John Rhea was an American soldier and politician of the early 19th century.
Background
John Rhea was born in 1753 in County Donegal, Ireland, the eldest of eight children of Joseph and Elizabeth (McIlwaine) Rhea. His father, the third son of Matthew Rhea or Reah or Creah and a descendant of the house of Campbell, was a Presbyterian clergyman who in 1769 emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania, then to Maryland. In 1775 he bought lands in what is now eastern Tennessee, on which the family settled in February 1778.
Education
He served as a soldier in the Revolution, and in 1780 he graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton).
Career
He was incorporator or trustee of three colleges across the Alleghanies, Washington College, Greeneville College, now Tusculum, and Blount College, now the University of Tennessee. As a clerk of the court of Sullivan County under North Carolina's jurisdiction, he opposed the rebellious state of Franklin movement and recorded the articles of agreement drawn up in March 1787 between North Carolina and the almost defunct state of Franklin.
In 1789 he sat in the House of Commons of North Carolina as well as in a special convention of that state, in which he voted for the ratification of the federal Constitution. When Tennessee became a territory, he was licensed to practise law in the several territorial courts. In the convention that framed the first state constitution in 1796 and in the first two sessions of the legislature of the infant state he sat for Sullivan County. From 1803 until 1823, excepting for the Fourteenth Congress 1815-17, he served in the federal House of Representatives.
On October 24, 1816, as one of three federal commissioners, he signed a treaty with the Choctaw Indians.
He died leaving a large estate. He was buried at Blountville near his old home. His name is perpetuated in Rhea County and in Rheatown in Greene County, Tennessee.
Religion
Devoutly religious, as chairman of the committee on post office and post roads he opposed the delivery of mails on Sunday; he believed in a "Mighty Being who raises and depresses nations".
Politics
He was a typical Democrat, hostile to Great Britain, antagonistic to the renewal of the bank charter in 1811, and friendly to agricultural as against commercial interests. He favored a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and he "would not torture and twist it out of its proper shape". Like Jefferson he decried "a consolidated government". He advocated in 1814 annexation of the Canadas, destruction of naval armaments, and peace at home as well as abroad.
As a lover of freedom and as a humanitarian, he opposed the use of drafted labor on roads as a restraint on the liberty of free men.
In January 1815 he supported the re-cession of the District of Columbia to Maryland and Virginia inasmuch as the constitutions of neither of these states provided for the cession of any citizens or for depriving them of their right to vote. He opposed slavery and expressed sympathy for the "unfortunate" slave states.