Pierre Soule (31 August 1801-26 March 1870) was a US Senator from Louisiana (D) from 21 January to 3 March 1847 (succeeding Alexander Barrow and preceding Solomon W. Downs) and from 3 March 1849 to 11 April 1853 (succeeding Henry Johnson and preceding John Slidell).
Biography[]
Pierre Soule was born in Castillon-en-Couserans, France in 1801, and he was frequently imprisoned for his revolutionary activities. In 1825, he escaped prison and fled to Britain, Haiti, and then to the United States, settling in New Orleans and becoming a lawyer. He served in the US Senate in 1847 to fill a vacancy, and he was then elected to a full term in 1849. He resigned to serve as ambassador to Spain from 1853 to 1855, and he wrote the 1854 Ostend Manifesto, part of an attempt of slaveholding southern planters to gain support for the annexation of Cuba from Spain. Although he opposed secession, he supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War. He was captured by federal troops on 18 May 1861 for "plotting treason", but he escaped from prison in Massachusetts and returned to Confederate territory. He went into exile in Havana after the war's end, and he later returned to New Orleans, where he died in 1870.