James G. Taliaferro

This article is about the lawyer, newspaper publisher, and judge in Louisiana. For the U.S. Senator from Florida, see James Taliaferro.

James Govan Taliaferro (September 28, 1798 – October 13, 1876) was a lawyer, newspaper publisher, and judge in Louisiana. As the secession movement grew he remained a staunch Unionist and was held for some time in a Confederate prison during the American Civil War.[1]

A Whig, he later joined the Republican Party and was an outspoken opponent of secession. He was an opponent of the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery and ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1865 on a platform against Black suffrage. He remained active in Republican Party politics during the Reconstruction Era and was a candidate for governor in 1868[2] with the backing of Louis Charles Roudanez and his African American newspaper The New Orleans Tribune. He ran for governor with running mate Francis Ernest Dumas, an "almost white" Union officer and former slaveholder. They lost to Henry C. Warmoth, a Civil War veteran officer from the North who ended up undermining civil rights legislation and being removed from office for election corruption in 1872. Taliaferro's family papers are at Louisiana State University.[3]

  1. ^ Jean-Charles Houzeau (March 2001). My Passage at the New Orleans Tribune: A Memoir of the Civil War Era. LSU Press. pp. 51–. ISBN 978-0-8071-6723-6.
  2. ^ "Taliaferro, James Govan, 1798-1876 @ SNAC". snaccooperative.org.
  3. ^ "James G. Taliaferro and family papers, 1787-1934 (Bulk 1867-1875)".