Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/173

 PROMINENT PERSONS

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served through the Valley Forge campaign, and was a Federalist representative in the Sixth United States congress, 1749-1801. Levin Minn Powell was appointed mid- shipman in the United States navy, March I, 1817; assigned to the Franklin, and was engaged in suppressing piracy in the Medi- terranean and China seas, the Gulf of Mexi- co and the West Indies. He was promoted lieutenant, April 28, 1826; commanded sev- eral expeditions against the Indians in the Seminole war; was wounded in a fight with them on the Jupiter river in January, 1837 ; received the thanks of the navy department for his services in Florida, and commanded two surveying expeditions on the eastern coasts and harbors of the Gulf of Mexico. He was promoted commander, June 24, /843 ; was made assistant inspector of ord- nance in October, 1843, ^""i continued on ordnance duty until 1849. He commanded the sloop John Adams on the coast of South America and Africa, 1849-50; served as ex- ecutive officer of the United States navy }ard at Washington, D. C., 1851-54, and commanded the flag-ship Potomac on a cruise in the North Atlantic and West In- dies, 1854-56. He was promoted captain, September 14, 1855 ; served as inspector of contract steamers in 1858, and as captain of the frigate Potomac, in the Gulf squadron, 1861-62, having been retired December 21, 1861, six months before he left his ship. He was promoted commodore on the retired list, July 16, 1862 ; served as inspector of the third lighthouse district, 1862-66; on special service, 1867-72, and was promoted rear-admiral on the retired list. May 13. 1869. He died in Washington, D. C., Janu- ary 15, 1885.

Summers, George Washington, born in Favette county, Virginia, March 4, 1804; completed preparatory studies and was graduated from Ohio University ; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1827 ; began practice in Kanawha, Virginia ; mem- ber of the state house of delegates, 1830- 40 ; elected as a Whig to the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth congresses (March 4, 1841-March 3, 1845) ; delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1850; Whig candidate for governor in 185 1 ; judge of the eighteenth judicial circuit of Virginia, 1852- 58 ; member of the famous peace congress of 1861 ; the convention was called at the recommendation of the \'irginia legislature for the purpose of effecting a general and permanent pacification ; it adopted what be- came known as the "Guthrie Plan," named from its sponsor, Hon. James Guthrie, of Kentucky, which provided that neither the constitution nor any amendment thereof should be construed to give power to con- gress to interfere with the status of persons held to service in labor as it now exists in any of the territory lying south of thirty- six degrees and thirty minutes. As this action materially departed from the terms of Mr. Crittenden's compromise resolutions and neither defined the meaning of the word "status" nor used the word slave, many of the Southern members deemed it ambigu- ous, and a majority of the Virginia delega- tion refused to vote for Mr. Guthrie's propo- sitions. On being reported to the senate they were rejected by a large vote, and in the house of representatives the speaker was refused permission to present them. Nevertheless, in the Virginia convention Mr. Summers afterward supported them in a strong speech, as the best means of pacifi-