Home › B › Bell (JOHN an American statesman)

Bell (JOHN an American statesman)

JOHN, an American statesman, born near Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 18, 1797; was admitted to the bar in 1816; member of Congress from 1827 to 1841; Speaker in 1834, and Secretary of War in 1841. During this period he changed from an ardent free trader to a protectionist and supporter of the Whigs , and favored the reception of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; afterward (1858) he vigorously opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave State. He sat in the United States Senate from 1847 to 1859, and, in 1860, was nominated for the Presidency by the "Constitutional Union " party, but received only 39 electoral votes, cast by the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. He died at Cumberland Ironworks, Sept. 10, 1869.