James Murray Mason
James Murray Mason (November 3, 1798 – April 28, 1871) was a United States senator and white supremacist from the Democratic Party. He served as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for ten years before being expelled for supporting the Confederate States of America during the early years of the American Civil War.
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| “ | The poor negroes since they were manumitted are of course worthless, or rather worse than worthless. I have none of them in my service, and do not, however deeply I regret the necessity, intend to have. | „ |
| ~ James Murray Mason. |
Biography edit
James Mason was born on Analoston Island (today Theodore Roosevelt Island) in 1798 in what would become Washington D.C.. He attended university in Pennsylvania and then obtained a law degree in Virginia, where he settled.
As a Jackson Democrat, he ran for office in the Senate after the death of Isaac S. Pennybacker in 1847. His election platform was based around support of the slave trade and the Southern Confederate states seceding from the North. Murray was a white supremacist, believing that black people were "worse than worthless" and "the great curse of the country", and as such was popular in the racist Southern states like Virginia. Mason won the election as a result.
In 1850, the same year he won re-election for the first time, Mason decided to combat what he saw as the problem of the Northern personal liberty laws, designed to help fugitive slaves escape. To that end, he authored the Fugitive Slave Act 1850 in order to empower "slave-catchers" to hunt down fugitive slaves and bring them back to their masters. This law was the most hated Federal law in American history. He was also responsible for the creation of Kansas and Nebraska in order to expand slavery to the Western territories.
Mason was the chairman of the committee set up to investigate the slave rebellion led by John Brown, claiming that Brown was put up to it by the Northern states despite no evidence. He was then shocked when the investigative committee dismissed this theory.
In 1861 he worked behind the scenes to enable Virginia's secession, remaining in the Senate because he could get information useful for the seceding states, a type of spy behind enemy lines. Mason supported pro-slavery politician Jefferson Davis being elected President. The seceding states formed the Confederacy, with Davis as president. Soon after, Mason was kicked out of the Senate along with all other Confederate senators for conspiring against the Union.
As a leading Confederate diplomat, Mason was posted as envoy to Britain. While travelling to Britain to convince them to support the Confederacy, his ship (RMS Trent) was illegally stopped by an American ship and he was imprisoned until the threat of war with Britain forced the government to release him. This gave rise to the Trent Affair.
After arriving in Britain, Mason tried to persuade the government to recognise the Confederacy. He brought up Union blockades and the Trent Affair but the UK rejected him. The French also refused to support him.
On returning to the US in 1865, Mason discovered that his home had been sacked by Union forces in revenge for the Fugitive Slave Act, that slavery had been made illegal and that the war was over. The Confederacy had lost and the Union had won. He was exiled to Canada and lived there until 1868, when he returned. He was still a virulent racist, refusing to hire black servants because he didn't want to pay them. He died in 1871, his death passing unremarked by the general public.