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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—GeorgiaBERRIEN, John Macpherson
(1781—1856)
Senate Years of Service:
1825-1829; 1841-1845; 1845-1852
Party:
Jacksonian; Whig; Whig
BERRIEN, John Macpherson, a Senator from Georgia; born at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, N.J., August 23, 1781; moved with his parents to Savannah, Ga., in 1782; graduated from Princeton College in 1796; studied law in Savannah; admitted to the bar and began practice in Louisville, then the capital of Georgia, in 1799; returned to Savannah; elected solicitor of the eastern judicial circuit of Georgia in 1809; judge of the same circuit from 1810 until January 30, 1821, when he resigned; captain of the Georgia Hussars, a Savannah volunteer company, in the War of 1812; member, State senate 1822-1823; elected as a Jacksonian to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1825, until March 9, 1829; resigned to accept the position of Attorney General in the Cabinet of President Andrew Jackson and served from March 9, 1829, until June 22, 1831, when he resigned; resumed the practice of law; again elected, as a Whig, to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1841, until May 1845, when he again resigned to accept an appointment to the supreme court of Georgia; again elected in 1845 to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by his second resignation; reelected in 1846 and served from November 13, 1845, until May 28, 1852, when he resigned for the third time; chairman, Committee on Judiciary (Twentieth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses); president of the American Party convention at Milledgeville in 1855; died in Savannah, Ga., January 1, 1856; interment in Laurel Grove Cemetery.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography
; Govan, Thomas P. “John Macpherson Berrien and the Administration of Andrew Jackson.” Journal of Southern History
5 (November 1939): 447-67; McCrary, Royce, Jr. “John Macpherson Berrien of Georgia: A Political Biography.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, 1971.
Govan, Thomas P. “John M. Berrien and the Administration of Andrew Jackson.” Journal of Southern History
5 (November 1939): 447-67.
Leach, Richard H. “John MacPherson Berrien: A Re-Evaluation.” Georgia Review
10 (Winter 1956): 468-76.
MacDonell, Alexander R. “John Macpherson Berrien.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
17 (March 1933): 1-12.
McCrary, Royce. “John Macpherson Berrien of Georgia (1781-1856): A Political Biography.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, 1971.
___. “John Macpherson Berrien and the Know-Nothing Movement in Georgia.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
61 (Spring 1977): 35-42.
McCrary, Royce, ed. “The Authorship of the Georgia Platform of 1850: A Letter by Charles J. Jenkins.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
54 (Winter 1970): 585-90.
___, ed. “A Federalist View of Georgia Politics in 1808: A Letter by John Macpherson Berrien.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
58 (Winter 1974): 447-49.
___, ed. “Henry W. Hilliard and the Southern Caucus of 1848-49: A Letter to John Macpherson Berrien.” Alabama Historical Quarterly
37 (Summer 1975): 151-53.
Mellichamp, Josephine. “John M. Berrien.” In Senators from Georgia
, pp. 99-103. Huntsville, AL: Strode Publishers, 1976.
Miller, Dorothy Burke. “John MacPherson Berrien and the Whig Party.” Master’s thesis, Emory University, 1950.
Neustadt, Margaret Lee, ed. John MacPherson Berrien Papers in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina Library
. Chapel Hill: Southern Historical Collections Library, University of North Carolina, 1967. Microfilm. 3 reels and guide.
Rogers, William Warren, ed. “Georgia Elects a Senator: Political Conflict in 1840.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
47 (September 1963): 332-36.
Smith, C. Jay, Jr. “John McPherson Berrien.” In Georgians in Profile: Historical Essays in Honor of Ellis Merton Coulter
, edited by Horace Montgomery, pp. 168-91. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1958.
Walton, Brian G. “Georgia’s Biennial Legislatures, 1840-1860, and Their Elections to the U. S. Senate.” Georgia Historical Quarterly
61 (Summer 1977): 140-55.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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