Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/43

 -UNDER THE CONFEDERACY

DEPARTMENT OFFICERS.

Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro, sec- ond secretary of state (July, i86i-March, 1862), born at Hunter's Hill, Essex county, Virginia, April 21, 1809, son of James and Maria (Garnett) Hunter, grandson of Wil- liam and Sarah (Garnett) Hunter, and of Muscoe and Grace Fenton (Mercer) Gar- nett, and a direct descendant of James Hun- ter who immigrated from Scotland and set- tled in or near Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was graduated at the University of Vir- ginia in 1829, and at the Winchester Law School in 1830. He practiced law in Essex county, and was a representative in the state legislature, 1834-36. He represented his dis- trict in the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twen- ty-seventh and twenty-ninth congresses, 1837-43 and 1845-47, and served as speaker of the house in the twenty-sixth congress, when only thirty years of age. He was chosen United States senator in 1846 as successor to \\". S. Archer ; took his seat, December 6, 1847, and was re-elected in 1852 and again in 1858. In the senate he advocated the annexation of Texas, the compromise of the Oregon question, the tariff bill of 1846, and opposed the Wilmot proviso. He advocated the retrocession to Virginia of the portion of the District of Columbia west of the Potomac river, and voted to extend the line established by the Missouri compromise to the Pacific ocean. He opposed the admission of California and the abolition of slavery in the District oi

Columbia. He became chairman of the finance committee in 1850, held that position until 1861. and framed the tariff act oi 1857 which lowered duties. In 1857-58 he ad- vocated the admission of Kansas under ihe Lecompton constitution. In the Democratic national convention of i860 at Charleston he was a candidate for the nomination for president, and received next to Stephen A. Douglas, the largest number of votes on the first six ballots. He took an active part in the campaign of 1856, speaking through the north and foretelling the dissolution of the Union if the rights of the southern states were abrogated in the territories. On the secession of Virginia in 1861, he left the United States senate, and became a member of the provisional Confederate congress at Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Davis made hun secretary of state, on the resignation of Secretary Robert Toombs. Mr. Hunter re- signed this position when unanimously elected to the Confederate States senate by the legislature of Virginia and he was made president pro tempore of the senate. In February. 1865, with Alexander H. Ste- phens and John A. Campbell he was a peace commissioner and met Mr. Lincoln and Sec- retarv Seward on board the River Queen in

•The Provisional Congress of tlie Confederate States met at Montgomery, Alabama. February 4, ISSl. and adjourned permanently. February 17. 1S62, having held five sessions. The first regular Con- gress under the Confederate Constitution, met at Richmond. Virginia. February 18. 1S62. and contin- ued till February 17, 1864. The Second Congress met in Richmond, May 2, 1864, and adjourned March IS. 1865.