Joseph Duncan (22 February 1794-15 January 1844) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-IL AL) from 4 March 1827 to 3 March 1833 (succeeding Daniel Pope Cook) and from IL-3 from 4 March 1833 to 21 September 1834 (preceding William L. May) and the Whig Governor of Illinois from 3 December 1834 to 7 December 1838 (succeeding William Lee D. Ewing and preceding Thomas Carlin).
Biography[]
Joseph Duncan was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1794, and he served in the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War before moving to Brownsville, Illinois in 1818 and to Jacksonville in 1830. He served in the state house from 1825 to 1829 as a Jacksonian Democrat, and he served in the US House of Representatives from 1827 to 1834. However, he voted more often with the opposition Whigs in Congress and voted to recharter the Bank of the United States; he was elected governor with the help of Democrats unaware of his change in politics, being elected governor without campaigning or even visiting the state. As Illinois' only Whig governor, he supported a state internal improvements act, incurring a great deal of debt that was not paid off until 1882. He also moved the capital from Vandalia to Springfield, and he lost re-election in 1842 and died in 1844.