Representative Jacob Call

Jacob Call (died April 20, 1826) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who briefly served as a U.S. Representative from Indiana from 1824 to 1825. A member of the Jackson Republican Party representing Indiana, he participated in the legislative process during one term in office at a formative moment in the nation’s political development, representing the interests of his constituents in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Call was born in Kentucky, though the exact date and place of his birth are not documented in surviving records. He was educated in his native state and was graduated from an academy in Kentucky, where he pursued the study of law. This formal legal education prepared him for a professional career on the American frontier during the early nineteenth century, as new states such as Indiana were being organized and their legal and political institutions established.

After completing his legal studies, Call was admitted to the bar and moved into what was then the western frontier of the United States. He established his law practice in Indiana, working in the communities of Vincennes and Princeton. These towns, among the earliest settled areas in the state, were important local centers of law, commerce, and government. Through his legal work, Call became a prominent figure in the region’s developing judicial system.

Call’s judicial career advanced when he was appointed to the bench of the Knox County Circuit Court. He served as a judge of that court in 1817, again in 1818, and then from 1822 to 1824. In this capacity he presided over civil and criminal matters in one of Indiana’s key counties, helping to shape the application of state law during its early years of statehood. His repeated service on the circuit court reflected both his legal expertise and the confidence placed in him by the local legal and political community.

In 1820, while engaged in private practice, Call played a notable role in a landmark legal case when he represented the defendant in Polly v. Lasselle. In that case, he argued on behalf of the slaveholder against a petition for freedom brought by an enslaved woman named Polly. Although Call lost the case, the decision had far-reaching consequences: the ruling effectively led to the emancipation of all remaining slaves in the state of Indiana, affirming the state constitution’s prohibition of slavery and marking a significant moment in the legal history of the Old Northwest.

Call entered national politics in the mid-1820s. He was elected as a Jackson Republican to the Eighteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative William Prince. He took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on December 23, 1824, and served until March 3, 1825. His brief tenure in Congress coincided with a critical period in American politics, as factions coalesced around figures such as Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, and as the First Party System gave way to new party alignments. As a Jackson Republican, Call aligned himself with the emerging political movement that would soon crystallize into the Jacksonian wing of American democracy.

After the conclusion of his congressional service in March 1825, Call did not return to the House of Representatives and there is limited documentation of his subsequent professional activities. He appears to have withdrawn from national public life following his short term in Congress. Jacob Call died in Frankfort, Kentucky, on April 20, 1826. His career, though relatively brief on the national stage, spanned important developments in early Indiana jurisprudence and contributed to the broader legal and political evolution of the early United States.