Aaron Venable Brown (15 August 1795-8 March 1859) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-TN 10) from 4 March 1839 to 3 March 1843 (succeeding Ebenezer J. Shields and preceding John Baptista Ashe) and from TN-6 from 4 March 1843 to 3 March 1845 (succeeding William B. Campbell and preceding Barclay Martin), the Democratic Governor of Tennessee from 14 October 1845 to 17 October 1847 (succeeding James C. Jones and preceding Neill S. Brown), and United States Postmaster General from 6 March 1857 to 8 March 1859 (succeeding James Campbell and preceding Joseph Holt).
Biography[]
Aaron Venable Brown was born in Brunswick County, Virginia in 1795, and he became a lawyer in Giles County, Tennessee in 1818. He served in the State Senate from 1821 to 1825 and from 1827 to 1829, in the State House from 1831 to 1835, in the US House of Representatives from 1839 to 1845, as Governor from 1845 to 1847, and as Postmaster General from 1857 to 1859. Brown supported the annexation of Texas, but he lost re-election as Governor due to the declining popularity of the Mexican-American War. He served as a delegate to the 1850 Nashville Convention, calling for the Compromise of 1850, and he served as President James Buchanan's Postmaster General until his death in 1859.