John Tod

Background

Tod was born in November 1779 in Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut. He was the son of Rachel (Kent) and David Tod, an emigrant from Scotland. He was the brother of George Tod and the uncle of David Tod.

Education

He attended the common schools of Connecticut, and, while still a youth, lived for a time in New York.

He studied law in the office of his brother George.

Career

In 1802 he removed to Bedford, Pa. , where he practised very successfully. During 1806 and 1807 he was clerk to the county commissioners of Bedford County. From 1810 to 1813 he sat in the state House of Representatives and was speaker twice. From 1814 to 1816 he was a member of the state Senate, in which he was president for a time. His record in the legislature was one of cooperation with the Democratic majority. Like many of his colleagues from the western counties he urged the adoption of more extensive programs for the construction of roads and canals and for the promotion of manufactures.

He was elected by the Democrats to Congress, where he served from March 4, 1821, until his resignation in 1824.

In 1824 he was appointed president judge of the 16th judicial district of the state. On May 25, 1827, he was appointed associate justice of the state supreme court. He died in Bedford, Pa.

Achievements

• John Tod is remembered as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Politics

He was a ready debater with a lofty conception of his obligations to his constituents. A member of the committee on military affairs, he was an advocate of an extensive military establishment and in 1822 vigorously urged larger appropriations for fortifications and the ordnance department. If necessary he would have abolished all military bands in favor of appropriations for these branches of the service on the theory that it was "better to part with our fiddlers, than our laborers".

In 1822, when it was proposed to increase the number of congressmen in the reapportionment bill, he denounced the idea as "an heretical and pernicious innovation in American politics, supported by no reason, nor recommended by any experience" of the American people. To increase the membership would bring in a "legislative rabble" and would be like increasing a club of debaters ten times over "because speeches are reproductive of speeches, and the more is said the more there remains to say".

During 1823-24 he was chairman of the house committee on manufactures and in this capacity worked indefatigably for higher duties and for a wide extension of the protective list. In the debates on the tariff of 1824 he urged higher duties as a military necessity to encourage manufactures for the nation's needs in case of war. Pointing to the danger and disgrace of habitual reliance upon foreign nations for the daily necessaries of life, he saw in the tariff a means of utilizing natural resources, especially hemp, glass, lead, and iron, of finding a market for the raw products of the farmer, and of preventing money from being drained out of the country by foreign nations--a scheme that he thought would, in the final analysis, reduce the cost of commodity prices instead of increase them. He declared that all the devastations and losses of the War of 1812 were nothing compared with the devastations and losses of manufacturing capital under the tariff of 1816.

Connections

In 1817 he married Mary R. Hanna. They had three daughters.

Father:

David Tod

Mother:

Rachel (Kent) Tod

Spouse:

Mary R. Hanna

References

• Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927
• Notes and Queries, Historical and Genealogical, Chiefly Relating to Interior Pennsylvania: Series 1-3 Reprints, Series 4 Annual Volume, 1896-1900 (Classic Reprint)
• History of Bedford, Somerset, and Fulton Counties, Pennsylvania : With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men