John T. Harris

John Thomas Harris ( born May 8, 1823 in Browns Gap, Albemarle County, Virginia; † October 14, 1899 in Harrisonburg, Virginia ) was an American politician. Between 1859 and 1881 he represented two times the state of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

John Harris was a cousin of Congressman John Hill ( 1800-1880 ). He received an academic education. After a subsequent law degree in 1845 and its recent approval as a lawyer, he began to work in Harrisonburg in this profession. Between 1852 and 1859 he served as District Attorney in Rockingham County.

In the congressional elections of 1858 Harris was as an Independent Democrat in the ninth constituency of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of John Letcher on March 4, 1859. Since the state of Virginia retired in 1861 from the Union and joined the Confederacy, Harris had to leave at the end of the legislative session on March 3, 1861 the Congress.

Between 1863 and 1865 he sat in the House of Representatives from Virginia; of 1866 and 1869 Harris officiated as a judge in the Twelfth Judicial District of the State of. After the resumption of Virginia into the Union in 1869 he applied unsuccessfully to make his return to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the congressional elections of 1870 Harris but was then elected as a Democrat in the sixth district of Virginia back in the Congress, where he replaced William Milnes on March 4, 1871. After four elections he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1881 five legislative sessions. Since 1873, he represented there as a successor to Elliott M. Braxton seventh election district of his state. From 1875 to 1879 led John Harris of the Election Committee and then to 1881 the Committee on the revision of the legislation.

In 1880 he declined the nomination to him being transferred for re-election. In 1884 he was president of the Regional Congress of Democrats in Virginia and in 1893 he was State Representative for the World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair. John Harris died on October 14, 1899 in Harrisonburg.