Background
HANLY, Thomas Burton was born on June 9, 1812 in Nicholsonville, Kentucky, United States, United States.
congressman farmer lawyer state politician
HANLY, Thomas Burton was born on June 9, 1812 in Nicholsonville, Kentucky, United States, United States.
Public school.
Little is known about his childhood or his family. A Democrat, he was a farmer and lawyer and settled in Helena, Phillips County, Arkansas, in 1833. In 1842-1843, he served in the Arkansas House, and in 1846, he was circuit judge for the First Circuit.
He spent the years 1852-1855 in the state Senate, and he became an associate justice of the state Supreme Court in 1858. As a delegate to the Arkansas convention in 1861 he voted for secession, but he wanted the Ordinance of Secession to be submitted to the popular vote. Hanly represented the Fourth Congressional District of Arkansas in both the first and the second Confederate House of Representatives.
An anti-administration man in the first House, he became staunchly pro-administration in the second, following an easy reelection campaign. An active, energetic man, he served on the Claims, Conference, and Indian Affairs Committees in both Houses. Hanly also served on the Enrolled Bills, Post Office and Post Roads, Quartermaster’s and Commissary, and Military Transport Committees in the first House, and the Impressments, Military Affairs, and Pay and Mileage Committees of the second House.
He was a member of the special committee to hold Confederate States’ elections in occupied states in the first House and of the special committee on claims against the Confederate government in the second. In the first House, Hanly was an enemy of Henry S. Foote of Tennessee. As the war came to an end, many Arkansas congressmen left Richmond, but Hanly remained until after the president escaped.
He then returned to Arkansas and resumed his law practice. He was an opponent of Reconstruction. Restrictions kept him from public office until the end of the radical regime.
He was elected to the state legislature in 1879.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.