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Senate Years of Service: 1819-1829 Party: Democratic Republican; Jackson Republican; Jacksonian
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Library of Congress
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JOHNSON, Richard Mentor, (brother of James Johnson [1774-1826] and John Telemachus Johnson,
and uncle of Robert Ward Johnson),
a Representative and a Senator from Kentucky and a Vice President of
the United States; born at Beargrass, Jefferson County, Ky., near the present
site of Louisville, October 17, 1780; attended the common schools and
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.; studied law; admitted to the bar in
1802 and commenced practice in Great Crossings, Ky.; member, State house of
representatives 1804-1806 and again in 1819; elected as a Democratic Republican
to the Tenth and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1807-March 3,
1819); chairman, Committee on Claims (Eleventh Congress), Committee on
Expenditures in the Department of War (Fifteenth Congress); commissioned
colonel of Kentucky Volunteers and commanded a regiment in engagements against
the British in lower Canada in 1813; elected as a Democratic Republican to the
United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John J.
Crittenden; reelected as a Jackson Republican (and later Jacksonian) and served
from December 10, 1819, to March 3, 1829; unsuccessful candidate for reelection
in 1829; chairman, Committee on Post Office and Post Roads (Nineteenth and
Twentieth Congresses); elected to the Twenty-first and to the three succeeding
Congresses (March 4, 1829-March 3, 1837); chairman, Committee on Post Office
and Post Roads (Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses), Committee on
Military Affairs (Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Congresses); was chosen
Vice President of the United States by the Senate on February 8, 1837, no
candidate having received a majority of the electoral vote, and served under
President Martin Van Buren from March 4, 1837, to March 3, 1841; member, State
house of representatives 1850; died in Frankfort, Ky., November 19, 1850;
interment in the Frankfort Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Meyer, Leland.
The Life and Times of Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky.
1932. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1967; Jones, Jonathan Milnor. The Making
of a Vice President: The National Political Career of Richard M. Johnson of
Kentucky." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Memphis, 1998.
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