John Basil Lamar

John Basil Lamar (November 5, 1812 – September 15, 1862) was an American politician, lawyer, planter, and writer who served one term in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia. His congressional service occurred during a significant period in American history, and he participated in the democratic process while representing the interests of his constituents in the antebellum South.

Lamar was born in Milledgeville, Baldwin County, Georgia, on November 5, 1812. He was educated in the state’s early institutions of higher learning and attended Franklin College, the original college of what later became the University of Georgia in Athens, beginning in 1827. Although he did not complete a degree, his time at Franklin College helped establish connections that would shape his later public and civic life. In 1830, Lamar moved from Milledgeville to a plantation near Macon, Georgia, where he began the agricultural pursuits that would form the basis of his wealth and social standing.

By the 1830s and 1840s, Lamar had become a successful planter. He developed extensive holdings in Georgia and Florida, ultimately owning plantations and related properties in fourteen Georgia counties as well as in Florida. His position as a large slaveholding planter placed him among the influential agricultural elite of the region. The land that formed part of his Macon-area plantation later became notable in its own right as the site of the Lamar Mounds and Village, a significant archaeological complex of the Mississippian culture. The prominence of this site led to the adoption of the name “Lamar” in reference to the mounds and later by the Lamar Institute, an organization active in archaeological research in the American South.

Lamar entered public life in the late 1830s. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1837 and 1838, participating in state legislative affairs during a period of rapid economic and political change in Georgia. As a member of the Democratic Party, he aligned with the dominant pro-slavery, states’ rights currents in Georgia politics. Building on his state legislative experience and local prominence, Lamar was elected in 1842 to represent Georgia in the United States House of Representatives in the Twenty-eighth Congress.

Lamar’s service in Congress was brief but placed him at the national level during an era of intensifying sectional debate. He took office on March 4, 1843, as a Democratic representative from Georgia. During his single term in office, he contributed to the legislative process as part of the Democratic majority, representing the interests of his constituents and the plantation economy of his state. However, he resigned his seat after only a few months and left office on July 29, 1843, returning to private life rather than pursuing a prolonged national political career.

After his resignation from Congress in 1843, Lamar resumed his agricultural pursuits and management of his extensive plantations. In addition to his work as a planter and lawyer, he developed a reputation as a writer. Some of his literary work appeared in the collection Polly Peablossom’s Wedding, published in 1851 and edited by T. A. Burke. Lamar’s humorous writings earned him contemporary recognition, and he has been credited as a founder and practitioner of both the school of Realism in America and the genre of Southern humor, contributing to the emerging body of distinctly Southern literary expression in the mid-nineteenth century.

Lamar remained active in educational and political affairs in Georgia during the 1850s and early 1860s. From 1855 to 1858, he served on the board of trustees of the University of Georgia, maintaining his connection to the institution that had begun with his attendance at Franklin College. As sectional tensions escalated, he took part in the state convention that considered Georgia’s relationship to the Union and served as a delegate to the convention that passed the Georgia Ordinance of Secession in 1861, aligning himself formally with the secessionist cause and the emerging Confederate States of America.

During the American Civil War, Lamar entered military service in support of the Confederacy. He served as an aide to Confederate States Army General Howell Cobb, who was both his brother-in-law and close friend. In this capacity he was present with Cobb’s Brigade during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. On September 14, 1862, at the Battle of Crampton’s Gap in Maryland, Lamar was wounded while attempting to rally Cobb’s Brigade under heavy Union attack. He succumbed to his wounds within a day, dying on September 15, 1862. Initially buried temporarily in Charles Town, then in Virginia (now West Virginia), his remains were later reinterred in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia. His life and death have often been associated with the Confederate cause and the doctrine of states’ rights that underpinned secession.