1. John Minor Botts was a nineteenth-century politician, planter and lawyer from Virginia.
23 Facts About John Botts
1. 2.
John Botts was a prominent Unionist in Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War.
3.
John Botts attended the common schools in Richmond, Virginia, then studied law.
4.
John Botts married Mary Whiting Blair, and they had several children.
5.
John Botts operated a plantation called "Half Sink" on the Chickahominy River in Varina Farms area about nine miles east of downtown Richmond.
6.
John Botts lost his first run for political office in 1831, but won the following year and represented Henrico County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1833 to 1839.
7.
Unlike most Whigs, John Botts opposed the Second Bank of the United States on constitutional grounds, but considering President Andrew Jackson's veto of the bank's renewed charter encroachment upon Congress's powers, therefore by 1841 John Botts favored a national bank.
8.
John Botts was one of the few southern representatives to oppose the Democrats' "gag rule" antislavery petitions, he argued that violated the constitutional right to petition the government and eliminated an important safety valve which relieved sectional agitation.
9.
John Botts served in Congress from 1839 to 1843 however he was defeated for reelection in 1842.
10.
John Botts won election to Congress again in 1846, serving from 1847 to 1849.
11.
John Botts was chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs from 1847 to 1849, using it to support the Army rather than to oppose the war.
12.
John Botts again lost his reelection bid in 1848, but he was elected again in 1850.
13.
John Botts proposed requiring that before any manumission of a slave, the owner must either arrange for the person's travel out of the state or secure legislative permission to remain in the state.
14.
John Botts believed that Virginian governor Henry A Wise had secretly planned John Brown's 1859 raid to inflame the citizenry.
15.
John Botts blamed Baldwin for keeping Lincoln's peace offer secret while his native state moved toward secession.
16.
John Botts retired to his Henrico County farm after Virginia declared its secession in the American Civil War, but continued to write letters to newspaper editors and remained uncompromisingly Unionist in his sentiments.
17.
John Botts was released after promising not to publish any more incendiary letters, and in January 1863 moved to a plantation he had won gambling, Auburn, in Culpeper County, Virginia, where Botts entertained both Union and Confederate officers at various times.
18.
John Botts had promised he would move away from Richmond to ensure his pardon.
19.
John Botts was arrested on October 12,1863, by order of Confederate General J E B Stuart, for entertaining Union officers, but released later the same day.
20.
In May 1866, John Botts presided over a Unionist convention, and became a delegate to the Southern Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia later that year, where he argued against universal manhood suffrage.
21.
John Botts proposed gradual emancipation of slaves, and would allow only some African Americans to vote.
22.
John Botts then failed to be re-elected to Congress in races held in 1848 and 1850, but he was elected as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 where he spoke as a reformer to expand the Virginia electorate.
23.
John Botts published his memoirs, The Great Rebellion: Its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Disastrous Failure.