Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro

Life Span
to
Full name
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter
Place of Birth
Burial Place
Birth Date Certainty
Exact
Death Date Certainty
Exact
Gender
Male
Race
White
Sectional choice
South
Origins
Slave State
Education
University of Virginia
Occupation
Politician
Attorney or Judge
Political Parties
Democratic
Whig
Government
Confederate government (1861-65)
US Senate
US House of Representatives
State legislature
Other state government

Robert Hunter (Congressional Biographical Directory)

Reference
HUNTER, Robert Mercer Taliaferro, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia; born at “Mount Pleasant,” near Loretto, Essex County, Va., April 21, 1809; tutored at home; graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1828; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1830 and commenced practice at Lloyds; member, State general assembly 1834-1837; elected as a States-Rights Whig to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1837-March 3, 1843); Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Twenty-sixth Congress; unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-eighth Congress; elected to the Twenty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1845-March 3, 1847); chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia (Twenty-ninth Congress); elected to the United States Senate in 1846; reelected in 1852 and 1858 and served from March 4, 1847, to March 28, 1861, when he withdrew; expelled from the Senate in 1861 for support of the rebellion; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings (Thirtieth through Thirty-second Congresses), Committee on Finance (Thirty-first through Thirty-sixth Congresses); delegate from Virginia to the Confederate Provincial Congress at Richmond; Confederate Secretary of State 1861-1862; served in the Confederate Senate from Virginia in the First and Second Congresses 1862-1865 and was President pro tempore on various occasions; was one of the peace commissioners that met with President Abraham Lincoln in Hampton Roads in February 1865; briefly imprisoned at the end of the Civil War; State treasurer of Virginia 1874-1880; collector for the port of Tappahannock, Va. 1885; died on his estate ‘Fonthill,’ near Lloyds, Va., on July 18, 1887; interment in ‘Elmwood,’ the family burial ground, near Loretto, Va.
"Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000988.
Chicago Style Entry Link
Hitchcock, William S. "The Limits of Southern Unionism: Virginia Conservatives and the Gubernatorial Election of 1859." Journal of Southern History 47, no 1 (1981): 57-72. view record
Hitchcock, William S.  "Southern Moderates and Secession: Senator Robert M. T. Hunter's Call for Union," Journal of American History 59, no. 4 (1973): 871-884. view record
How to Cite This Page: "Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5947.