by
Dante Sodini (1908) Curry was born in
Lincoln County, Georgia, the son of planter William and Susan Winn Curry. His father was a cousin of
Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas. Lamar had married Tabitha Burwell Jordan, J.L.M. Curry's aunt. Curry grew up in a slaveholding family in
Alabama and graduated from the
University of Georgia in 1843, where he was a member of the
Phi Kappa Literary Society. While studying at
Harvard Law School, Curry was inspired by the lectures of
Horace Mann and became an advocate of free universal education.
Career Curry became an attorney. An owner of slaves, he served in the military and in public life. He served in the
Mexican–American War of 1848. He was elected to the
Alabama State Legislature, serving in 1847, 1853, and 1855. He served two terms as a Democrat in the
United States House of Representatives, from 1857 to 1861. After Alabama seceded with the outbreak of the American Civil War, Curry resigned from Congress and served in the
Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. He was commissioned as a
lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate Army, where he served as a staff aide to General
Joseph E. Johnston and General
Joseph Wheeler.
Postwar career After the war he studied for the ministry and became a preacher, but the focus of his work was free education in the South. He traveled and lectured in support of state normal schools, adequate rural schools, and a system of graded public schools. He was president of
Howard College (now Samford University), Alabama from 1865–68. He next was a professor of history and literature at
Richmond College,
Virginia. From 1881 until his death Curry was agent for the
Peabody and
Slater Funds to aid schools in the South. He was instrumental in the founding of both the Southern Education Board and the first
normal school in Virginia, now known as
Longwood University. According to
Paul H. Buck in his Pulitzer-Prize winning history of the reconciliation of North and South, Curry played a major role in promoting reunification of the sections. He told the 1896 national convention of the
United Confederate Veterans that their organization was not formed, "in malice or in mischief, in disaffection, or in rebellion, nor to keep alive sectional hates, nor to awaken revenge for defeat, nor to kindle disloyalty to the Union." Rather their "recognition of the glorious deeds of our comrades is perfectly consistent with loyalty to the flag and devotion to the Constitution and the resulting Union." The convention agreed with him and formally resolved the Confederate veteran has: "returned to the Union as an equal, and he remains in the Union as a friend. With no humble apologies, no unmanly servility, no petty spite, no sullen treachery, he is a cheerful, frank citizen of the United States, accepting the present, trusting the future, and proud of the past." Curry was appointed by President
Grover Cleveland as the
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Spain during 1885–1888, and by President
Theodore Roosevelt as ambassador extraordinary to Spain on the coming of age of King
Alfonso XIII in 1902. Curry wrote on education, American government, and Spanish history. Curry died on February 12, 1903, and is buried in
Richmond, Virginia. His wife is buried in
Talladega, Alabama, where they had earlier lived. Their home, the
J.L.M. Curry House, also called the Curry-Burt-Smelley House, was designated as a
National Historic Landmark and has been preserved. == Legacy ==