Background
James Alcorn was born on November 4, 1816, in Golconda, Illinois Territory, United States. His parents were James Alcorn and Hannah Louisa Lusk. At an early age, he moved to Kentucky with his family.
James Alcorn was born on November 4, 1816, in Golconda, Illinois Territory, United States. His parents were James Alcorn and Hannah Louisa Lusk. At an early age, he moved to Kentucky with his family.
James Alcorn graduated from Cumberland College.
James Alcorn received his license to law practice in 1838. In 1844 he traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the newly settled town of Delta in northwestern Mississippi. He joined the aristocratic Whig party and a year after his arrival was elected to the state legislature, where he served either as a representative or senator until 1857. He also became the foremost advocate of a centralized levee system to protect the rich delta lands of Mississippi from flooding.
During the period before the Civil War, Alcorn was a staunch unionist, but as a delegate, at the secession convention, he dramatically reversed his stand and voted for secession. After serving briefly as a state general, he retired to his plantation and limited his loyalty to his state, defying both the occupying Union Army and the Confederate government.
Considering the Republican party the successor to the Whig party, Alcorn joined it after the war, and he was elected governor in 1869. He made progress in reconstructing his war-torn state but had trouble handling the increasing violence inspired by the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1871 he became a United States senator, but by this time another faction had formed in the Republican party advocating complete equality for African Americans. This split within the Republican party, plus a program of intimidation and violence by the Klan, enabled the Democrats to regain control of the state government in 1875. Since Alcorn, unlike many other former Whigs, refused to join the Democrats, his political career ended with the expiration of his term as senator in 1877. In 1890 he emerged from retirement to participate in the state convention which rewrote Mississippi's constitution that disfranchised African Americans.
James Lusk Alcorn was a prominent member of the Whig party in Mississippi before the Civil War. After the war, he became a leader of the Republican party in his state.
Although a former slave owner, he accepted the emancipation of the slaves and supported enfranchisement of African Americans, viewing them as a new lower class, like lower-class whites, for whom he and others of his class would provide leadership.
Aggressive and energetic in his law practice and in the acquisition of land, Alcorn quickly became a leading citizen in Mississippi.
In 1839, Alcorn married Mary Catherine Stewart by whom he had three children prior to her death. In 1850 he married the second time to Amelia Walton Glover. This marriage produced five children.
Senator
Brigadier general