David Rice Atchison

David Rice Atchison (August 11, 1807 – January 26, 1886) was a mid-19th-century Democratic United States Senator from Missouri. Atchison served as a major general in the Missouri State Militia in 1838 during Missouri's Mormon War and as a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War under Major General Sterling Price in the Missouri Home Guard. Some of Atchison's associates claimed that for 24 hours—Sunday, March 4, 1849, through noon on Monday—he may have been acting president of the United States. This belief, however, is dismissed by most scholars.

Atchison, owner of many slaves and a plantation, was a prominent pro-slavery activist and border ruffian leader, deeply involved with violence against abolitionists and other free-staters during the "Bleeding Kansas" events that preceded admission of the state to the Union.

Early life Atchison was born to William Atchison and his wife in Frogtown (later Kirklevington), which is now part of Lexington, Kentucky. He was educated at Transylvania University in Lexington. Classmates included five future Democratic senators (Solomon Downs of Louisiana, Jesse Bright of Indiana, George Wallace Jones of Iowa, Edward Hannegan of Indiana, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi). Atchison completed law studies and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1829.

Missouri lawyer and politician In 1830, he moved to Liberty in Clay County in western Missouri, Atchison represented Smith in land disputes with non-Mormon settlers in Caldwell County The two became fast friends and spent many leisure time hours playing cards, going to horse races, hunting, fishing, and attending social functions and political events. Atchison, already a member of the Liberty Blues, a volunteer militia in Missouri, got Doniphan to join.

Atchison was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1834. He worked hard for the Platte Purchase, which required Native American tribes to cede land to the United States and extended the northwestern boundary of Missouri to the Missouri River in 1837.

When early disputes broke out into the Mormon War of 1838, Atchison was appointed a major general in the state militia.

Active in the Democratic Party, Atchison was re-elected to the Missouri State House of Representatives in 1838. In 1841, he was appointed a circuit court judge for the six-county area of the Platte Purchase. In 1843, he was named a county commissioner in Platte County, where he then lived.

Senate career

In October 1843, He also was responsible for presiding over the Senate when the vice president was absent. At 38, he was a young man with low seniority in the Senate after two years to gain such a position.

In 1849, Atchison stepped down as president pro tempore in favor of William R. King.

While Southerners supported the idea of settling in Kansas, few migrated there. Most free-soilers preferred Kansas to Nebraska. Furthermore, anti-slavery activists throughout the North came to view Kansas as a battleground and formed societies to encourage free-soil settlers to go to Kansas, to ensure there would be enough voters in both Kansas and Nebraska to approve their entry as free states.

It appeared as if the Kansas Territorial legislature to be elected in March 1855 would be controlled by free-soilers and ban slavery. Atchison and his supporters viewed this as a breach of faith. An angry Atchison called on pro-slavery Missourians to uphold slavery by force and "to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the district" if necessary. He recruited an immense mob of heavily armed Missourians, the infamous "border ruffians". On election day, March 30, 1855, Atchison led 5,000 border ruffians into Kansas. They seized control of all polling places at gunpoint, cast tens of thousands of fraudulent votes for pro-slavery candidates, and elected a pro-slavery legislature.

Two days later, Atchison gave his own speech, totally unaware that he had been exposed on the Senate floor in such a fashion. Atchison's speech was to the Texas men he had just met, hired, and paid for, Atchison reveals in his speech, by "authorities in Washington". They are about to invade Lawrence, Kansas. Atchison makes the men promise to kill and "draw blood," and boasts of his flag, which was red in color for "Southern Rights" and the color of blood. They would press "to blood" the spread of slavery into Kansas. He revealed in this speech that the immediate goal of the invasion was to stop the newspaper in Lawrence from publishing anti-slavery material. Atchison's men had made it a crime to publish anti-slavery newspapers in Kansas.

Atchison made it clear the men were to kill and draw blood, told the men they would be "well paid," and encouraged them to plunder from the homes that they invaded. That was after the hundreds of dozens of tortures and killings that Sumner had detailed in his Crimes Against Kansas speech. In other words, things were about to get much worse since Atchison had his hired men from Texas.

Historians, constitutional scholars, and biographers dismiss the claim. They point out that Atchison's Senate term had also ended on March 4.

Death

Atchison died on January 26, 1886, at his home near Gower, Missouri at the age of 78. He was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Plattsburg, Missouri. His grave marker reads "President of the United States for One Day."

Legacy Atchison, Kansas county seat of Atchison County, Kansas. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad utilized the town name. Atchison County, Missouri Atchison Township, Clinton County, Missouri Atchison Township, Nodaway County, Missouri USS Atchison County (LST-60) ship In 1991, Atchison was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol. The Atchison County Historical Museum, in Atchison, Kansas, includes an exhibit titled the "World's Smallest Presidential Library". A historical marker designating the approximate site of Atchison's birth is located along Highway 1974 in the Landsdowne neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky.