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==