page_title: James D. Porter
section_title: Later endeavors
hierarchical_section_title: James D. Porter / Later endeavors
caption_attribution_description: English: Tennessee Governor James D. Porter (1828&#8211;1912)
context_page_description: James Davis Porter was an American attorney, politician, educator, and officer of the Confederate Army. He served as Governor of Tennessee from 1875 to 1879. He was subsequently appointed as Assistant Secretary of State during President Grover Cleveland's first administration, and Minister to Chile in Cleveland's second administration.
  As an elected state legislator on the eve of the Civil War, Porter had introduced the "Porter resolutions," which bound Tennessee to the Confederacy should war be declared. He served during much of the war as chief of staff to Confederate General Benjamin F. Cheatham, and saw action at various battles in Tennessee and Georgia.
  Porter spent his later years as chancellor of his alma mater, the University of Nashville, and as president of Peabody College. This was established at the University of Nashville during his gubernatorial administration. He oversaw the liquidation and transfer of the University of Nashville's assets to the Peabody Education Fund, which allowed Peabody College to be re-established near Vanderbilt University in 1909.
context_section_description: In his book Appalachian Aspirations, Professor John Benhart describes Porter (and ex-Governor John C. Brown) as "typical of the New South Conservatives who dominated Tennessee politics during the two decades following Reconstruction, mixing the mores of the Old South with a recognition that industrial capitalism was the wave of the future." Following his tenure as governor, Porter remained active in the New South economy.
  He succeeded Edmund William Cole as the president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway from 1880 to 1884. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.
  In 1885, Porter was appointed Assistant Secretary of State by President Grover Cleveland.  He served under Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard.  In 1893, during Cleveland's second term, Porter was appointed as U.S. Minister to Chile.  He served there until a change in administrations in the Spring of 1894.
  Porter spent the latter part of his life promoting and raising funds for his alma mater, the University of Nashville (from which he had been granted an honorary LL.D. in 1877), and its affiliated Peabody College.  He was appointed a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund in 1883, and became president of the Board of Trustees for the University of Nashville in 1890.
  Porter became chancellor of the University of Nashville in 1901, and president of Peabody College in 1902. He supported the construction of Confederate Memorial Hall. In the latter part of the decade, he oversaw the liquidation of the University of Nashville's assets and their transfer to the Peabody fund for the reestablishment of Peabody College.  The fund chose to locate the reorganized college at Vanderbilt's campus, however, leaving Porter embittered.  He resigned from the fund's board in 1909.
  In 1899, Porter published a book, The Military History of Tennessee, War of 1861-65, which became Volume VIII of Clement Evans's 12-volume series, Confederate Military History.  He was also active in the Tennessee Historical Society, at one point serving as its president.
  Porter died in 1912, and is buried in the Paris City Cemetery.
caption: Porter, photographed later in life
exif: {}