Background
JOHNSON, Waldo Porter was born on September 16, 1817 in Bridgeport, Harrison County, Virginia, United States, United States. Son of William and Olive (Waldo) Johnson.
lawyer politician United States senator
JOHNSON, Waldo Porter was born on September 16, 1817 in Bridgeport, Harrison County, Virginia, United States, United States. Son of William and Olive (Waldo) Johnson.
Born in Bridgeport, Virginia, he attended public and private schools, graduated from Rector College (Pruntytown, Virginia) in 1839. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Harrison County, Virginia in 1841.
He graduated from Rector College, Pruntytown, Virginia, in 1839, studied law, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1842. Johnson had no religious affiliation. He had five children by his October 27, 1847, marriage to Emily Moore.
In 1842, he moved to Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri, to continue his law practice. During the Mexican War, he served with the 1st Missouri Regiment. Johnson, a Thomas Hart Benton Democrat, was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1847.
The following year he was named circuit attorney for St. Clair County, and in 1851 he became judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit. In 1854, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, but he served in the U.S. Senate from 1861 until his expulsion for support of the Confederacy in 1862. Johnson was a member of the peace convention in Washington in 1861, and in a special session of the Senate in July 1861, he offered a resolution for a peace conference.
He then joined the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel of the 4th Missouri Regiment and was wounded at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in March 1862. He later helped to evacuate Corinth, and in the fall of 1862, he recruited and organized troops for Governor Sterling Price of Missouri. In the fall of 1863, he was appointed by Governor Thomas C. Reynolds to replace R.L. Y. Peyton in the Confederate Senate.
As a member of the first and second Senates, Johnson served on the Claims, Conference, Engrossment and Enrollment, Foreign Relations, and Indian Affairs Committees. He worked to retain currency standards, opposed too rapid devaluation of the currency, and wanted to restore public confidence in the cabinet through turnover in office. Johnson was an ardent supporter and confidential advisor to President Davis.
After the war, he fled to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He returned to Missouri and to his law practice in 1867 and in 1875, was the president of the state constitutional convention. The following year he moved to St. Louis.
He returned to Osceola in 1884 and died there on August 14, 1885.
"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 moved to Osceola, Missouri in 1842 and continued the practice of law, and served in the Mexican-American War as a member of the First Missouri Regiment of Mounted Volunteers. In 1847 he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and was elected circuit attorney in 1848 and judge of the seventh judicial circuit in 1851. Johnson was a member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, District of Columbia, in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war.
He was elected as a Democrat to the United States. Senate and served from March 17, 1861, to January 10, 1862, when he was expelled from the Senate for disloyalty to the government.