John Rowan (Kentucky politician)

John Rowan was born July 12, 1773, near York in the Province of Pennsylvania. He was third of five children born to Captain William and Sarah Elizabeth "Eliza" (Cooper) Rowan. His siblings included two older brothers – Andrew and Stephen – and two younger sisters – Elizabeth and Alice. Three of the families disembarked near what is now Maysville, Kentucky; the Rowans would later learn that most of these settlers were killed by Indians. The remaining settlers continued downriver, reaching Louisville, Kentucky, on March 10, 1783. The fort, then located approximately 100 miles from the nearest white settlement, is the present-day town of Calhoun. The settlers at Fort Vienna frequently clashed with the Shawnee who used the area as a hunting ground. Salem Academy was, at the time, considered one of the best educational institutions in the west. Among Rowan's classmates at the Academy were future U.S. Attorney General Felix Grundy, future U.S. Senator John Pope, future U.S. District Attorney Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, and future Kentucky state senator John Allen. Other notable members of the society included future Florida Governor William Pope Duval, future U.S. Postmaster General and Kentucky Governor Charles A. Wickliffe, and future Kentucky Senator Benjamin Hardin. Rowan struggled financially during his early years as a lawyer. An advocate of education, Rowan allowed several prominent young law students to study in his office, including future U.S. Treasury Secretary James Guthrie, future Supreme Court Justice John McKinley, and future Kentucky Governor Lazarus W. Powell. Rowan married Anne Lytle on October 29, 1794. Rowan and his wife – who he affectionately nicknamed "Nancy" – had nine children: Eliza Cooper (Rowan) Harney, Mary Jane (Rowan) Steele, William Lytle Rowan, Atkinson Hill Rowan, John Rowan Jr., Josephine Daviess (Rowan) Clark, Ann (Rowan) Buchanan, Alice Douglass (Rowan) Shaw Wakefield, and Elizabeth (Rowan) Hughes. Atkinson Hill Rowan served as an emissary to Spain for President Andrew Jackson. John Rowan Jr. was appointed U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Naples by President James K. Polk, serving from 1848 to 1849. After a fire destroyed the log cabin in which the Rowans lived in 1812, they moved into the part of the mansion that was completed, and continued to live there while construction on the rest of the house was finished. Rowan owned slaves. He identified with the Democratic-Republican Party and espoused the Jeffersonian principles of limited government and individual liberty. He was chosen to represent Nelson County at the constitutional convention held at Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1799 to draft the second Kentucky Constitution. As a delegate, he advocated the supremacy of the legislative branch over the executive and judicial branches, which he believed provided ordinary citizens a greater role in state government. The constitution adopted by the convention abolished the use of electors to choose the governor and state senators, providing for the direct election of these officers instead. ==Duel with Dr. James Chambers==

Rowan was known throughout his life as an avid gamester. On January 29, 1801, Rowan joined Dr. James Chambers and three other men for a game of cards at Duncan McLean's Tavern in Bardstown. After several beers and games of whist, Chambers suggested playing Vingt-et-un for money instead. According to Little, Rowan, embarrassed at his behavior, refused the challenge and repeatedly apologized for his actions, but Chambers was insistent on the duel and continued hurling insults of growing severity at Rowan until Rowan accepted the challenge. Bibb claims that he and Rowan had, after the night of the incident, gone to nearby Bullitt County on business, that Rowan had returned first, and that Rowan showed Bibb the letter upon his return on February 1. According to Bibb, he and Bullock met on February 1 to discuss the parameters for the duel. Despite medical aid, Chambers died the following day. The posse was fooled into thinking the slave was Rowan and gave chase, but the slave escaped and Rowan's life was spared as well. Heller also points out that Grundy was Commonwealth's Attorney not in Nelson County (the location of Bardstown), but in neighboring Washington County at the time. Joseph Hamilton Daveiss and Colonel William Allen served as counsel for Rowan. The judge opined that there was insufficient evidence to send the case to a grand jury, and Rowan was released. ==Secretary of State and early legislative career==

Shortly after his duel with Chambers, Rowan moved to Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital. In 1802, he was one of 32 men who signed a pledge to bring James Madison to Transylvania University as superintendent. This action began a long relationship between Rowan and Transylvania, and the university presented him with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1823. Joshua Barney, McCreery's opponent in the election, claimed that McCreery did not meet a requirement in the Maryland Constitution that a representative live in the district from which he was elected for twelve months prior to the election. Also during the first session of the Tenth Congress, Rowan proposed that a congressional committee be formed to investigate accusations against General James Wilkinson that, in 1788, he took money from the government of Spain in exchange for efforts to separate Kentucky from Virginia and unite it with Spain rather than the United States. Rowan's proposal to form an investigative committee against Wilkinson failed, but he succeeded in gaining approval for a committee to investigate federal judge Harry Innes' purported role in the Conspiracy. He opined that Rowan's attempt to investigate Wilkinson had been a slap at party founder Thomas Jefferson (then in his second term as president), under whom Wilkinson was serving as Commanding General of the United States Army. Fackler observed that Rowan often disagreed with Jefferson as president, and that as a result, some historians labeled him a Federalist, a designation Fackler felt was in error. Representative James G. Birney vigorously opposed the resolution, and it was defeated. The pro-slavery members of the House then rallied behind Rowan's leadership to pass a substitute resolution which softened the most objectionable language but retained the call for fugitive slave legislation in Indiana and Ohio. ==Legislative interim and service on the Court of Appeals==

Rowan often found himself in demand as an orator and host. In February 1818, he was chosen to eulogize his close friend, George Rogers Clark. In June 1819, the citizens of Louisville chose him as their official host for a visiting party that included James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. In May 1825, he was one of thirteen men chosen by the citizens of Louisville to organize a reception for a visit by the Marquis de Lafayette. Rowan was appointed as a judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1819. In the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a contradictory opinion. While Rowan was still a justice of the Court of Appeals, the General Assembly chose him and John J. Crittenden as commissioners to resolve a border dispute with Tennessee. The dispute had arisen from an erroneous survey of the border line conducted by Dr. Thomas Walker years earlier. The Tennessee commissioners, Felix Grundy and William L. Brown, proposed that, because it had been accepted for so long, the Walker line be observed as far west as the Tennessee River, with Kentucky being compensated with a more southerly line between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. Crittenden was inclined to accept this proposal with some minor adjustments, but Rowan insisted that Tennessee honor the statutory border of 36 degrees, 30 minutes north. The case, which involved the constitutionality of laws passed by the General Assembly relating to land titles granted in Kentucky when the state was still a part of Virginia, was of interest to the legislature. The Supreme Court, however, refused the second rehearing, letting stand their previous opinion that Kentucky's laws were in violation of the compact of separation from Virginia. ==Old Court – New Court controversy==

Due to the Panic of 1819, many citizens in Kentucky fell deep into debt and began petitioning the legislature for help. The state's politicians split into two factions. Those who advocated for measures that were more favorable to debtors were dubbed the Relief faction while those who insisted on sound money principles and the strict adherence to the obligation of contracts were called the Anti-Relief faction. Meanwhile, Rowan, who espoused the Relief position, was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1822 representing Jefferson and Oldham counties. He immediately became the leader of the Relief faction in the House. When Relief partisans decided to appeal Williams and Lapsley to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which was at the time the court of last resort in the state, Rowan was chosen to argue the appeal before the court alongside George M. Bibb and Lieutenant Governor William T. Barry. Their efforts failed, however, as the Court found the measure unconstitutional, upholding the decisions of the lower courts. On December 10, 1823, Rowan presented resolutions condemning the Court's decision to the legislature. The twenty-six page preamble to the resolutions laid out the Relief faction's reasoning upon the subject of debt relief and legislative supremacy. The offending judges – two of whom had been Rowan's colleagues during his service on the Court – were summoned before the legislature to defend their decisions later in December. Following their appearance, Rowan introduced a measure to remove them from office; the vote in the House was 56–40 in favor of the measure, but this fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to remove the judges. The Relief faction then introduced legislation to repeal the law that originally created the Court of Appeals, then replace the abolished court with a new court. In November 1824, Rowan heavily revised the preamble and resolutions he presented in the previous legislative session. Rowan's role in the Old Court – New Court controversy strained his relationship with his former friend, Benjamin Hardin. Hardin and Rowan had once been so close that Hardin named one of his sons "Rowan" in his colleague's honor. After the controversy, Hardin insisted that friends and family refer to Rowan Hardin as "Ben", but few people other than Hardin himself adopted the new name. ==Service in the U.S. Senate==

As a result of the 1824 elections, the Relief faction gained a 22–16 majority in the state Senate and a 61–39 majority in the House. The pro-Relief majority in the state Senate subsequently elected Rowan to the U.S. Senate, which had the inadvertent effect of weakening the faction's cause in the House by removing its leader there. Rowan served in the Senate from March 4, 1825, to March 3, 1831. An ally of Senator Richard Mentor Johnson, who was a primary voice against the practice of debt imprisonment, Rowan made a notable speech denouncing the practice on the Senate floor in 1828. A consistent opponent of internal improvements and tariffs, even those that would benefit his own constituents, he voted against a measure allocating federal funds for the construction of a road connecting the cities of Lexington and Maysville. The vote was ill-received by the people of the state, and Rowan's popularity took a significant hit. Rowan's strict adherence to Jeffersonian democracy and leadership of the New Court faction during the court controversy of the 1820s had put him at odds with Whig founder Henry Clay. Henry Clay was elected instead. ==Later life and legacy==

. After his service in the Senate, Rowan returned to Kentucky, dividing his time between Louisville and Bardstown. The spouses of William and Mary Jane also died of cholera, as did Mary Jane's daughter, and Rowan's sister Elizabeth and her husband. Aid from Bishop Joseph Flaget and a group of nuns who traveled to Federal Hill during the epidemic probably spared the life of Rowan's orphaned granddaughter, Eliza Rowan Harney. He also served as the first president of the Kentucky Historical Society from 1838 until his death. While there, he fell ill and was unable to return to Washington, D.C.; consequently, he resigned his commission. Rowan died July 13, 1843. Several years later, members of his family placed a marker over his grave, despite his wishes. Cousin of the Rowan family, Stephen Collins Foster, was inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin to write his ballad My Old Kentucky Home. The song was not associated with Federal Hill until after the Civil War, and Stephen likely never visited the site, as attested by his biographers such as John Tasker Howard, William Austin, Ken Emerson, and JoAnne O’Connell. The mansion remained in the possession of Judge Rowan's family until 1922, when his granddaughter, Madge (Rowan) Frost, sold it to the state of Kentucky to be preserved as a state shrine. Today, it is a part of My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown. In 1856, the Kentucky General Assembly created a new county from parts of Fleming and Morgan counties and named it Rowan County in Rowan's honor. ==References==