William B. Preston

William B. Preston

William Ballard Preston (born November 25, 1805 in Smithfield , Isle of Wight County , Virginia , †  November 16, 1862 ibid) was an American politician ( Whig Party ). He served as US Secretary of the Navy from 1849 to 1850 and was a member of the Confederate Congress as Senator for Virginia .

Early years of life

Preston attended Hampden-Sydney College from 1821 , where he was particularly interested in literature and forensics . After graduating there in 1824, he studied law at the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar in 1826. In 1831 he became a prosecutor in Floyd County .

MP and Minister

Preston was politically active with the Whigs, for whom he was elected to the Virginia House of Representatives in 1830 . During his time in parliament, which ended in 1832, he was also an active participant in the debates on abolitionism . After leaving the Chamber, he worked as a lawyer again before moving into the Virginia Senate in 1840 . He was a member of this for four years before returning to the State House of Representatives. In 1846 he finally became a representative of Virginia in the US House of Representatives .

After the Whig Party's victory in the 1848 presidential election , Preston was appointed Secretary of the Navy by the new President Zachary Taylor in his cabinet . He took office on March 8, 1849. Under his leadership, the US Navy faced new tasks in the expansion of the USA in the west and the admission of California into the Union. It was also the time of flourishing trading opportunities in the Pacific . While the ports of China had already opened to the west, such contact with Japan was imminent. The Navy also experienced an era of modernization, mainly due to the transition from sailing to steam ships .

Use for the southern states

Preston's tenure ended on July 22, 1850. President Taylor had died less than two weeks earlier; his successor Millard Fillmore rebuilt his cabinet and appointed William Alexander Graham as the new Minister of the Navy. Preston resigned from the government and initially withdrew from politics. He worked again as a lawyer and made a name for himself as a criminal defense lawyer, before he was sent on a diplomatic mission to France in 1858 to negotiate the establishment of a trade line between Le Havre and Norfolk . The talks turned out promising, but were halted by the impending civil war .

William Preston returned to America and on February 13, 1861 participated in the Virginia Convention of Secession. However, he was one of the moderate politicians who wanted to stop the development. Together with Alexander Stuart and George W. Randolph he made his way to Washington, DC , where the delegation met President Abraham Lincoln on April 12th . However, his unyielding stance on the Union forts in the south ensured that the politicians returned to Richmond without result .

After the attack on Fort Sumter , South Carolina , secessionists in Virginia gained the upper hand. On April 16, William Preston called a secret session of the Secession Convention to vote on secession from the Union. The Preston resolution was passed with 88:55 votes, whereupon Virginia left the United States. The former Federal Minister was then also politically active in the Confederate States . He was a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress and was elected Senator for Virginia. His term of office began on February 18, 1862; However, Preston died on November 16 of the same year in his hometown of Smithfield.

Appreciation

In memory of the former Secretary of the Navy, the destroyer USS William B. Preston (DD-344) was named after him.

Web links

• William B. Preston in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• William B. Preston in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• William B. Preston in the database of Find a Grave (English)