Samuel Smith ( Maryland ) Samuel Smith ( July 27 , 1752April 22 , 1839 ) was a United States Senator and Representative from Maryland , a mayor of Baltimore , Maryland , and a general in the Maryland militia . He was the brother of cabinet secretary Robert Smith . Biography . Born in Carlisle , Pennsylvania , Smith moved with his family to Baltimore , Maryland , in 1759 . He attended a private academy , and engaged in mercantile pursuits until the American Revolutionary War , at which time he served as captain , major , and lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army . Prior to the war , as a young captain , he was sent to Annapolis to arrest Governor Eden and seize his papers . After the war , Smith engaged in the shipping business . From 1790 to 1792 , Smith was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates . At the time of the threatened war with France in 1794 , he was appointed brigadier general of the Maryland militia and commanded Maryland ’ s quota during the Whiskey Rebellion . Smith served as a major general of Maryland militia during the War of 1812 , and commanded the defenses of Baltimore during the Battle of Baltimore and Fort McHenry in 1814 . The American victory there can largely be attributed to Smith ' s preparation for the British invasion . Smith entered into national politics when he was elected to the Third United States Congress , serving from March 4 , 1793 , until March 4 , 1803 . As a Congressman , Smith served as chairman of the U . S . House Committee on Commerce and Manufactures ( Fifth through Seventh Congresses ) . As a principal negotiator between the young Federalist leader and Delaware representative , James Asheton Bayard II , and the presumptive President - Elect Jefferson , Smith secured the winning ballot in the United States House of Representatives for Jefferson during the United States presidential election , 1800 . Smith entered into the Senate election in 1802 , and was elected as a Democratic - Republican to the United States Senate . He was re - elected in 1808 and served from March 4 , 1803 until March 4 , 1815 . While senator , Smith served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Ninth and Tenth Congresses . Smith was elected to the Fourteenth Congress on January 31 , 1816 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Nicholas R . Moore , and was re - elected to the Fifteenth , Sixteenth , and Seventeenth Congresses . In the House , Smith served as chairman of the U . S . House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury ( Fourteenth Congress ) , and as a member of the Committee on Ways and Means ( Fifteenth through Seventeenth Congresses ) . On December 17 , 1822 , Smith resigned as congressman , having been elected as a Democratic Republican ( later Crawford Republican and Jacksonian ) to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Pinkney . Smith served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Twentieth and Twenty - first Congresses , and as chairman of the Committee on Finance ( Eighteenth and Twentieth through Twenty - second Congresses ) . He was re - elected in 1826 and served until March 4 , 1833 . Two years later , in 1835 , Smith became mayor of Baltimore , and served in that position until 1838 , when he retired from public life . Smith died in Baltimore in 1839 , and is interred in the Old Westminster Burying Ground . Attitudes to slavery . In 1828 Smith served as Vice - President of the Maryland State Colonization Society , of which Charles Carroll of Carrollton , one of the co - signers of the Declaration of Independence , was president . The MSCS was a branch of the American Colonization Society , an organization dedicated to returning black Americans to lead free lives in African states such as Liberia .