R. E. B. Baylor

The fifth son and sixth child of twelve children born to Walker and Jane (née Bledsoe) Baylor, Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor was born on May 10, 1793, in Lincoln County, Kentucky. with origins in Hungary. His uncle, George Baylor, was the first aide-de-camp to General George Washington in the American Revolutionary War and his father and uncle both served in the life guard to Washington in the Continental Army. His uncle was captured in the Baylor Massacre on September 28, 1778, near Tappan, New Jersey, and was later returned in an exchange. His father served in the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons His mother was the sister of Jesse Bledsoe, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky. R. E. B. Baylor attended the local schools around Paris, Kentucky, and was in a large manner self-taught. He also participated in the ill-fated invasion of Canada, serving under Isaac Shelby and future U.S. president William Henry Harrison. After the war, he studied law under his uncle Jesse Bledsoe and practiced law in Kentucky. == Political and judicial career ==

Origins in Kentucky Baylor was briefly a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1819 to 1820, before he resigned and moved to Alabama. He had offered himself for the Kentucky Legislature in place of his older brother George, who was stepping down. He played the violin or fiddle along with his opponent, Robert P. Letcher, to attract voters, later claiming a narrow victory. Alabama representative After a single term in office in Kentucky, Baylor left and abruptly moved to Alabama. Some have attributed the sudden move to grief. A persistent story says that while he was riding with a young woman he intended to marry, she was bucked off her horse and dragged to her death, with Baylor unable to save her. Finding the familiar scenes of Kentucky too painful to endure, he left for Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Once there, Baylor began to practice law and later continued his political career. Baylor converted and was ordained a Baptist minister in 1839. In August 1840, Baylor was a participant of the Battle of Plum Creek, serving under Edward Burleson along with two other Baptist ministers, Z. N. Morrell and Thomas Washington Cox. He quickly made a name for himself in Texas law as judge of the Third Judicial District of the Congress of the Republic of Texas, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas as an associate justice in 1841, a position he would hold until the annexation of Texas in 1845. and in 1844, along with William M. Tryon and Rev. James Huckins, sent a petition to the Congress of the Republic of Texas asking the nation to charter a Baptist university. In response to this petition, The Republic of Texas produced an Act of Congress that was signed on February 1, 1845, by Anson Jones, providing the charter that yielded Baylor University and, later, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Baylor presided over the meeting that named Henry Lee Graves as the first president of Baylor University. The Texas Temperance Society elected Baylor as its first president in 1845. He was one of two delegates, along with James S. Mayfield, elected to represent Fayette County at the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1845. At the convention he advocated for homestead protection, the forbiddance of ministers from legislative service, a system of judicial appointment and fought strongly against judicial elections. On April 16, 1846, Baylor was appointed to a six-year term as judge of the state's Third Judicial District. He was confirmed by the senate without a dissenting vote, although senator Jesse Grimes tried to lay the nomination on the table and did not vote in the confirmation. Baylor, later the same year, entered the running in the first election for the state's 2nd congressional district, finishing last out of four candidates, with the seat won by Timothy Pilsbury. Initially successful in his effort against judicial elections, the greatest change in his career occurred in 1850 when, by constitutional amendment, the appointment system was replaced in favor of popular judicial elections. He held the judicial position until his retirement in 1863. == Later life and legacy ==

. R. E. B. Baylor was named to the inaugural faculty of the Baylor Law School for its opening in 1857. His judicial duties did not permit him to present regular lectures. However, Baylor University has also stated he never was president of the university. A nephew of Baylor, John R. Baylor, was a prominent leader in the Confederacy serving as both a governor and later as a member of the Confederate Congress. Death He died on December 30, 1873, and was buried in Independence, Texas, on the original site of Baylor University. In 1917, his remains were exhumed and transferred to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas. After the original Baylor had closed, the residents of Independence's hostility toward the new Baylor University in Waco was too great to permit reburial there, so eventually Judge Baylor was re-interred in the main building at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton. A fire destroyed the building and ruined his gravesite in 1964. His remains were moved to a small historical park on the campus. A monument was erected in 1966, bearing the single word "Baylor." Coppini had been selected over Leonard Crunelle's marble sculpture design proposal. George W. Truett delivered the main address at the unveiling, and one of Judge Baylor's former slaves, Ann Freeman, was presented on stage and applauded by the approximately 3000 attendees. Many of Baylor's documents are located at Baylor University, some of his court records are in McLennan County, and at least two volumes of his legal documents are located at the Brazos County Courthouse. . ==Political, social, and religious views==

Initially a supporter of Andrew Jackson when elected to Congress, Baylor would later change his views on the president. at a secret convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos on June 11, 1855. In his role as a judge, he once punished an abolitionist harboring an escaped slave. Another man was punished for not returning a borrowed slave promptly. In 1854, Judge Baylor sentenced a slave to hang for arson. In 1856, he ordered the execution of yet another slave. In 1857, he levied a heavy fine on a white person who bought some bacon from a slave. And in 1862, as the Civil War raged, he ordered the execution of a slave for "intent to rape a white female." During the deliberations of the 1845 state constitution, Baylor famously said, "I do think that any office coming directly from the people ought ever to be filled by the clergy of any denomination." He pointed out that Louisiana and other states had adopted similar measures that prohibited the clergy from public office, and that it should remain as it was "calculated to keep clear and well defined the distinction between Church and State, so essentially necessary to human liberty and happiness". Francis W. Moore Jr., of Harris County, who took the position that "no man or set of men should be disenfranchised", pointed out the irony that Baylor himself was a minister of the gospel who had been directly elected by voters to be a delegate to the convention. ==Personal life==

Baylor was a Mason from 1825 until his death. An 1899 genealogy of the Baylor family erroneously lists R. E. B. Baylor as the father of John R. Baylor. ==Notes==