Christopher Tompkins

Christopher Tompkins (March 24, 1780 – August 9, 1858) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and a prominent early nineteenth‑century lawyer and legislator in that state. He was born in Green County, Kentucky, then a frontier region of the early republic, where he completed his preparatory studies before pursuing a legal career. Growing up in a developing area of Kentucky, he came of age as the state was consolidating its institutions and political life, circumstances that helped shape his later involvement in public affairs.

After completing his preliminary education, Tompkins studied law and was admitted to the bar. He established his legal practice in Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky, a growing commercial and legal center in the south‑central part of the state. His work as an attorney in Glasgow brought him into contact with local land, commercial, and political disputes typical of the period, and it provided the professional standing that facilitated his entry into elective office. Throughout his life, Glasgow remained both his professional base and his place of residence.

Tompkins’s political career began relatively early. In 1805 he was elected a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, participating in state legislative affairs during a formative period in Kentucky’s political development. His early service in the state legislature placed him among the generation of Kentucky politicians who grappled with issues of internal improvements, banking, and the balance between state and federal authority in the years following statehood.

After many years devoted primarily to his legal practice, Tompkins returned to higher office at the national level. He was elected as an Anti‑Jacksonian to the Twenty‑second and Twenty‑third Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1831, to March 3, 1835. As an Anti‑Jacksonian, he aligned with the opposition to President Andrew Jackson, a coalition that would soon coalesce into the Whig Party. During his two consecutive terms in Congress, he represented Kentucky at a time when major national questions included the Bank of the United States, tariff policy, and federal support for internal improvements, issues on which Anti‑Jacksonians generally favored a stronger role for Congress and a more active federal government in economic development.

Upon the expiration of his second term in Congress, Tompkins returned to state politics. He was again elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, serving in the sessions of 1835 and 1836. His renewed service in the state legislature reflected his continuing influence in Kentucky political life and his ongoing engagement with the state’s legislative agenda in the Jacksonian era. In addition to his legislative duties, he remained a figure within the broader Anti‑Jacksonian and emerging Whig movement in Kentucky, a state that was an important center of Whig strength.

Tompkins’s partisan commitments were further underscored by his role in national electoral politics. In 1837 he served as a presidential elector on the Whig ticket, participating in the Electoral College process on behalf of the Whig Party’s candidates. This position demonstrated both his standing within the party and his continued involvement in the broader national political contests of the period, even after his own service in Congress had concluded.

Following his later terms in the Kentucky House and his service as a presidential elector, Tompkins resumed the full‑time practice of law in Glasgow. He continued his legal work in the community where he had long been established, remaining a respected member of the local bar and a figure identified with the town’s professional and civic life. He lived in Glasgow until his death on August 9, 1858. Christopher Tompkins died in Glasgow, Kentucky, and was buried in the family burying ground there, closing a life closely tied to the legal and political history of Kentucky in the first half of the nineteenth century.