This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

J. F. H. Claiborne at ?Laurel Wood? Plantation, 1853-1870	7
At ?Laurel Wood? Claiborne also resumed his active participation in Mississippi politics. In 1853 he was Albert Gallatin Brown?s chief lieutenant in the southern counties when Brown was a candidate for the United States Senate.23 The following year it was charged by the opposition that Claiborne was active in gerrymandering congressional districts in southern Mississippi,24 and that he worked with Brown and Quitman in controlling the patronage in that area.25 In the 1855 election, when Claiborne managed Quitman?s race for Congress in Hancock, Jackson, Perry, and Greene counties, Brown and Governor John J. McRae expressed confidence that Claiborne would have little difficulty in managing the seaboard counties.26
Always a partisan of the Democratic party, Claiborne gave freely of his fortune as well as of his talents to further the cause of his party. He claimed to have contributed at least ten thousand dollars to Democratic coffers before the Civil War.27 He was mentioned as a candidate to fill the congressional post left vacant in 1858 by the death of Quitman, but he declined the honor.28 In 1860 he was listed as a Douglas elector on the ballot for the fifth district in Mississippi.29
During the 1850?s, in addition to his other activities, Claiborne acted as a claims agent and probably as a lobbyist. Earlier he had advertised in a New Orleans newspaper, offering his services ?for prosecuting claims, or anything requiring government action.? Listing his congressional experience, he advised interested parties to contact him through the offices of Senators Robert J. Walker or Henry John-
23	James Byrne Ranck, Albert Gallatin Brown-. Radical Southern Nationalist (New York, 1937), 109.
2? Ibid., 131.
2* Ibid., 142.
28 Claiborne, Quitman, II, 215.
27	Isaac M. Patridge, ?The Press of Mississippi,? De Bow?s Commercial Review, XXIX (October, 1860), 509.
28	Nashville Daily News, August 12, 1858.
29	J. W. R. Taylor, Holly Springs, to Claiborne, August 30, 1860, Claiborne Papers (University of North Carolina).