Bell, John, 1796-1869

<p>John Bell (February 18, 1796 – September 10, 1869) was an American politician, attorney, and planter. One of Tennessee's most prominent antebellum politicians, he served in the House of Representatives from 1827 to 1841, and in the Senate from 1847 to 1859. He was Speaker of the House for the 23rd Congress (1834–1835), and briefly served as Secretary of War during the administration of William Henry Harrison (1841). In 1860, he ran for president as the candidate for the Constitutional Union Party, a third party which took a neutral stance on the issue of slavery.</p>

<p>Initially an ally of Andrew Jackson, Bell turned against Jackson in the mid-1830s and aligned himself with the Whig Party, a shift that earned him the nickname "The Great Apostate." He consistently battled Jackson's allies, namely James K. Polk, over issues such as the national bank and the election spoils system. Following the death of Hugh Lawson White in 1840, Bell became the acknowledged leader of Tennessee's Whigs.</p>

<p>Although a slaveholder, Bell was one of the few Southern politicians to oppose the expansion of slavery in the 1850s, and he campaigned vigorously against secession in the years leading up to the American Civil War. During his 1860 presidential campaign, he argued that secession was unnecessary since the Constitution protected slavery, an argument that resonated with voters in border states, helping him capture the electoral votes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. After the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Bell abandoned the Union cause and supported the Confederacy.</p>

BELL, JOHN, a Representative and a Senator from Tennessee; born near Nashville, Tenn., February 18, 1796; graduated from Cumberland College in 1814; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1816 and commenced practice in Franklin, Tenn.; member, State senate 1817; declined to be a candidate for reelection and moved to Nashville; elected to the Twentieth, and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1827-March 3, 1841); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Twenty-third Congress); chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs (Twenty-first through Twenty-sixth Congresses, except for Twenty-third), Committee on Judiciary (Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses); appointed by President William Henry Harrison as Secretary of War March 5, 1841, and served until September 12, 1841, when he resigned; member, State house of representatives in 1847; elected as a Whig to the United States Senate in 1847; reelected in 1853, and served from November 22, 1847, to March 3, 1859; unsuccessful candidate in 1860 for President of the United States on the Constitutional Union ticket; investor in ironworks at Cumberland Furnace in Chattanooga, Tenn.; died at his home on the banks of the Cumberland River, near Cumberland Furnace, September 10, 1869; interment in Mount Olivet Cemetery, near Nashville, Tenn.

<p>John Bell was one of antebellum Tennessee's most prominent politicians and an acknowledged leader of the state's Whig Party. The son of a farmer and blacksmith, Bell was born in Davidson County and graduated from Cumberland College in 1814. After his admission to the bar in 1816, he opened a law practice in Franklin in Williamson County. A year later, his political career began with his election to the state Senate, but he declined to seek reelection after one term. Perhaps because he recognized the limitations of a provincial town for an ambitious youth, he moved to Murfreesboro, then Tennessee's capital, before finally settling in Nashville, the state's commercial center. By the time Nashville became the capital in 1826, Bell had established himself as one of the city's most prominent attorneys.</p>

<p>In 1827 Bell returned to politics and won the first of seven congressional terms in a bitter contest against former congressman Felix Grundy. He entered the House of Representatives as a supporter of Andrew Jackson, despite Jackson's endorsement of Grundy. Toward the end of Jackson's presidency, however, Bell worked with the administration's opposition. Never a member of the president's inner circle, Bell cultivated close connections with Nashville's mercantile community–solidified by his 1835 marriage to Jane (Erwin) Yeatman, the widow of one of the city's wealthiest merchants–and began to sympathize with the developing Whig Party's advocacy of federal government promotion of national economic development. At the same time, he apparently recognized that Jackson's preference for rival politicians would hinder his own aspirations. In 1835, although he still proclaimed loyalty to the administration, Bell accepted opposition support to win election over James K. Polk, Jackson's choice as Speaker of the House. Later that year he openly broke with the president when he became one of the leaders of the movement to elect Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White, rather than Democratic Party nominee Martin Van Buren, as Jackson's successor.</p>

<p>After White's loss in the 1836 presidential election, Bell successfully worked to move White's support into the national Whig Party, and the party ultimately rewarded him for his service with an 1841 appointment as secretary of war for the first Whig president, William Henry Harrison. Bell served only six months in the War Department before he and other cabinet members resigned after the party repudiated John Tyler, who had become president following Harrison's death. Returning to his law practice in Nashville, Bell spent the next six years watching political developments and waiting for the chance to return to public office. His opportunity finally came in 1847, when he agreed to serve a term in the state House of Representatives, where he gathered sufficient support to win election to the United States Senate.</p>

<p>Reelected to a second term in 1853, Bell served in the Senate during the national debate over the expansion of slavery into new territories. Although a slave owner, Bell quickly distinguished himself as an advocate of compromise. The only senator from a southern state to vote against passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, in 1858 he defied instructions from the Democratic-controlled Tennessee General Assembly and voted against Kansas's admission to the Union as a slave state. By the latter date, the legislature had already elected a Democrat to succeed him in the Senate, but his reputation as a defender of the Union made him an ideal presidential candidate in 1860 for the hastily formed Constitutional Union Party. In a contest characterized by sectional division, Bell finished last among four candidates, but he won the second largest number of popular votes in the southern states and carried the electoral votes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.</p>

<p>When the lower South seceded after Abraham Lincoln's presidential victory, Bell at first urged Tennesseans to remain in the Union, and he met with the new president to encourage him to pursue a peaceful policy toward the South. After Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for volunteers to put down the rebellion, Bell became convinced that the Republicans intended to impose a military dictatorship upon the South. He then reluctantly endorsed Tennessee's withdrawal from the Union. As the champion of a broken Union, Bell witnessed his political career come to an abrupt end. He avoided the Union army's occupation of Tennessee by moving to Alabama and later Georgia. After the war he spent his remaining years near the family's iron foundry in Stewart County.</p>

<p>Despite the oblivion of his later years, Bell had been among the most prominent southern politicians in the antebellum era. His career presents a reminder that Tennesseans were united neither behind Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party nor behind the extreme advocates of the defense of southern rights.</p>