Andrew Stevenson Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Andrew Stevenson (January 21, 1784 – January 25, 1857) was a Democratic politician in the United States. Educated at the College of William and Mary, he married three times. His second wife, Sarah (Sally) Coles, was a cousin of Dolley Madison and sister of Edward Coles, a governor of Illinois. Stevenson served as a Congressman from Virginia from 1821 to 1834 and was the Speaker of the House from 1827 until resigning in May 1834. He resigned after having been nominated to serve as Minister to the United Kingdom, but in June of that year the United States Senate denied him confirmation. He returned to Virginia and remained active in politics by presiding over the 1835 Democratic National Convention. In February 1836 President Andrew Jackson renominated Stevenson for Minister to Great Britain. He was confirmed 26 votes to 19 and served from 1836 to 1841. Stevenson presided over the 1848 Democratic National Convention. From 1856 to 1857 he served as rector of the University of Virginia.His term as Minister to the United Kingdom was marked by controversy: the abolitionist cause was growing in strength, and some sections of public opinion resented the choice of Stevenson, who was a slaveowner, for this role. The Irish statesman Daniel O'Connell was reported to have denounced Stevenson in public as a slave breeder, generally thought to be a more serious matter than simply being a slaveowner. Stevenson, outraged, challenged O'Connell to a duel, but O'Connell, who had a lifelong aversion to dueling, refused, and suggested that he had been misquoted. The controversy became public and the repeated references to slave breeding caused Stevenson a good deal of embarrassment: there was a widespread view that if O'Connell's charges were false Stevenson would have done better to simply ignore them rather than engaging in a public squabble.Stevenson purchased the Blenheim property in Albemarle County in 1846. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.His son John White Stevenson was a senator and Governor of Kentucky.