James Z. Spearing

James Zacharie Spearing (April 23, 1864 – November 2, 1942) was a U.S. Representative from Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Born in Alto in Cherokee County, Texas, Spearing moved with his parents in 1866 to New Orleans, where he attended the public schools. He left school and went to work in 1877. In 1886, he obtained a degree from the department of Tulane University in New Orleans. That same year, he was admitted to the bar and began his legal practice in New Orleans.

He served as member of the Orleans Parish School Board from 1908-1912 and again from 1916-1920 and as president in 1919 and 1920. Between the parish school board terms, he was a member of the Louisiana State Board of Education from 1912-1916. He was an alternate delegate to the 1912 Democratic National Convention, which nominated the Wilson-Marshall ticket, which handily won the electoral votes of Louisiana.

Spearing was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of H. Garland Dupré. He was reelected to the Sixty-ninth, Seventieth, and Seventy-first Congresses and served from April 22, 1924, to March 3, 1931. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1930. Thereafter, he resumed the practice of law in New Orleans, where he died November 2, 1942. He was interred at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

References

• James Z. Spearing at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

External links

• James Z. Spearing at Find a Grave