Andrew Stevenson

Life prior to Congress

Andrew Stevenson was born in Culpeper County, Virginia on January 21, 1784. He was educated at the College of William and Mary, studied law, and attained admission to the bar in 1809. Stevenson practiced in Richmond.

Stevenson was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1809 to 1816 and 1818 to 1821. He served as Speaker of the House of Delegates from 1812 to 1815. In 1814 and 1816 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress.

Congressional career

In 1820 Stevenson won election to the United States House of Representatives, and he served until 1834. From 1827 to 1834 he was the Speaker of the House (20th through 23rd Congresses).

Stevenson began his Congressional career as a Democratic-Republican (17th Congress). Then, when the party fragmented during the contentious 1824 presidential election, he first aligned himself with the Crawford faction (18th Congress), and then, for the balance of his time the House, the Jacksonians (19th Congress and after).

Diplomatic career

Stevenson resigned from Congress in June 1834 to accept appointment as Minister to the United Kingdom. In June of that year the United States Senate denied him confirmation by a vote of 23 to 22. Jackson's opponents in Congress argued that Jackson had offered Stevenson the appointment in 1833, and that when Congress convened later that year, Stevenson had organized the House, including committee assignments and chairmanships, in accordance with Jackson's preferences. In the Anti-Jacksonian view, this amounted to a quid pro quo that allowed executive branch interference with the prerogatives of the legislative branch.

He returned to Virginia and resumed the practice of law. In addition, he presided over the 1835 Democratic National Convention.

In February 1836 President Andrew Jackson renominated Stevenson for Minister to Great Britain. He was confirmed 26 votes to 19, and served from 1836 to 1841.

His term as Minister to the United Kingdom was marked by controversy: the abolitionist cause was growing in strength, and some sections of public opinion resented the choice of Stevenson, who was a slaveowner, for this role. The Irish statesman Daniel O'Connell was reported to have denounced Stevenson in public as a slave breeder, generally thought to be a more serious matter than simply being a slaveowner. Stevenson, outraged, challenged O'Connell to a duel, but O'Connell, who had a lifelong aversion to dueling, refused, and suggested that he had been misquoted. The controversy became public and the repeated references to slave breeding caused Stevenson a good deal of embarrassment: there was a widespread view that if O'Connell's charges were false Stevenson would have done better to simply ignore them rather than engaging in a public squabble.

Later life

Stevenson presided over the 1848 Democratic National Convention. In 1845 he was elected to the board of visitors of the University of Virginia. From 1856 to 1857 he served as the university's rector.

Death and burial

He died at his Blenheim estate in Albemarle County on January 21, 1857. He was buried at Enniscorthy Cemetery in Keene, Virginia.

Stevenson had purchased Blenheim in 1846. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Family

Stevenson married three times. In 1809, he married Mary Page White, granddaughter of Carter Braxton, who was the mother of John White Stevenson, a Congressman, U.S. Senator, and who also served as Governor of Kentucky. She died in 1812.

In 1816 he married his second wife, Sarah (Sally) Coles, who was a cousin of Dolley Madison and a sister of Edward Coles, who served as Governor of Illinois. She died in 1848.

In 1849 he married Mary Schaff.