Representative Benedict Joseph Semmes

Benedict Joseph Semmes (November 1, 1789 – February 10, 1863) was an American physician, planter, and Anti-Jacksonian politician from Maryland who served in both the Maryland legislature and the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Charles County, Maryland, where he spent his early years in a rural setting and attended local country schools. His upbringing in southern Maryland, a region dominated by agriculture and plantation life, shaped his later interests in both medicine and farming.

Semmes pursued formal medical education at a medical college in Philadelphia, reflecting the common practice of aspiring physicians from the southern states seeking advanced training in established northern institutions. He subsequently completed his studies at the Baltimore Medical School, from which he graduated in 1811. Following his graduation, he commenced the practice of medicine in Prince George’s County, Maryland. In addition to his medical work, he became engaged in farming, combining professional practice with the management of agricultural interests, a dual role typical of many educated landowners in the region during the early nineteenth century.

Semmes entered public life in the mid-1820s. He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates and served from 1825 to 1828. During this period he rose to a position of leadership within the chamber and served as speaker of the House of Delegates, indicating the confidence his colleagues placed in his judgment and parliamentary ability. After his service in the lower house of the state legislature, he continued his state-level political career in the Maryland State Senate, further solidifying his role in Maryland’s political affairs in the years immediately preceding his election to Congress.

At the national level, Semmes was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1829, to March 3, 1833. As an Anti-Jacksonian, he aligned with the opponents of President Andrew Jackson, a group that coalesced into the National Republican and later Whig movements, generally favoring a stronger role for Congress, support for internal improvements, and a cautious approach to executive power. His tenure in Congress coincided with major national debates over federal authority, economic policy, and the direction of the young republic, though specific details of his committee assignments and floor activity are not extensively documented.

After leaving Congress in 1833, Semmes returned to Maryland and resumed his attention to local affairs, agriculture, and his personal business interests. He remained a figure of sufficient standing to be called again to state service and was elected once more to the Maryland House of Delegates, serving in that body in 1842 and 1843. This later legislative service reflected his continued influence in Prince George’s County and his ongoing engagement with state politics well into the 1840s.

In his later years, Semmes withdrew from active public life and lived in retirement at his estate, Oak Lawn, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. There he spent the remainder of his life, removed from the increasingly sectional national politics that preceded the Civil War. He died at Oak Lawn on February 10, 1863. His long career, spanning medicine, agriculture, and public service at both the state and national levels, placed him among the notable Maryland political figures of the early nineteenth century.