James Harlan was an American attorney and politician. He served as an Attorney General of Kentucky, Secretary of State of Kentucky, and Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 5th district.
Background
James Harlan was born on June 22, 1800, in Mercer County, Kentucky, United States, the son of James and Sarah (Caldwell) Harlan. His earliest American ancestor was George Harland, a Quaker from Durham, England, who in early manhood had removed to County Down, Ireland, from which place he emigrated to New Castle, Delaware, in 1687, settling finally in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1695 he was governor of Delaware. His grandson, George Harlan, emigrated to Frederick County, Virginia, where he became a member of the Presbyterian Church. Thence his son James, at the age of nineteen, crossed the mountains into Kentucky, being a companion of James Harrod in his abortive settlement at Harrodsburg in 1774.
Education
After an elementary education and a five-year interval of employment in a mercantile house, young Harlan studied law and in 1823 and was admitted to the bar.
Career
Upon his admission to the bar, Harlan began the practice of his profession at Harrodsburg. In 1829 he began his public career in the office of commonwealth attorney. After holding this position for six years, he was elected in 1835 on the Whig ticket a member of the national House of Representatives, and was reëlected two years later for a second term.
His short congressional career was without special incident except that in 1839 the House chose him chairman of the select committee to investigate the notorious Swartout defalcations. At the conclusion of his two terms in the House, Harlan was one of the leaders of the Whig party in Kentucky, a predominantly Whig state. In 1840, immediately upon his return from Congress, he was selected secretary of state in the administration of Governor Letcher, and in the same year was a delegate to the national convention which nominated Harrison for president.
Upon the expiration of his term as secretary of state he was elected (1845) a member of the lower house of the Kentucky legislature, and in the August election of 1851, after refusing the Whig nomination for Congress from the Ashland district, he was chosen attorney-general of the state. This was the last elective office that Harlan held.
With the approach of the Civil War, like most of the prominent Whigs of his state, he became a staunch Union man and opposed secession. In March 1861 he took an active part in preventing the passage by the legislature of a resolution which was avowedly the initial step toward secession. In May of the same year, in combination with John J. Crittenden, James Speed, and a few others, he formulated the plans for distributing the "Lincoln Guns" to Unionists in Kentucky. It was no doubt in recognition of his services in opposing secession as well as in recognition of his legal abilities that Lincoln appointed him district attorney of Kentucky. This office he held until the time of his death.
In 1850 he was appointed by Governor Crittenden a member of a committee to simplify the rules of practice in the state courts, and the results of his labors may be seen in his book, The Code of Practice in Civil and Criminal Cases, published in 1854. The previous year he had published, with Benjamin Monroe, Digest of Cases at Common Law and in Equity, Decided by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky from Its Organization in 1792 to the Close of the Winter Term of 1852-1853.
Achievements
Politics
A follower of Henry Clay, Harlan was involved in local and state politics. In 1833, he managed the reelection campaign of Congressman Robert P. Letcher. When Letcher decided not to run for another term, Harlan ran successfully to replace him. Harlan was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-fourth Congress and reelected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth Congress.
Personality
Harlan's achievements in the various positions which he held were never of an extraordinary character, but there is tangible evidence that, as a lawyer, he had considerable ability and he certainly acquired a statewide reputation.
Interests
Politicians
Henry Clay
Connections
James Harlan married Eliza Shannon Davenport on December 23, 1822. The couple had six sons and three daughters. One of their sons, John Marshall Harlan, followed his father into the law, becoming an attorney and a judge. Ultimately he was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, where he dissented in the important Plessy v. Ferguson civil rights case, standing up for equal rights under the law. He was also a great-grandfather of another Supreme Court justice, John Marshall Harlan II.
In addition, Harlan may have had a relationship with a mulatto slave and a son by her, Robert James Harlan, born in 1816. He raised the mixed-race boy in his household, where Robert was tutored by two older half-brothers. After having a successful businesses in Harrodsburg and Lexington, Robert went to California during the Gold Rush and earned a fortune of $90, 000. He returned to the Midwest, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1851 and investing in real estate. He was elected as a state legislator in 1886.