James Speed was an American lawyer, politician, and professor who was in 1864 appointed by Abraham Lincoln to be the United States Attorney General.
19 Facts About James Speed
2.
James Speed was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky to Judge John James Speed and his second wife, Lucy Gilmer Fry.
3.
James Speed was a distant descendant of the English cartographer John Speed and brother of Joshua Fry Speed.
4.
James Speed graduated from St Joseph's College in Bardstown, Kentucky, studied law at Transylvania University and was admitted to the bar at Louisville, in 1833.
5.
In 1841 Speed met fellow lawyer and future President Abraham Lincoln while Lincoln was staying at Farmington, the Speed family home in Louisville, while visiting James's brother, Joshua.
6.
Unlike his brother Joshua, James Speed opposed slavery and was active in the Whig Party.
7.
In 1847 James Speed was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.
8.
At this early point in his career, James Speed was already agitating for the emancipation of American slaves.
9.
From 1851 to 1854, James Speed served on the Louisville Board of Aldermen, including two years as its president.
10.
James Speed taught as a professor in the Law Department of the University of Louisville from 1856 to 1858, and would later return to teach from 1872 to 1879.
11.
James Speed became a commander of the Louisville Home Guard.
12.
Disillusioned with the increasingly conservative policies of former Democratic President Andrew Johnson, James Speed resigned from the Cabinet in July 1866 and resumed the practice of law.
13.
James Speed was a delegate to the National Union Convention in Philadelphia in 1866 and fellow delegates chose him as the convention's president.
14.
Speed ran to become US Senator from Kentucky in 1867, as President Johnson's ally Senator James Guthrie retired citing health issues.
15.
In 1868, James Speed ran for the Republican nomination for Vice President of the United States but the convention instead chose Schuyler Colfax.
16.
James Speed ran for US Representative from Kentucky's 5th District in 1870, to succeed Democrat Asa Grover, who had been accused of disloyalty but was exonerated and finished his only term.
17.
James Speed was a delegate to Republican National Convention from Kentucky in 1872.
18.
James Speed was elected a 3rd class companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in recognition of his service to the Union during the Civil War.
19.
James Speed died in Louisville in 1887, and is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in that city.