represented Kemper County in the Mississippi House of Representatives
Which position did John J. Pettus hold from 1844 to 1854?
John J . Pettus John Jones Pettus ( October 9 , 1813January 25 , 1867 ) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd Governor of Mississippi , from 1859 to 1863 . Prior to being elected in his own right to full gubernatorial terms in 1859 and 1861 , he served as acting governor from January 5 to 10 , 1854 , following the resignation of Henry S . Foote . A member of the Democratic Party , Pettus had previously been a Mississippi state representative , a member and president of the Mississippi Senate . He strongly supported Mississippis secession from the Union in 1861 and sought cooperation with the Confederate States Government . Early life . John Jones Pettus was born on October 9 , 1813 in Wilson County , Tennessee , to John Jones , a farmer , and his wife Alice Taylor ( née Winston ) Pettus . He was the brother of Edmund Pettus . He was raised in Limestone County , Alabama , after his father moved the family from Tennessee . Only nine when his father died , Pettus helped out with chores and was educated at home by his mother . Pettus settled in Mississippi in 1835 . After a brief stay in Sumter County , Alabama , where he studied law , he opened a law practice in Scooba , Mississippi , where in the 1840s he married a cousin , Permelia Winston . He became a successful farmer and by 1850 owned with twenty-four slaves . Political career . In 1844 , Pettus represented Kemper County in the Mississippi House of Representatives . In 1848 , he was elected to the Mississippi Senate . In 1853 , while Governor Henry S . Foote was waiting for the January 11 inauguration of John J . McRae , Foote grew bitter and angry , addressing the legislative session by announcing that he had considered resigning in protest once the election results came in . At noon at January 5 , 1854 , Footes resignation was received by the state senate . The Mississippi Constitution of 1832 had abolished the office of lieutenant governor . Pettus , as President of the Mississippi Senate , was next in seniority and sworn at noon on January 7 , 1854 . He held the governorship until McRae was sworn in on January 10 , 1854 . His only recorded act during these 120 hours was to order a special session in Noxubee County to fill the office of a deceased state representative , Francis Irby . On January 11 , McRae was inaugurated as Governor and Pettus returned as senate president . During the 1850s , he became identified as the Mississippi Fire-eater , a term referring to Southerners supporting secession . In 1859 , he was elected Governor . In his inaugural address , he said that the souths only way to maintain slavery was secession and called for the establishment of a southern confederacy . Following President Abraham Lincolns election , on November 26 , 1860 , Pettus called for a Special Session of the Legislature and urged the Legislature to call for a convention to withdraw Mississippi from the Union . The Legislature called for a Secession Convention which convened in Jackson on January 7 , 1861 . Two days later , Mississippi officially seceded from the Union . On February 4 , 1861 , along with five other slave states , the Confederate States of America was established at Montgomery , Alabama . Pettus was re-elected in the fall of 1861 . Pettus was succeeded by Charles Clark . Later life . Ineligible under the Mississippi Constitution to run for a third term , Pettus was commissioned a colonel in the state militia . In September 1865 he took the oath of allegiance to the United States government , but failed on three separate occasions to receive a presidential pardon . After the war , he relocated to Pulaski County ( present-day Lonoke County ) , Arkansas . Pettus died on January 25 , 1867 , of pneumonia and is buried in the Flat Bayou Cemetery , Jefferson County , Arkansas .