Person:James Holcombe (14)

James Philemon Holcombe (September 20, 1820 – August 22, 1873) was a prominent Confederate politician. He was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, raised in Lynchburg, educated at Yale and the University of Virginia Law School, practiced law in Ohio, and later was a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He authored several important legal treatises, including An Introduction to Equity Jurisprudence.
Although his parents freed their slaves and later moved to Indiana, Holcombe spoke widely in favor of slavery. He delivered an address "Is Slavery Consistent With Natural Law?" in 1858 on slavery's consistency with natural law. His other public addresses include an address to the Virginia Historical Society on the American Revolution and an 1853 address to the University of Virginia alumni on the importance of education. During the secession crisis, Professor Holcombe delivered a speech to the voters of Albemarle County and then participated in the legislature's debates over secession in March 1861. During the War, Holcombe represented the state in the First Confederate Congress. He did not return to The University after the war.
After the American Civil War, he established a high school for boys at Bellevue near Goode, Virginia. It functioned into the late-19th century.[1]

HOLCOMBE, James Philemon, author, born in Lynchburg, Virginia, 25 September, 1820; died in Capon Springs, Virginia, 26 August, 1873. He was educated at Yale and at the University of Virginia, and was professor of law in the latter institution from 1852 till 1860. He was a secession member of the Virginia convention of 1861, served in the Confederate congress in 1861-'3, and was Confederate commissioner to Canada in 1863-'5. From 1868 until his death he was principal of the Bellevue high school, Nelson county, Virginia Besides constant contributions to periodicals and to the publications of the Virginia historical society, of which he was a member, he published "Leading Cases on Commercial Law " (New York, 1847); "Digests of the Decisions of the United States Supreme Court" (1848); "Merchants' Book of Reference" (1848) 7 and " Literature and Letters" (1868).