U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee finds the evidence insufficient to expel Indiana Senator Jesse Bright

Jesse Bright of Indiana was a senior Democrat, and a slaveowner in Kentucky, who had served in 1860 as president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate.  The previous March, he had written a letter of introduction for an arms-dealer friend to Jefferson Davis in Richmond.  A case for expulsion was referred to the Judiciary Committee in December 1861.  By a vote of 5-2, the committee ruled that the case did not rise to the level required for expulsion.  Despite this, three weeks later, the Senate expelled Bright on a vote of 32-14.  (By John Osborne) 
Source Citation
Robert C. Byrd, Mary S. Hall,The Senate, 1789-1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), 238.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee finds the evidence insufficient to expel Indiana Senator Jesse Bright," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/38660.