Richard M. Young

Richard Montgomery Young ( born February 20, 1798 in Lexington, Kentucky, † November 28, 1861 in Washington DC) was an American lawyer and politician (Democratic Party), who represented the state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate.

After visiting the village school and a private school in Jessamine County Richard Young studied law and was admitted to the bar of Kentucky in 1816. The following year he moved to Illinois and settled in Jonesboro as a lawyer down. He also joined the state militia, in which he held the rank of Captain.

His political career began Young as a deputy in the House of Representatives from Illinois 1820-1822. 1825 and 1837, he was then judge for the fifth district court of the United States. This office he resigned, after he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He took his seat in Washington from March 4, 1837 true and completed a full six -year term. During this time, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Roads and Canals; He also was a member of a diplomatic delegation in England led negotiations on a loan to Illinois in 1839.

After retirement from the Senate, Young was first appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois and remained there until 1847. Doing so, he led, among other things, the Presidency of the trial of the murder of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints in which all five defendants were acquitted by the jury. U.S. President James K. Polk put him thereafter as a Commissioner of the General Land Office; 1850-1851 he was then as Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives with the organization of the work process addressed in parliamentary officials. Finally, Young again worked as a lawyer in Washington, where he also died in 1861.