Benjamin W. Leigh

Who was Benjamin W. Leigh?

Benjamin Watkins Leigh was an American lawyer and politician from Richmond, Virginia. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and represented Virginia in the United States Senate. Benjamin Watkins Leigh was born in Chesterfield County on June 18, 1781, the son of the Reverend William Leigh and Elizabeth Leigh. He attended the College of William and Mary, studied law, and began practicing in Petersburg in 1802. After representing Dinwiddie County in the Virginia House of Delegates 1811-13, he moved to Richmond where he rose rapidly in his chosen profession. He prepared the revised Code of Virginia in 1819, was a delegate to the Virginia Convention of 1829-30, a reporter of the Virginia Court of Appeals 1829-41, and was again elected to the Virginia legislature, representing Henrico County in the session of 1830-31. Leigh was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Cabell Rives; he was reelected in 1835.

During Leigh's time in the Senate the controversy over slavery reached new levels of intensity. The House of Representatives passed a "gag rule" tabling all anti-slavery petititions, and a similar measure died in the Senate, though that body approved an alternate method of ignoring such petitions. President Jackson called on the Congress to censor anti-slavery publications from the federal mails, a bill the Senate defeated 25-19. Leigh proposed a statewide boycott of pro-emancipation newspapers, writing that Virginians had the right "to suppress to the utmost of our power what we deem inflammatory, dangerous, mischievous."