James Morrison Harris

James Morrison Harris (November 20, 1817 – July 16, 1898) was a United States Representative from the third district of Maryland and a prominent mid-nineteenth-century lawyer and public figure in Baltimore. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where he spent virtually his entire life and career. Raised in that city, he received his early education at private institutions in Baltimore, reflecting the opportunities available to a family able to provide formal schooling in the early nineteenth century.

In 1833 Harris entered Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he pursued the study of law. His attendance at Lafayette came during the institution’s formative decades, and his later relationship with the college suggests that his time there left a lasting impression. After completing his legal studies, he returned to Maryland and was admitted to the bar in 1843. Harris then commenced the practice of law in Baltimore, building a professional career that would form the foundation for his later political life.

Harris’s legal practice in Baltimore placed him within the city’s active commercial and political circles at a time when Maryland was grappling with sectional tensions and the realignment of national parties. Identified with the American Party, commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party, he emerged as a candidate for national office in the mid-1850s. His alignment with the American Party reflected the nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments that influenced urban politics in Baltimore and other American cities during that period.

Harris was elected as a candidate of the American Party to the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-sixth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1861. Representing Maryland’s third district, he served in Congress during a period of mounting sectional crisis that culminated in the secession of Southern states and the onset of the Civil War. Although specific details of his committee assignments and legislative initiatives are not extensively documented in the surviving record, his tenure coincided with major national debates over slavery, states’ rights, and the preservation of the Union. In 1860 he declined to be a candidate for renomination, choosing to withdraw from congressional politics at the close of his third term.

After leaving Congress in 1861, Harris resumed the practice of law in Baltimore, returning to the profession in which he had first established himself. In addition to his legal work, he engaged in educational and religious activities, reflecting an ongoing commitment to civic and moral affairs in his community. His interest in education was formalized through his service as a trustee of Lafayette College from 1865 to 1872, a role that reconnected him with his alma mater and placed him among the overseers of the institution during the challenging years of Reconstruction.

Harris continued to reside in Baltimore for the remainder of his life, maintaining his professional and community ties in the city where he had been born. He died in Baltimore on July 16, 1898. He was interred at the Westminster Presbyterian Burying Ground in Baltimore, a historic cemetery that is the resting place of many notable Marylanders. His long life spanned from the post-War of 1812 era through Reconstruction and into the closing years of the nineteenth century, and his career reflected the legal, political, educational, and religious currents of his time.