Holconibe

1810 incapacitated the tutelary genius of all these
works, they spontaneously collapsed. In the
meantime, he had published A Sermon on Isaiah
liiij 1, containing a Brief Illustration and De-
fence of the Doctrines Commonly Called Calvin-
istic (1791), and A Sermon Occasioned by the
Death of Lieutenant General George Washing-
ton (1800). Three pastorates awaited him when
he had recovered his health, one in Beaufort, one
in Boston, and one in Philadelphia. Choosing
Philadelphia, he settled there in 1812. The rest
of his career was less active. He published The
First Fruits (1812) and The Whole Truth Rela-
tive to the Controversy betwixt the American
Baptists (1820); and he distressed many who
were anxious to admire him by his reputed an-
tipathy to foreign missions and by his avowed
antipathy, from 1822 onward, toward the whole
principle of war, which he could not believe was
Christian.

EJ. H. Campbell, Ga. Baptists (1874) ; W. J. North-
en, Men of Mark in Ga.} vol. I (1907) ; W. B. Sprague,
Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. VI (1860) ; Hist. Cat. Brown
Univ. 1764-1894 (1895) ; Jesse Seaver, "The Hoi-
comb (e) Genealogy" (1925), mimeographed, in Lib. of
Cong.: Paulson's Am. Daily Advertiser. May 24., 1824.]

J.D.W.

HOLCOMBE, JAMES PHILEMON (Sept.
20, 1820-Aug. 22, 1873), lawyer, Confederate
agent, educator, brother o£ William Henry Hoi-
combe [#.£/.], belonged to an intellectual Virginia
family. His great-grandfather, Philemon, grand-
son of Andrew Holcombe who was transported
from England to Barbados for his part in Mon-
mouth's Rebellion, aided in the founding of the
academy which became Hampden-Sidney Col-
lege ; his grandfather, also Philemon, was a ma-
jor on the staff of Lafayette in the Virginia cam-
paign, and in the War of 1812 was commissioned
lieutenant-colonel; his father, Dr. William James
Holcombe, graduated in medicine at Philadelphia
in 1818 and married Ann Eliza Clopton the fol-
lowing year. He later freed all his slaves, aiding
the emigration of several to Liberia, and, remov-
ing to free soil, settled in Indiana in 1843. Jatnes
Philemon, the eldest of six sons, was born in
Powhatan County, Va. For a time his studies
were guided by John Cary, a noted teacher of
that day; in 1837-38 he was registered as a
sophomore at Yale, and the following September
registered at the University of Virginia, but ap-
parently did not complete the work for a degree.
On Nov. 4,1841, he married Anne Selden Watts,
daughter of Col. Edward and Elizabeth (Breck-
inridge) Watts. For a short time he practised
law at Fincastle, Va., near the Breckinridge an-
cestral home. About 1844 he went to Cincinnati,
where he published, among other works on legal
subjects, An Introduction to Equity Juris-

Holcombe

prudence, on the Basis of Story's Commentaries
(1846); A Selection of Leading Cases upon
Commercial Law (1847) ; Digest of the Dicisions
of the Supreme Court of the United States from
Its Organization to the Present Time (1848);
The Merchants3 Book of Reference for Debtor
and Creditor, in the United States and Canada
(1848); and, with W. Y. Gholson [g.z/.], an
edition of John William Smith's Compendium
of Mercantile Law (1850). While at Cincinnati
he became an earnest student of Swedenborg.
Removing to Alexandria, Va., to use the nearby
Library of Congress in further professional writ-
ing, he was elected (1851) to join Prof. John B.
Minor [#.#.] as adjunct professor of law at the
University of Virginia. In 1854 he was made
full professor.

Meantime he had become a stanch defender of
state rights. Among his published addresses of
this period were: Sketches of the Political Issues
and Controversies of the Revolution (1856); An
Address Delivered before the Seventh Annual
Meeting of the Virginia State Agricultural So-
ciety (1858), "on the Right of the State to In-
stitute Slavery*'; and The Election of a Black
Republican President an Overt Act of Aggres-
sion on the Right of Property in Slaves (1860).
Although he was a secessionist, he was one of
the first to propose a conference of representa-
tives of each section with a view to settlement
without war. Early in 1861 he resigned his pro-
fessorship to become a candidate for the Virginia
secession convention and was elected. He was
an accomplished orator, and his brilliant speeches
exerted considerable influence in bringing about
the withdrawal of the state from the Union. He
was one of the signers (Apr. 24) of the conven-
tion ^between Virginia and the Confederacy.
Later he was elected to the Confederate Congress,
and served from Feb. 20, 1862, to Feb. 13, 1864.

On Feb. 19, 1864, he was accredited by Presi-
dent Davis as special commissioner to the North
American colonies of Great Britain, with in-
structions to go to Nova Scotia to defend the
men who without Confederate commissions had
captured the United States vessel Chesapeake on
the high seas, and to claim the vessel as a Con-
federate prize—instructions which were with-
drawn on Apr. 20. Arriving at Halifax near the
close of March, he found the case had been de-
cided, but while there he enjoyed the hospitality
of colonial sympathizers with the South. From
Halifax he went to Upper Canada to join
Clement Claiborne Clay and Jacob Thompson
[qq.v.~\, Confederate secret agents. At Niagara
in July he cooperated with Clay in opening with
the unsuspecting Horace Greeley [gw.] an unau-

J34