By Ray Hill Governor Andrew Johnson easily overcame the powerful opposition of the Whig Party in Tennessee, as well as the more conservative elements in his own Democratic Party to win election to the United States Senate in 1857. Nor was Andrew Johnson satisfied to merely remain in the Senate. At the 1860 Democratic presidential […]
By Ray Hill Only nine men have made the transition from governor of Tennessee to United States senator. One of those nine was one of the most successful politicians to take part in Tennessee’s turbulent politics: Andrew Johnson. In fact, Andrew Johnson prospered politically during the Civil War, the most tempestuous time in Tennessee’s history. […]
By Ray Hill All across the nation governors or former governors frequently attempt to make the transition to the United States Senate. Nor is it particularly odd, at least in Tennessee, for a governor to wait some years before running for the U. S. Senate. Former governor Prentice Cooper waited fourteen years after leaving the […]
By Ray Hill Long before Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Carl Hayden of Arizona was known as the longest-serving member of Congress. Hayden had first been elected to Congress when Arizona had first been admitted to the United States as a state in 1912. Hayden was later elected to the United States Senate and […]
By Ray Hill “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anyone, come sit here by me” – pillow in the home of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, eldest child of former President Theodore Roosevelt, had been in the public eye since the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. Banned from the White […]
By Ray Hill Alice Roosevelt Longworth remained the most famous presidential daughter in our country’s history; certainly she was the most enduring. An especially astute observer of politics and things political, Alice Roosevelt Longworth was also known for her elegance, entertaining, and most especially her acid tongue. No insipid child dependent upon a powerful […]
By Ray Hill Despite intense pressure from constituents and his own political party, Senator John Knight Shields of Tennessee remained determined to vote his convictions as the United States Senate considered the Treaty of Versailles. John Knight Shields had been the only Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to break ranks and support the […]
By Ray Hill Tennessee’s senior United States senator, John Knight Shields, had surprised tens of thousands of his constituents and infuriated many members of his own Democratic Party when he had voted to add reservations to the Treaty of Versailles in the Senate. The treaty was the culmination of months of torturous negotiations between the […]
By Ray Hill Governor Tom C. Rye had run for the United States Senate in the 1918 Democratic primary against Senator John Knight Shields as a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson and lost. Rye’s defeat did not necessarily mean the people of Tennessee had turned against Wilson; in fact, had the President written the public […]
By Ray Hill Colonel Luke Lea, away in Europe during the First World War, had never gotten along with John Knight Shields when they were colleagues in the United States Senate. Lea’s newspaper, the Nashville Tennessean sided with Shields’ opponent, Governor Tom Rye in the Democratic primary. According to Lea’s newspaper, Shields had made several […]
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