Representative Linn Banks

Linn Banks (January 23, 1784 – January 13, 1842) was an American slave owner, lawyer, and politician who became one of the longest-serving members and Speakers of the Virginia House of Delegates before serving a single, contested term in the United States House of Representatives. He was born in what was then Culpeper County, Virginia, in the portion that later became Madison County, to Adam Banks and Gracey James. Through his father’s line he was the great-great-grandson of Adam Bankes, an emigrant from the Wigan, Lancashire area of England who settled in Stafford County, Virginia, in the mid‑seventeenth century. Banks grew up in the Piedmont region of Virginia in a slaveholding society that would shape both his personal fortunes and his public career.

Banks received a private education typical of Virginia’s planter and professional class and went on to attend the College of William & Mary, where he studied law. He was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1809 and began the practice of law. On April 2, 1811, he married Eliza Jane Hunter Sanders in Wake County, North Carolina, thereby linking himself to another prominent southern family. As he established his legal practice, he also began to acquire land and enslaved laborers, forming the economic base that would support his long career in public life.

With the outbreak of the War of 1812, Banks interrupted his legal career to serve in the conflict, reflecting the pattern of militia and volunteer service common among Virginia professionals of his generation. He became active in the Virginia militia and for decades afterward held leadership positions in local units, which earned him the honorific title of “colonel.” His prominence in the region was further underscored in 1824, when he hosted the Marquis de Lafayette during the French hero’s triumphal return visit to the United States. On that occasion, Lafayette visited President James Madison and reviewed local militia units in Culpeper and Orange Counties, with Banks playing a leading role in the local observances.

Madison County voters first elected Banks as one of their two part-time representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates in November 1812. He was repeatedly re-elected and served continuously from 1812 to 1838. During his long tenure he served alongside a succession of colleagues, including William Morgan until 1814, and later Daniel Field, George H. Allen, Robert Hill, Robert L. Madison, Robert Briggs, and William Finks. The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830 reorganized legislative representation into single-member districts, but Banks retained his seat and continued to represent Madison County under the new system. In 1817 he was chosen Speaker of the House of Delegates, a position he held for two decades until 1838, making him one of the most enduring presiding officers in the history of that body. As Speaker, he exercised considerable influence over legislative procedure and the flow of bills during a formative period in Virginia’s political development.

In 1838, after more than a quarter century in the state legislature, Banks resigned from the House of Delegates to seek national office. Running as a Democrat, he won election to the United States House of Representatives to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Representative John M. Patton. He entered Congress at a time of intense national debate over banking, internal improvements, and the balance of power between the federal government and the states. Banks served three terms in Congress as a member of the Democratic Party representing Virginia, participating in the legislative process during a significant period in American history and representing the interests of his constituents. He served in the House until 1841 and presented credentials for the following Congress after appearing to win re-election by a narrow margin over former Virginia state senator William “Extra Billy” Smith, a future governor of Virginia and Confederate general. Smith contested the election, and before the House could decide the contest, Banks resigned, prompting a special election in November 1841. Banks ran again in that special election but was defeated by Smith, who then assumed the congressional seat in December 1841.

Following his departure from Congress, Banks returned to Madison County and resumed the practice of law while also managing his estates and enslaved labor force. Census records reflect the scale of his slaveholding: he owned 45 enslaved people in Madison County in 1820 and more than 40 enslaved people there in 1840, underscoring his status as a substantial slave owner in the region. His economic and social position remained closely tied to the plantation system and to the institution of slavery that underpinned Virginia’s agrarian economy in the antebellum period.

Banks’s life ended abruptly on January 13, 1842, when he drowned while attempting to ford the Conway River near Wolftown, Virginia. He was interred in the family cemetery on his estate, known as “Vale Evergreen,” near Graves Mill in Madison County. His extended family continued to play a role in local politics and slaveholding society. Robert A. Banks, likely a relative—though his 1865 remarriage license listed his father as G. J. Banks—succeeded to the Madison County seat in the House of Delegates on March 2, 1839, and was re-elected several times. Robert A. Banks married Louisa J. Finks, the daughter of Linn Banks’s former co-delegate William Finks, in 1847. Like Linn Banks, he was a substantial slave owner, holding about 70 enslaved people in Madison County in 1850 and 82 in 1860.