Lazarus Whitehead Powell

Background

He was born on October 6, 1812 in Henderson County, Kentucky, United States, the third son of Lazarus and Ann (McMahon) Powell.

Education

His formal schooling was begun in his home county, and he graduated from St. Joseph's College in Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1833. He immediately began to study law under John Rowan at Bardstown, and continued his course in law at Transylvania University in Lexington, where he enjoyed the excellent lectures of George Robertson.

Career

On his admission to the bar in 1835 he formed at Henderson a partnership with Archibald Dixon, which lasted for four years. He also became interested in agriculture, and as a planter he added to his fortune.

Attracted by the opportunity for a political career, he ran as a Democrat for the lower branch of the state legislature in 1836 and was elected. He failed to be reelected and resumed the practice of law. By 1848 he had attained a prominence that got for him the nomination for the governorship, but he found it impossible to defeat a Whig of the strength of John J. Crittenden. In 1851, running against his former law partner, Archibald Dixon, he obtained the election and became the first Democratic governor since the days of Andrew Jackson. Failing to capture the legislature, he found it necessary to veto many bills during his four years of office.

In January 1858 he was elected to the federal Senate for the term to begin on March 4, 1859, and in April following his election he was appointed by President Buchanan to be one of the two commissioners to go to Utah to seek to compromise the difficulties there. The Kentucky legislature in October 1861 requested his resignation; and shortly thereafter his colleague, Garret Davis, introduced resolutions for his expulsion. The Senate refused to expel him; and before the end of the war both his state and his colleague admitted that they had been wrong, and he had been right.

After the expiration of his term on March 3, 1865, he returned to his home in Kentucky, where he continued the practice of law. In 1866 he attended the Johnson convention in Philadelphia, and the next year he was a strong contender before the Kentucky legislature for the Senate. On the first ballot he received a higher vote than any other person, but finally he lost to Garret Davis.

Six months later he died of apoplexy at his home near Henderson.

Achievements

• Lazarus Whitehead Powell was the Governor of Kentucky and the reforms enacted during his term were of the top educational systems in the antebellum S. He also improved Kentucky's transportation system and vetoed legislation that he felt would have created an overabundance of banks in the Commonwealth. After his death a state voted to erect a monument over his grave and to have prepared at the expense of the state 3, 800 copies of his biography. The state also created a new county and named it for him - Powell County, Kentucky.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Mr. Powell's defense

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Speech of Hon. L. W. Powell, of Kentucky, on executive usurpation

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

Politics

Though of strong Southern sympathies, he did not favor the secession of Kentucky; yet he rejected the idea of the coercion of the South. In line with the mass sentiment of Kentuckians, he stood for the neutrality of his state, and he worked feverishly in the Senate to bring about a compromise between the sections.

He looked with many misgivings on the war waged by the Union against the Confederacy, and throughout the struggle he opposed the Government's policy of political arrests and military interference with elections.

Connections

On November 8, 1837, he married Harriet Ann Jennings who bore him three sons and died in 1846.

Father:

Lazarus Powell

Mother:

Ann (McMahon) Powell

Spouse:

Harriet Ann Jennings

colleague:

Garret Davis

Partner:

Archibald Dixon

teacher:

George Robertson

teacher:

John Rowan