John Bell
(born Feb. 15, 1797, near
Nashville
, Tenn., U.S.?died Sept. 10, 1869, Dover, Tenn.) was an American politician and nominee for president on the eve of the
American Civil War
.
Bell entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827 and served there as a Democrat until 1841. He broke with Pres.
Andrew Jackson
in 1834 and supported Hugh Lawson White for president in 1836. After White’s defeat Bell became a Whig and, in March 1841, as a reward for party services, was made secretary of war in Pres.
William Henry Harrison’s
Cabinet. A few months later, after the death of President Harrison, he resigned in opposition to Pres.
John Tyler’s
break with the Whigs.
After six years’ retirement from political life, Bell was elected as a U.S. senator for
Tennessee
in 1847, serving in the Senate until 1859. Although a large slaveholder, Bell opposed efforts to expand slavery to the U.S. territories. He vigorously opposed Pres.
James Knox Polk’s
Mexican War
policy and voted against the
Compromise of 1850
, the Kansas?Nebraska bill (1854), and the attempt to admit
Kansas
as a slave state. Bell’s
temperate
support of slavery combined with his vigorous defense of the Union brought him the presidential nomination on the
Constitutional Union
ticket in 1860, but he carried only Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He initially opposed secession; however, following Pres.
Abraham Lincoln’s
call for troops, he openly advocated resistance and henceforth classed himself a rebel. Bell spent the war years in retirement in Georgia, returning to Tennessee in 1865.