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Size | 2.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 550 items) |
Abstract | Lawyer, U.S. senator from Georgia, and U.S. attorney general. Includes legal papers relative to the Florida-Georgia boundary controversy, 1851-1856; financial papers of a rice plantation and farm near Savannah and Clarksville, Ga., respectively; and correspondence (1830-1852) with men prominent in the Jackson administration and in Georgia politics. Also includes papers (1778-1786) relating to the military service during the Revolution of Berrien's father, John Berrien; Civil War letters from Robert Falligant in Virginia and Phil Falligant in Georgia; letter books; a receipt book; and a ledger. Correspondents include John Quincy Adams, George Edmund Badger, Thomas Hart Benton, Francis Preston Blair, Henry Clay, Howell Cobb, George W. Crawford, Hamilton Fish, Richard W. Habersham, James Hamilton Junior, S. D. Ingram, Andrew Jackson, Alexander H. Stephens, George M. Troup, John Tyler, Daniel Webster, Thurlow Weed, and Richard Henry Wilde. |
Creator | Berrien, John MacPherson, 1781-1856. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, July 1996
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, 2020
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
John MacPherson Berrien was born at Rockingham, N.J., on 23 August 1781, but grew up in Savannah, Ga., after his father, John Berrien, a major in the Continental Army, acquired a number of plantations in Georgia. Berrien attended preparatory school in New York and was graduated from Princeton in 1796. He studied law in the office of Joseph Clay and, after he was admitted to the bar, began to practice in Georgia in 1799. He was elected solicitor of the eastern circuit in 1809 and judge of that same circuit in 1810-1821. He was in the state Senate, 1822-1823, and was elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat in 1824. He served there until 1829 when he accepted appointment as Attorney General under Andrew Jackson. He resigned from Jackson's cabinet on 22 June 1831, as a consequence of the Eaton affair.
Berrien was again elected to the United States Senate as a Whig in 1841. He was a delegate from Georgia to the 1844 Whig National Convention in Baltimore. In May 1845, he resigned his seat in the Senate because of his dissatisfaction with politics in Georgia. He apparently intended to accept an appointment on the Georgia Supreme Court, but his Whig friends in Georgia promptly re-elected him to the Senate seat he had vacated. He served from November 1845 to March 1847, when he was reelected. He resigned from the Senate again in 1852 after the election of Robert Augustus Toombs, then a member of the Constitutional Union Party, to that seat. Berrien had withdrawn from the Whig Party in 1850 and had joined the American or Know-Nothing Party. He presided over the Georgia American Party convention in December 1855 shortly before his death on 1 January 1856.
Back to TopThe John MacPherson Berrien collection includes legal papers relative to the Florida-Georgia boundary controversy, 1851-1856; financial papers of a rice plantation and farm near Savannah and Clarksville, Ga., respectively; and correspondence (1830-1852) with men prominent in the Jackson administration and in Georgia politics. Also includes papers (1778-1786) relating to the military service during the Revolution of Berrien's father, John Berrien; Civil War letters from Robert Falligant in Virginia and Phil Falligant in Georgia; letter books; a receipt book; and a ledger. Correspondents include John Quincy Adams, George Edmund Badger, Thomas Hart Benton, Francis Preston Blair, Henry Clay, Howell Cobb, George W. Crawford, Hamilton Fish, Richard W. Habersham, James Hamilton Junior, S. D. Ingram, Andrew Jackson, Alexander H. Stephens, George M. Troup, John Tyler, Daniel Webster, Thurlow Weed, and Richard Henry Wilde.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
Legal, financial, and political papers of John MacPherson Berrien with scattered items of family and correspondence. Legal papers are found throughout this series, among them briefs and notes on cases written in Berrien's hand, legal documents dealing with members of the family or clients, and correspondence dealing with matters of law. There is a large amount of material on the Florida-Georgia boundary controversy, chiefly 1851-1855, Berrien being solicitor for Georgia when the case came before the U.S. Supreme Court. Financial material consists of bills, receipts, accounts, and correspondence relative to Berrien's personal expenditures, his rice plantation near Savannah, and his farm near Clarkesville, Ga.
Materials prior to the 1830s are bills, receipts, and legal papers, with a few papers about the Revolutionary War service of Berrien's father, Major John Berrien (1778-1786). There is some correspondence concerning various appointments, business and legal matters, and slaves. The political emphasis of the papers begins with Berrien's activities as Attorney General in 1829 and continues to his death in 1856. The cabinet crisis and Jackson's popularity are frequent topics. The leading political figures, national affairs, the controversy over the Florida-Georgia boundary, secession, nullification, the Whigs, the American Party, slavery (chiefly 1848-1852), agriculture, and Berrien's legal activities are discussed. Correspondence with men prominent in the Jackson administration and in Georgia occurs primarily from 1830 to 1852 and includes such correspondents as John Quincy Adams, George Edmund Badger, Thomas Hart Benton, Francis Preston Blair, Henry Clay, Howell Cobb, George W. Crawford, Hamilton Fish, Richard W. Habersham, James Hamilton Junior, S. D. Ingram, Andrew Jackson, Alexander H. Stephens, George M. Troup, John Tyler, Daniel Webster, Thurlow Weed, and Richard Henry Wilde.
During the Civil War period, there are some letters from Robert and Phil Falligant to their mother. Falligant family papers are scattered throughout the series from 1807 to 1855 and form the bulk of the correspondence from 1856 to 1876. The papers from 1880 to 1938 are those of Lawrence Cecil Berrien, John M. Berrien's son, and his family and are generally concerned with legal and family matters. Undated genealogical material, concerning the Berrien and Falligant families and undated correspondence is filed after the correspondence. There are also a number of undated legal papers and speeches. The legal papers include briefs and notes concerning the Florida-Georgia boundary dispute and various cases in which Berrien participated. Many of the notes are in Berrien's hand. There are also some copies of wills and bonds. The speeches are also in Berrien's hand and are largely of political nature.
Arrangement: chronological.
Image P-63/1 |
Mounted photograph of Eliza Robey Raiford Falligant, circa 1850-1860 |
Reel M-00063/1-3
M-00063/1M-00063/2M-00063/3 |
Microfilm |