Thomas Pratt

Thomas George Pratt

Thomas George Pratt (born February 18, 1804 in Washington DC , † November 9, 1869 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was an American politician and governor of the state of Maryland from 1845 to 1848 . Between 1850 and 1857 he represented his state in the US Senate .

Early years

Thomas Pratt attended Georgetown University in Washington after elementary school . He then studied law at what is now Princeton University . After his admission to the bar in 1823, he began to work in this profession in Upper Marlboro .

Political rise

Between 1832 and 1835 he was a member of the Whig Party in the Maryland House of Representatives . In 1836 he was one of the electors for the then defeated candidate William Henry Harrison in the presidential election . In the same year he became the last President of the Advisory Board of the Governor of Maryland ( Governors Executive Council ). He held this office until this body was abolished a year later. Between 1838 and 1843 he was a member of the Maryland Senate . On October 4, 1844, he was elected the new governor of his state by 548 votes ahead of James Carroll .

Governor of maryland

Thomas Pratt took up his new office on January 6, 1845. One of his main concerns was to reduce the national debt. To this end, taxes were raised, an unpopular measure in Maryland. But he also lowered his own salary and that of his State Secretary. The Mexican-American War , to which Maryland also had to contribute , also falls during his term of office . Maryland suffered particularly from the increasingly aggressive stance on both sides of the slavery issue because it was the borderland between the north and the south. Serious conflict arose during Pratt's tenure with Pennsylvania , which refused to enforce federal law requiring the return of escaped slaves. At that time Pratt was getting closer and closer to the Democratic Party , to which he then converted in the 1850s. On the question of slavery he took the stand of the South. When expanding the infrastructure, Pratt relied more on the railroad than on the waterways.

In the US Senate

After the end of his tenure as governor, Pratt worked briefly as a lawyer in Annapolis . After the resignation of US Senator Reverdy Johnson , Pratt was appointed as his successor on January 12, 1850. He ended the legislative period started by his predecessor and was re-elected to this body in 1851. Pratt remained in the Senate until March 3, 1857. In the presidential election of 1856 he supported the victorious Democratic candidate James Buchanan .

Another résumé

At the beginning of the Civil War , he was briefly imprisoned for his support for the south. Then he moved to Baltimore, where he worked as a lawyer again. In 1864 he was also a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and in 1866 he was also a delegate to the National Union Convention in Philadelphia . In the same year he applied unsuccessfully to return to the US Senate.

Thomas Pratt died in November 1869. He was married to Adelaide MacKubin Kent, with whom he had six children. His wife was the daughter of Joseph Kent , who was also governor of Maryland from 1826 to 1829.

literature

• Robert Sobel and John Raimo (Eds.): Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789–1978. Volume 2, Meckler Books, Westport, 1978. 4 volumes.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Pratt  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Thomas Pratt in the National Governors Association (English)
• Thomas Pratt in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Thomas Pratt in the database of Find a Grave (English)