Representative David Spangler Kaufman

David Spangler Kaufman (December 18, 1813 – January 31, 1851) was an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who became a prominent public figure in the Republic of Texas and later served as a Democratic U.S. Representative from Texas. He was born in Boiling Springs, near Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and was of German-Jewish descent. Raised in Pennsylvania, he received a classical education and pursued legal studies before moving south and west as a young man, part of the broader migration that brought many ambitious professionals to the developing Southwest in the early nineteenth century.

Kaufman attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he studied in the early 1830s, and then read law in Natchez, Mississippi. After completing his legal training, he was admitted to the bar and began practicing law. Drawn by the opportunities in the newly independent Republic of Texas, he relocated there in the mid-1830s, settling first in Nacogdoches. His legal practice and growing reputation quickly brought him into contact with leading figures of the republic, and he became involved in public affairs at an early stage of Texas’s political development.

Alongside his legal and political work, Kaufman took part in the military conflicts that shaped the Republic of Texas. He served in the Texas-Indian Wars and fought against the Cherokee people, who had migrated to Texas from the American Southeast in an effort to avoid forced removal to Indian Territory. In 1839 he was wounded at the Battle of the Neches, a major engagement in which the Texas government sought to expel the Cherokee from the republic. His participation in these campaigns reflected the broader policies of the Texas leadership toward Native peoples and contributed to his standing as a committed defender of the republic’s frontier.

Kaufman’s formal political career in Texas began soon thereafter. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, serving from 1838 to 1843, during which time he helped shape legislation for the young republic. In 1843 he was elected to the Texas Senate, where he served until 1845. His tenure in both houses of the Texas legislature coincided with critical debates over finances, security, and the future status of Texas, and he emerged as a supporter of annexation to the United States. In 1845, as the annexation question reached its climax, he was appointed chargé d’affaires of Texas to the United States, representing the republic’s interests in Washington, D.C., and helping to manage the diplomatic transition as Texas moved toward statehood.

Upon the admission of Texas as a state into the Union, Kaufman was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth United States Congress. He took his seat on March 30, 1846, and was subsequently re-elected to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses, serving continuously from March 30, 1846, until his death in 1851. As a member of the Democratic Party representing Texas, he contributed to the legislative process during three terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history that included the Mexican–American War and the intensifying national debate over slavery and territorial expansion. In the Thirty-first Congress he served as chairman of the Committee on Rules, a position that gave him influence over the procedures and organization of the House of Representatives.

Kaufman remained in office until his death in Washington, D.C., on January 31, 1851, making him one of the members of the United States Congress who died in office in the nineteenth century. He was interred in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington. His service in both the Republic of Texas and the United States Congress, as legislator and diplomat, linked the era of Texas independence with its early years as a state, and his name was later commemorated in Kaufman County and the city of Kaufman, Texas, reflecting the lasting regional recognition of his public career.