Charles James Faulkner (July 6, 1806 – November 1, 1884) was a politician, planter, and lawyer from

Berkeley County, Virginia Berkeley County is located in the Shenandoah Valley in the eastern panhandle region of West Virginia in the United States. The county is part of the Hagerstown–Martinsburg metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the county population was ...

(since 1863,

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

) who served in both houses of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

and as a U.S. Congressman.

Early and family life

Faulkner was born in Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1806. His father, James Faulkner, had emigrated from Ireland, and served as an artillery commander defending Norfolk during the War of 1812, alongside Elisha Boyd, whose daughter would marry this Faulkner. Although both his parents died when he was still a child, C. J. Faulkner graduated from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

in Washington, D.C. in 1822, studied law and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1829. He married Mary Wagner Boyd, the daughter of Elisha Boyd, and received "Boydville" as part of his dowry. They had three daughters and two sons, Charles James Faulkner (1847-1929) and E. Boyd Faulkner (1841-1917). Both of his sons became Confederate officers and later politicians, diplomats and judges.

Career

Faulkner practiced law, farmed using enslaved labor, and sought to develop Berkeley County. A fervent Whig and friend of U.S. Senator

Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...

(who would visit the district many times), Faulkner advocated internal improvements (including the

National Road The National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road) was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was a main tran ...

and

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the Grand Old Ditch, operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Patowmack Canal ...

which passed through Martinsburg). He also owned slaves and was a member of the

American Colonization Society The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the repatriation of freeborn peop ...

. In the 1860 census, he owned $100,000 in real estate and $150,000 in personal property, including 13 slaves in Berkeley County.

Politician

Berkeley County voters first elected Faulkner one of their representatives in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

in 1829 and he would win election (and also lose several elections) in the ensuing decades. In his initial speech, he advocated gradual emancipation. Faulkner was also soon appointed a commissioner concerning the boundary dispute between Virginia and Maryland. In 1838, voters in Berkeley, Morgan and Hampshire Counties elected Faulkner to the

Virginia State Senate The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

and he won re-election in 1841. In 1848 Faulkner again won election to the House of Delegates. There, he introduced a law which became a model for the

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act was one ...

. In 1850, Faulkner was elected to the

Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 was an assembly of elected delegates chosen by the voters to write the fundamental law of Virginia. It is known as the Reform Convention because it liberalized Virginia political institutions. Backgro ...

, as one of four delegates elected from the northern Valley delegate district made up of Berkeley County and neighboring Jefferson and Clarke Counties. He served with William Lucas, Dennis Murphy and Andrew Hunter, and was especially vocal in extending suffrage and advocating more equitable tax adjustment, since taxing slaveowners less than their slaves' worth (and adding nonvoting slaves when proportioning the legislative seats) naturally meant more of the tax burden was placed on non-slaveowners and people in the western counties. Faulkner was also elected to the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

in 1850, and he won re-election several times, serving from 1851 to 1859. He entered Congress as a Whig, but with the demise of that party, he was re-elected as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

, which he remained for the rest of his Congressional career. There, Faulkner served as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs from 1857 to 1859.

Diplomat and soldier

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James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvan ...

appointed Faulkner Minister to France in 1860. He served until the onset of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, newly elected President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

having replaced him with William L. Dayton. When Faulkner returned across the Atlantic Ocean to settle matters in Washington D.C., he was arrested in August 1861 on charges of negotiating sales of arms for the

Confederacy A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

while in

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. Initially imprisoned in Washington, a prisoner exchange was contemplated of Faulkner for Henry S. McGraw, formerly Pennsylvania's state treasurer and imprisoned in Richmond while seeking to recover the corpse of Col. Cameron, but McGraw was released and Faulkner instead transferred to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. An exchange was then contemplated for Alfred Ely, a New York congressman who captured at the

First Battle of Bull Run The First Battle of Bull Run, called the Battle of First Manassas
. by Confederate States ...

, but Confederate President

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States of America, president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the Unite ...

wanted to make Faulkner's arrest an example before the civilized world. Union forces allowed Faulkner a 30-day parole to plead his case in Richmond, whereby Davis reluctantly consented and Faulkner was formally released in December and allowed to return to Martinsburg. Days after his release, Faulkner enlisted in the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fi ...

and was appointed lieutenant colonel and assistant adjutant general on the staff of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Some of the troops in the Stonewall Brigade were from Berkeley County; Martinsburg changed control ten times during the conflict (30 months under Union governance and 16 months under Confederate governance). His two sons had already become Confederate States Army officers, leaving his wife and daughters to run Boydville. In July 1864, his wife stood up to a Union officer charged with burning Boydville as Faulkner's property, as Union troops had with fellow rebel Andrew Hunter's home in Charles Town and A.R. Butler home's in Shepherdstown. She protested that it was her property, and constructed by her father, a hero of the War of 1812, and her Union-allied nephews Edmund B. Pendleton and E. Boyd Pendleton backed her up. Thus, the house was spared.

Postwar

Faulkner returned but refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States after the war, and only regained his law license after considerable difficulty. Railroads became his clients, since the railroads through Martinsburg needed rebuilding, and various railroad lines reorganized. Faulkner also successfully argued on behalf of West Virginia before the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

Virginia v. West Virginia ''Virginia v. West Virginia'', 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 39 (1871), is a 6–3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that if a governor (United States), governor has discretion in the conduct of the election, the legislature is boun ...

, which was decided in 1871 and led to Berkeley and Jefferson counties remaining in West Virginia. However, other litigation (concerning allocating the cost and lost subsidies of canal, bridge and railroad improvements in western Virginia devastated by the war) would extend decades after Faulkner's death. Berkeley County voters elected Faulkner as a member of the West Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1872, and he served as the temporary chairman. Berkeley County voters would reject the final result, but the constitution was adopted by West Virginia as a whole; one matter of particular concern was organization within counties—under an elected Sheriff, Circuit Judges or Commissioners (the Ohio system)--which some condemned as a hodgepodge. The U.S. Congress removed his political disabilities by special legislation. He proved a voice of restraint in that convention, as some ex-Confederates tried to undo the 1863 Constitution (modeled on Ohio's) as too "Northern". In 1877, Faulkner commanded the state militia in an attempt to quell a rail worker protest over pay cuts in

Martinsburg, West Virginia Martinsburg is a city in Berkeley County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. The population was 18,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making Martinsburg the largest city in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia a ...

, under the direction of Governor

Henry M. Mathews Henry Mason Mathews (March 29, 1834April 28, 1884) was an American military officer, lawyer, and politician in the U.S. State of West Virginia. Mathews served as the seventh attorney general of West Virginia (1873–1877) and the fifth governo ...

. A skirmish ensued, resulting in shots fired on both sides and one death. The governor ultimately called for federal troops to restore order. However, by this time the protests had spread to become the

Great Railroad Strike of 1877 The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) cut wages for the third time in a year. The Great Railroad Strike of 187 ...

. Faulkner won election back to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from West Virginia in 1874, serving from 1875 to 1877. However, he lost his attempt to become a U.S. Senator from the new state in 1876. He was also mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate in 1880. Afterward, Faulkner resumed practicing law until his death.

Death

Charles J. Faulkner died at the family estate, "

Boydville Boydville is a late Georgian style mansion in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The house is near the center of the associated Boydville Historic District in . The house was built in 1812 by Elisha Boyd, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates a ...

" near Martinsburg on November 1, 1884. He was interred in Old Norborne Cemetery in Martinsburg WV. His son Charles James Faulkner lived at Boydville and became one of West Virginia's U.S. Senators in 1887. His great-grandson, Harry F. Byrd, would control Virginia politics for decades in the 20th century. The West Virginia State Archive holds the Faulkner family papers.Finding Aid for Carter/Faulkner Family Collection in the WV State Archives, 1776-1991
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