James Murray Mason

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Murray Mason
James Murray Mason

In office
January 21, 1847March 28, 1861
Preceded by Isaac S. Pennybacker
Succeeded by Waitman T. Willey

Born November 3, 1798 (1798-11-03)
Analostan Island, District of Columbia, U.S.
Died April 28, 1871 (aged 72)
Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Profession Politician, Lawyer

James Murray Mason (November 3, 1798April 28, 1871) was a United States Representative and United States Senator from Virginia. He was a grandson of George Mason and represented the Confederate States of America as appointed commissioner of the Confederacy to Great Britain and France between 1861 and 1865 during the American Civil War.

He was born on Analostan Island (now Theodore Roosevelt Island) in the District of Columbia, and was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (1818), receiving a law degree from the College of William and Mary in 1820.

He practiced law in Virginia and was a delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention in 1829, and a member of the State house of delegates. A Jackson Democrat, he was elected to the Twenty-fifth United States Congress in 1836.

In 1847 he was elected to the Senate after the death of Isaac S. Pennybacker, and was reelected in 1850 and 1856. Mason famously read aloud the dying Senator John C. Calhoun's final speech to the Senate, on March 3, 1850, which warned of disunion and dire consequences if the North did not guarantee the South permanently equal representation in Congress. Mason also drafted the (second) Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, enacted on September 18, 1850 as a part of the Compromise Measures of that year. Mason represented the majority view in leading the Senate committee which investigated the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry of October 1859. (Thus the document published as the U.S. Congress, Senate Select Commission on the Harper's Ferry Invasion (June 15, 1860) is often referred to as the Mason Report.) Mason was President pro tempore of the Senate during the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses but was expelled from the Senate in 1861 for support of the Confederacy.

While traveling to his post as Confederate envoy to Britain and France, on the British mail steamer RMS Trent, the ship was stopped by USS San Jacinto on November 8, 1861. Mason and John Slidell were confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, precipitating the Trent Affair that threatened to bring Britain into open war with the United States of America. He was released in January, 1862 and proceeded to London, where he represented the Confederacy until April, 1865.

Until 1868 he lived in Canada, and then returned to Virginia. He died near Alexandria, Virginia on April 28, 1871 and was interred in Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery, Alexandria, Virginia.

[edit] Family

Political offices
Preceded by
Edward Lucas
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia's 15th congressional district

March 4, 1837 - March 3, 1839
Succeeded by
William Lucas
Preceded by
Isaac S. Pennybacker
United States Senator (Class 1) from Virginia
January 21, 1847 - March 28, 1861
Served alongside: William S. Archer and Robert M. T. Hunter
Succeeded by
Waitman T. Willey
Preceded by
Jesse D. Bright
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
January 6, 1857 - March 4, 1857
Succeeded by
Thomas J. Rusk
Languages