Background
HUBBARD, David was born in 1792 in either Tennessee or Old Liberty, Virginia, the son of Revolutionary War soldier Major Thomas Hubbard and his wife Margaret, United States.
Businessman Industrialist lawyer Bureaucrat
HUBBARD, David was born in 1792 in either Tennessee or Old Liberty, Virginia, the son of Revolutionary War soldier Major Thomas Hubbard and his wife Margaret, United States.
Born near the town of Old Liberty (now Bedford), Bedford County, Virginia, Hubbard attended the county schools and an academy. He studied law.
He attended country schools in Tennessee and was an Episcopalian. He had six children by his marriage to Eliza Campbell. After her death, he married Rebecca Stoddard, a daughter of Benjamin Stoddard.
Hubbard served under Andrew Jackson at New Orleans during the War of 1812. He was wounded and became a major in the Quartermaster’s Corps. When the war ended he studied law in Tennessee.
In 1819, he settled in Huntsville, Alabama, where he worked as a carpenter and practiced law. He moved to Florence, Alabama, in 1823 and became county solicitor, before moving to Moulton, Lawrence County, in 1827 to embark upon a varied career in business and politics. In 1829, he moved to Courtland, Alabama, to buy and sell Chickasaw lands.
At various times in his life, Hubbard built and owned cotton factories, tanneries, shoe factories, and flour mills. In the 1840s, he also constructed one of the first railroads in Alabama. A states’ rights Democrat who employed slave labor in his factories, Hubbard served on the Ways and Means Committee during his term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1839 to 1841.
He lost a campaign for reelection but served a second term in the House from 1849 to 1851. He was a delegate from Alabama to the Southern commercial convention in 1859 and an elector for John C. Breckinridge in 1860. Hubbard had opposed the Compromise of 1850, and, in 1860, warmly supported secession.
(Both the D.A.B. and the Biographical Directory of Congress claim that he served in the Confederate States House. There is no record of his attendance in the Confederate States House Journal.) From 1863 until 1865, he was the Confederate commissioner of Indian Affairs, a position which he filled with tact and skill. He was responsible for handling many difficulties with the Indians and managed to hold their loyalty to the Confederacy.
After the war, he was financially ruined. He moved to Spring Hill, Tennessee, where he ran a tan yard.
"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.
He served as a member of the State senate in 1827 and 1828. He served as a member of the board of trustees of the University of Alabama 1828–1835. He served as a member of the State house of representatives in 1831, 1842, 1843, 1845, and 1853.
He served as a member of the Confederate States House of Representatives 1861–1863.
Married Eliza Campbell. Married second, Rebecca Stoddert.