Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn

Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn ( born October 1, 1838 in Spring Station, Woodford County, Kentucky, † September 12, 1918 in Washington DC ) was an American politician (Democratic Party), who represented the state of Kentucky in both chambers of Congress.

Joseph Blackburn was the younger brother of Luke P. Blackburn, who served from 1879 to 1883 as governor of Kentucky. After attending school in Frankfort he made in 1857 graduated from Centre College in Danville. He studied law in Lexington and was admitted to the bar in 1858. Until 1860 he worked as a lawyer in Chicago, before he returned to Kentucky and joined the Confederate Army. At the end of the Civil War he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After the war, Blackburn settled in Arkansas, where he was working as a lawyer and planter in Desha County. In 1868 he moved back to Kentucky and opened a law practice in Versailles.

From 1871 to 1875 Joseph Blackburn was a member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky, before he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he remained on 4 March 1875 to 3 March 1885, Chairman of several committees was. He then moved within the Congress in the Senate. After a re-election in 1890, he was a senator until March 3, 1897; an attempt to re- reelection failed in 1896 In 1900 he then managed in the election for the second Senate seat of the state to return to this body. ; In 1906 the re- ballot. During his time in Washington Blackburn made ​​a name for itself on the national level and was counted in the group of possible candidates in the presidential election in 1896.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Blackburn on April 1, 1907 to the Governor of the Panama Canal Zone. This office he filled until his resignation in November 1909.