Representative James Tallmadge

James Tallmadge Jr. (January 28, 1778 – September 29, 1853) was a United States lawyer and politician who served as a United States Representative from New York’s 4th congressional district. A prominent member of the Democratic-Republican (often called Republican) Party, he is best remembered for introducing the anti-slavery Tallmadge Amendment to the bill admitting Missouri as a state, an action that triggered a serious political conflict between North and South in the years immediately preceding the Missouri Compromise.

Tallmadge was born on January 28, 1778. He was a member of a politically influential New York family with deep Revolutionary-era roots. His first cousin was Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, who later became a United States Senator and Governor of the Wisconsin Territory, and his first cousin once removed was Benjamin Tallmadge, a United States Congressman from Connecticut and a noted intelligence officer and spy for General George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. His sister, Rebecca Tallmadge, married Theodorus Bailey, who served as both a United States Representative and United States Senator from New York, further entwining James Tallmadge Jr. with the political leadership of the early republic.

Trained in the law, Tallmadge established himself as a practicing attorney in New York. Through his legal work and family connections, he became part of the state’s political and professional elite during the early nineteenth century. As a lawyer, he was active at a time when New York was rapidly growing in population and commercial importance, and his legal practice provided a foundation for his later public career. His professional reputation and political alignment with the Democratic-Republican Party positioned him to seek and obtain elective office.

Tallmadge entered national politics following the death of Representative-elect Henry B. Lee on September 16, 1816. In the special election held to fill the vacancy, he was chosen as a Democratic-Republican to represent New York’s 4th congressional district in the Fifteenth Congress. He took his seat on June 6, 1817, and served one term, leaving office on March 3, 1819. During this period, he participated in the legislative process at a formative moment in American history, representing the interests of his New York constituents while engaging in debates over national policy. In the House of Representatives, he notably defended General Andrew Jackson’s conduct in the Seminole War, aligning himself with those who supported Jackson’s aggressive military actions on the southern frontier.

Tallmadge’s most consequential contribution to congressional history came during the debates over Missouri statehood. As Congress considered the bill to admit Missouri as a state, he introduced what became known as the Tallmadge Amendment, designed to restrict and ultimately terminate slavery in the proposed state. The amendment provided “that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been fully convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years.” On February 16, 1819, he delivered a powerful and widely noted speech in support of this measure, opposing the extension of slavery into new territories. The speech was broadly circulated in print and even translated into German, underscoring its impact both within and beyond Congress. Although the House of Representatives adopted the Tallmadge Amendment, the Senate rejected it, and the proposal did not become law. Nonetheless, the controversy it provoked intensified sectional tensions and helped frame the national debate that led to the Missouri Compromise.

Beyond his public career, Tallmadge was also a family man. He had at least two children: John James Tallmadge (1811–1819), who died young, and Mary Rebecca Tallmadge (1817–1872). Mary Rebecca was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the country and accompanied her father on his travels to Russia, reflecting the family’s social standing and international connections. She later married Philip Stephen Van Rensselaer (1806–1871), the third son of Stephen Van Rensselaer III, the patroon of Rensselaerswyck and one of the most prominent landholders and political figures in New York, thereby linking the Tallmadge family to another of the state’s leading dynasties.

James Tallmadge Jr. died on September 29, 1853, in New York City. He was interred in the New York Marble Cemetery, one of the city’s early private burial grounds and a resting place for many notable New Yorkers of the nineteenth century. His career as a lawyer, his single but influential term in Congress, and especially his authorship of the Tallmadge Amendment secured his place in American political history as an early and vocal opponent of the expansion of slavery and a significant figure in the sectional controversies of the antebellum era.