Representative John Taliaferro

John Taliaferro (1768 – August 12, 1852) was a 19th-century American politician, lawyer, and librarian from Virginia who served several non-consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives in the early 19th century. He was born in 1768 at the family estate “Hays,” near Fredericksburg, Virginia, to John Taliaferro and Elizabeth Garnett Taliaferro. Raised in Virginia’s Northern Neck region, he attended a private school, reflecting the educational opportunities available to members of established planter families in the post-colonial period.

After his early schooling, Taliaferro studied law and was admitted to the bar, commencing legal practice in Fredericksburg. His training and work as an attorney placed him within the professional and political circles of Virginia at a time when the state was central to national affairs. Through his legal practice and local prominence, he built the connections that would support his entry into electoral politics at both the state and national levels.

Taliaferro’s national political career began when he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1800. He served his first term in Congress from March 4, 1801, to March 3, 1803, representing Virginia during the early years of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. Remaining active in national politics even when not in office, he served as a presidential elector on the Jefferson ticket in 1805, casting his vote in support of Jefferson’s re-election and aligning himself with the dominant Republican political movement in Virginia.

He returned to Congress after the contested election of 1811. Initially, his seat was declared for his opponent, John Hungerford, but after a lengthy investigation into the conduct of the election and the eligibility of voters, the House of Representatives revisited the case. A House committee first ruled in Hungerford’s favor, yet upon further review the House determined that many ineligible voters had participated in the election. When those votes were discounted, the revised tally gave Taliaferro a majority of 121 votes, and he was ultimately seated. He then served in the Twelfth Congress from December 2, 1811, to March 3, 1813, representing Virginia during the period leading up to and including the early stages of the War of 1812. He later served again as a presidential elector in 1821, this time on the ticket of President James Monroe, underscoring his continued influence within Virginia’s Republican political establishment.

Taliaferro reentered the House of Representatives for a third extended period of service in the 1820s. In 1823 he was elected to fill a vacancy and took his seat on April 8, 1824. Over the course of this tenure, which lasted until March 3, 1831, he was variously identified with the Crawford Republican, Adams Republican, and Anti-Jacksonian factions, reflecting the realignment of national politics in the era following the decline of the Democratic-Republican Party. During the presidential campaign of 1828, his name appeared as the author of a strongly worded anti-Andrew Jackson handbill titled “Supplemental account of some of the bloody deeds of General Jackson,” which described itself as a supplement to the notorious Coffin Handbills. In that publication, Jackson was accused of “atrocious and unnatural acts,” including the lurid allegation that he ate mercilessly slaughtered Indians for breakfast, illustrating the intensity and personal nature of partisan conflict in the Jacksonian era.

In addition to his congressional service, Taliaferro participated in significant state-level constitutional reform. He was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830, which was convened to revise the state’s founding charter and address issues of representation and suffrage. He was elected as one of four delegates from a state Senate district encompassing his home county of King George in the Northern Neck, along with Westmoreland, Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, Stafford, and Prince William Counties. His role in the convention placed him among the Virginia leaders who debated the balance of political power between eastern and western counties and the future structure of state government.

Taliaferro was elected to Congress for a fourth and final time in 1834, running as an Anti-Jacksonian and later aligning with the Whig Party as that organization coalesced in opposition to Jacksonian Democrats. He served in the House from March 4, 1835, to March 3, 1843, completing ten terms in Congress over the course of his career. During this last period of service, he held a significant committee leadership position as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions from 1839 to 1843, overseeing legislation and claims related to pensions for veterans of the American Revolution. As a member of the Whig Party representing Virginia, he contributed to the legislative process during a transformative period in American politics, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents through repeated returns to office.

In his later years, Taliaferro continued in federal service in a non-legislative capacity. From 1850 until his death, he worked as a librarian at the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C., a position that reflected both his long association with the federal government and the growing professionalization of administrative roles in the mid-19th century. He died on August 12, 1852, at his farm “Hagley” near Fredericksburg, Virginia. John Taliaferro was interred on the property, closing a life that spanned from the final years of the colonial era through the antebellum period and that was marked by extensive service to both Virginia and the United States.