Adam Lewis Bingaman born c. 1790 in Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, died September 6, 1869 in New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

.¹ Bingaman studied law in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, Harvard University Class of 1812. While in Boston he met and married Julia Maria Murray, daughter of Judith Sargent Murray

Judith Sargent Murray

Judith Sargent Murray was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essayist, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes—that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be...

, feminist, poet, and writer of the Universalist Church in America.

Plantation Life

Murray and her daughter went to live at Fatherland, the Bingaman family plantation in Natchez, Mississippi

Natchez, Mississippi

Natchez is the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. With a total population of 18,464 , it is the largest community and the only incorporated municipality within Adams County...

.² Life on the plantation was privileged. The noted race horse, Lexington (horse)

Lexington (horse)

Lexington was a United States Thoroughbred race horse who won six of his seven race starts. Perhaps his greatest fame came however as the most successful sire of the second half of the nineteenth century; he was the Leading sire in North America 16 times, and of his many brood mare and racer...

 was stabled at the Bingaman plantation while being trained by John Benjamin Pryor

John Benjamin Pryor

John Benjamin Pryor , was a noted Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. He was the trainer of Lexington, a top racehorse of the 1850s and whose excellence in competition and as a sire stud continued well into the 20th century earning the horse induction in to the United States' National Museum of Racing...

, the horse trainer at the top of his field. Bingaman was a slaveholder, holding 230 slaves in 1850 and 310 in 1860.³ Bingaman had a relationship with a free-black woman, Mary E. Williams, and may have fathered as many as six children: Frances Ann, wife of Pryor; Cordelia, Emilie, Marie Sophie Charlotte, James and Henriette.⁴

Orator, Political Life

As a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1833, Bingaman headed a select committee during the Nullification Crisis

Nullification Crisis

The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis during the presidency of Andrew Jackson created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared by the power of the State that the federal Tariff of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within...

 that preceded the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.⁵ He served as the president of the State Senate from 1838 to 1840. Bingaman was described by his peers as "a man of rare qualifications for a popular leader, being gifted by nature in mind and personal appearance (which was most dignified and commanding), with a polished education and fascinating manners; he was a natural orator."⁶ After Charles Lynch was elected governor of Mississippi, Bingaman read Lynch's inaugural speech to the Mississippi Assembly.⁷ Bingaman's reputation as an orator was heightened by his speech to General Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

at Natchez in January 1840.⁸