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(Originally published in 1840. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Originally published in 1840. 16 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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Hugh Lawson White was born in Iredell County, N. C. , the eldest son of James White and his wife, Mary (Lawson). There can be little doubt but that the influence of his father, a generous and kindly as well as an able man, was the guiding force in Hugh's life.
No adequate schools were available, but he became acquainted with the rudiments of classical learning under the direction of the Rev. Samuel Carrick, the local Presbyterian clergyman, and under Judge Archibald Roane.
When White arrived at his twentieth year, Gov. William Blount made him his private secretary. The Indians were giving trouble at this time and Gen. John Sevier led an expedition against them. White accompanied him and acquired some notoriety by killing the chief Kingfisher. Shortly afterward he went to Philadelphia to study mathematics under Professor Patterson. Later, he went to Lancaster, Pa. , and for a year studied law under James Hopkins. In 1796 he returned to Knoxville and began the practice of his profession. In 1801 he was made a judge of the superior court of Tennessee, at that time the highest tribunal of the state judiciary. He resigned this office in 1807 and was elected to the state Senate. The next year he was appointed and confirmed United States attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, but soon resigned. In 1809 he was reëlected to the Senate, but the state judiciary was just then reorganized and a supreme court of errors and appeals created, and White was chosen the presiding judge of this tribunal. In 1811 the Bank of the State of Tennessee was chartered and in 1812 began operation in Knoxville with White as president. He continued to act in this capacity until 1827, but accepted no compensation for his services during the periods when he held public office, nor did he receive from the institution any advantage as borrower or indorser. In 1813 Gen. Andrew Jackson was conducting his campaign against the Creek Indians on the Coosa River, and Gen. James White was acting under him. Word reached the younger White that the troops were in great danger and he, with two companions, set out through the wilderness to lend aid. Finding it impossible to accomplish anything material, he returned to Knoxville and persuaded his brother-in-law, Col. John Williams, 1778-1837, to go with his regiment - the 39th United States Infantry - to Jackson's aid, and at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, Williams' assistance was invaluable. In 1815 White retired from the supreme court and in 1817 was again elected to the state Senate. Here he signalized his return by securing the passage of a bill prohibiting duelling in Tennessee. In 1821 he was appointed on the commission to fix claims against Spain under the Florida treaty, and the next year Kentucky made him one of her commissioners to adjust military land claims with Virginia. The first of these appointments occupied much of his time until 1824. The following year Andrew Jackson resigned from the United States Senate and White was elected to complete his unexpired term. By repeated subsequent elections he held this seat until his resignation in 1840. As a strict constructionist of the old school, a Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Democrat, he opposed the administration of John Quincy Adams. Becoming chairman of the committee on Indian affairs, he took keen and constructive interest in the concerns of the Indians, and had a large part in the formulation of plans for their removal westward. On December 3, 1832, he was elected president pro tempore of the Senate. As early as 1830 White stated that the Washington Telegraph would not do him justice because he refused to support the cause of either Calhoun or Van Buren for the succession. Senator Tazewell also thought he noticed at this time that White was losing ground with the administration. In 1831 President Jackson reorganized his cabinet, which act was looked upon as a move by the administration to further its scheme for promoting the cause of Van Buren. As a part of this reorganization, John H. Eaton of Tennessee resigned from the war department and Jackson urged White to accept the vacated post. Had he done so, Eaton was expected to fall heir to his seat in the Senate, but White refused. Jackson had offered him the same place upon his accession to office in 1829, and on that occasion, also, White had refused it. Among the reasons that he now gave for his refusal, was that he could not accept office from a friend. He was doubtless sincere in this statement but it is also true that he would have done nothing to aid Van Buren. At any rate, the ways of Jackson and White began to diverge from this point. The candidacy of Van Buren for the succession was unpopular in Tennessee and presently suggestions emanated from this quarter that the Senator himself would become a presidential candidate. In 1834 Jackson threatened that he would ruin White if he did so. White accepted the challenge, and was put in nomination by the legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee, and in the campaign of 1836, with John Tyler as his running mate, received the electoral votes of Tennessee and Georgia. Despite this break with Jackson, White never changed his political principles. He favored Clay for the presidency in 1840 and promised his support after Clay had given pledges not to push his nationalist program and to oppose the annexation of Texas in order to preserve the balance between North and South. On January 13, 1840, White resigned from the Senate when instructed by the legislature of Tennessee to vote for the sub-treasury bill. He died at his home near Knoxville the following April.
An ardent strict constructionist and lifelong states' rights advocate, White was one of President Jackson's most trusted allies in Congress in the late 1820s and early 1830s. White fought against the national bank, tariffs, and the use of federal funds for internal improvements, and led efforts in the Senate to pass the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1833, at the height of the Nullification Crisis, White, as the Senate's president pro tempore, coordinated negotiations over the Tariff of 1833.
(Originally published in 1840. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Though exposed to all the roughness of the frontier, White was essentially a gentleman; he was mild in all his ways and upright in all his dealings. His intellectual interests were confined strictly to the law, and he was endowed with little sense of humor or imagination. His physical make-up was not unlike that of Andrew Jackson, except that the cast of his lean countenance was contemplative rather than aggressive. He had a conscience as strict as that of any Puritan, but his righteousness took the form of public service rather than mere personal piety; the Republic never had a more disinterested servant.
In 1798 he married Elizabeth Moore Carrick, daughter of his old preceptor. In 1831 his wife died at Natural Bridge, Va. , and he personally drove the conveyance which carried her body back to Knoxville. On November 30 of the following year he married Mrs. Ann E. Peyton of Washington. By his first wife he had twelve children, but within six years she and eight of the children died of tuberculosis. Two daughters survived him.
