Reuben Davis (politician)

Reuben Davis

Reuben Davis (born January 18, 1813 in Winchester , Franklin County , Tennessee , †  October 14, 1890 in Huntsville , Alabama ) was an American politician . Between 1857 and 1861 he represented the second constituency of the state of Mississippi in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Davis Reuben came to Alabama with his parents around 1818. There he attended public schools. After studying medicine, he worked briefly as a doctor, but then gave up this profession. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1834, he began to work in his new profession in Aberdeen (Mississippi).

Between 1835 and 1839 Davis was a District Attorney in the Sixth Legal District. He became a member of the Whig Party , for which he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress in 1838 . In 1842, Davis served as an appeals judge for four months. During the Mexican-American War he was a colonel in a unit from Mississippi. Between 1855 and 1857 Davis was a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives .

After the Whigs disbanded in the 1850s, Davis became a member of the Democratic Party . In 1856 he was elected as their candidate for the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC , where he replaced Hendley S. Bennett on March 4, 1857 . In 1860 his mandate was confirmed. His second term began on March 4, 1859 and should run until March 3, 1861. But since his state Mississippi had left the Union and wanted to join the Confederate States , he resigned on January 12, 1861. In the following years up to February 1870 Mississippi was not represented in the US Congress because the state was no longer part of the United States until 1865 and was at war against it. After the defeat of the southern states, Mississippi was not allowed to re-join the Union until 1870.

During the Civil War , Reuben Davis became Brigadier General in the Confederation Army . After the war he worked as a lawyer again. In 1878 he ran unsuccessfully for the short-lived Greenback Party for a return to Congress. Reuben Davis died in Huntsville in 1890 and was buried in Aberdeen.

Web links

• Reuben Davis in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Reuben Davis in the database of Find a Grave (English)