Slidell, John

SLIDELL, John, a Representative and a Senator from Louisiana; born in New York City in 1793; graduated from Columbia College (later Columbia University), New York City, in 1810; studied law; admitted to the bar in New York City; practiced law and engaged in business; moved to New Orleans around 1819 and engaged in law and business; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1828 to the Twenty-first Congress; United States district attorney 1829-1833; unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1834, 1836, and 1848; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses and served from March 4, 1843, until his resignation on November 10, 1845; chairman, Committee on Private Land Claims (Twenty-eighth Congress); appointed Minister to Mexico in 1845, but that government refused to accept him; offered the mission to Central America in 1853, but declined; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1853 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Pierre Soule; was reelected, and served from December 5, 1853, to February 4, 1861, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Thirty-fourth Congress); on November 8, 1861, while on a diplomatic mission from the Confederate States to England and France, was taken from the British mail steamer Trent, sailing from Havana to England, and confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor; was later released and sailed for Paris; died in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England, July 9, 1871; interment in the private cemetery of the Saint-Roman family at Villejuif, near Paris, France, in the Departement de la Seine.