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JOHN YOUNG MASON (1799-1859)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 840 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN See also:YOUNG See also:MASON (1799-1859)  , See also:American See also:political See also:leader and diplomatist, was See also:born in Greenesville See also:county, See also:Virginia, on the 18th of See also:April 1799 . Graduating at the university of See also:North Carolina in 1816, he studied See also:law in the famous See also:Litchfield (See also:Connecticut) law school, and in r829 was admitted to practice in See also:Southampton county, Virginia . He served in the Virginia See also:house of delegates in 1823—1827, in the See also:state constitutional See also:convention of 1829—1830, and from 1831 to 1837 in the See also:National House of Representatives, being chairman of the See also:committee on See also:foreign affairs in 1835—1836 . He was secretary of the See also:navy in See also:President See also:Tyler's See also:cabinet (1844—1845), and was See also:attorney-See also:general (1845—1846) and secretary of the navy (1846—1849), succeeding See also:George See also:Bancroft, under President See also:Polk . He was president of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1851, and from 1853 until his See also:death at See also:Paris on the 3rd of See also:October 1859, was See also:United States See also:minister to See also:France . In this capacity he attracted See also:attention by wearing at the See also:court of See also:Napoleon III. a See also:simple See also:diplomatic See also:uniform (for this he was rebuked by Secretary of State W . L . See also:Marcy, who had ordered American ministers to See also:wear a See also:plain civilian See also:costume), and by joining with See also:James See also:Buchanan and See also:Pierre Soule, ministers to See also:Great See also:Britain and See also:Spain respectively, in See also:drawing up (Oct . 1854) the famous See also:Ostend Manifesto . See also:Hawthorne called him a " See also:fat-brained, See also:good-hearted, sensible old See also:man "; and in politics he was a typical Virginian of the old school, a state's rights Democrat, upholding See also:slavery and hating abolitionism .

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