Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (around 1875)

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (born September 17, 1825 in Eatonton , Georgia , † January 23, 1893 in Vineville , Georgia) was an American university professor , lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army , diplomat and politician of the Democratic Party , who was both a member of the House of Representatives , US Senator for the state of Mississippi and US Secretary of the Interior and Justice of the United States Supreme Court .

biography

Family and career

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar came from a family that made a number of politicians and judges. Lamar's uncle, Mirabeau B. Lamar, was President of the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1841 . Another uncle, Absalom Harris Chappell , was also a temporary member of the US House of Representatives, where he represented the interests of Georgia. His cousin Joseph Rucker Lamar was later also an associate judge at the US Supreme Court. He himself was an uncle of William Bailey Lamar , who was not only a member of the US House of Representatives, but also a longtime Attorney General of Florida .

After attending schools in Baldwin County and Newton County , he attended Emory College , Oxford , which he graduated in 1845. He then studied law in Macon and received 1847 admission as a lawyer in the state of Georgia. After moving to Oxford, Mississippi , he opened a law firm there and was also professor of mathematics at the University of Mississippi for a year . In 1852 he moved to Covington , where he also worked as a lawyer. At the same time he began his political career and was elected as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1853 .

Congressman and Civil War era

In 1855 he returned to Mississippi and was elected a little over a year later as a Democratic Party candidate to the US House of Representatives for the 1st Congressional constituency of Mississippi. He held this mandate from March 4, 1857 until his resignation in December 1860. He then belonged to the members of the Mississippi Secession Assembly , which worked out the draft for the separation of the southern states and thereby the formation of the Confederate States of America .

During the ensuing Civil War , he did his military service until 1862 in the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army . He then entered the diplomatic service of the Confederate States and was subsequently special envoy to Russia , France and England . After the end of the Civil War he was in 1865, 1868, 1875, 1877 and 1881 member of the Mississippi Constituent Assemblies ( State Constitutional Conventions ). He was also a professor of metaphysics , social science and law at the University of Mississippi.

In 1873 he was re-elected to the US House of Representatives, in which he again represented the 1st electoral district of Mississippi from March 4, 1873 to March 3, 1877. Between March 1875 and March 1877 he was also chairman of the Committee on Pacific Railroads , which was responsible for the Union Pacific Railroad , Central Pacific Railroad , Missouri Pacific Railroad , Southern Pacific Transportation , Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad , Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , Northern Pacific Railway and Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad was responsible for the settlement of the United States by building the railway lines.

Senator, Home Secretary and Supreme Court Justice

In 1876 he was elected US Senator for Mississippi as a candidate for the Democratic Party and was there after his re-election in 1883 from March 4, 1877 to March 6, 1885 holder of the second Senate seat ( Class 2 ). During his election period, from 1879 to 1880, he was not only chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs , but also the Senate Committee on Railroads .

On March 6, 1885, he resigned his Senate mandate after he was appointed Secretary of the Interior by US President Grover Cleveland in his first cabinet . He held the office of Minister of the Interior until January 16, 1888.

On the day of his resignation from the Cabinet, he was on a proposal by President Cleveland to assessors Supreme Court of the United States ( Associate Judge of the US Supreme Court sworn). He finally exercised this judicial office until his death on January 23, 1893.

Honors

Following are Lamar County , Georgia, and Lamar County in Mississippi and the Lamar Valley named.

literature

• Edward Mayes: Lucius QC Lamar: His Life, Times, and Speeches, 1825-1893. 1896. (Reprinted by AMS Press, New York 1974)
• James B. Murphy: LQC Lamar: Pragmatic Patriot. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1973.

Web links

• Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)