Thomas Jefferson Rusk (5 December 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a US Senator from Texas (D) from 21 February 1846 to 29 July 1857, preceding James Pinckney Henderson.
Biography[]
Thomas Jefferson Rusk was born in Pendleton, South Carolina in 1803, and he became a lawer in Clarkesville, Georgia in 1825. In 1834, the managers of a mining company in which Rusk had made investments embezzled all of his funds and fled to Mexican Texas, and Rusk chased them there. He pursued them to Nacogdoches, but he never recovered the money; instead, he became a Mexican citizen and settled in Texas. He became a politician of the Republic of Texas, signing the Declaration of Independence and revising the constitution. He participated in the Battle of San Jacinto, and, from May to October 1836, he served as commander-in-chief of the Texian Army with the rank of Brigadier-General. President Sam Houston appointed Rusk Secretary of War, but he resigned after a few weeks to take care of domestic problems. In 1838, he suppressed the Cordova Rebellion and defeated the Mexican-backed Kickapoo and Caddo Native Americans. In 1838, he was elected Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, serving until 1840, when he resigned in order to continue his law practice.
In 1845, Rusk, in favor of the United States' annexation of Texas, attended the annexation convention. In 1846, Rusk and Houston were elected to serve as Texas' inaugural US Senators, and Rusk supported the Mexican-American War and the acquisition of California. During the debate over the Compromise of 1850, he refused to support secession, and he vigorously defended Texas' claims to the lands used to form the New Mexico Territory. He supported the Gadsden Purchase to facilitate the construction of a Transcontinental Railroad, and he also supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Sadly for Rusk, his wife died of tuberculosis in 1856. Despite being appointed President pro tempore of the US Senate in 1857, Rusk was also pained by a tumor at the base of his neck, and he shot himself in Nacogdoches.