Anthony Thornton (representative)

Anthony Thornton ( born November 9, 1814 near Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky; † September 10, 1904 in Shelbyville, Illinois) was an American lawyer and politician. Between 1865 and 1867 he represented the state of Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Anthony Thornton attended the public schools of his home and then the Centre College in Danville. Subsequently, he studied until 1834 at Miami University in Oxford ( Ohio). After studying law and qualifying as a lawyer, he began in 1836 to work in Shelbyville in this profession. During the Mexican-American War, Thornton served as a major in the American armed forces. Politically, he was a member of the Democratic Party. In the years 1847 and 1862 he was a delegate at meetings to revise the Constitution of Illinois; In 1850 he sat as an MP in the House of Representatives from Illinois.

In the congressional elections of 1864 Thornton was in the tenth constituency of his state in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Anthony L. Knapp on March 4, 1865. Since he resigned in 1866 to further candidacy, he was able to complete only one term in Congress until March 3, 1867. During this time, ended the civil war. Since 1865 the work of the Congress was overshadowed by the tensions between the Republicans and President Andrew Johnson, which culminated in a narrowly failed impeachment.

After the end of his time in the U.S. House of Representatives Anthony Thornton practiced first as a lawyer again. Between 1870 and 1873 he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Four terms as he served as president of the Bar Association of the State of. From 1895 to 1897 he headed the Arbitration Commission of Illinois. He died on September 10, 1904 in Shelbyville.