the Hollywood Cemetery there.

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personal data
SURNAME Mason, John Y.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mason, John Young (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, Secretary of the Navy, and Justice
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Greensville County , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 1859
Place of death Paris