Virginia in the Union: 20 U.S. Senators from Virginia in six parts.
Part 3. 1845-1883: Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction Virginia (VUS SOLs Expansion and Reform; Civil War and Reconstruction) .
William S. Archer, Congresses 27-29. Presidents Harrison, Tyler, Polk.
Robert M. T. Hunter, Congresses 30-37. Presidents Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan.
John S. Carlile, Congresses 37/40. President Lincoln/President Andrew Johnson
John W. Johnston, Congresses 41-47. Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur.
See List of United States Senators from Virginia for a comprehensive overview of them all with their portraits, and how their terms overlapped in Congress. See Lists of Presidents of the United States for a comprehensive list and portraits of each president.
With the twenty longest-serving U.S. Senators, every U.S. Congress and Presidential term is represented. This gives the history-as-biography approach to history a comprehensive survey of U.S. and Virginia. Senate years of service and political party are listed along with their corresponding Presidents in the second paragraph of each article. All initial entries come from the Biographical Directory of the Congress of the United States at congress.bioguide.gov.
ARCHER, William Segar, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia. (nephew of Joseph Eggleston).
Senate Years of Service: 1841-1847. Party: Whig. Presidents: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk.
born at “The Lodge,” Amelia County, Va., March 5, 1789. received private instruction. graduated from William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va., in 1806. studied law. admitted to the bar in 1810 and practiced in Amelia and Powhatan Counties.
served four terms in the State house of delegates between 1812 and 1819.
In 1820, Archer was elected to the Sixteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Pleasants. reelected to the Seventeenth and to the six succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1820-March 3, 1835). unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1834 to the Twenty-fourth Congress. chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Twenty-first through Twenty-third Congresses), and a member of the Committee on the Missouri Compromise. A states rights advocate, he was a supporter of President Jackson until his proclamation against South Carolina in 1832 over the nullification crisis. Archer then switched parties to join the Whigs.
Elected as a Whig to the United States Senate, Archer served from March 4, 1841, to March 3, 1847. unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1846. chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations (Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Congresses), Committee on Naval Affairs (Twenty-seventh Congress). Archer was a reluctant supporter of Henry Clay’s proposal for a U.S. Bank. In 1844 as chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he opposed the annexation of Texas.
On retirement from the Senate, heresumed the practice of law. William Segar Archer died at “The Lodge,” in Amelia County, Va., March 28, 1855. His interment is in a private cemetery at “The Lodge.”
Bibliography
Congressional Biographical Directory online, Dictionary of American Biography, Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. IIEncyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. II, William S Archer, p. 93
HUNTER, Robert Mercer Taliaferro, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia.
Senate Years of Service: 1847-1861. Party: Democrat. Presidents: James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan.
Born at “Mount Pleasant,” near Loretto, Essex County, Va., April 21, 1809 Hunter was tutored at home. He graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1828, then studied law at the Winchester Law School in 1830 and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He then began a law practice at Lloyds in Essex County.
Hunter was a member of the State general assembly 1834-1837.
Hunter was elected as a States-Rights Whig to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1837-March 3, 1843). Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Twenty-sixth Congress. An unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-eighth Congress, Hunter was elected to the Twenty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1845-March 3, 1847). chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia (Twenty-ninth Congress).
In 1846, Hunter was elected to the United States Senate, reelected in 1852 and 1858, serving from March 4, 1847, to March 28, 1861, when he withdrew. He was expelled from the Senate on July 11, 1861, for support of the rebellion. chairman, Committee on Public Buildings (Thirtieth through Thirty-second Congresses). As chair of the Committee on Finance (Thirty-first through Thirty-sixth Congresses) he framed the Tariff Act of 1857 which lowered duties.
In the Senate, Hunter advocated the annexation of Texas, the compromise of the Oregon question, the Tariff Bill of 1846 and opposed the Wilmot Proviso. He advocated the retrocession to Virginia of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River that became Arlington County. He sought to extend the line of the Missouri Compromise west to the Pacific Ocean, opposed the admission of California as a free state and opposed the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
Hunter took an active role in the presidential campaign for James Buchanan in 1856, speaking through the North and fortelling of the dissolution of the Union if the Southern states rights to expand slavery into the territories were thwarted. In 1857-58 he advocated the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution.
In the Democratic National Convention of 1860 at Charleston, South Carolina he was a candidate for the nomination for president, coming in second to Stephen A. Douglas for the first six ballots.
Hunter was a delegate from Virginia to the Confederate Provincial Congress at Richmond. Confederate Secretary of State 1861-1862, he served in the Confederate Senate from Virginia in the First and Second Congresses 1862-1865 and was President pro tempore on various occasions. Hunter was one of the peace commissioners that met with President Abraham Lincoln in Hampton Roads in February 1865. In the war meeting as the end of the Civil War neared, he voted for the Confederacy to continue resistance until independence. Acting under instructions from his constituent, but under protest, he voted for the measure to free slaves who would served in the Confederate Army. He was briefly imprisoned at the end of the Civil War, released on parole and pardoned by President Johnson in 1867.
An unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senator in 1874, he was elected State treasurer of Virginia 1877-1880. President Cleveland appointed him collector for the port of Tappahannock, Va. 1885.
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter died on his estate ‘Fonthill,’ near Lloyds, Va., on July 18, 1887. His interment was in ‘Elmwood,’ the family burial ground, near Loretto, Va.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography. Fisher, John E. “Statesman of a Lost Cause: The Career of R.M.T. Hunter, 1859-1887.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1966. Moore, Richard Randall, “Robert M.T. Hunter and the Crisis of the Union, 1860-1861.” Southern Historian 13 (Spring 1992): 25-35.
Bibliography
Congressional Biographical Directory online, Dictionary of American Biography. Fisher, John E. “Statesman of a Lost Cause: The Career of R.M.T. Hunter, 1859-1887.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1966. Moore, Richard Randall, “Robert M.T. Hunter and the Crisis of the Union, 1860-1861.” Southern Historian 13 (Spring 1992): 25-35. Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. III, Robert M. T. Hunter, p. 27
CARLILE, John Snyder, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia.
Senate Years of Service: 1861-1865. Party: Unionist. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln.
born in Winchester, Va., on December 16, 1817. educated by his mother. clerked in a store and commenced business for himself in 1834. studied law. admitted to the bar in 1840 and commenced practice in Beverly, Va. (now West Virginia) in 1842. moved to Philippi and later to Clarksburg and continued the practice of law.
member, State senate 1847-1851.
delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1850.
elected as the candidate of the American Party to the Thirty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1857).
delegate to the State secession convention in February 1861.
elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress and served from March 4, 1861, until July 9, 1861, when he resigned to become Senator.
elected as a Unionist to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the expulsion of Robert M.T. Hunter and served from July 9, 1861, to March 3, 1865.
member of the convention submitting the new State ordinance in August 1861 for West Virginia.
died in Clarksburg, Harrison County, W.Va., October 24, 1878. interment in Odd Fellows Cemetery.
Bibliography: Congressional Biographical Directory online, American National Biography. Dictionary of American Biography.
JOHNSTON, John Warfield, a Senator from Virginia. (uncle of Henry Bowen and nephew of Charles Clement Johnston and Joseph Eggleston Johnston).
Senate Years of Service: 1870-1883. Party: Democrat. Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur.
Born in Panicello, near Abingdon, Va., September 9, 1818, John W. Johnston was elder brother of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston. John attended Abingdon Academy and South Carolina College at Columbia. He studied law at the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar in 1839, beginning a practice in Tazewell, Tazewell County, Va..
Commonwealth attorney for Tazewell County 1844-1846.
State senator 1846-1848.
During the Civil War, Johnston held the position of Confederate States Receiver. Afterwards he was appointed a judge of the circuit court of Virginia 1866-1870.
Upon the readmission of the State of Virginia to representation Johnston was elected as a Conservative to the United States Senate and served from January 26, 1870, to March 3, 1871. Reelected as a Democrat on March 15, 1871, for the term beginning March 4, 1871, he was reelected in 1877 and served from March 15, 1871, until March 3, 1883. unsuccessful candidate for reelection. chairman, Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Forty-fifth and Forty-seventh Congresses), Committee on Agriculture (Forty-sixth Congress).
On retirement from the U.S. Senate, Johnston resumed the practice of his profession. John Warfield Johnston died in Richmond, Va., February 27, 1889. His interment was in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Wytheville, Va.
Bibliography: Congressional Biographical Directory online. Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. III, John Warfield Johnston, p. 105