Background
James Thomas was born in 1805 in Johnston County, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of John Thomas Leach and Susanna Parham Leach.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
James studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College (now Thomas Jefferson University) in Philadelphia.
congressman physician politician
James Thomas was born in 1805 in Johnston County, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of John Thomas Leach and Susanna Parham Leach.
Family tradition also maintains that Leach studied law in Europe and at Rutgers College, but no record of any such attendance has been found. Soon, however, his admiration for his grandfather persuaded him to study medicine and he entered the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia (now Thomas Jefferson University).
James Thomas Leach made his fortune as a medical doctor, and by the 1850s, Leach owned a Johnston County plantation with one hundred and fifty slaves.
An old-line Whig, Leach in 1858 was elected to one term in the state senate, where he served on the committee on claims and on the joint committee on finance. He was a candidate for the House of Commons in 1862 but this time was defeated. During the secession crisis, Leach was a confirmed Unionist and opposed secession even after Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers in April 1861. In 1863 he campaigned fiercely against three Confederate enthusiasts for a place in the Confederate House of Representatives. He pledged to seek "a just, honorable and lasting peace" and won handily.
In the Confederate Congress, Leach served on the committees on post offices and post roads and on territories and public lands. On the floor, his unbridled antagonism to "reckless legislation... endorsed by the President and the mighty strides toward a military despotism" placed him among the extreme malcontents. He voted to override every veto, to impugn the competence of every cabinet member so charged, and to oppose every major administration war measure. When President Jefferson Davis refused to open peace negotiations, Leach urged separate state action on the best terms available.
Leach apparently avoided the loss of any property after the war, for Branson's Business Directory for 1872 lists him as owning 2,900 acres of land. He was now an active prohibitionist and in 1875 resigned his place on the board of county commissioners rather than certify anyone as a "qualified" barroom operator. He also served as a director of the state asylum for a number of years.
Leach was a long-standing Mason and Methodist.
James Thomas Leach opposed secession. While a state senator from Johnston County, Leechburg, North Carolina, during the early stages of the war, he became a strong supporter of Jonathan Worth. In his campaign for the second Confederate House, Leach denied the right of secession. He was a unionist in the Confederate Congress, and he opposed the Davis administration on almost every issue.
Leach continued to agitate for peace as a Confederate congressman. Although he was anti-war, he was not anti-slavery. He believed that peace would be possible only if the Union agreed to accept slavery as a permanent institution. Congressman Leach also criticized Jefferson Davis. When Davis suspended habeas corpus yet again, Leach wrote to his friend William Graham: "What shall we do to stay the hand of a military despotism more to be dreaded than death itself?"
Out of charity, James took into his sixteen-room home several orphaned boys and two destitute maiden ladies. For a while, he maintained a school in his home, but later he built schoolhouses in the community for his and the neighborhood children.
Leach married Elizabeth Willis Sanders on July 19, 1833. Leach and his wife had eight children: John Sanders, James Thomas, Jr., Elizabeth Mary, Nancy Temperance, Claudius Brock, Sarah Louenza, Cornelia Susan, and Delia Ida.