John Black (Mississippi politician)

{{Infobox officeholder

|name = John Black

|image = SenatorJohnBlack (cropped).jpg

|jr/sr = United States Senator

|state = Mississippi

|term_start = November 12, 1832 – March 3, 1833

|term_end = November 22, 1833 – January 22, 1838

|predecessor = Powhatan Ellis

|successor = James F. Trotter

|birth_date = August 11, 1800

|birth_place = Massachusetts

|death_date = August 29, 1854 (aged 54)

|death_place = Winchester, Virginia, U.S.

|party = Whig

}}

John Black (August 11, 1800 – August 29, 1854) was a politician from the U.S. state of Mississippi, most notably serving in the United States Senate as a Whig from 1832 to 1838.

Biography

Black was born in Massachusetts,Thomas H. Somerville, "A Sketch of the Supreme Court of Mississippi", in Horace W. Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, Vol. XI (1899), p. 507. and became a teacher. He then moved to Louisiana, where he practiced law. After moving to Mississippi, he was elected a judge in 1826, eventually being elected to the Mississippi Supreme Court.Franklin Lafayette Riley, [https://books.google.com/books?id=KhAqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA380 School History of Mississippi: For Use in Public and Private Schools] (1915), p. 380-82. In 1832, Governor Charles Lynch appointed him as a Jacksonian, the forerunner of the modern Democratic Party, to fill the United States Senate vacancy left by Powhatan Ellis. He ran for the seat in his own right as an anti-Jacksonian (later Whig) and served from November 22, 1833 to January 22, 1838, when he resigned.

During his time in office, he served as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Private Lands. After leaving the Senate, he moved to Winchester, Virginia, where he resumed practicing law until his death.

Like many southern United States politicians of his day, Black was a slave owner.{{Citation|title=Congress slaveowners|date=2022-01-27|url=https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-congress-slaveowners|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=2022-01-31}}