Samuel Medary

Samuel Medary (born February 25, 1801 in Montgomery County , Pennsylvania , † November 7, 1864 in Columbus , Ohio ) was an American politician . He was governor of the Minnesota Territory from 1857 to 1858 and the Kansas Territory from 1858 to 1860.

Early years and political advancement

Samuel Medary attended local schools in his home in Pennsylvania. He was enthusiastic about the journalist profession and trained accordingly. In 1825 he moved to Batavia , Ohio, and three years later became editor of the Ohio Sun newspaper. This newspaper was close to Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party . Medary's political career began in 1834 when he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives for the Democrats . Between 1836 and 1838 he was a member of the State Senate . Then he bought a newspaper in Columbus and gave it the new name "Ohio Statesmen", whose publisher and editor he was to remain until 1857. Medary was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore in 1844 , where he supported the presidential candidacy of James K. Polk . In 1856 he served as president of the Cincinnati convention , at which James Buchanan was nominated for the office of US president.

Territorial Governor of Minnesota and Kansas

In March 1857, Medary was named the last governor of the Minnesota Territory by President Buchanan. There he monitored the transition of the area from a territory to a regular state . His term ended after Minnesota was admitted to the United States in May 1858. Then he was briefly head of the US Federal Post Office in Columbus. He then became the new governor of the Kansas Territory for two years. In the run-up to the civil war , there were bloody unrest there . The dispute was about the question of slavery. During his tenure, however, the way forward from Kansas was already apparent, which was then accepted into the Union as a slave-free state in 1861. In December 1860, Medary resigned from his post after losing to Charles L. Robinson in the new state's first gubernatorial election . His Secretary of State George M. Beebe then prepared the transition from the territorial government to the new federal state and in February 1861 handed over the official business to Robinson.

After his time in Kansas, Medary returned to Columbus. There he published the newspaper "The Crisis" until his death in 1864.

literature

Reed W. Smith: Samuel Medary & The Crisis: Testing the Limits of Press Freedom . Ohio State University Press, Columbus OH 1995. ISBN 0814206727 ( digital version on the publisher's pages in full access)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Medary, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American politician
DATE OF BIRTH	February 25, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH	Montgomery County , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	November 7, 1864
Place of death	Columbus , Ohio