Jesse D. Bright

Jesse David Bright
United States Senator from Indiana
In office March 4, 1845 – February 5, 1862
Preceded by	Albert S. White
Succeeded by	Joseph A. Wright
Personal details
Political party	Democratic
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Judge

Jesse David Bright (December 18, 1812 – May 20, 1875) was a 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.

Early life and career

Born in Norwich, New York, 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 so 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 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. In 1862, the Senate, at the time composed of twenty-nine Republicans and ten Democrats, voted to expel him for acknowledging Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States and for sympathizing with the Confederacy. The issue was brought up when Minnesota Senator Morton Wilkinson introduced the Senate to a letter dated March 1, 1861, written and signed by Bright to Davis envolving firearm trades. The letter was found on a captured gun trader crossing the Confederate border during the First Battle of Bull Run. He was the fourteenth senator expelled from congress during the Civil War, and was the last senator ever to be expelled. Union authorities soon after 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.

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 and was president of the Raymond City Coal Company from 1871 to 1875. He moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1874 where he died on May 20, 1875. He was interred in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.

Sources

• United States Congress. "Jesse D. Bright (id: B000835)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Expulsion of Senator Jesse Bright
• Jesse D. Bright: Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress