Kentucky. Governor (1824-1828 : Desha)

Joseph Desha was elected as Kentucky's ninth governor in 1824, the first governor who was not a veteran of the American Revolution. Desha was a Jeffersonian Republican who also ran as a debt relief candidate.

Born in 1768, he moved to Kentucky with his family when he was thirteen and remained for three years before moving to Nashville, Tennessee. In 1792, he returned to Kentucky, and served in the Indian wars in 1794. He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1797 and 1799-1802; in the Kentucky Senate from 1802-1807; and in the United States House of Representatives from 1807-1819. He also served in the War of 1812 under General William Henry Harrison.

He ran for governor in 1820 and came in third in an extremely close election, which was won by John Adair. In 1824, after a vigorous campaign on the issues of relief and replevin laws, he won the gubernatorial election. Following on his campaign promises, Desha attempted to bring relief to the victims of the 1819 Panic, as had his predecessor, Governor Adair. The Kentucky Court of Appeals however, had struck down many pieces of relief legislation as unconstitutional. In return, Desha campaigned to have the Old Court abolished and replaced by a New Court through a court reorganization bill, which in 1824 was signed into law. For a time, the Old Court refused to give up its post or its records, and then its members and proponents turned to political action, winning control of the House in 1825 and of the Senate in 1826. In 1826, the legislature repealed the court reorganization law on the grounds of the New Court's ineffectiveness, and the Old Court was reestablished. Desha's veto of the bill was overridden.

Perhaps the most controversial action during his term of office concerned the use of his constitutional power to pardon his son, Isaac, for murder. In 1826, Desha also came out against Horace Holley, the president of Transylvania University, whose Unitarian religious convictions were misunderstood. Holley left Transylvania in 1827.

In 1828, Desha retired from public life to his farm in Harrison County where he died in 1842.

From the description of Subunit history. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145415703