James Dixon - Biography

Biography

Born in Enfield, Connecticut, Dixon pursued preparatory studies, and graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1834, where he had been a charter member of The Kappa Alpha Society. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1834 and commenced practice in Enfield. He was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1837–1838 and 1844, and served as speaker in 1837; he moved to Hartford, Connecticut in 1839 and continued the practice of law. He was elected as a Whig to the House, serving during the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Congresses (March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1849), and was a member of the State house of representatives in 1854. He declined the nomination for Governor of Connecticut in 1854, and was an unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator in 1854.

Dixon was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 1856, and reelected in 1863, serving from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1869. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses (Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses) and a member of the Committees on District of Columbia (Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses) and Post Office and Post Roads (Thirty-ninth Congress). He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in 1868, primarily because he had been the first Republican member of the Senate to oppose the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. He was appointed Minister to Russia in 1869 but declined; he engaged in literary pursuits and extensive traveling until his death in Hartford on March 27, 1873. He was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.