John Netherland (September 20, 1808 - October 4, 1887) was an American lawyer and politician, active mainly in the mid-19th century Tennessee. A leader of the state Whig, he served in the Tennessee Senate and Tennessee House of Representatives, and was a failing candidate for the governor of the Opposition ticket in 1859. During the Civil War he supported the Union, and was a delegate to the 1861 East Tennessee Convention.
Video John Netherland
Early life and political career
The Netherlands was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, one of eleven children of Richard and Margaret (Woods) of the Netherlands. When John was a baby, his family moved to Kingsport, Tennessee, where his parents set up a rest stop known as the Netherland Inn. Young John was educated at the Tusculum Academy under the famous pastor Samuel Doak, and read the law with Judge Samuel Powell. He was accepted at the bar in 1829, and briefly moved to Franklin, Tennessee, before returning to Kingsport after his father's death.
The Netherlands was elected to the first district seat in the state senate in 1833, when he was only 25 years old. As a state senator, he opposes the Indian removal policies of Andrew Jackson and the Democrats. In 1834, the state constitutional convention rewrote the 1796 Tennessee Constitution. The new constitution places the minimum age for state senators at 30, so he can not seek a second term. He, however, won the election seat of Sullivan County in the Tennessee Representative Council.
The Dutch aligned themselves with the growing Whig Party, which generally opposed Jackson's administration policy. In 1836, he was a voter for the Whig presidential candidate and fellow East Tennessean Hugh Lawson White. During his tenure at the country house, he opposed a bill that instructed US state senators to choose actions that reverse Jackson's criticism. This infuriated the Sullivan Countians, and the Dutch were subsequently forced to resign.
In 1837, the Dutch moved to Rogersville, Tennessee, near Hawkins County, where he would stay for the rest of his life. In 1839, he married Susan McKinney, daughter of a powerful Rogersville lawyer, John A. McKinney. As a wedding gift, McKinney built a home for a young couple, Rosemont, who still stands in downtown Rogersville.
While the Netherlands focused primarily on its legal practice during the 1840s, it remained politically active. He ran unsuccessfully to the state legislature in 1841, losing to a narrow margin. In 1846, the Dutch managed to defend the group of Melungeons who were accused of illegal voting (colored people were prohibited to vote under 1834 of the state constitution). In 1847, he was among the candidates considered by the state legislature to replace Spencer Jarnagin in the United States Senate, but the seat was awarded to John Bell. The Netherlands was a great electorate for Zachary Taylor in 1848, combing the country and arguing Memphis judge William T. Brown and former governor Aaron V. Brown.
In 1851, the Dutch were elected to the Hawkins County seat in the Tennessee Council of Representatives. The following year, he supported Winfield Scott to become president. In October 1852, the Dutch were seriously injured in a train accident while traveling to Calhoun, Tennessee, with Gustavus Henry and Charles McClung McGhee to find Scott.
Maps John Netherland
1859 campaign governor
When the secession crisis arose in the late 1850s, the Dutch, like many East Tennesseans, remained loyal to the Union. To challenge the pro-secession Southern Democrats, pro-Union leaders form the Opposition Party, which supports slavery but refuses secession. In 1859, the party nominated the Dutch to run for governor against the pro-separatist Isham G. Harris.
During the summer of 1859, Harris and the Netherlands engaged in a series of debates at campaign-wide stops across the state. Despite the growth of the crisis, the main issue in most of the campaigns stopped was the Bank of Tennessee, which had become controversial following a series of bank failures in 1857. Harris, who has been quarreling with bank president Cave Johnson, opposed the bank. The Netherlands, on the grounds of banks providing money for state education funds, supported it. The problem of slavery occasionally arose, with Harris attempting to bind the Dutch with abolitionist motives from the northern Republic, and the Dutch accused Harris of sensationalizing the matter.
Historian Oliver Perry Temple, a fellow of Whig and a friend from Netherland, suggests that the Netherland lacks intellectual curiosity and is not very good at reading, and on the contrary depends on "extraordinary" common sense "and" unbearable humor "while campaigning. this nature hurt the Dutch in the governor's race, because Harris came to every debate that was diligently ready to discuss every problem, and sometimes made the Dutch off guard.Remembering the speeches given by candidates at the Tennessee State Capitol in May, Randal McGavock , a friend of Harris, described Harris's speech as "capable and dignified," while the Dutch speech was "filled with anecdotes and cute sayings, but not very healthy."
On election day, Harris defeated the Netherlands, winning 76,073 votes for 68,042 Dutchmen. With a far higher turnout, Harris's margin of victory was 3,000 fewer votes than his victory over Robert H. Hatton in the 1857 governor's race. Democrats narrowly defended the control of the state government, although the Opposition won seven of the ten state congress seats.
Civil War
When the South states considered secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln in the late 1860s and early 1861, the Netherlands, together with Temple, William G. Brownlow, Horace Maynard, T. A. R. Nelson and Thomas D. Arnold, gathered endlessly to garner support for the Union. In February 1861, the Netherlands was a pro-Union Hawkins candidate for a proposed state convention to consider secession. While Tennessee voters refused to convene, sentiment shifted in favor of secession after the Battle of Fort Sumter in April. The majority of East Tennesseans, remain pro-Union.
The Netherlands was a member of the Hawkins County delegation at Greeneville session (17th-20th June 1861) of the East Tennessee Convention, which meets a few days after the state chooses to secede. Together with Temple and James McDowell, he was appointed to a committee that drafted a petition to a state legislature requesting that East Tennessee be allowed to secede and form a separate, unified state. The Dutch opposed a motion calling for the use of force if the legislature refused, and repeatedly emphasized caution. "Our talks and actions will be historic," he said. "We must act calmly, we are in a revolution and that is frightening." Although the threat of force was removed from the last petition, the state legislature continued to reject the request of the convention, and the Confederate forces occupied East Tennessee shortly thereafter.
The Dutch were not active during the war. His father-in-law, McKinney, generally supported the Union, while many of his relatives escorted support for the Confederation (Sullivan County, home of many Dutch people, was one of the few districts in East Tennessee that voted in favor of secession). The Dutch son-in-law, Carrick Heiskell, served in the Confederate Army. In 1864, the Dutch supported Democratic presidential candidate George B. McClellan, in a failed race against Lincoln.
Next life
After the war, the Netherlands was appointed Minister for Bolivia by President Andrew Johnson, but he refused the appointment. The Netherlands is a delegate to the constitutional convention of the state of 1870, which created the current state constitution of Tennessee. In the 1880s, his health declined, forcing him to abandon legal practice.
The Dutch died on October 4, 1887. When he died, he was said to have said, "John long gone, and young John left, and Sarah left, and Molly left," referring to his son, wife, and daughter, all of whom preceded him in death. She is buried in the McKinney Cemetery in Rogersville.
John Netherland Heiskell, the Dutch grandson, briefly represented Arkansas in the United States Senate in 1913.
See also
- Frederick Heiskell
- William Heiskell
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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