Joseph Bradley Varnum


 * For his grandson, Speaker of the New York State Assembly, see Joseph B. Varnum, Jr.

Joseph Bradley Varnum (January 29, 1751 – September 21, 1821) was a U.S. politician of the Democratic-Republican Party from Massachusetts.

Biography
Joseph Bradley Varnum was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, January 29, 1750 or 1751, a farmer with little formal education.

At the age of eighteen, he was commissioned captain by the committee of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in 1787 colonel by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was made brigadier general in 1802, and in 1805 major general of the state militia, holding the latter office at his death in 1821. After serving in the Massachusetts militia during the American Revolutionary War, Varnum helped to destroy the Shays insurrection before he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1780–1785) and then the Massachusetts State Senate (1786–1795). He also served as a Justice of the Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas and as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Court of General Sessions.

In 1794, Varnum was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from March 4, 1795 until his resignation on June 29, 1811. During his last four years in the House, he served as its Speaker.

Varnum was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1811 to fill the vacancy in the term. June 29, 1811, to March 4, 1817; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Thirteenth Congress; chairman, Committee on Militia (Fourteenth Congress); after returning to Massachusetts in 1817, he again served in the Massachusetts State Senate, until his death September 21, 1821.

Varnum died in Dracut, and his body is interred in Varnum Cemetery. His brother was James Mitchell Varnum.

Slavery
Henry Wilson, in his History of Slavery, quotes Varnum in the debate on the bill for the government of the Mississippi Territory before the United States House of Representatives in March 1798 as having been very strong and outspoken in his opposition to negro servitude.

On March 3, 1805, Varnum submitted a Massachusetts Proposition to amend the Constitution and Abolish the Slave Trade. This proposition was tabled until 1807, when under Varnum's leadership the amendment moved through Congress and passed both houses on March 2, 1807. Slave owner and President Thomas Jefferson signed it into law on March 3, 1807. Due to the restriction imposed by Article I, Section of the Constitution, the law did not become effective until January 1, 1808.