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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—TennesseeBELL, John
(1797—1869)
Senate Years of Service:
1847-1855; 1855-1857; 1857-1859
Party:
Jacksonian; Anti-Jackson; Whig; Opposition; American (Know-Nothing)
BELL, John, a Representative and a Senator from Tennessee; born near Nashville, Tenn., February 15, 1797; graduated from the University of Nashville in 1814; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1816 and commenced practice in Franklin, Tenn.; member, State senate 1817; declined to be a candidate for reelection and moved to Nashville; elected to the Twentieth, and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1827-March 3, 1841); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Twenty-third Congress); chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs (Twenty-first through Twenty-sixth Congresses, except for Twenty-third), Committee on Judiciary (Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses); appointed by President William Henry Harrison as Secretary of War March 5, 1841, and served until September 12, 1841, when he resigned; member, State house of representatives in 1847; elected as a Whig to the United States Senate in 1847; reelected in 1853, and served from November 22, 1847, to March 3, 1859; unsuccessful candidate in 1860 for President of the United States on the Constitutional Union ticket; investor in ironworks at Cumberland Furnace in Chattanooga, Tenn.; died at his home on the banks of the Cumberland River, near Cumberland Furnace, September 10, 1869; interment in Mount Olivet Cemetery, near Nashville, Tenn.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography
; Parks, Joseph H. John Bell Of Tennessee
. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950.
Caldwell, Joshua W. “John Bell of Tennessee: A Chapter of Political History.” American Historical Review
4 (July 1899): 652-64.
Grim, Mark Sillers. “The Political Career of John Bell.” Master’s thesis, University of Tennessee, 1930.
The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of John Bell
. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1860.
McKellar, Kenneth. “John Bell,” in Tennessee Senators as seen by one of their Successors
. Kingsport, Tenn.: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1942, 251-261.
Moore, Powell. “James K. Polk and the ‘Immortal Thirteen.’ ‘’ East Tennessee Historical Society’s Publications
11 (1939): 20-33.
Parks, Joseph H. “John Bell and the Compromise of 1850.” Journal of Southern History
9 (August 1943): 328-56.
___. John Bell of Tennessee
. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950.
Parks, Norman L. “The Career of John Bell as Congressman from Tennessee, 1827-1841.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly
1 (September 1942): 229-49.
___. “The Career of John Bell of Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives.” Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1942.
Scott, Jesse W. “John Bell: A Tennessee Statesman in National Politics from 1840 to 1860.” Master’s thesis, Tennessee A. & I. State College, 1950.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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