Alfred Osborne Pope Nicholson

Background

Alfred Osborn Pope Nicholson was born on August 31, 1808 in Williamson County, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of O. P. Nicholson and Saachy Hunter.

Education

After graduation from the University of North Carolina in 1827, he attended lectures in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

Career

Nicholson never practised medicine, however; instead, he became editor of the Columbia, Tennessee, Mercury, and a member of the local bar.

He was an able lawyer; in cooperation with R. L. Caruthers he prepared A Compilation of the Statutes of Tennessee; and in 1851, on the appointment of Governor William Trousdale, he served for a few months as chancellor for the Middle Division of Tennessee. He was prominently identified with the development of railroads in Tennessee, as a director of the Nashville & Chattanooga and other railroads, and as an able advocate of the granting by the state of financial aid in railroad construction.

In 1847 he was president of the Bank of Tennessee.

Like many young lawyers, Nicholson entered actively into political life. In 1833 he began a series of three consecutive terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and subsequently (1843 - 45), he was a member of the state Senate.

Upon the death of Felix Grundy he was appointed by Governor James K. Polk to serve a portion (1840 - 42) of Grundy's unexpired term in the United States Senate.

On the solicitation of the President-Elect he became editor of Polk's organ and the leading Democratic newspaper in Tennessee, the Nashville Union. As a reward for his effective services in this capacity during the state campaign of 1845, it was expected that he would be sent again to the United States Senate. Polk desired this and the Democratic legislative caucus nominated Nicholson, but a combination of the Whig minority with anti-administration Democrats prevented his election. Nevertheless, he was recognized soon as the leader of his party in Tennessee.

He was a member of the Tennessee delegation in both sessions of the Southern Convention that met in Nashville in 1850, but his influence in that body was conservatively against secession and in advocacy of the acceptance of the compromise measures of 1850.

He became a close friend of President Pierce but refused a place in the cabinet. Instead, as a result of the President's influence, he assumed the editorship of the administration organ, the Washington Daily Union (though not very effectively), and was chosen public printer to the House of Representatives.

In 1857 he was elected to succeed John Bell upon the expiration of the latter's senatorial term in 1859.

Achievements

• Nicholson was one of the compilers of the Statutes of Tennessee in 1836. He was an influential member of the constitutional convention of Tennessee in 1870 that completed the overthrow of the Radical régime. For the remaining years of his life, 1870-76, he was chief justice of the supreme court of his state.

Politics

In 1835 Nicholson gave temporary support to the presidential candidacy of Hugh Lawson White, but he soon returned to the Jacksonian camp, supported Van Buren's candidacy, and thereafter was a faithful and prominent worker in the Democratic party.

He was an ardent supporter of Polk's presidential candidacy in 1844.

He supported the presidential candidacy of Lewis Cass in 1848 and was the recipient of the famous "Nicholson Letter" in which Cass sought to explain his views on the Wilmot Proviso.

By no means a "fire eating" secessionist, he gave his support to the Confederacy after Tennessee's withdrawal from the Union, and for this he was expelled from the Senate on July 11, 1861. After the Civil War he was one of the leaders of the majority in Tennessee that were disfranchised by the Radicals.

Connections

In 1829 he married Caroline O'Reilly.

Father:

O. P. Nicholson

Mother:

Saachy Hunter

Spouse:

Caroline O'Reilly

References

• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005