James G. Berret

Who was James G. Berret?

James Gabriel Berret was an American politician who served as a Maryland state legislator from 1837 to 1839 and as Mayor of Washington, District of Columbia, from 1858 to 1861, when he was forced to resign from office after being jailed by the Lincoln administration for sedition.

Berret was born in Carroll County, Maryland February 12, 1815. In 1836, at the age of 21, he was elected to the Maryland state legislature, where he served two one-year terms from 1837 to 1839. Upon leaving the legislature he was appointed to an office in the U.S. Treasury by President Martin Van Buren. He served in the Treasury until 1853, when President Franklin Pierce appointed him Postmaster of the District of Columbia. He served on the inaugural committee for Presidents James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln.

In 1858, Berret was nominated as the mayoral candidate for the Anti-Know-Nothing Party, a coalition of political parties that formed in 1854 as an opposition to the Know-Nothings' electoral successes in the city. However, by 1858, the Know-Nothings were a spent force, and the U.S. political landscape was such that the Republicans, who had once been a part of the Anti-Know-Nothing coalition, now stood independently from it as an opposition to President Buchanan and the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Thus Berret was pitted against Richard Wallach, the U.S. Marshal for the District; both men were of equal popularity, means, and political reputation, but on election day Berret won by 680 votes.