Henry S. Foote: Two-Time Traitor

(Source)

The bitter political rivalry between Henry Stuart Foote and Jefferson Davis was never more apparent than on Christmas Day in 1847. The senators from Mississippi were lodging in the same boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., and a discussion about popular sovereignty grew heated. Although the exchange between the senators is unrecorded, Davis eventually struck Foote after he used language that Davis found offensive.

Others in the room separated the two men, but tempers flared again after Foote pronounced that Davis had "struck first." Davis denounced Foote as a liar and threatened to beat him to death if he repeated the claim. Foote instead punched Davis, who returned the blow. Davis suggested that the two of them go to a locked room where he kept his pistols, a less than subtle challenge to a duel. The bystanders in the boardinghouse finally succeeded in calming the men, suggesting that it was all a case of "Christmas frolic" and that it should be kept private.

However, the issue resurfaced a couple of years later. Davis heard that Foote had been boasting that he had struck Davis with impunity. Davis wrote to Foote to ask the rumor was true, and Foote denied it in a lengthy reply. Davis was not wholly satisfied, but his friends convinced him that it was good enough. They also pointed out that a duel between the two would be seen as unfair; Davis had military experience in both the Black Hawk War and the Mexican War, while Foote was a poor enough shot that he had been wounded in three of the four duels he had participated in.

While the rivalry between Foote and Davis never again rose to violence, they remained bitter rivals even as Davis became president of the Confederacy and Foote reluctantly joined the Confederate Congress. Foote would always have a reputation as a hot-tempered politician who was quick to fight, but also proved to be one of the strongest voices against secession. Yet he would also have the dubious honor of being accused of disloyalty in both the North and the South.

Early life

Foote was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, on February 28, 1804. He graduated from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in 1819. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1823, and moved to Alabama two years later to begin a practice in Tuscumbia. He also began editing a weekly newspaper.

In his youth, Foote became known for his propensity to fight duels. He was a participant in four contests of honor between 1828 and 1837, challenging an opponent twice and getting challenged on the remaining two occasions. He was shot in the shoulder in the first incident, after which he moved to Mississippi and began practicing law in Jackson, Natchez, Raymond, and Vicksburg. A dispute with fellow lawyer Sergeant S. Prentiss occurred between 1832 and 1833, after Foote threw an inkstand at Prentiss; this action led to a duel where he was again wounded in the shoulder. The rivalry was later rekindled, with Foote receiving "an exceedingly dangerous wound" in the right leg. In his last duel, Foote managed to shoot a rival in the hip during an exchange of five shots.

Not surprisingly, Foote was known for having a short fuse and his quick temper didn't endear him to many people. One Alabama newspaper would compare him to "a high pressure steamboat on fire." He was also well-known for his short stature and bald head. One tongue-in-cheek account described Foote as a "great humbug, perfect gentleman, entire horse, and part alligator."

Foote briefly left Mississippi in 1839 to journey to the Republic of Texas, which had won independence from Mexico three years earlier. Although the republic's leaders wanted it to be annexed to the United States, concerns over incorporating a new slave state into the nation had kept Texas an independent nation. It would remain so until 1845. Foote would write a book on his experience, Texas and the Texans, and publish it in 1841.

Senate

In 1839, Foote won his first political race when he was elected to the Mississippi house of representatives. He was later elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, beginning his term on March 4, 1847. He became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, an assignment he held throughout his Senate career.

Foote found few friends among his fellow senators, who dreaded his long-winded speeches. If they became particularly impatient with his rhetoric, some senators would start to hiss or groan to try to get him to finish up. "I know my rights," he shot back at one point, "and will maintain them too, in spite of all the groans that may come from any quarter."

The tensions of the antebellum era, coupled with Foote's pugnacious streak and unpopularity, all but guaranteed that his Senate career would come with a few bruises. In addition to the fight with Davis, he got into a brawl with Simon Cameron of Pennslyvania on the last night of the 1848 session. The men came to blows after Foote cut Cameron off as he was speaking, saying Cameron had no right to speak in the Senate since his term had ended. In March 1850, he fought with Senator Solon Borland of Arkansas on a street corner after describing Borland as a "servile follower" of John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina senator and former vice president who was strongly in favor of states' rights and the preservation of slavery.

One senator refused to stoop to violence even in the face of threats from Foote. John P. Hale, a senator from New Hampshire, became known for openly opposing slavery. Though opposed to secession, Foote was a slaveholder and despised abolitionists. At one point, he earned the nickname "Hangman Foote" when he threatened on the floor of the Senate that he would personally help with the lynching of Hale if he ever dared to travel to Mississippi. Hale calmly replied that Foote would receive a kind and warm welcome if he ever wanted to visit New Hampshire.

Compromise of 1850

Even though he was quick to fight with others, Foote did not want to see the nation descend into war. Among the politicians in the South, he was one of the few to take a staunch position against the idea of secession. Along with Senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Stephen Douglass of Illinois, he became a principal architect of the Compromise of 1850.

This landmark agreement came about following the Mexican War, when the United States acquired the entire northern half of the Mexican Empire. The issue of whether slavery would be permitted in this territory became more pressing when the gold rush of 1849 led to a rapid increase in the population of California, making it eligible to become a state. With the California delegates unequivocally opposed to slavery, there was a strong possibility that the balance between free and slave states in Congress would be upset - potentially prompting the southern states to secede.

Several ideas were proposed in Congress to remedy the California question, along with other issues facing the nation. Foote himself offered a bill in January 1850 to provide territorial governments for California, New Mexico, "Deseret" in Utah, and a new state carved out of western Texas called Jacinto. Henry Clay, a longstanding Kentucky senator who had earned the nickname "The Great Compromiser" for his role in negotiating the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and Tariff Compromise of 1833, offered eight resolutions related to the former Mexican territory.

Henry Clay delivers a speech on his compromise proposals (Source)

President Zachary Taylor wanted the issue of California's admission as a state to be referred to the Senate Committee on Territories. Foote suggested that it go before a special 13-man committee, along with the other proposals suggested by Clay, so they could be brought before Congress in a single bill. Clay, who had intended to have his proposals considered separately, gave Foote's suggestion what would be a lasting nickname: an "omnibus bill," after the horse-drawn conveyance that was becoming popular for urban transportation. Clay worried that his proposals would be shot down if they were bundled together, declaring that Foote's proposal put into an omnibus "all sorts of things and every kind of passenger, and myself among them."

Foote, in turn, charged that Clay was "throwing into the hands of his adversaries all the trump cards in the deck." In other words, he considered that Clay's proposals benefited the North while offering little in return to the South. "My allegiance is to this Union and to my state," Clay rebutted, "but if gentlemen suppose they can exact from me an acknowledgement of allegiance to any ideal or future contemplated confederacy of the South, I here declare that I owe no allegiance to it; nor will I, for one, come under any such allegiance if I can avoid it."

The issues on the table were so weighty that many senators wondered whether the Union could be preserved. Senators like Foote felt that California's admission into the Union would provoke the South into secession, but that it would be possible to preserve the nation if the northern states made a number of concessions in exchange for California statehood. However, many of his constituents in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South were actively calling for secession. Then on March 4, Senator John C. Calhoun expressed his thoughts on the issues facing the nation.

Calhoun was a much respected member of the Senate. During his long political career, he had served four terms in the House of Representatives, acted as Secretary of War in President James Monroe's Cabinet, and been elected Vice President to President John Quincy Adams. He had served in the Senate since 1832, with a brief hiatus to join President John Tyler's cabinet as Secretary of State.

By the time the 1850 measures appeared before the Senate, Calhoun was 67 years old suffering from severe illness. He was so weak that he could not deliver his own address (it was read by Senator James M. Mason of Virginia) but there was no mistaking that his words were a rallying cry for southern sectionalism. Calhoun declared that the equilibrium between the North and South had broken down, with the northern states having "exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the [South] without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression."

Calhoun suggested that the North had excluded the South from newly acquired territories and placed an undue tax burden on the region, appropriating most of the proceeds to northern manufacturing interests. This industry, he argued, made the North a more popular destination for immigrants and consequently increased these states' power in national elections. He said relations between the North and South had been further strained by abolitionists' fervent denunciations of slavery. If the state of affairs continued, he suggested, the South would have no choice but to secede.

The Senate should not be discussing any sort of compromise, Calhoun concluded. Rather, the North needed to concede equal right to the territories acquired in the Mexican War, work to return fugitive slaves to their owners, "cease the agitation of the slave question," and establish a constitutional amendment to restore the South to equal power in the government.

"At all events, the responsibility for saving the Union rests on the North, and not the South," Calhoun declared. "The South cannot save it by any act of hers, and the North may save it without any sacrifice whatever, unless to do justice and to perform her duties under the Constitution should be regarded by her as a sacrifice."

Foote was appalled by the address, believing the course demanded by Calhoun would make secession "almost inevitable." Not only was Calhoun obstructing a compromise, he charged, but he was "heard to denounce the very name of compromise." He also wondered why Calhoun had not consulted with other southern senators before making his speech. "To speak plainly, I almost felt that a noose was put around my neck, while asleep, and without having antecedingly obtained my consent," he complained.

Calhoun showed little regard for Foote's concerns. About 10 days after his address, he said, "Well sir, I never did consult any man upon any speech I ever made. I make speeches for myself."

The fiery speech was one of the last ones Calhoun would make. He died on March 31.

Feud with Benton

By the time of Calhoun's death, Foote had been openly disdainful of Senator Thomas Hart Benton for several months. A Democrat from Missouri, Benton and Foote agreed on many issues. However, Foote despised what he saw as Benton's pompous attitude. "On meeting him face to face my first unfavorable impressions of him were greatly strengthened,and the excessive vanity and egotism constantly displayed by him, both in conversational scenes and in the Senate, inspired me with feelings of disgust and aversion which I have seldom experienced," he wrote in his autobiography.

In December 1849, Foote had essentially accused Benton of stealing his proposal for territorial governments in the new lands taken in the Mexican War. He said the Missouri senator had used language "of the coarsest scurrility and envenomed abuse," and insinuated that Benton had inspired slaves to flee Missouri for freedom in Illinois. Benton, a slaveholder himself, had once been prone to violent outbursts but had cooled down considerably after killing a man in a duel in 1817. He responded to Foote's harangue by simply walking out of the chamber.

It was only the start of a prolonged bullying campaign against Benton. In one particularly fierce rant, Foote accused him of colluding with Senator William Henry Seward, a New York abolitionist who would become President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, to undermine the power of the southern states. He also said Benton had conspired with England to sabotage the peace with Mexico and supported California statehood because his son-in-law John C. Fremont would likely become one of the state's senators. Foote even criticized the "imposing nasality" of Benton's Missouri accent. On February 20, 1850, he accused Benton of being motivated by "an intense self-love" and said the senator wouldn't hesitate to sabotage the Union for personal gain.

The relationship between the two men was further frayed by Benton's opposition to the omnibus compromise bill, which he dubbed a "monster." When Benton joined the debate on March 28, Foote ridiculed him as "the Caesar, the Napoleon of the Senate." Benton protested that such personal attacks were in violation of the Senate's rules of decorum, but Foote wouldn't let up. He accused Benton of "parading himself as the peculiar friend and champion of California." Referencing the elopement of Benton's daughter Jessie with Fremont, he suggested that the Missouri senator wanted to "drag California into the Union before her wedding garment has been cast about her person." Foote said that if Benton was truly aggrieved by his insults, he could demand satisfaction through a duel.

"I pronounce it cowardly to give insults where they cannot be chastised. Can I take a cudgel to him here?" Benton responded. "Is a senator to be blackguarded here in the discharge of his duty, and the culprit go unpunished?" Vice President Millard Fillmore, presiding over the Senate session, ignored Foote's attacks and ruled that Benton's remarks were out of order.

Curiously, Fillmore regretted the lack of civility in the Senate during a funeral held in the chamber for Calhoun just six days later. He said the Vice President was once the only person who could declare a senator out of order for their behavior, but that Calhoun had modified the rules while he was Vice President to allow senators to better police their own behavior. However, Fillmore said he didn't think the Senate had been doing enough to foster a friendly environment. "A slight attack, or even an insinuation, of a personal character, often provokes a more severe retort, which brings out a more disorderly reply, each senator feeling a justification in the previous aggression," he said.

The remark foresaw the inevitable clash between Benton and Foote. This incident was likely spurred by remarks over the recently departed Calhoun; indeed, Benton had declared that the former Vice President "died with treason in his heart and on his lips," firing up secessionists across the South before passing away. On April 17, the two men got into a heated argument in the Senate, with Foote bringing up the insinuation that Benton had been taking bribes.

After months of insults, Benton had finally reached a breaking point. He angrily rose from his seat and stormed toward Foote, who immediately retreated into the aisle and drew a pistol. Bedlam erupted in the chamber as other senators tried to prevent any violence. Though Benton's words vary from source to source, their meaning remains constant: he was unarmed, Foote intended to kill him, and he was welcome to commit such a cowardly murder. According to one source, Benton threw open his shirt front and declared, "Let him fire! Stand out of the way! I have no pistols. Let the assassin fire!"

Thomas Hart Benton dares Henry S. Foote to shoot him. (Source)

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Foote surrendered the weapon to Senator Daniel Dickinson of New York, who locked it in his desk. Benton continued to shout at Foote, accusing him of making an assassination attempt. Foote denied the charge, saying he had started carrying the pistol for self-defense after being threatened by another senator in a cloakroom a few days earlier.

Preceding the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks by six years, the incident was a potent illustration of just how fraught the tensions between the North and South were. Some senators demanded that Foote be expelled, and a resolution was quickly introduced to investigate the incident. When no one wanted to serve on it, Fillmore had to name seven members.

In July, the committee concluded that the confrontation between Foote and Benton was like nothing that had ever occurred before in the Senate. Although the senators agreed that Foote had "indulged in personalities toward Mr. Benton of the most offensive character, such as were calculated to rouse the fiercest resentment in the human bosom," they also concluded that Foote had been acting in self-defense when he drew a pistol. The committee recommended no further action, hoping the incident would provide "a sufficient rebuke and warning not unheeded in the future."

Governor of Mississippi

Initially opposed to the omnibus strategy, Clay had announced on April 8 that he would support it. "You may vote against it if you please in toto, because of the bad there is in it, or you may vote for it because you approve of the greater amount of good there is in it," he said.

Foote continued to support the compromise, denouncing an alternate measure offered by Davis as nothing but "a sort of southern Wilmot Proviso." Davis's proposal called for the federal protection of slavery in the territories, but Foote argued that this measure would actually help undermine slavery. Since those in favor of slavery had traditionally argued that the practice was constitutionally protected everywhere except the free states, he said, it was an accepted notion that Congress had no authority to legislate on slavery issues. He said that if Davis's measure was adopted, it could quickly lead to abolition and "utterly exterminate our favorite domestic institution, and plunge the whole South in hopeless and remediless ruin."

The omnibus bill called for the admission of California into the Union as a free state and the abolition of the slave trade in Washington, D.C., in exchange for a stronger fugitive slave law and the possible expansion of slavery into the West through popular sovereignty. When this legislation was voted down, Foote tried unsuccessfully to have California divided into two states, one slave and one free. This proposal was voted down with 33 opposed and 23 in favor.

Despite these failures, the Compromise of 1850 still made it through Congress. Stephen Douglas of Illinois resumed the effort to pass the measures as five separate bills, which covered all of the issues in the omnibus and had Texas surrender its claims on New Mexico territory. Foote frequently visited the House of Representatives after the measures passed the Senate, offering assistance to members there.

Foote was the only man among all of Mississippi's representatives and senators to support the Compromise of 1850. After the close of the congressional session in September, the state legislature commended Davis and the four congressmen for their opposition to the measures. It also censured Foote for his support.

Despite this rebuke, there was a fair amount of support in Mississippi for the preservation of the Union. In 1851, Foote was selected as the gubernatorial candidate for the newly formed Union Party to counter pro-secession Democratic candidate John Quitman. The bitter campaign was chiefly focused on whether or not Mississippi should quit the Union; at one campaign stop in Sledgeville, Foote and Quitman came to blows and had to be separated. Quitman delayed his schedule to stop in towns two days after Foote, and Foote subsequently began accusing Quitman of being afraid to meet him face to face.

John Quitman, who dropped out of the gubernatorial race against Foote (Source)

Quitman soon dropped out of the race, and the Democrats chose Davis to take his place. In the general election, Foote squeaked out a narrow victory, earning 999 more votes than Davis out of 57,717 cast. He resigned from the Senate on January 8, 1852, to begin his term as governor.

Secession was still the main issue of the day, and Foote found little support in the Democratic legislature. These members named a Whig to fill Foote's seat in the Senate and a former Union Democrat to fill the vacancy left by Davis, then postponed the election for a senator who was to start serving in 1854. Foote also tried to get the legislature to formally support the Compromise of 1850, but its members stubbornly refused to do so.

In 1853, Mississippi voters chose secessionist candidate John J. McRae for governor. Frustrated by the mood in his state, Foote resigned five days before the expiration of his term; state senate president John J. Pettus held the office for these last days. One year later, Foote moved to California.

Snubbed in California

Although he renounced any political ambition in his new home, Foote soon became strongly involved with the Know Nothing party. At the 1855 state elections, this nativist movement gained a 3-1 majority in the state assembly and a one-vote advantage in the state senate.

In a June 1855 speech, Foote decried the continuing sectional tensions in the United States as the "most hazardous crisis that had ever risen in our national affairs demanded the serious consideration of the patriot, and every lover of his country." He worried that "fanatics" in both the North and South threatened to tear the country asunder. The best solution, he believed, was to have Whigs and Democrats opposed to Democratic President Franklin Pierce unite in a party dedicated to the good of the entire nation.

Although he claimed that he was no longer interested in being a politician, Foote was one of the top people considered for the Know Nothings' Senate nomination. However, he was soon dealt a black eye when he engaged in an unnecessary quarrel with the Sacremento Union, a Whig newspaper that had backed the Know Nothings in 1855. When the paper denounced the party's Senate candidates as "gaming politicians" and "migratory partisan quacks," Foote took offense and said the publication shouldn't be speaking in generalities. The Union accepted the challenge, publishing an article outlining the reasons why Foote shouldn't be considered for office. These included his inability to work well with others, "impolitic acts" such as the confrontation with Benton, and his brief time in California.

The last reason was particularly galling to state senator Wilson G. Flint, a Know Nothing who hated slaveholders and considered Foote a carpetbagger. While the state assembly voted 57-19 on January 11, 1856, to meet four days later to elect a U.S. senator, Flint joined a 17-15 vote to postpone the joint meeting to January 22. When this day arrived, he threw his support behind a motion to postpone the election of a senator indefinitely. These actions negated the Know Nothings' one-vote majority, and the Senate seat remained vacant until the next year.

Foote remained loyal to the Know Nothings, who supported Filmore for President in the 1856 election. When both the nation and California supported Democratic nominee James Buchanan, the Know Nothing party in California disintegrated. Foote subsequently rejoined the Democrats, but took no active role in the 1857 election.

In July, Foote announced that he would be traveling to Washington, D.C. in September to attend a session of the Supreme Court. Although the implication was that he would only be there for a brief period, he never came back to California. Instead, he returned to Mississippi and settled near Vicksburg. Critics charged that this action confirmed their suspicions that Foote had only been interested in fulfilling his political ambitions in California.

Nevertheless, most of Foote's children remained in the state and several became prominent in the West. Henry S. Foote Jr. became a California superior court judge, while another son, W.W. Foote, was a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to the Senate in 1892. His son-in-law William M. Stewart settled in Nevada, where he was named by the Republicans as one of the first senators from this state.

William M. Stewart, Foote's son-in-law, riding a mule in Nevada (Source)

The "open assailant"

Foote remained in Mississippi only briefly, opting to move when it became clear that the state was going to secede. He settled near Nashville, Tennessee, and was a delegate to the Southern convention in Knoxville. He supported Northern Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas in the contentious 1860 election, agreeing with the Illinois senator's proposal to preserve the Union through popular sovereignty.

Even though he had opposed secession throughout his career, Foote supported the Confederacy after Tennessee left the Union in June 1861. The state was one of four to secede after the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in April, kicking off the Civil War. By this point, Foote said, to oppose secession in the South was to be labeled a "coward and submissionist" and possibly exposed to intimidation and violence. Moreover, his family supported the cause, with his sons serving in the Confederate military.

Foote returned to politics, getting elected as a Tennessee representative to the First and Second Confederate Congresses and starting his service in 1862. In his first term, he chaired the Committee on Foreign Affairs as well as a special committee to investigate illegal arrests and losses on the battlefield. In his second term, he chaired another special committee on illegal impressment.

The relationship between Foote and Davis, now President of the Confederacy, had not improved. Foote became known for his harsh criticism of Davis's administration and his handling of the war. He constantly demanded information on military movements and battles, advocated an offensive rather than defensive war against the Union, and ordered some 30 inquiries into suspected ineptitude and corruption. Foote was particularly suspicious of quartermasters, whom he suspected of reaping private profits through the supply of the Confederate military.

In addition to his disdain for Davis, Foote held little regard for the members of his administration. He managed to oust Judah Benjamin as Secretary of War after introducing a vote of no confidence against him in 1862. While this action followed the loss of Roanoke Island in North Carolina as well as losses in the western states of the Confederacy, it was also influenced at least in part by anti-Semitism. At one point, Foote ranted that Jews had "deluged" the Confederacy and taken over important trades; he said that if this alleged shadowy influence continued, they would "probably find nearly all the property of the Confederacy in the hands of Jewish shylocks." He later declared that he would not support the creation of a Confederate Supreme Court as long as Benjamin "shall continue to pollute the ears of majesty Davis with his insidious counsels."

Benjamin wasn't Foote's only target. He claimed that his critiques of Confederate Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger and Secretary of War James Seddon, along with his call for them to be removed from office, had influenced the men's resignations. He called Commissary General Lucius B. Northrop "a curse to the country" after learning that Northern prisoners of war were not getting enough food. At one point, Foote introduced an amendment to limit Davis's presidential powers but it failed with 45 against and 14 in favor.

Foote's opposition to Davis became so protracted that the Confederate president described him as his "only open assailant in Congress." Foote was against secret sessions of the Confederate Congress, conscription efforts and, the suspension of habeas corpus (unless the enemy was within sight of Richmond). He opposed the continuation of the war after Lincoln offered peace terms in 1863 and 1864, and tried unsuccessfully to introduce his own measures to stop the conflict.

Not surprisingly, Foote was as unpopular in the Confederate Congress as he had been in the U.S. Senate. One newspaper commented that he was a "verbose talker, a loose and inaccurate thinker" who "talks about every thing; and to little purpose." In one incident, Representative Edmund S. Dargan of Alabama attacked him with a Bowie knife during a debate after Foote called him a "damned rascal." When others stopped Dargan and took the knife away, Foote, perhaps recalling Benton's words, proclaimed, "I defy the steel of the assassin!"

Foote also got into a scuffle with Northrop and Representative Thomas B. Hanly of Missouri after laughing at Hanly's testimony during a committee hearing. John Mitchell, an Irish patriot and exile who had joined the staff of the Richmond Examiner, was so incensed by Foote's disrespect that he sent William G. Swan of Tennessee to deliver a duel challenge. When Foote responded that he would not accept the challenge because Swan was no gentleman, Swan responded by striking him with an umbrella, leaving a gash on Foote's head.

Expulsion

On Christmas Eve, 1864, Foote wrote to the Speaker of the House to say that he intended to resign at the end of the year. Shortly thereafter, he departed for the United States with his wife Rachel. He was reportedly heading for Washington, D.C., on an unauthorized trip to present a peace plan to Lincoln. Foote never completed the journey; he was arrested on January 10, 1865, although Rachel was allowed to proceed since her passport was in order.

Some of Foote's fellow representatives, perhaps tired of Foote's antics in the Confederate Congress, urged Davis to allow him to leave the South. Instead, a special committee was set up and decided by one vote to return Foote to Richmond. He spoke in his own defense on January 19, arguing that the arrest had violated his rights.

The Committee on Elections took up the issue, and recommended that Foote be thrown out of the Confederate Congress. Its report stated that he had tried to go to the U.S. capital without permission, intended to resign but withdrew his letter after his failed mission, and was "guilty of conduct incompatible with his duty and station as a member of the Congress of the Confederate States." The committee's minority report suggested that he had an honest motive, but that his actions were still "highly reprehensible" and deserving of censure.

The vote taken on January 24 was 51-25 in favor of Foote's expulsion. While this was more than two-thirds of the congressmen present, there were 33 members who were absent. Since the Confederate Constitution held that a congressman could only be expelled by a two-thirds vote of the entire membership, the motion failed. Instead, the Confederate Congress voted 64-6 to adopt the minority report and censure Foote.

Just one week later, Foote was arrested again. This time, he had made it to the United States and sheltered with his son-in-law William M. Stewart, the senator from Nevada. U.S. authorities gave Foote the option of returning to the South or going abroad. He chose the latter, leaving for England in February 1865. While there, he issued a manifesto calling on the Tennessee delegation to secede from the Confederacy and rejoin the Union.

Foote's actions earned him the nickname "Vallandingham of the South," a reference to the deportation of Clement Vallandigham, a Democratic congressman from Ohio, to the Confederacy after his vocal opposition to the Civil War. On February 27, the Confederate Congress again took up the question of whether to expel Foote. Declaring that his actions had indicated a disavowal of the Confederacy and a renunciation of his duties as a congressmen, the vote was 73-0 in favor.

After just six weeks in London, Foote returned to the United States. He was again taken into custody and held in New York City. On May 1, Foote wrote to President Andrew Johnson and asked that he be allowed to go to the Pacific coast, to be with his family and "spend the evening of his days in quietude and repose." Johnson was unsympathetic; he ordered Foote to leave the United States within 48 hours or be charged with treason.

Foote went abroad once more, this time to Montreal. But on May 15, he said he was willing to come back to the United States and face whatever jury trial Johnson deemed fit. He reminded Johnson of how they have served together in Congress and noted his longstanding opposition to secession before the Civil War. "It has been my fate to be grossly misjudged and misrepresented by men of extreme views, both in the North and in the South," he complained.

On June 30, Foote asked for a presidential pardon. Johnson was not amenable to this request, but on August 26 he allowed Foote to return to the U.S. Rather than face criminal charges, he would simply have to take an oath and give his parole of honor. Foote arrived in New York City in December.

Later years

After settling in Nashville, Foote moved to Washington, D.C. and began practicing law. He also started writing for a newspaper and completed more books, including Bar of the South and the Southwest and an autobiography entitled Casket of Reminiscences.

While praising President Ulysses S. Grant's inaugural address in 1869, Foote supported his opponent Horace Greeley (the candidate of the Democrats and Liberal Republicans) in 1872. Foote transitioned to the Republicans in 1876, supporting candidate Rutherford B. Hayes.

Foote was subject to political restrictions under the Fourteenth Amendment, which barred those who had served in the U.S. government and then joined the Confederacy from seeking office. However, his privileges were restored in 1869. After Hayes became President, he appointed Foote as superintendent of the U.S. Mint at New Orleans. Foote held this post from 1878 until his death on May 20, 1880.


Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, National Governors Association, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, "Clay's Last Compromise" on Senate.gov, "Bitter Feelings in the Senate Chamber" on Senate.gov, "Henry S. Foote's Duels" in the Chicago Tribune on Aug. 31 1873, The Overland Monthly, Foote Family and Genealogy by Abram W. Foote, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress, Confederate Incognito: The Civil War Reports of "Long Grabs" a.k.a. Murdoch John McSween 26th and 35th North Carolina Infantry edited by E.B. Munson, At the Edge of Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union by Robert V. Remini, America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union by Fergus M. Bordewich, Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper Jr., On the Brink of Civil War: The Compromise of 1850 and How It Changed the Course of American History by John C. Waugh, The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War by Leonard L. Richards, The American Senate: An Insider's History by Neil MacNeil and Richard A. Baker, Dixie Betrayed: How the South Really Lost the Civil War by David J. Eicher, Leaders of the American Civil War: A Biographical and Historiographical Dictionary edited by Charles F. Ritter and Jon L. Wakelyn, Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction by James Alex Baggett, The Confederate States of America 1861-1865: A History of the South by E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate Congress by Wildred Buck Yearns, Encyclopedia of Mississippi by Nancy Capace, The Journal of Southern History Vol. 9, Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America Vol. VII, The Papers of Andrew Johnson, The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Letters of Warren Akin: Confederate Congressman, Arkansas: A Narrative History by Jeannie M. Wayne, Casket of Reminiscences by Henry S. Foote

Theodore G. Bilbo: race to the end

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

Theodore Gilbert Bilbo's earlier career has been virtually overshadowed by the hateful rhetoric he embraced during his time as a United States Senator. Long before his race baiting ways started to eat away at his political strength, however, Bilbo had run afoul of bribery accusations in state level positions. In each bribery matter, he took a dubious but effective defense: admitting to taking a bribe, but maintaining that he only did so to expose corruption by his foes.

The first incident happened in 1909, a year after Bilbo started serving in the Mississippi state senate. Senators for Congress were still chosen by the state legislature, and with the death of Senator A.J. McLaurin in December of 1909 it was up to Bilbo and his compatriots to choose a replacement. The choices came down to former Governor James K. Vardaman and planter Leroy Percy, and after a protracted battle Percy was finally chosen. In March of 1910, a grand jury indicted planter L.C. Dulaney with the charge of tendering a bribe to Bilbo. It declined to indict Bilbo for receiving the bribe, but a resolution still appeared in the the senate to expel Bilbo.

Bilbo went on a swift offensive, explaining that Dulaney gave him $645 to support Percy over Vardaman. Bilbo said he took the money, but gave it to a local minister with a statement of facts as a way of obtaining proof of irregular methods in the election. He said the transaction was supposed to occur in a hotel room where a witness would be handy, but it ended up happening in another room instead.

Bilbo's innocence depended almost entirely on his word, and even this did not carry much weight considering that the minister denied having advance notice of the bribery or taking part in a stakeout in the hotel. The state senator maintained his innocence, but added the caveat asking voters to wait until all the evidence was in. "At this juncture of the greatest fight in the history of the state for a clean government, I feel that I ought to say to the people of Mississippi that the efforts of the politicians and corporate interests in attacking my reputation will prove a miserable failure, for the truth will prevail," he said.

On April 14, the senate took a vote to expel Bilbo. It fell along party lines and was 28 to 15 in favor - one short of the three-fourths majority needed to carry the action out. The Vardaman supporters left the chambers in protest after the vote, leading to a lopsided 25-1 vote favoring a resolution urging Bilbo to resign and criticizing the decision to not reveal the evidence of bribery until after the nomination as "utterly unexplainable and absolutely incredible." However, another resolution unanimously adopted the idea that the election was free from undue influence. Bilbo remained in the senate for the rest of his term, and Dulaney was acquitted at trial in November. The fallout from the matter continued into the next year. In July of 1911, former prison warden J.J. Henry hit Bilbo in the face with the butt of a pistol after Bilbo refused to apologize for remarks about Henry's character; Henry had been one of the witnesses before the committee investigating the bribery allegation.

The second accusation of bribery arose in December of 1913, when Bilbo was the lieutenant governor of Mississippi. He and state senator G.A. Hobbs were indicted on the charge of soliciting a bribe from Belzoni resident Steve Castleman to influence a bill in 1912 to create a new county out of parts of Yazoo, Holmes, and Washington counties. At the trial, Chicago attorney Ira M. Sample testified that Bilbo and Hobbs approached him with the idea of getting legal action against a certain Illinois lumber corporation dismissed in exchange for $50,000 for Bilbo and $5,000 each for the Mississippi attorney general and two special attorneys. Castleman said he agreed to pay $2,000 to Bilbo and Hobbs to support the county bill, and gave $200 to Hobbs in a Vicksburg hotel. The circumstances of the bribe were curiously similar to those a few years earlier, and the outcome was nearly identical. Hobbs claimed that he accepted the bribe to entrap Castlman and was acquitted at trial. Bilbo was also exonerated in July of 1914.

Bilbo was born on a Poplarville farm in October of 1877. He attended Peabody College in Nashville as well as the law department of Vanderbilt University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He made a living as a high school teacher for five years and started practicing law in 1912, four years after he was admitted to the bar. If his later crusade was all about race, Bilbo's early work was more related to class. He often defended hill country farmers against the wealthier farmers from the Mississippi River Delta region.

The first political bid Bilbo made was in 1903, when he unsuccessfully ran for circuit court judge. Five years later, he started work in the state senate as a Democrat. He stayed there through 1912, when he became the lieutenant governor. Bilbo not only weathered the two bribery scandals, but won the gubernatorial election at the end of his time as lieutenant governor in 1916. During his first term, the state established a tuberculosis sanatorium; eliminated public hangings; founded a state board of embalming, state tax commission, and fish and game commission; and advanced the construction of highways. In another violent incident, the state's assistant attorney general, Walter Dent, knocked Bilbo down during a fistfight in August of 1919; the scuffle was a result of remarks in a newspaper attributed to Bilbo. At the end of his first term in 1920, he ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives.

Bilbo hit a rough patch after this term. In 1922, a woman named Frances Birkhead accused Bilbo's successor, Lee Russell, of seduction. It was akin to sexual harassment, and Bilbo's name came up as the person whom Governor Russell allegedly asked to settle the matter involving his stenographer. Bilbo had no desire to appear as a witness, and ignored the summons to court. Russell was ultimately acquitted, but Bilbo was arrested for contempt of court in February of 1923. He was convicted and sentenced to serve 30 days in jail and pay a $100 fine, although the term was later reduced to 10 days and the fine remitted. From his cell, Bilbo announced his candidacy for a renewed gubernatorial term.

This effort, naturally, was not very successful. Bilbo was again elected governor for a term starting in 1928, but met with considerably more difficulty the second time around as the Mississippi treasury was hit by financial setbacks. In April of 1932, a judge declared 217 pardons issued during Bilbo's term null and void since they had been issued without proper notice, but prison trustees refused to rearrest the newly freed men. Economic policies benefiting white farmers became common. These were one of the more subtle forms of racism Bilbo embraced. In October of 1928, he criticized Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover for allegedly dancing with a black woman during a flood relief visit to the state the previous year. Hoover replied by saying that it was mere rumor, and that if the voters made a decision based solely on the accusation it would "forever be a most infamous blot on the record of the state of Mississippi." Despite the law against public hanging passed in his first term, Bilbo took a rather more relaxed attitude toward lynchings. After a mob took Charley Shepherd, a black man accused of raping and murdering an 18-year-old girl, and burned him at the stake in 1929, Bilbo publicly declared his opposition to an investigation into the culprits. "I have neither the time nor the money to investigate 2,000 people," he said. Bilbo said no National Guard protection had been requested, or it would have been afforded for Shepherd. To his credit, Bilbo did order such a guard for a black man accused of murdering a white planter in 1931. However, this was likely done with reluctance; only a few months later, the North American Review quoted him as saying, "No colored man is worth calling out the National Guard to protect."

After leaving the governor's office for a second time, Bilbo made another unsuccessful run at the House. In a bizarre development, he managed to get a job with the Farm Adjustment Administration "assembling current information records for the Adjustment Administration from news, magazines, and other published sources." Translated, this meant that Bilbo would be paid to take clippings from newspapers and other published sources. He left the $6,000 post - a salary only $2,500 less than that of a senator - to start a campaign for Senate in February of 1934. In a surprise upset, he took the Democratic nomination from 22-year incumbent Hubert D. Stephens. The party dominated politics in the South to such a degree that a primary victory was a foregone conclusion for the general election; sure enough, Bilbo easily won victory in November of 1934.

Bilbo would stay in the Senate for two terms, chairing both the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Pensions. He became a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal initiatives, seeing them as a good way to relieve poverty in Mississippi. Midway through his term, he and his bride of 34 years went through a messy breakup. In 1937, a divorce was granted and his ex-wife vowed to use some of the $20,750 she received in the deal to fund a Senate campaign opposing him. In his second term, Bilbo spoke against the idea of having the draft brought down to the ages of 18 and 19. The conflict would be a prolonged one, he felt, and it would be more prudent to call up men with more experience. "I am not opposed to taking 18 and 19 year old boys and training them, but I could never give my consent to putting them into combat service at this tender age," he said.

More than anything, however, Bilbo would become known for his vile, single-minded, and backward attitude on racial relationships. In one of his most shocking proclamations, he said the white race was doomed to decadence if it was to live alongside the black race; he said he would attach an amendment to a federal emergency relief bill to provide $250 million for the transportation of the country's black residents to new homes in Liberia. Worst of all, Bilbo turned to the Nazi regime in Germany as a model. "It will be recalled that Hitler, in his speech on April 9 in Vienna, gave as the basis of his program to unite Austria with Germany, 'German blood ties,'" he said. "Germans appreciate the importance of race values. They understand that racial improvement is the greatest asset that any country can have." Bilbo claimed that he had two million signatures from blacks who were willing to make the move and thought millions more would join in. Bilbo's relocation ideas extended to the nation's capital, with a proposal that 10,000 people be removed from alley homes. "We predict he will be a curse to his party and to his capital. Indeed he is one already," one newspaper commented. "He is one of the worst blights ever to strike our town, and we hold his party and this administration responsible for inflicting this socially benighted man on the people of Washington."

In 1938, Bilbo filibustered a proposed anti-lynching bill. He said violence and race riots would accompany the passage of such a measure, and referred to its supporters as "mulattoes, octoroons, and quadroons." In May of 1943, he said he was prepared to repeat the effort on a bill that would make it unlawful to require a poll tax to vote in a federal election. Such a tax, common in several southern states, was designed to exclude black voters but Bilbo saw the matter as one of states' rights. "I will feel that I am just as much a soldier as a marine on Guadalcanal or a private on Attu Island," he said, admitting that he would yield if essential war issues needed discussion.

In June of 1945, Bilbo filibustered the Fair Employment Practices Commission, saying he felt it was an attempt to fuse races and garner the black vote. By this point, with the war in Europe concluded and the Pacific conflict drawing to a close, the patience for Bilbo's hateful outbursts was growing thin. The Veterans Committee for Equal Rights demanded his impeachment due to his frequent statements against religious and racial equality. The Jewish War Veterans of the United States accused him of promoting divisiveness and violating the Constitution. The Committee of Catholics for Human Rights declared his conduct "a chilling deterrent to the worldwide belief that America is the symbol of democratic freedom and human rights."

Bilbo's conduct signaled the end of his career in Washington. In April of 1946, the Senate established a special committee to investigate election practices. In July, Bilbo won the Democratic nomination for a third term in the Senate. Two months later, a group of black voters charged that Bilbo "conducted an aggressive and ruthless campaign...with the purpose...to effectively deprive and deny the duly qualified Negro electors...of their constitutional rights...to register and vote." Glen H. Taylor, a liberal Democrat from Idaho, had already requested the committee to look into Bilbo's inflammatory speeches in June.

In August of 1946, Bilbo admitted that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, although he said he had not attended any meetings since his inaugural one since he was "not in sympathy with some things in it." He disputed a quote attributed to him in which he allegedly said that "the way to stop Negroes from voting was to start from the night before" with a clarified, perhaps more horrible statement that kept the intent intact: "The best time to keep a nigger away from a white primary in Mississippi was to see him the night before."

There was little question that Bilbo had urged intimidation and other unsavory practices in the 1946 primary. In a radio campaign, he had called upon "every red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary. And if you don't know what that means, you are just not up to your persuasive measures." In one well-publicized incident, a black war veteran was beaten for trying to register to vote in Mississippi. The National Negro Council denounced Bilbo's requests as "more diabolical than Hitler in his heyday."

In December of 1946, the committee convened for four days of hearings on Bilbo's exhortations prior to the primary. Over 100 witnesses, about two-thirds of them black, told about the restrictions on registration and voting. It wasn't enough to knock Bilbo from his perch. On January 3, 1947, the majority report of the Campaign Expenditures Committee determined that Bilbo's financial conduct was not an issue, finding instead that his anti-black crusade had been a response to "outside agitation" such as the national press, and determined that he was eligible for a seat in Congress. The minority report took a decidedly different tack. It charged Bilbo with violating the Constitution, federal criminal code, and Hatch Act, and with vigorously encouraging state officials to do the same.

It may have marked another close call for Bilbo, but the civil rights violations were not the only matters he was under investigation for. In November of 1946, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program launched a probe into his relationship with war contractors. This committee was less sympathetic toward the senator, and uncovered a wealth of unscrupulous activity. Over the course of the war, Bilbo had accepted from war contractors a new Cadillac, a swimming pool, the excavation of a lake around his "dream house," the painting of this mansion, furnishings for a second home, and overall a total benefit of between $57,000 and $88,000. The day before the determination that Bilbo had not violated civil rights laws, six of nine members of the defense committee agreed that his connections with war contractors were questionable.

Along with the first Republican majority in 14 years, it was enough to stall Bilbo's seating in Congress. Taylor asked the legislature to bar Bilbo from holding a seat until the Committee on Rules of Administration could review his conduct. The Senate voted 38-20 to table the resolution, but the matter turned out to be something of an anticlimax. Though Bilbo would continue to receive his government salary, he returned to his home state for an emergency surgery.

Somewhere along the way, Bilbo found time to put together a hateful treatise entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, which continued to embrace the notion of deporting the nation's black population. Ironically, the man who had spewed so much hatred died in August of 1947 following three surgeries for mouth cancer, although the official cause of death was given as heart failure following a surgery to tie off a blood clot. A life size bronze statute of Bilbo was dedicated in the Mississippi Capitol rotunda in 1954, but proved an embarrassment as the civil rights movement progressed. In 1982, Governor William Winter quietly ordered that the statue be removed to an out of the way meeting room. This room is now frequently used by the Legislative Black Caucus, and some members cheekily hang their coats or hats on the statue's outstretched arm.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, National Governors Association, Mississippi History Now, U.S. Senate Art and History Home Page, "Bribery Charged in Mississippi" in the Spartanburg Herald on March 29 1910, "Preacher Didn't Confirm Bilbo" in The Day on April 2 1910, "Look Into Bilbo's Record" in the News and Courier on April 2 1910, "Bilbo is Forced to Resign From the Mississippi Senate" in the Spartanburg Herald on April 15 1910, "Senatorial Primary Called" in the New York Times on April 17 1910, "Real Money in Bribe Trial" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Nov. 30 1910, "Senator Bilbo is Severely Beaten" in the Spartanburg Herald on Jul. 7 1911, "Indict State Officials" in the New York Times on Dec. 3 1913, "Attempted Bribery Alleged in Big Case" in the Pittsburgh Press on Jul. 8 1914, "Bilbo Acquitted By Jury" in the News and Courier on Jul. 10 1914, "Mississippi Governor Knocked Down in Fight" in the Evening Independent on Aug. 9 1919, "Suit Against a Governor is On" in the Lawrence Journal-World on Dec. 7 1922, "Russell Acquitted of Woman's Charge" in the New York Times on Dec. 12 1922, "Ex.-Gov. Bilbo Arrested For Contempt" in the New York Times on Feb. 7 1923, "Bilbo to Run Again" in the Palm Beach Post on Apr. 17 1923, "Reduces Bilbo Sentence" in the Evening Independent on Apr. 20 1923, "Hoover Denies Charge Made by Governor Bilbo" in the Washington Reporter on Oct. 20 1928, "Governor Refuses to Order Inquiry into Negro Lynching" in the Meriden Record on Jan. 2 1929, "National Affairs: People vs. Shepherd" in Time on Jan. 14 1929, "Troops to Guard Mississippi Negro Being Held as Killer" in the St. Joseph Gazette on Oct. 23 1931, "Prison Trustees Refuse to Carry Out Their Orders" in the Herald-Journal on Apr. 14 1932, "Bilbo to Gauge Farm Act Foes by the Shape of Their Heads" in the Gettysburg Times on Jun. 23 1933, "Ex-Governor Quits Post; Eyes Senate" in the Pittsburgh Press on Feb. 23 1934, "Bilbo Rockets Into U.S. Senate" in the Herald-Journal on Sep. 20 1934, "Wife Contests Divorce of Sen. Bilbo of Miss." in the Lewiston Daily Sun on May 19 1937, "Ted Bilbo is a Coward" in the Afro American on Jan. 29 1938, "Bilbo Sees Decadence of Pure Anglo-Saxon Race" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Mar. 2 1938, "News Behind the News" in the Miami News on May 30 1938, "Sen. Bilbo, Ex-Wife to be Campaign Foes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jul. 28 1938, "18-19 Draft Bill is Introduced" in the Mt. Airy News on Sep. 11 1942, "Bilbo Ready to Talk 18 Months" in the Tuscaloosa News on May 30 1943, "A Curse on Washington" in the Afro-American on Mar. 25 1944, "Sen. Bilbo Starts Filibuster Against FEPC" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Jun. 28 1945, "Catholic Group Assails Bilbo" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Aug. 8 1945, "Vet Group Asks Bilbo Impeachment" in the Evening Independent on Sep. 25 1945, "Jewish War Veterans Would Impeach Bilbo" in the Deseret News on Nov. 26 1945, "Senate to Investigate Bilbo's Efforts to Keep Negroes from Primary Polls" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 27 1946, "Senator Says He is Klansman" in the Kentucky New Era on Aug. 10 1946, "The Washington Merry Go Round" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Oct. 26 1946, "Deny Bilbo a Seat" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov. 16 1946, "Senator Bilbo's Case" in the Indian Express on Jan. 5 1947, "Bilbo Succumbs After Operation in New Orleans" in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug. 22 1947, "Governor Fights to Educate Poor, Backward Mississippi" in the Ottawa Citizen on Dec. 11 1982, "South in New Disputes Over Heritage" in the Washington Times on Feb. 10 2009, "Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938-1947" in the Journal of Mississippi History, Historical Dictionary of the 1940s by James Gilbert Ryan and Leonard C. Schlup, The Governors of Mississippi by Cecil L. Summers

Jon C. Hinson: southern exposure

Image from The Ledger

With a little luck on his side, Jon Clifton Hinson was able to win a second term in Congress despite admitting that he'd visited a couple of homosexual hangouts. It was only a matter of months, however, before he was once again caught with his pants down.

Hinson was born in Tylertown, Mississippi in 1942. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, he served as an aide to Mississippi congressmen Charles Griffin from 1968 to 1973 and Thad Cochran from 1973 to 1977. From 1964 to 1970, he was also a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

In 1978, Cochran moved on to the Senate and Hinson was chosen to run for his seat. His conservative platform included support of lowering taxes and increased military growth, as well as opposition to affirmative action, socialized medicine, deficit spending, and the ceding of the Panama Canal to Panama. Running as a Republican, he successfully took over for his former boss.

The first scandals befell Hinson in his run-up to the 1980 elections. In a press conference in August of 1980, he admitted that he'd been arrested in September of 1976 on a charge of committing an obscene act near the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C. He later pleaded to a reduced charge of creating a public nuisance and was fined $100. Hinson also revealed that he had been in Cinema Follies, a pornographic theater, in October of 1977 when a devastating fire broke out. Nine people died in the blaze, and Hinson, one of four survivors, was rescued from beneath a pile of bodies. Both the memorial and the theater were known sites of homosexual activity.

Hinson said he'd given the information as a preemptive measure against any attempt by political opponents to use the incidents against him. He had recently given a deposition to lawyers handling civil suits related to the theater fire, and his involvement could easily have been discovered. He argued that he had not committed an obscene act at the memorial, and that his innocence on that charge was demonstrated by his ability to plead to a reduced charge. A friend said the incidents were a result of emotional problems Hinson had been having, and that he had resolved those issues by 1978.

Media reports after Hinson's revelations unearthed more details than Hinson had been willing to admit. The arrest at the memorial had occurred after Hinson had exposed himself to an undercover agent and allegedly tried to get the agent to perform oral sex on him. He failed to show up at court on the charge on multiple occasions until the threat of a second arrest. Reporters also found out that the theater had 22,000 members and multiple uses, including empty rooms where members could have sex. Hinson had also managed to delay giving his deposition until after the Republican primaries.

Nevertheless, Hinson maintained that he was straight. "I am not, never have been, and never will be a homosexual," he said at a news conference with his wife of one year. Whether or not his constituents believed him, Hinson was re-elected in the 1980 election. Some analysts said that the Mississippi voters simply preferred a conservative in Congress, no matter what his sexuality was. However, Hinson was also helped by a three-way contest, in which independent candidate and Jackson State University professor Les McLemore outperformed Democratic candidate Britt Singletary. Hinson came away with 39 percent of the vote for the victory.

Hinson had barely returned to office when he blew any chance of a quiet second term. In February of 1981, Capitol Police had a busy night at the Longworth Building, a House of Representatives office building on Capitol Hill. Tipped off that a bathroom in the building was being used for homosexual activities, police staked out the location. They arrested a consultant and a member of the Democratic Study Group on charges of sodomy. Two hours later, they arrested another two men engaged in oral sex: Hinson and Harold Moore, a black Library of Congress clerk 10 years his junior.

Hinson was originally charged with felony sodomy, which was punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, with the prosecuting attorney saying consensual homosexual acts could be prosecuted as such. Hinson pleaded innocent to the charge and, following the lead of Walter Jenkins, checked himself into the hospital "in order to have the benefit of professional care, counseling, and treatment," according to a statement from his office. The statement blustered on that the care was "necessitated by the onset of an episode which he termed a dissociative reaction attributed to a two-year period of intense emotional and physical exertion." He remained hospitalized for two months.

Hinson immediately faced calls to resign from Mississippi and Republican Party leaders. "I think we gave him the benefit of the doubt on the other charges," said Clarke Reed, national Republican committeeman from Mississippi. "I feel strongly he should resign if found guilty on the charges." Mike Retzer, the Mississippi GOP chairman, said he thought the party had been fooled into supporting Hinson in the 1980 election and added, "It's unfortunate Jon has serious, substantial problems that are ongoing." Hinson agreed to resign, and later pleaded no contest to attempted oral sodomy. He was given a suspended 30-day jail sentence and one year of probation. In April of 1981, he resigned, saying it was "the most painful and difficult decision" he had ever made.

Democrat Wayne Dowdy, the mayor of McComb, was chosen to face off against Republican businessman and strong supporter of President Ronald Reagan, Liles Williams. Though Williams had the majority of the vote in these selections, it was not enough to forgo a special election. In an upset, Dowdy, who had spent one-third as much on his campaign as Williams, narrowly won Hinson's seat. He credited a strong turnout in black voters, though some saw it as a repudiation of Reagan.

Hinson later admitted that he was gay. In an article he wrote shortly before his death, he said that he was "still closeted and into heavy denial" when he was first elected. He and his wife separated in 1987, and divorced in 1989. In a tragic parallel to Hinson's miraculous escape from death in 1977, his parents were killed in 1984 when their house was destroyed by fire.

Remaining in the Washington, D.C. area, Hinson became active in gay rights issues. He opposed a ban on gay servicemen in the military and was a founder of the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 1994, he attended a fund-raising event for a gay community center in Biloxi in his home state. The next year, Hinson died of respiratory failure from AIDS.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Rep. Hinson Facing New Sex Charge" in The Bulletin on Feb. 5 1981, "Hinson Pleads Innocent; Congressman Faces Charge of Sodomy" in the Eugene Register Guard on Feb. 5 1981, "Lawmaker is Facing Sex Charge" in the Rome News-Tribune on Feb. 5 1981, "Hinson Enters Plea; Admitted to Hospital" in The Ledger on Feb. 6 1981, "Lawmaker Pleads Innocent to Sex Charge" in the Sunday Star-News on Feb. 6 1981, "Aide Says Hinson Planning to Quit" in The Bulletin on Feb. 9 1981, "Businessman, Mayor Win Mississippi Runoff Spots" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 24 1981, "Mississippi Democrat Says Blacks Helped" in the Ellensburg Daily Record on Jul. 8 1981, "Democrat Wins Mississippi Race" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jul. 8 1981, "Jon Hinson, 53, Congressman And Then Gay-Rights Advocate" in the New York Times on Jul. 26 1995, Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2006 by Jere Nash and Andy Taggart, Men Like That: A Southern Queer History by John Howard