Andrew Jackson Rogers

Andrew Jackson Rogers (July 1, 1828 – May 22, 1900) was an American lawyer, teacher, clerk, police commissioner, and Democratic Party politician who represented New Jersey’s 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms from 1863 to 1867. He was born in Hamburg, Sussex County, New Jersey, where he attended the local common schools. As a young man he worked as a clerk in a hotel and in a country store, experiences that preceded his brief career as a schoolteacher, during which he taught for two years.

Rogers pursued the study of law after his early employment and teaching work. He read law in New Jersey and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Following his admission, he commenced the practice of law in Lafayette Township, New Jersey, building a legal career that would form the basis of his later public service. In 1857 he moved to Newton, New Jersey, where he continued to practice law and became more prominently engaged in local affairs and Democratic Party politics.

In 1862, Rogers was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey’s 4th congressional district. He served two consecutive terms in the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, holding office from March 4, 1863, to March 3, 1867. His service in Congress occurred during the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction, a significant and turbulent period in American history. As a member of the Democratic Party representing New Jersey, Rogers contributed to the legislative process over his two terms, participating in debates and votes that reflected the interests and concerns of his constituents during wartime and its aftermath.

During his congressional tenure, Rogers served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, the powerful body that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which addressed citizenship, equal protection, and the rights of formerly enslaved people. He was also a member of the House committee that investigated the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. In the course of that inquiry, only the committee’s chairman, Representative George Boutwell, was permitted to examine certain key documents. Rogers later publicly accused Boutwell of participating in an effort to conceal what he believed to be the involvement or culpability of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in the circumstances surrounding the assassination, reflecting the intense partisan and personal conflicts of the Reconstruction era.

Rogers was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1866 and left Congress at the close of his second term in March 1867. After his congressional service, he moved to New York City in 1867, where he resumed the practice of law. In New York he served as counsel for the city in important litigation, applying his legal expertise to municipal matters during a period of rapid urban growth and recurring political controversy.

In the later phase of his career, Rogers relocated to the West. In 1892 he moved to Denver, Colorado, where he served as the police commissioner of Denver, adding law enforcement administration to a professional record that already included work as a lawyer, teacher, clerk, and legislator. He remained in Denver for several years before returning to New York City in 1896. Andrew Jackson Rogers died in New York City on May 22, 1900. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. His career and papers have been documented in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and related research collections.