James D. Porter

Template:Short description Template:Infobox officeholder James Davis Porter (December 7, 1828 – May 18, 1912) was an American attorney, politician, educator, and officer of the Confederate Army. He served as the 20th Governor of Tennessee from 1875 to 1879. He was subsequently appointed as Assistant Secretary of State during President Grover Cleveland's first administration, and Minister to Chile in Cleveland's second administration.

As an elected state legislator on the eve of the Civil War, Porter had introduced the "Porter resolutions," which bound Tennessee to the Confederacy should war be declared. He served during much of the war as chief of staff to Confederate General Benjamin F. Cheatham, and saw action at various battles in Tennessee and Georgia.<ref name=tehc>Christopher Losson, "James Davis Porter," Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2009. Retrieved: 1 November 2012.</ref>

Porter spent his later years as chancellor of his alma mater, the University of Nashville, and as president of Peabody College. This was established at the University of Nashville during his gubernatorial administration. He oversaw the liquidation and transfer of the University of Nashville's assets to the Peabody Education Fund, which allowed Peabody College to be re-established near Vanderbilt University in 1909.<ref name=tehc />

Early life

Porter was born in Paris, Tennessee, the son of Dr. Thomas Kennedy Porter and Geraldine (Horton) Porter.<ref name=tsla>Finding Aid for Governor James D. Porter Papers Template:Webarchive, Tennessee State Library and Archives, 1964. Retrieved: 1 November 2012.</ref> Their town was the county seat of Henry County, included within West Tennessee. Porter attended college at the University of Nashville, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1846, and a Master of Arts in 1849.<ref name=rossiter>Rossiter Johnson, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Vol. VIII (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904).</ref> He studied law at Cumberland University and in Paris under local attorney John H. Dunlap; he was admitted to the bar in 1851.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That year he also married Susannah Dunlap, his mentor's daughter, starting his career and adult life.

Career and Civil War

Porter began a private practice in Paris, where he also became involved in politics. He was elected as a Whig to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1859. In 1861, he introduced the "Porter resolutions," which were eventually adopted. These resolutions stipulated that, in the event of war between seceding states and the Union, Tennessee would align with the seceding states.<ref name=rossiter /> In early May 1861, following the Battle of Fort Sumter, these measures were enacted, and Tennessee signed a military pact with the Confederacy.

Porter was commissioned as an adjutant general under Gideon J. Pillow, and helped organize the Provisional Army of Tennessee.<ref name=rossiter /> After this army was attached to the greater Confederate Army, Porter was assigned to General Benjamin F. Cheatham. As Cheatham's chief of staff, Porter took part in the battles of Belmont, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and the Siege of Atlanta.<ref name=peabody>Presidents of Peabody College: James Davis Porter Template:Webarchive, Jean and Alexander Heard Library Special Collections and University Archives, 12 September 2012. Originally published in The Peabody Record, October 1901. Retrieved: 1 November 2012.</ref>

After the war, Porter returned to his law practice in Paris. In 1870, he was a delegate to the state's constitutional convention, which wrote the current Tennessee State Constitution, and served on the convention's judiciary committee.<ref name=peabody /> Following the convention, he was elected judge of the state's 12th circuit.<ref name=tsla /> Originally a Whig, he joined the Democratic Party after the Civil War, which was the party of the majority of southern whites.<ref name=langsdon>Phillip Langsdon, Tennessee: A Political History (Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2000), pp. 198-203.</ref>

Governor

Porter received the Democratic nomination for governor in 1874. He easily defeated his Republican opponent, Horace Maynard, by a 105,061 to 55,847 vote later that year.<ref name=langsdon /> In 1876, he was reelected by a similarly lopsided margin over several candidates, among them moderate Democrat Dorsey B. Thomas and Republican William F. Yardley, the latter being the state's first African-American candidate for governor.<ref name=langsdon /><ref name=laska>Lewis Laska, William F. Yardley, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2009. Retrieved: 1 November 2012.</ref>

Like his predecessor, John C. Brown, Porter spent much of his gubernatorial tenure managing the state's out-of-control debt. After the state defaulted on its bonded debt in 1875, Porter continued to argue that the state should pay off the bonds in full to protect its credit. The Panic of 1873 had greatly reduced tax revenues, however, and full repayment proved unfeasible. His successors sought only a partial repayment.<ref name=langsdon />

Porter was a strong supporter of public education. When the Peabody Fund announced it was going to establish a school for teachers in Nashville, Porter used his influence to have the school attached to the University of Nashville.<ref name=langsdon />

During his tenure, but independent of the state, the South's first medical school for African Americans, the privately supported Meharry Medical College, was founded in Nashville as part of Central Tennessee College, a historically black college founded by the northern Methodist Church.

Porter signed the so-called "Four Mile Law," an early, backdoor form of Prohibition that forbade alcoholic beverages within four miles (6.4 km) of any school.<ref name=langsdon /> Given the small size of most of the schools of the era, they were built in nearly every community, even many of the smallest ones. The law effectively outlawed alcohol in all but the least-populated areas of the state.

Later endeavors

File:Porter-james-davis-photograph.jpg

Porter, photographed later in life

File:VanderbiltMemorialHall.jpg

Confederate Memorial Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus.

In his book Appalachian Aspirations, Professor John Benhart describes Porter (and ex-Governor John C. Brown) as "typical of the New South Conservatives who dominated Tennessee politics during the two decades following Reconstruction, mixing the mores of the Old South with a recognition that industrial capitalism was the wave of the future."<ref name=benhart>John Benhart, Appalachian Aspirations: The Geography of Urbanization and Development in the Upper Tennessee River Valley, 1865-1900 (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), p. 31.</ref> Following his tenure as governor, Porter remained active in the New South economy.

He succeeded Edmund William Cole as the president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway from 1880 to 1884.<ref name=tehc /><ref name="fourdecadesofthenashville">Template:Cite journal</ref> He also served on the board of directors of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.<ref name=benhart />

In 1885, Porter was appointed Assistant Secretary of State by President Grover Cleveland. He served under Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard. In 1893, during Cleveland's second term, Porter was appointed as U.S. Minister to Chile.<ref name=tehc /> He served there until a change in administrations in the Spring of 1894.

Porter spent the latter part of his life promoting and raising funds for his alma mater, the University of Nashville (from which he had been granted an honorary LL.D. in 1877), and its affiliated Peabody College. He was appointed a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund in 1883, and became president of the Board of Trustees for the University of Nashville in 1890.<ref name=rossiter />

Porter became chancellor of the University of Nashville in 1901, and president of Peabody College in 1902.<ref name=tehc /> He supported the construction of Confederate Memorial Hall.<ref name="simpson102">Template:Cite book</ref> In the latter part of the decade, he oversaw the liquidation of the University of Nashville's assets and their transfer to the Peabody fund for the reestablishment of Peabody College. The fund chose to locate the reorganized college at Vanderbilt's campus, however, leaving Porter embittered.<ref name=tehc /> He resigned from the fund's board in 1909.<ref name=tehc />

In 1899, Porter published a book, The Military History of Tennessee, War of 1861-65, which became Volume VIII of Clement Evans's 12-volume series, Confederate Military History. He was also active in the Tennessee Historical Society, at one point serving as its president.<ref name=tehc />

Porter died in 1912, and is buried in the Paris City Cemetery.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Family

In 1851 Porter married Susannah Dunlap in Paris, Tennessee. She was the daughter of his law mentor, John H. Dunlap. They had six children together, three of whom died at a young age.<ref name=langsdon />

External links

• Confederate Military History Volume VIII: Tennessee – Porter's book on the Civil War in Tennessee
• John Henry Dunlap
• Governor James Davis Porter Papers, 1875 - 1879, Tennessee State Library and Archives.

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