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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
U.S. Senator and Attorney General Felix Grundy (September 11, 1777-December 19, 1840) was born in Berkeley County. At three he moved with his parents to Kentucky, where he attended school and later practiced law.
In 1806, Grundy was appointed to the Kentucky Supreme Court. He resigned in 1807 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. In 1811, Grundy was elected to Congress and became a strong supporter of President Madison and the War of 1812. In 1814, Grundy resigned from Congress. Grundy also served in the Tennessee legislature, and in 1829 he was appointed to the U.S. Senate. He was appointed U.S. attorney general by President Van Buren in July 1838. In the famous case of the mutinied slave ship Amistad, Grundy advised that the recaptured Africans be returned to their Spanish masters, a position that proved unsuccessful in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Reelected to the Senate after one year as attorney general, Grundy died in Nashville. His Nashville home, Grundy Hill, was acquired by James K. Polk, who was elected president in 1844.
Written by Linda Saylor-Marchant
Parks, Joseph Howard. Felix Grundy: Champion of Democracy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1940.
Ewing, Frances Howard. "The Senatorial Career of the Honorable Felix Grundy," in , Dictionary of American Biography. vol. 4. New York: 1931-32.