W. Jasper Blackburn Explained

William Jasper Blackburn
State:Louisiana
District:5th
Term Start:July 18, 1868
Term End:March 3, 1869
Preceded:District established
Succeeded:Frank Morey
Office2:Member of the Louisiana State Senate from Claiborne Parish
Term Start2:1874
Term End2:1878
Office3:Mayor of Minden, Louisiana
Term Start3:May 1855
Term End3:May 1856
Succeeded3:A. B. George
Birth Date:24 July 1820
Birth Place:Randolph County, Arkansas, U.S.
Death Place:Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
Resting Place:Mount Holly Cemetery
Party:Republican
Occupation:Newspaper publisher and printer
Footnotes:(1) Publisher Blackburn switched his party affiliation to Republican because he opposed slavery and the secession of the Confederate States of America.

(2) Blackburn was spared conviction - and automatic execution - by a one-vote margin of charges that he printed counterfeit Confederate currency.

(3) After the return of Democratic Redeemer government in Louisiana in 1878, Blackburn soon returned to his native Arkansas, where he published the short-lived Arkansas Republican newspaper.

(4) Blackburn served in the United States House of Representatives and the Louisiana State Senate as a Republican; earlier he was a Democratic mayor of Minden, Louisiana, from 1855 to 1856.

(5) Blackburn launched the first paper to bear the name Minden Herald.

Otherparty:Democratic

William Jasper Blackburn (July 24, 1820  - November 10, 1899) was an American printer, publisher and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from northwestern Louisiana from July 18, 1868, to March 3, 1869. A Republican during Reconstruction, he was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, serving from 1874 to 1878.[1]

Biography

Instead he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. He lost to the African American Oscar Dunn, who was elected to the second position on the Henry Clay Warmoth ticket.

After a four-year stint in the Louisiana Senate, Blackburn returned in 1880 to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he published the Arkansas Republican from 1881 to 1884 and The Free South from 1885 to 1892. He died in Little Rock and is interred there in Mount Holly Cemetery.[1]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Blackburn, William Jasper. bioguide.congress.gov. March 10, 2015.