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.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Lawmaking/Litigating
