John Floyd was a Virginia politician and soldier, who represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 25th Governor of Virginia.
Background
John Floyd was born on April 24, 1783, at Floyds Station, Virginia (now Jefferson County, Kentucky), the third and youngest child of John Floyd and Jane Buchanan, niece and ward of Colonel William Preston.
After his father had been killed by Indians, mother, Jane Buchanan, married Alexander Breckinridge, who also died in 1801.
Education
Floyd learned to read and write at his mother’s knee and attended school in the neighboring log school-house till he was thirteen years old, when he entered Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A serious illness prevented his graduation.
Floyd moved to Philadelphia and was placed under the care of Doctor Benjamin Rush, an experience that influenced his decision to pursue a medical career.
After an apprenticeship in Louisville, Kentucky, Floyd enrolled in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1804 and became an honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical Society and a member of the Philadelphia Medical Lyceum.
Floyd was graduated in 1806 and his graduating dissertation was entitled An Enquiry into the Medical Properties of the Magnolia Tripetala and Magnolia Acuminata.
Career
After a brief practise at Lexington, Virginia, Floyd removed to Christiansburg, and soon became widely known as a successful physician. He served as a surgeon with the rank of major in the War of 1812 until he was elected as a nationalist to the General Assembly in 1814. Here he voted for all resolutions giving power to the federal government.
In 1817 he was elected to Congress from the "Abingdon District" and was continuously reelected for twelve years. He supported Clay’s proposition for sending a minister to Buenos Aires; favored the immediate recognition of Argentina; defended Andrew Jackson’s policy in Florida and opposed his censure; and was one of the four Virginia representatives who voted for the Missouri Compromise.
Floyd has been given the credit for first proposing in Congress, January 25, 1821, the occupation and territorial organization of the Oregon country. His identification with the interests of the frontier may be attributed to his boyhood life and to his intimate association with William Clark, with Thomas Benton, and with George Rogers Clark for whom both a brother and a son were named in his family. His Oregon Bill was introduced and defeated several times, and when he retired from Congress in 1829 he was best known as its sponsor. He took an active part in the election of Jackson and was disappointed in not being recognized in the cabinet.
From 1829 to 1830 Floyd engaged in the practise of his profession and gave much attention to scientific grazing, in anticipation of the future of his section of the state.
On January 9, 1830, he was elected governor of the state by the legislature, as the choice of the state-rights element, and in 1831 was reelected for a three-year term. Without committing himself on the question of a white or a mixed basis of representation then agitating the state, he accepted heartily the compromise constitution of 1830, and exerted himself to promote the development of transportation facilities for the western part of the state.
After the Nat Turner insurrection, Floyd was in sympathy with the western members who were working for abolition. Later he accepted the pro-slavery doctrines of Prof. Thomas R. Dew, of the College of William and Mary, and gave himself to the defense of state sovereignty. This resulted in a complicated struggle against Jackson and Ritchie, later against Van Buren, and attempts to unite Clay and Calhoun as leaders of a new party. Floyd himself was supported by South Carolina for the presidency.
Soon after retiring from office in 1834 he suffered a stroke of paralysis and died on August 16, 1837, in Sweet Springs in Monroe County, Virginia (now West Virginia).
Achievements
Religion
In 1832, Floyd's daughter, Letitia Floyd Lewis, converted to Catholicism, and "owing to her prominence, caused a sensation throughout the state" of Virginia. Then followed other family members, including John Floyd himself after he left office as governor.
Politics
In 1816, John Floyd was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives, and served from March 4, 1817 to March 3, 1829.
Floyd served as Governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834. In 1832, Floyd received votes for the Presidency of the United States, running in the Nullifier Party. He carried South Carolina and its 11 electoral votes. While governor of Virginia, the Nat Turner slave rebellion occurred and Floyd initially supported emancipation of slavery, but eventually went with the majority.
Views
During the second term, the occurrence of the Nat Turner slave uprising caused Floyd to reevaluate his views on slavery and abolition. Nonetheless, John Floyd retained his pro-slavery views and attempted to bring Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun together in a new political party to support such views. But the attempt was unsuccessful.
Membership
John Floyd became a member of the Union Philosophical Society in 1797. Also, Floyd became an honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical Society and a member of the Philadelphia Medical Lyceum.
Connections
In May 1804, John Floyd married Letitia Preston, daughter of his father’s friend, Colonel William Preston. The couple had twelve children.