Joseph Hopkinson

Joseph Hopkinson ( born November 12, 1770 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † January 15, 1842 ) was an American lawyer and politician. Between 1815 and 1819 he represented the State of Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives; later he became a federal judge.

Career

Joseph Hopkinson studied until 1786 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After a subsequent law degree in 1791 and its recent approval as a lawyer, he started working in Philadelphia in this profession. In 1798 he wrote the text for the hymn Hail, Columbia. In the years 1804 and 1805 he was one of the advisers of Federal Judge Samuel Chase in his impeachment trial before the Senate. Politically, he joined the Federalist Party.

In the congressional elections of 1814 Hopkinson was the first electoral district of Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Adam Seybert on March 4, 1815. After a re-election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1819 two legislative sessions. In 1818 he gave up another candidacy.

In 1820, Joseph Hopkinson moved to Bordentown, New Jersey. As a result, he was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly. In 1823 he returned to Philadelphia. Between 1828 and 1842 he was a judge at the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; in 1837, he served as Chairman of the Constitutional Convention of his State. From 1806 to 1819 and from 1822 until his death he was curator of the University of Pennsylvania. Joseph Hopkinson died on January 15, 1842 in Philadelphia.