Cornelius Lawrence Ludlow Leary

Cornelius Lawrence Ludlow Leary (October 22, 1813 – March 21, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician from Maryland who served in both the Maryland House of Delegates and the United States House of Representatives during the mid-nineteenth century. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended the public schools. Raised in a period of rapid commercial growth in Baltimore, he benefited from the city’s expanding educational opportunities before pursuing formal higher education.

Leary graduated from St. Mary’s College of Baltimore in 1833, an institution that at the time provided a classical education to many young men who would go on to professional and public careers. Shortly after completing his studies, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, reflecting the broader westward movement of Americans seeking opportunity in the growing cities along the Ohio River. He remained in Louisville for several years before deciding to return to his native Maryland.

In 1837, Leary returned to Baltimore and soon entered public life. He was elected as a Whig member of the Maryland House of Delegates, serving in the state legislature in 1838 and 1839. His service in the House of Delegates came during a period of intense national debate over banking, internal improvements, and the balance of power between state and federal governments, issues that were central to Whig Party politics. While engaged in state legislative work, he also prepared for a legal career, studying law in Baltimore.

Leary was admitted to the bar in 1840 and commenced the practice of law in Baltimore, where he built a professional career alongside his continuing political involvement. As national party alignments shifted in the 1850s, he associated himself with the American Party, sometimes known as the Know-Nothing Party. In 1856 he served as a presidential elector on Maryland’s victorious American Party ticket, participating in the Electoral College in support of former President Millard Fillmore, who carried Maryland in that year’s presidential election.

With the approach of the Civil War and the fragmentation of older party structures, Leary aligned with the Unionist cause in a border state deeply divided over secession. He was elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863. His term in Congress coincided with the opening years of the Civil War, when Maryland’s loyalty to the Union was a matter of strategic and political importance. As a Unionist representative, he served during a Congress that addressed questions of wartime finance, military organization, and the status of slavery in the loyal states and the District of Columbia.

After completing his single term in Congress, Leary did not seek or did not secure reelection and returned to private life. He resumed the practice of law in Baltimore, continuing his legal work in a city that remained a significant commercial and political center in the postwar era. He lived in Baltimore for the remainder of his life, maintaining his professional standing as a member of the Maryland bar.

Cornelius Lawrence Ludlow Leary died in Baltimore on March 21, 1893. He was interred in Lorraine Cemetery in Baltimore. His career spanned a transformative period in American political history, from the age of the Whigs through the rise of the American Party and into the Unionist realignments of the Civil War, and reflected the complex political currents of Maryland as a border state in the nineteenth century.