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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—GeorgiaJohn Macpherson BERRIEN
(1781-1856)
Senate Years of Service:
1825-1829; 1841-1845; 1845-1852Party: Jacksonian; Whig;
WhigBERRIEN, 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.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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