Thomas P. Akers

This article is about Thomas Peter Akers (1828–1877), attorney, college professor, and member of the United States House of Representatives. For Thomas Dale Akers (born 1951), NASA astronaut, see Thomas Akers.

Thomas Peter Akers (October 4, 1828 – April 3, 1877) was an American slave owner,[1]attorney, college professor, and member of the United States House of Representatives from 1856 to 1857. He was born in Knox County, Ohio, where he graduated from college and studied law.

He became a school teacher in Kentucky, and moved later, in 1853, to Lexington, Missouri. He became a professor of mathematics and moral philosophy at Masonic College in Lexington, as well as the pastor of a local Methodist church there.

On August 18, 1856, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Know Nothing to fill a vacant seat. A slave owner himself,[2] Akers spoke out against Republican anti-slavery speeches on the floor of Congress, calling them "driveling discussion"[3] and "agitation," [4] and spoke against Catholic immigration to the United States.[4] He remained in his position through the next election.

He moved to New York City in 1861, and became a vice president of the gold board. He subsequently moved to Utah Territory because of ill health, and eventually returned to Lexington, Missouri, where he died in 1877.

  1. ^ "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, 2022-01-13, retrieved 2022-01-14
  2. ^ "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, 2022-01-13, retrieved 2022-01-14
  3. ^ Stampp, Kenneth M. (1992-04-30). America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987947-2.
  4. ^ a b Akers, Thomas Peter (1857). Americanism--slavery Question: Speech of Hon. Thomas P. Akers, of Missouri, in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1857.