Misplaced Pages

James Beck
Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus
In office March 4, 1885 – May 3, 1890
Preceded by	George H. Pendleton
Succeeded by	Arthur Pue Gorman
United States Senator from Kentucky
In office March 4, 1877 – May 3, 1890
Preceded by	John W. Stevenson
Succeeded by	John G. Carlisle
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 7th district
In office March 4, 1867 – March 3, 1875
Preceded by	George S. Shanklin
Succeeded by	Joseph Blackburn
Personal details
Born	James Burnie Beck (1822-02-13)February 13, 1822 Dumfriesshire, Scotland, UK
Died	May 3, 1890(1890-05-03) (aged 68) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Lexington Cemetery Lexington, Kentucky
Political party	Democratic
Education	Transylvania University (BA)
Signature

James Burnie Beck (February 13, 1822 – May 3, 1890) was a Scottish-American United States Representative and Senator from Kentucky.

Life

Born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, Beck migrated to the United States in 1838 and settled in Wyoming County, New York. He moved to Lexington, Kentucky in 1843 and graduated from Transylvania University in 1846. Beck was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Lexington. Until shortly before the Civil War, he was a law partner of John C. Breckinridge, the U.S. Vice President who became a Confederate general; during the Civil War, Beck was interrogated by a military commission about his knowledge of his former partner's activities.

After the war, Beck was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives serving Kentucky's 7th congressional district. He was appointed to the Select Committee on Reconstruction where it was expected that as a newcomer and an immigrant he would be no obstacle to Republican intentions, but he immediately became a tenacious advocate of the rights of the defeated states. A White supremacist, he opposed civil rights for African Americans. He was reelected three times as a Representative, serving from March 4, 1867, to March 3, 1875.

In 1876, Beck was appointed a member of the commission to define the boundary line between Maryland and Virginia. He was then elected to the United States Senate in 1876, being reelected twice, serving from March 4, 1877, until his death in Washington, D.C. on May 3, 1890. Long-time Washington journalist Benjamin Perley Poore described Beck during his time in the Senate as "a stalwart, farmer-like looking man, with that overcharged brain which made his tongue at times falter because he could not utter what his furious, fiery eloquence prompted." While in the Senate, Beck was the Democratic Conference Chairman from 1885 to 1890, and the chairman of the Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard. He was prominent in the discussion of tariff and currency questions.

He is interred at Lexington Cemetery. His son, George T. Beck, was a noted politician and entrepreneur in the state of Wyoming.

See also

• List of United States senators born outside the United States
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

Notes

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1. Friedlander, Alan; Gerber, Richard Allan (November 22, 2018). Welcoming Ruin: The Civil Rights Act of 1875. BRILL. ISBN 9789004384071.
2. Poore, Ben. Perley, Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, Vol.2, p.360 (1886).

References

• United States Congress. "James B. Beck (id: B000289)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses for James Beck. 51st Cong., 2nd sess. from 1890 to 1891. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891.
• Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Beck, James Burnie" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Beck, James Burnie" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

v t e United States senators from Kentucky
Class 2	Brown Thruston Clay Bibb Walker Barry Hardin Crittenden Johnson Bibb Crittenden Morehead J. Underwood Thompson Powell Guthrie McCreery Stevenson Beck Carlisle Lindsay Blackburn Paynter James Martin Stanley Sackett Robsion Williamson M. Logan Chandler Stanfill Cooper Chapman T. Underwood Cooper Barkley Humphreys Cooper Huddleston McConnell
Class 3	Edwards Marshall J. Breckinridge Adair Clay Pope Bledsoe Talbot W. Logan Talbot Rowan Clay Crittenden Metcalfe Clay Meriwether Dixon Crittenden J. C. Breckinridge Davis Machen McCreery Williams Blackburn Deboe McCreary Bradley Camden Beckham Ernst Barkley Withers Clements Morton Cook Ford Bunning Paul

• 1822 births
• 1890 deaths
• British emigrants to the United States
• Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
• Democratic Party United States senators from Kentucky
• Kentucky lawyers
• People from Dumfries and Galloway
• People from Wyoming County, New York
• Transylvania University alumni
• 19th-century American lawyers
• Burials at Lexington Cemetery
• 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives
• 19th-century United States senators