Robert Goodloe Harper

Robert Goodloe Harper ( * January 1765 at Fredericksburg, Virginia; † January 14, 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland) was an American politician of the Federalist Party, who represented the state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate. He also sat for South Carolina House of Representatives of the United States.

Life

Robert Harper was the fifth child and first son of Jesse Harper and Emily Diane Goodloe in January 1765 near Fredericksburg to the world; his exact date of birth is not known. The family moved around the year 1769 to Granville in South Carolina. First, Harper was taught by his parents, later he attended the local primary school. At 15, he joined a volunteer corps and fought as a cavalryman in the Continental Army. Later he worked as a surveyor, where he came to Kentucky and Tennessee, 1783.

In 1785 he graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. He then returned to South Carolina back, studied in the Charleston Law, worked as a teacher and was admitted to the bar in 1786, after which he worked in the 96th Judicial District of South Carolina, in 1789 before he again settled in Charleston. In 1800, he married Catherine Carroll, with whom he had four children.

Policy

Harper's political career began with membership of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, where he served from 1790 to 1795. On February 9, 1795 he went as a representative of the fifth congressional district of South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he became the successor of the late Alexander Gillon. After multiple re-election he remained until March 1801 in Congress. During this time he served, among others, as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. He also belonged to that MPs committee that oversaw the impeachment proceedings against Senator William Blount of Tennessee in 1797.

After his time in the House, Harper moved to Maryland, where he worked as a lawyer. During the British - American War he rose to the Major General. In 1815, he helped build the Baltimore Exchange Co. and was a member of its board of directors. In his new home he remained politically active and applied successfully for a seat in the Senate of Maryland. In January 1816, he returned as a U.S. Senator for Maryland in Congress, but only where he remained until his resignation in December of the same year.

In the presidential elections in 1816 Robert Harper was one of four candidates for the vice-presidency on the side of the defeated Federalist candidate Rufus King. He received three electoral votes of the State of Delaware in the Electoral College. In the presidential elections in 1820, the Federalists did not represent a candidate of their own for more on the country's highest office. Harper was one of four members of his party who received the ballot for the vice presidential votes: An elector voted for him.

In the years 1819 and 1820 Harper traveled extensively through Europe. When the Marquis de Lafayette visited Baltimore in 1824, Harper was instrumental in the festivities. He died the following year in Baltimore and was initially buried in the family cemetery of his country " Oakland "; later he was reburied at the Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore.