Texas Legislators: Past & Present

Andrew Jackson Hamilton

Full Name: Andrew Jackson Hamilton
Birth date: January 28, 1815
Death date: April 11, 1875

Terms of Service

Senate, 8th ⁽¹⁾ ⁽³⁾ ⁽⁴⁾ Legislature
Elected but never sworn
House, 4th ⁽²⁾ Legislature
11/3/1851 - 11/7/1853

(1) Hamilton was elected to the Senate in 1861 as the Union candidate, but "he declined to take the required oath of qualification." Bench and Bar of Texas 1885.
(2) "By the 1850s he had become a member of the "Opposition Clique" in Texas, a faction of the regular Democratic party that opposed secession, reopening the slave trade, and other Southern extremist demands." Handbook of Texas Online .
(3) "When he [Hamilton] returned to Texas in the spring of 1861 he won a special election to the state Senate." Handbook of Texas Online .
(4) "Our late Representative in Congress, Hon. A.J. Hamilton, was elected State Senator for the Austin district, last Monday [8/25/1861] . . . Judge Towns [sic], resigned." Civilian and Gazette. Weekly. (Galveston, Texas), 4/2/1861, p. 2, crediting Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Portal to Texas History (University of North Texas Libraries) .

Biographical Notes and Resources

Resolutions and Journal entries

28th Legislature, 1st C.S., 4/29/1903, pp. 220-226. Mentioned in the presentation address of the oil portrait of Judge A.W. Terrell. House Journal .

Photographs

Photograph. Andrew J. Hamilton, Texas Jurists Collection

Other Resources

Mentioned, p. 33; Photo and biographical sketch, p. 44. Austin Lawyers: A Legacy of Leadership and Service 2005.
Biography, pp. 104-109. Bench and Bar of Texas 1885.
HAMILTON, Andrew Jackson (1815-1875). Representative, TX. Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress .
Biography in LRL collection, Z UA550.8 H18. Colossal Hamilton of Texas: A Biography of Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Militant Unionist and Reconstruction Governor 1968.
Biographical sketch, Andrew J. Hamilton, pp. 47-51. Governors Who Have Been, and Other Public Men of Texas 1921.
HAMILTON, ANDREW JACKSON (1815-1875). Handbook of Texas Online .
Brigadier General of volunteers, appointed military governor of Texas, November 1862. Handbook of Texas Online .
Biographical sketch, A.J. Hamilton, pp. 619-620. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas 1890.
Mentioned in list of "Future Republicans . . . at one time or another championed Know-Nothingism." Baggett, James Alex, "Origins of Early Texas Republican Party Leadership," The Journal of Southern History, Vol.40(3), August 1974, p. 443. Journal of Southern History .
Included in list of Unionists who fled Texas to avoid "a requirement that public officials take a loyalty oath to the Confederacy . . ." Baggett, James Alex, "Origins of Early Texas Republican Party Leadership," The Journal of Southern History, Vol.40(3), August 1974, p. 448. Journal of Southern History .
Biographical sketch and portrait, Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Associate Justice, Texas Supreme Court, 1867-1869. Justices of Texas, 1836-1986 (Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin) 2004.
Governor of Texas 1865-1866. Legislative Reference Library, Governors of Texas, 1846-present .
Obituary, Semmes Wilder Parish, Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 10/1/1943, p. 8. Native of Calvert, Texas, oil drilling operator, Captain in Spanish-American War. "Survivors include the widow, Mrs. Katherine H. Parish, granddaughter of the late Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton, of Texas." Newspapers.com .
"In 1862 . . . was immediately appointed brigadier-general of Texas troops in the Union service." Personnel of the Texas State Government with Sketches of Representative Men of Texas, 22nd Legislature 1892.
Biographical sketch, A.J. Hamilton, pp. 42-43. Born 1/28/1815 in Madison County, Alabama. Personnel of the Texas State Government with Sketches of Representative Men of Texas, 22nd Legislature 1892.
Brigadier General USV; Military Governor of Texas. Andrew Jackson Hamilton. Texas Burial Sites of Civil War Notables: A Biographical and Pictorial Field Guide 2002.
Delegate to Constitutional Convention, 1868. Included in "List of Delegates to the Reconstruction Convention, As Announced in Special order No. 213, Dated Headquarters Fifth Military District, New Orleans, LA., April 13th, 1868." Journal of the Reconstruction Convention, Which Met at Austin, Texas, June 1, A.D., 1868 (1870), pp 533-534. Texas Constitutions Digitization Project (Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin) 2009.
Prominent Texas Unionist leader, appointed military governor of Texas by Abraham Lincoln, November 1862. Biographical sketch and portrait, pp. 140, Plate No. 60. Texas in the War, 1861-1865 1965.