Representative Felix Grundy McConnell

Felix Grundy McConnell (April 1, 1809 – September 10, 1846) was a U.S. Representative from Alabama and a prominent, if controversial, Democratic politician of the 1830s and 1840s. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 1, 1809, and in 1811 moved with his parents to Fayetteville, Tennessee. Raised on the early American frontier, he received only a limited formal education. As a young man he learned the trade of saddler, a common and practical occupation in a largely agrarian and expanding region, and this early experience grounded him in the concerns of ordinary working people.

In 1834 McConnell moved south to Talladega, Alabama, a growing community in the eastern part of the state. There he turned from manual trade to the study of law, pursuing professional advancement through legal training despite his modest educational background. He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and commenced the practice of law in Talladega. His legal work quickly brought him into public life, and he became identified with the Democratic Party at a time when Alabama politics were dominated by debates over states’ rights, expansion, and economic development.

McConnell’s political career began in the Alabama state legislature. He served as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives in 1838, representing his Talladega constituency. The following year he advanced to the upper chamber of the state legislature, serving in the Alabama State Senate from 1839 to 1843. During these years he participated in shaping state policy in a period marked by rapid population growth, the entrenchment of the plantation economy, and continuing disputes over banking and internal improvements. His service in both houses of the state legislature established his reputation as an energetic and forceful advocate for his district.

In 1843 McConnell was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives. He represented Alabama in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses and served from March 4, 1843, until his death on September 10, 1846. In Congress he aligned with the Democratic majority on issues of territorial expansion and party policy. He gained particular notice for introducing a resolution proposing that the United States annex Ireland, a gesture that, while not a serious legislative prospect, reflected both the era’s expansionist rhetoric and a flair for dramatic political expression. His tenure coincided with significant national events, including the annexation of Texas and the onset of the Mexican–American War, and he was regarded as a vigorous, if unconventional, participant in congressional debates.

McConnell’s time in Washington was marked as much by his personal conduct as by his legislative activity. He acquired a reputation for rambunctious behavior and heavy drinking, and he was involved in a number of public incidents both in his home state and in the capital. One widely reported episode occurred during a concert by the celebrated Norwegian violinist Ole Bull. In the midst of one of Bull’s most delicate performances, when the audience was silent and attentive, McConnell suddenly shouted from the hall, “None of your high-falutin, but give us Hail Columbia, and bear hard on the treble!” The interruption provoked cries of “Turn him out” from the audience, and the police attempted to remove him. Known to his colleagues as “Mac,” he was reputedly one of the handsomest and most athletic men in Congress, and the officers had difficulty subduing him even with the use of their clubs. After he was carried from the hall, some of his congressional friends intervened to secure his release, an incident that underscored both his physical vigor and his increasingly troubled public image.

McConnell’s later years in office were overshadowed by deteriorating health and the consequences of his intemperance. On September 10, 1846, while still serving in Congress, he died in Washington, D.C., by his own hand, killing himself by stabbing himself in the throat and on his body. Contemporary accounts held that the act was committed in a state of mental hallucination brought on by delirium tremens, a severe condition associated with chronic alcoholism. His death made him one of the members of the United States Congress who died in office in the nineteenth century. Felix Grundy McConnell was interred in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where his grave marks the brief and turbulent career of a frontier lawyer-legislator whose life reflected both the opportunities and the excesses of American political culture in the Jacksonian and antebellum eras.