John Watkins Crockett was an American politician and lawyer. He also was a representative of the state in the First Confederate Congress.
Background
John Watkins Crockett was born on May 17, 1818, in Jessamine County, Kentucky, United States. He was the son of a farmer, John W. Crockett, and Louisa Bullock Crockett. His grandfather, colonel of a Virginia regiment during Revolution, emigrated to Kentucky in 1782 and was prominent in erecting the state government.
Education
The younger Crockett was educated in the local schools of Jessamine and in Hancock County, Illinois, where his sister resided. In 1839 he commenced the study law in Hopkinsville.
Career
In 1839 John Watkins Crockett was admitted to the bar and practiced in Paducah, Kentucky and Henderson, Kentucky.
He represented the Second Congressional District of Kentucky at the Southern Rights Convention in 1861. Also, John was a representative of Kentucky at the Border Slave State Conference and was a delegate to the Russellville Convention in 1861. He was a member of the Council of Ten in the Provisional Government of Kentucky. John was a Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary for the Provisional Government of Kentucky and served the Second Congressional District as a member of the First Confederate Congress in the House of Representatives from 1862 to 1864.
After his return to Henderson, Kentucky John Crockett practiced law.
Achievements
Politics
Crockett, though a Whig politician and a unionist, supported secession after Fort Sumter.
Views
John Watkins Crockett had a low opinion of Congress' role during wartime. He deemed debate largely a waste of time and proposed to ban the discussion of military defeats lest it causes dissension. Once he took a long leave of absence, asserting that he could do more good in Kentucky than in Richmond. Notwithstanding this attitude, he advocated comprehensive wartime legislation. He particularly wanted to take the fight to the enemy. Crockett's only administration bias was the conviction that making Treasury notes legal tender or forcing people to exchange them for new notes would do nothing but create disaffection on the home front.
Connections
John Watkins Crockett had two children by his first marriage to America Smedley, and a son by his second marriage to Louisa Ingram. He was the father of John W. Crockett III, Lucy Crockett Thornberry, and Wyatt Ingram Crockett.