Jesse D. Bright

Jesse David Bright
Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives
In office 1867-1871
39th President pro tempore of the United States Senate
In office June 12, 1860 – June 13, 1860
Preceded by	Benjamin Fitzpatrick
Succeeded by	Benjamin Fitzpatrick
In office June 11, 1856 – January 6, 1857
Preceded by	Charles E. Stuart
Succeeded by	James M. Mason
In office December 5, 1854 – June 9, 1856
Preceded by	Lewis Cass
Succeeded by	Charles E. Stuart
United States Senator from Indiana
In office March 4, 1845 – February 5, 1862
Preceded by	Albert S. White
Succeeded by	Joseph A. Wright
9th Lieutenant Governor of Indiana
In office December 6, 1843 – March 4, 1845
Governor	James Whitcomb
Preceded by	Samuel Hall
Succeeded by	Paris C. Dunning
Member of the Indiana Senate
In office 1841-1843
Personal details
Born	December 18, 1812 Norwich, New York, US
Died	May 20, 1875 (aged 62) Baltimore, Maryland, US
Political party	Democratic
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Judge

Jesse David Bright (December 18, 1812 – May 20, 1875) was the ninth Lieutenant Governor of Indiana and U.S. Senator from Indiana who served as President pro tempore of the Senate on three separate occasions. He was the only senator from a Northern state to be expelled for being a Confederate sympathizer. As a leading Copperhead he opposed the Civil War.

Early life and career

Born in Norwich, New York, Bright was born into a German family. Bright moved to Madison, Indiana, with his parents in 1820 and attended public schools as a child. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1831, commencing practice in Madison. He was elected a judge of the probate court of Jefferson County, Indiana, in 1834, was a United States Marshal for the district of Indiana from 1840 to 1841 and served in the Indiana Senate from 1841 to 1843. In 1842, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Indiana and served as such from 1843 to 1845.

U.S. Senate

Bright was elected a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1844, was reelected in 1850 and 1856, serving from 1845 to 1862. He was chairman of the Committee on Enrolled Bills from 1845 to 1847, of the Committee on Public Buildings from 1845 to 1847, of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims from 1847 to 1849, of the Committee on Roads and Canals from 1849 to 1855 and of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds from 1857 to 1861. He was also President pro tempore of the Senate from 1854 to 1856, 1856 to 1857 and in 1860, serving as putative Acting Vice President of the United States in the first two terms due to the death of Vice President William R. King.

In the Senate, Bright was not known as a great orator, but was very able in committee work. One enemy of his was Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas after he voted against keeping Bright in the Senate. He was, however, a very close friend and confidant of William Hayden English, a U.S. Representative from Indiana. In 1857, President James Buchanan offered him the post of Secretary of State, but he declined.^[1]

In the beginning of 1862, the Senate of the 37th Congress, which was composed of twenty-nine Republicans and ten Democrats, voted to expel him for acknowledging Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States and for facilitating the sale of arms to the Confederacy. The issue was brought up when Minnesota Senator Morton S. Wilkinson introduced the Senate to a letter dated March 1, 1861, written to Davis and signed by Bright, involving firearm trades. The letter was found on a captured gun trader crossing the Confederate border during the First Battle of Bull Run.^[2]

He was the fourteenth senator expelled from Congress during the Civil War, and was (as of 2015) the last senator ever to be expelled. Soon after his expulsion from the Senate, Union authorities confiscated his property in Port Fulton, Indiana, which became Jefferson General Hospital, the third-largest hospital during the Civil War. He was an unsuccessful candidate in filling the vacancy caused by his own expulsion in 1863. Instead, Bright's longtime intra-party rival, Prussian minister and War Democrat Joseph A. Wright, succeeded him in the Senate.

Later life and career

After losing his home in Indiana, Bright moved to Covington, Kentucky. He was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1867 to 1871, was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket from Kentucky in the 1868 presidential election,^[3] and was president of the Raymond City Coal Company from 1871 to 1875. He moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1874 and died there May 20, 1875. He was interred in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.

References

1. Jesse D. Bright: Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana
2. Friendship or Treason?
3. Jesse D. Bright at Find A Grave

Further reading

• James Albert Woodburn (1903). Party politics in Indiana during the civil war. American Historical Association. p. 231.

External links

• Jesse D. Bright at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2009-5-12
• The Expulsion of Senator Jesse Bright
• Jesse D. Bright: Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.