My Genealogy Hound

Hon. James Green, the most prominent character in the individual history of Lewis County, and whose name is so frequently mentioned in these pages, was born in Fauquier County, Va., February 28, 1817. With very limited opportunities he early acquired a good English education, and, later in life, without the aid of a teacher, he mastered the classics and became a good general scholar. When about eighteen years of age he left Virginia, and went to Alabama, where he remained but a short time. In 1836 he came to Lewis County, and a year or two later he and his brother, Martin E. Green, purchased a mill on the Wyaconda, northwest of Canton, which they operated for some years, with but little profit. Throughout his early life, and even in later years, Mr. Green improved nearly all his spare time in reading. So industrious was he in this respect that he took up the legal profession, obtaining his books from the attorneys of Monticello and Canton, and in August, 1840, was admitted to the bar in the old courthouse at Monticello. He at once began to practice his chosen profession, and being a natural politician also embarked on that sea. His party admired him, and in 1844, when he was but twenty-six years of age, made him one of the presidential electors, and at twenty-nine he was nominated with enthusiasm for Congress, and triumphantly elected. In 1848 he was re-elected, but in 1850 was defeated, also in 1852. In 1853 he was sent as minister of charge d’affaires to New Grenada. After a year at Bogota he became dissatisfied with his position, owing to the unhealthful nature of the climate, and resigning, returned to Missouri, and resumed the law practice in Monticello. In 1856 he was again elected to Congress, but upon the assembling of the Legislature the following winter, he was chosen United States Senator, to serve the four remaining years of the unexpired term of Hon. David R. Atchison, who had resigned. He at once sprang into prominence, and became a leader of his party in the Senate, and during the campaigns preceding the civil war, he took an active part in the political issues of the day, having allied himself with the different administrations. After Mr. Lincoln’s election, in 1860, Mr. Green became a conditional Secessionist. Unless the constitutional guarantees for the security of slavery demanded by the South should be secured, he was for the dissolution of the Union and the formation of a Southern Confederacy to be composed of all the fifteen slave-holding States including Missouri. When it came to the election of his successor by the Legislature, that body did not deem it proper, owing to the pronounced views of Mr. Green, and the disturbed condition of the country, to re-elect him to that office, but instead selected Waldo P. Johnson as his successor. Upon the restoration of peace, Mr. Green removed to St. Louis, and there resumed the practice of law. His fortunes were broken, he had lost his former prestige, and he had a considerable family to provide for. Worse than all he had become a confirmed inebriate, caused by his former political associations in Washington. He died January 18, 1870, in St. Louis, and his remains were interred in the old cemetery at Canton. Mr. Green married Miss Elizabeth Reese, who proved to him a valuable helpmate through life. Hon. James G. Blaine says of him in his recently published book: “No man among his contemporaries had made so profound an impression in so short a time. He was a very strong debater. He had peers, but no master, in the Senate. Mr. Green, on the one side, and Mr. Fessenden (Republican), on the other, were the senators whom Douglas most disliked to meet in debate, and who were best fitted in readiness, in accuracy and in logic to meet him. Douglas rarely had a debate with either in which he did not lose his temper, and to lose one’s temper in debate, is generally to lose one’s cause. Green had done more than any other man in Missouri to break down the power of Thomas H. Benton, as a leader of the Democracy. His arraignment of Benton before the people of Missouri, in 1849, when he was but thirty-two years of age, was one of the most aggressive and most successful in our political annals.”