John Henderson

Background

John Henderson was horn on February 28, 1795 in Bridgeton, New Jersey. His father was a native of Scotland.

Education

As a youth John Henderson engaged in flatboating on the Mississippi River, read Blackstone in leisure moments, and later studied law in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Career

While still a young man John Henderson emigrated to Mississippi and practised law at Woodville and Pass Christian. In 1835 and 1836 he represented Wilkinson County in the state Senate where as chairman of a committee to which his own resolutions had been referred he drafted a report which declared that the House of Representatives assembled was not a legal House and that the legislature was not the legislature authorized by the constitution and the laws, because of the admission of representatives from new counties not recognized in the act of apportionment. The resolutions were adopted by the Senate. The House refused unanimously to concur. The governor broke the deadlock by proclaiming on January 31, 1835, the adjournment of hoth houses.

Henderson was elected to the United States Senate in 1839 as a Whig and served for six years, though in 1840 the Mississippi House of Representatives demanded his resignation for opposing the independent treasury bill. A warm supporter of the annexation of Texas and of the conquest of Cuba and Mexico, he was closely connected with John Anthony Quitman in enterprises looking to the continental expansion of the United States and was active in the support of Lopez in his filibustering expeditions against the Spanish authorities in Cuba. After the defeat of the Cadenas expedition Lopez went to New Orleans to prepare for another invasion of Cuba and there he had the support and sympathy of Henderson, who at the time was a practising lawyer at the New Orleans bar. Henderson died at Pass Christian in 1857.

Achievements

• John Henderson has been listed as a noteworthy senator by Marquis Who's Who.

Politics

Henderson was a Whig in politics, but he supported the doctrine of the sovereignty of the states in all governmental functions not delegated to the federal government.

Connections

John Henderson was twice married. His second wife was Louisa (Fourniquet) Post, whom he married in 1830.

Spouse:

Louisa (Fourniquet) Henderson

Son:

John Henderson

Son:

Elliot Henderson