Philip Pendleton BARBOUR, Congress, VA (1783-1841)

1783-1841

BARBOUR, Philip Pendleton, (brother of James Barbour and cousin of John Strode Barbour) , a Representative from Virginia; born at “Frascati,” near Gordonsville, Orange County, Va., May 25, 1783; attended common and private schools; was graduated from the college of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va., in 1799; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1800 and commenced practice in Bardstown, Ky.; returned to Virginia in 1801 and practiced law in Gordonsville, Orange County; member of the State house of delegates 1812-1814; elected as a Republican to the Thirteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Dawson; reelected as a Republican to the Fourteenth through the Seventeenth Congresses, reelected as a Crawford Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and served from September 19, 1814, to March 3, 1825; Speaker of the House of Representatives (Seventeenth Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1824; offered the professorship of law in the University of Virginia in 1825, but declined; appointed a judge of the general court of Virginia and served for two years, resigning in 1827; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twentieth and Twenty-first Congresses and served from March 4, 1827, until his resignation on October 15, 1830; chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (Twentieth Congress); president of the Virginia constitutional convention in 1829; appointed by President Jackson, June 1, 1830, judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, declining the chancellorship and the post of attorney general; refused nominations for judge of the court of appeals, for Governor, and for United States Senator; appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and served from March 15, 1836, until his death in Washington, D.C., February 25, 1841; interment in Congressional Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present