Jesse D. Bright

Jesse D. Bright was born at Norwich, Chenango County, New York, December 18, 1814. His father, David G. Bright, a merchant of Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia, was an intimate friend and earnest political associate of Gov. DeWitt Clinton, of New York, through which partiality he was led to change his residence; he removed to Plattsburg, New York, in 1800, and continued business there, turning aside to fill the office of sheriff for 4 years; in 1813, removed to Chenango County, in the same state, of which he was clerk for 4 years, resigning in 1819 to remove west, to Shelbyville, Kentucky; and thence in 1820 to Madison, Indiana, which was his home until his death in 1852, aged 76, except his temporary residence of 4 years at Jeffersonville, Indiana, while U. S. receiver of public moneys there, by appointment of President Tyler, continued under President Polk, until Mr. Bright resigned. His son Jesse, removing with his father, received the best education to be obtained in the academies of the neighborhood, studied law, and began the practice, 1834; when in his 22d year, was elected probate judge for 7 years, 1836-43; but resigned in 1838, to become U. S. marshal for the district of Indiana, 1843-47; this office he resigned in 1841, and was elected state senator for 3 years, 1841-44; resigned this, and was elected lieutenant governor, on the Democratic ticket, for three years, 1843-46; this he also resigned, being elected to the U. S. senate, and twice re-elected, 1845-51, 1851-57, 1857-63 (18 years in all),* but was expelled in 1862, under the administration of President Lincoln. In 1864, he removed to Carroll County, Kentucky; was chosen elector for the state at large of Kentucky, upon the Seymour and Blair ticket, November, 1868; and for four years represented the counties of Carroll and Trimble in the Kentucky. Legislature, 1867-69 and 1869-71; removing; during the latter term, to Covington, Kentucky, where (March, 1873) he still resides.

During his service in the U. S. senate, he was elected president of that body, December 3, 1855 to March 4, 1857, thus being acting vice president of the United States, vice Wm. K. King, of Alabama, deceased. In case of the death of President Pierce during that time, he would have succeeded to the presidential chair. It is well understood that, during his long service in the senate, Mr. Bright declined both missions abroad and cabinet appointments under the administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan.

In the last year of Mr. Bright's third term in the U. S. senate, after the senators from eleven of the Southern states had withdrawn or been expelled, in the second year of the war, he was arraigned for declaring that "he would never vote a man nor a dollar to prosecute a war waged in fraud and violation of the Constitution; nor would he sanction, in any form, a law to declare paper money a legal tender, or to compel any American citizen to accept it as money." His speech delivered on the day of his expulsion, is too long to form a part of this sketch, but ought to be read by all lovers of truth and independence.

When Mr. Bright left the U. S. senate, he did not leave a senator whom he found there on his entrance into that august body, 17 years before. He was the Nestor, young man as he was, having entered the senate in his 31st year. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Thomas H. Benton, Lewis Cass, John J. Crittenden, Levi Woodbury, Silas Wright, the pride of the senate, the great men of the nation, were gone; some dead, others retired. He had been a part of the senate in the days of its greatest renown and usefulness, when it commanded general admiration and veneration as the wisest and the greatest representative body the world had ever seen. Those were, indeed, the "better days of the republic."

In politics, Mr. Bright is well known, where he is known at all, to be Democratic states-rights; and it is well understood belongs to the class of statesmen that is always willing to fearlessly give the reason of the faith within him, and to defend with his hand what his tongue utters. We happen to know that there are few men of his prominent antecedents who now take less interest in political affairs than he. True, he accepted a place on the Kentucky electoral ticket for the state at large in 1868; but his heart was not in the struggle, having no confidence in the courage of the candidates, and not believing they had the most remote chance of success. In the last presidential struggle between Grant and Greeley, he took no part and declined to vote. He is possessed of ample means, and is apparently as youthful and as active as at any period of his life. His devotion to friends, and contempt and defiant tone toward enemies, is one of his ruling characteristics.

Hon. Oliver H. Smith, in his reminiscences of "Early Indiana Trials, and Sketches," published in 1857, himself but recently a United States senator from Indiana, a prominent lawyer, and Whig politician, of the opposite political party to Mr. Bright, whose competitor he had repeatedly been, said of him (page 373): "Jesse D. Bright is emphatically a self-made man. By the force of his native powers, he has risen, step by step, to the high position of president of the senate of the United States. In person he is large and muscular, a strong physical formation, full breast, large expanded chest, full face, large square forehead, hair and eyes dark, five feet ten inches high, mouth wide, head large. He possesses great energy of character, with good common sense, and an iron will giving a strong impetus to his movements. Nature has done much for him, and he has done much for himself. He stands, perhaps, first among the leaders of the Democratic Party in the state. It is understood that he was offered and declined a seat in the cabinet of Mr. Buchanan. As a speaker, Mr. Bright is strong, loud, forcible, impulsive, sometimes eloquent; his forte, however, is in dealing with facts, and in presenting them in a strong, common-sense point of view to his hearers. He always commands attention, by his earnest manner and strong array of facts He has been rather a business than a speaking member of the senate.

*Lanman's Dictionary of Congress


Source: History of Kentucky, Volume II, by Lewis Collins, Published by Collins & Company,
Covington, Kentucky, 1874