Background
PERKINS, John, Jr. was born on July 1, 1819 in Natchez, Mississippi, United States, United States. Son of John and Mary Bynum (Rivers) Perkins.
PERKINS, John, Jr. was born on July 1, 1819 in Natchez, Mississippi, United States, United States. Son of John and Mary Bynum (Rivers) Perkins.
Private school, northern university, law school.
He was educated by private tutors and graduated from Yale College in 1840 and from Harvard Law School in 1842. In 1843, he began a law practice in New Orleans, Louisiana, which he relinquished four years later to become a cotton planter in Louisiana. Perkins, whose father was a Presbyterian, was himself a Catholic and a Democrat.
He was also a close friend of J.D.B. DeBow. His first marriage, to Mary Potts in 1850, ended when his wife deserted him. Perkins subsequently married Evelyn May.
He had no children. He traveled in Europe in 1848-1849 and lived in Paris, where he was engaged in research for the Louisiana Historical Society, which he helped to organize. Active in local politics in 1851, he was judge of the Circuit Court for Madison Parish, and from 1853 to 1855, he served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He took over his father’s plantation in 1857, but, although his father had been rich in land, Perkins made no money as a planter.
As chairman of the state secession convention in 1861, he wrote the Secession Ordinance. In the provisional Confederate Congress, he served on the Printing and Foreign Affairs Committees and assisted in drafting the Constitution. Perkins also represented Madison Parish in the permanent Confederate House from 1862 to 1865 and was praised by the Louisiana legislature for his relief work on behalf of Confederate soldiers in Richmond.
He favored the tax-in-kind, generally supported the administration, and served on the Foreign Affairs, Rules, Ways and Means, and Commerce Committees. He incurred heavy debts during the war, and when the war ended, he did not return to his plantation. He traveled extensively in Mexico and tried to establish a coffee plantation in Cordoba, Spain.
He remained in Europe until 1878.
"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.