Claiborne Fox Jackson
American politician
Died when: 56 years 246 days (680 months)Star Sign: Aries
Claiborne Fox Jackson (April 4, 1806 – December 6, 1862) was an American politician of the Democratic Party in Missouri.He was elected as the 15th Governor of Missouri, serving from January 3, 1861, until July 31, 1861, when he was forced out by the Unionist majority in the legislature, after planning to force secession of the state.
Before the war, Jackson worked with his father-in-law, John Sappington, to manufacture and sell patent medicines, in the form of quinine pills, to treat and prevent malaria.
He became quite wealthy and politically influential, deeply involved in the Democratic party in Saline County and central Missouri.He served twelve years in the Missouri House of Representatives, twice as Speaker.
In 1848 he was elected to the State Senate.To win votes in the 1860 election, Jackson claimed to be anti-secession, but he was secretly planning a secessionist coup in league with Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Nathaniel Lyon, Union commander of the arsenal in St.Louis, was suspicious of the governor's intentions and raided a state militia camp outside the city, where the force had been accumulating arms;
Lyon's troops took many of the militia members as prisoners.As the latter were marched through the city, a riot broke out, and both soldiers and civilians were killed.
Jackson declared Missouri to be a free republic.In July, the majority Unionist members of the Missouri State Legislature voted to remove him from office, but the governor refused to accept the action and went into exile in Arkansas, from whence he and his colleagues intended to organize a new invasion of Missouri.
Before such action could take place, Jackson died in Little Rock.
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