Samuel Smith (Maryland)

For other people with the same name, see Samuel Smith (disambiguation).
Samuel Smith
20th President pro tempore of the United States Senate
In office
May 15, 1828  December 11, 1831
Preceded by Nathaniel Macon
Succeeded by Littleton W. Tazewell
In office
December 2, 1805  November 6, 1808
Preceded by Joseph Anderson
Succeeded by Stephen R. Bradley
United States Senator
from Maryland
In office
December 17, 1822  March 3, 1833
Preceded by William Pinkney
Succeeded by Joseph Kent
In office
March 4, 1803  March 4, 1815
Preceded by John E. Howard
Succeeded by Robert G. Harper
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Maryland's 5th district
In office
January 31, 1816  December 17, 1822
Preceded by Nicholas Ruxton Moore
Succeeded by Isaac McKim
In office
March 4, 1793  March 3, 1803
Preceded by William Vans Murray
Succeeded by Nicholas Ruxton Moore
Member of the Maryland House of Delegates
In office
1790-1792
Personal details
Born July 27, 1752
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA
Died April 22, 1839(1839-04-22) (aged 86)
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Political party Democratic-Republican, Democrat
Profession Politician, Merchant
Signature
Military service
Allegiance  United States of America
Service/branch Continental Army
Maryland Maryland Militia
Rank Major General
Battles/wars American Revolutionary War
Whiskey Rebellion
War of 1812

Samuel Smith (July 27, 1752  April 22, 1839) was a United States Senator and Representative from Maryland, a mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, and a general in the Maryland militia. He was the brother of cabinet secretary Robert Smith.

Biography

Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Smith moved with his family to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1759. He attended a private academy, and engaged in mercantile pursuits until the American Revolutionary War, at which time he served as captain, major, and lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army. Prior to the war, as a young captain, he was sent to Annapolis to arrest Governor Eden and seize his papers.[1] After the war, Smith engaged in the shipping business.

General Samuel Smith
Senator Samuel Smith

From 1790 to 1792, Smith was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. At the time of the threatened war with France in 1794, he was appointed brigadier general of the Maryland militia and commanded Maryland’s quota during the Whiskey Rebellion. Smith served as a major general of Maryland militia during the War of 1812, and commanded the defenses of Baltimore during the Battle of Baltimore and Fort McHenry in 1814. The American victory there can largely be attributed to Smith's preparation for the British invasion.

Smith entered into national politics when he was elected to the Third United States Congress, serving from March 4, 1793, until March 4, 1803. As a Congressman, Smith served as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Commerce and Manufactures (Fifth through Seventh Congresses). As a principal negotiator between the young Federalist leader and Delaware representative, James Asheton Bayard II, and the presumptive President-Elect Jefferson, Smith secured the winning ballot in the United States House of Representatives for Jefferson during the United States presidential election, 1800.[2] Smith entered into the Senate election in 1802, and was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1808 and served from March 4, 1803 until March 4, 1815. While senator, Smith served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Ninth and Tenth Congresses.

Smith was elected to the Fourteenth Congress on January 31, 1816 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Nicholas R. Moore, and was re-elected to the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Congresses. In the House, Smith served as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Fourteenth Congress), and as a member of the Committee on Ways and Means (Fifteenth through Seventeenth Congresses).

On December 17, 1822, Smith resigned as congressman, having been elected as a Democratic Republican (later Crawford Republican and Jacksonian) to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Pinkney. In March–April 1824, Samuel Smith was honored with a single vote at the Democratic-Republican Party Caucus to be the party's candidate for the Office of U.S. Vice President for the upcoming 1824 U.S. Presidential Election.

Smith served as President pro tempore of the Senate again during the Twentieth and Twenty-first Congresses, and as chairman of the Committee on Finance (Eighteenth and Twentieth through Twenty-second Congresses). He was re-elected in 1826 and served until March 4, 1833. Two years later, in 1835, Smith became mayor of Baltimore, and served in that position until 1838, when he retired from public life. Smith died in Baltimore in 1839, and is interred in the Old Westminster Burying Ground.

Attitude toward slavery

In 1828 Smith served as Vice-President of the Maryland State Colonization Society, of which Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the co-signers of the Declaration of Independence, was president.[3] The MSCS was a branch of the American Colonization Society, an organization dedicated to returning black Americans to lead free lives in African states such as Liberia.

Notes

  1. Andrews, p.316
  2. Ackerman, Bruce (2005). The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 106 ISBN 0674018664. Borden, Morton (1954). The Federalism of James A. Bayard. pp. 90-93.
  3. The African Repository, Volume 3, 1827, p.251, edited by Ralph Randolph Gurley Retrieved Feb 16 2010

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samuel Smith (Maryland).
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
William V. Murray
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Maryland's 5th congressional district

March 4, 1793 March 4, 1803
Succeeded by
Nicholas R. Moore
William McCreery
Preceded by
Nicholas R. Moore
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Maryland's 5th congressional district

January 31, 1816 December 17, 1822
Served alongside: William Pinkney and Peter Little
Succeeded by
Isaac McKim
United States Senate
Preceded by
John E. Howard
U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Maryland
March 4, 1803 March 4, 1815
Served alongside: Robert Wright, Philip Reed and Robert H. Goldsborough
Succeeded by
Robert G. Harper
Preceded by
William Pinkney
U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Maryland
December 17, 1822 March 4, 1833
Served alongside: Edward Lloyd and Ezekiel F. Chambers
Succeeded by
Joseph Kent
Political offices
Preceded by
Joseph Anderson
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
December 2, 1805 November 6, 1808
Succeeded by
Stephen R. Bradley
Preceded by
Walter Lowrie
Pennsylvania
Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
1823–1833
Succeeded by
Daniel Webster
Massachusetts
Preceded by
Nathaniel Macon
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
May 15, 1828 December 11, 1831
Succeeded by
Littleton W. Tazewell
Preceded by
Jesse Hunt
Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland
1835–1838
Succeeded by
Sheppard C. Leakin
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Paine Wingate
Oldest living U.S. Senator
March 7, 1838 April 22, 1839
Succeeded by
Nathaniel Chipman
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