Mason, James Murray

Life Span
to
    Full name
    James Murray Mason
    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 Pennsylvania
    William & Mary
    Occupation
    Politician
    Diplomat
    Attorney or Judge
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Government
    Confederate government (1861-65)
    Diplomat
    US Senate
    US House of Representatives
    State legislature

    James Murray Mason (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Unlike most political leaders from the Upper South, Mason strongly believed that slaveholders' rights could not be protected within the Union and supported the radical secessionist leadership of the South. In Mason's view, the industrializing North, corrupted by banking interests, threatened the southern way of life. A strict constructionist, he was the author of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and believed slavery should be expanded into the territories without restrictions. In 1850 he refused to join Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, William L. Yancey, and other southern moderates and instead allied himself with Robert Barnwell Rhett and other obstructionists, who refused any concessions to the antislavery element in Congress in the interest of a compromise on the issue of slavery in the territories. By that time Mason did not wish to preserve a Union that rejected southern values and leadership, and he was prepared to secede from the Union. In 1856 he was similarly outspoken in his commitment to lead Virginia out of the Union if the newly formed Republican party was successful in electing John C. Frémont as president.
    Charles M. Hubbard, "Mason, James Murray," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00666.html.

    James Murray Mason (Congressional Biographical Directory)

    Reference
    MASON, James Murray, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia; born on Analostan Island, Fairfax County, Va. (now Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.), November 3, 1798; studied under a private tutor and at an academy at Georgetown, D.C.; graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1818 and from the law department of William and Mary College at Williamsburg in 1820; admitted to the bar and practiced in Winchester, Va., in 1820 and 1821; delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention in 1829; member, State house of delegates 1826-1832, with the exception of 1827-1828; presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1832; elected as a Jackson Democrat to the Twenty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1837-March 3, 1839); elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1847 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Isaac S. Pennybacker; reelected in 1850 and 1856 and served from January 21, 1847, until March 28, 1861, when he withdrew; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses; expelled from the Senate in 1861 for support of the rebellion; chairman, Committee on Claims (Thirtieth Congress), Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-first Congress), Committee on Foreign Relations (Thirty-second through Thirty-sixth Congresses), Committee on Naval Affairs (Thirty-second Congress); delegate from Virginia to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy; appointed commissioner of the Confederacy to Great Britain and France and while on his way to his post was taken from the British mail steamer Trent November 8, 1861, and confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor; released in January 1862; proceeded to London and represented the Confederacy until its downfall in April 1865; resided in Canada after the close of the war until 1868, when he returned to Virginia; died at “Clarens,” near the city of Alexandria, Va, April 28, 1871; interment in Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery, Alexandria, Va.
    "Mason, James Murray," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000216.
    Date Event
    The Senate of the United States opens a week long special session in Washington, DC
    - The Senate of the United States is sitting in a week long special session in Washington, DC
    The Senate of the United States ends its week long special session in Washington, DC
    U.S. Senate votes unanimously for a committee to investigate the Harpers Ferry Raid
    Thaddeus Hyatt arrives in Washington but defies the Senate Harpers Ferry Committee
    Senate Committee investigating Harpers Ferry issues warrant for arrest of Frank Sanborn
    The U.S. Senate orders arrest of Thaddeus Hyatt for failure to appear before Harpers Ferry Committee
    The U.S. Senate imprisons Thaddeus Hyatt for failure to appear before Harpers Ferry Committee
    After more than three months, the U.S. Senate releases Thaddeus Hyatt from the Washington Jail
    Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell slip through the Charleston blockade bound for Europe
    Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell sail from Havana for Europe aboard a British ship
    A U.S. warship intercepts and boards a British mail ship off Cuba to arrest Confederate diplomats
    In Liverpool, the news of the interception and seizure of Mason and Slidell reaches England
    In the Trent Affair, the British Foreign Secretary demands an apology and release of Mason and Slidell
    The United States releases the Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell into British custody
    The news of the release of Slidell and Mason reaches the British Isles
    The Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell finally arrive in England
    Mason affair results in severe embarrassment for Moncure Conway
    Date Title
    New York Times, “Governor Walker in Washington,” December 15, 1857
    (Concord) New Hampshire Statesman, “Douglas in the Senate,” March 6, 1858
    Milwaukee (WI) Sentinel, “Who are the Agitators?,” December 16, 1858
    New York Times, “The Amistad Case,” December 17, 1858
    New York Herald, “Some of Our Diplomatic and Consular Deficiencies,” January 19, 1859
    New York Times, “The Political Future,” February 26, 1859
    Carlisle (PA) American Volunteer, "Trial of Brown, the Insurgent," November 3, 1859
    San Francisco (CA) Evening Bulletin, “The New Crusade against the Union,” December 29, 1859
    Chicago (IL) Press and Tribune, “The Harper’s Ferry Inquisition,” February 15, 1860
    Boston (MA) Advertiser, “Mr. Hyatt’s Case,” February 29, 1860
    Ripley (OH) Bee, “The John Brown Investigation,” July 5, 1860
    Lowell (MA) Citizen & News, "Who Are For Disunion?," August 8, 1860
    Chicago (IL) Tribune, “Bad For Virginia,” February 20, 1861
    Charles Wilkes, USN to Gideon Welles, Final Report on the seizure of Mason and Slidell, November 16, 1861
    New York Herald, “Mason and Slidell,” November 17, 1861
    President Jefferson Davis, Message to the Confederate Congress, November 18, 1861
    Memorandum by Alexander T. Galt, Canadian diplomat, describing interview with Abraham Lincoln, December 5, 1861
    New York Herald, "Settlement of the Trent Difficulty," December 29, 1861
    Raleigh (NC) Register, “Mr. Vallandingham’s Speech,” January 18, 1862
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Sutherland, Keith A. "The Senate Investigates Harpers Ferry." Prologue 8, no. 4 (1976): 193-207. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Mason, James Murray," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6179.