Michael Leib (January 8, 1760December 22, 1822) was an American physician and politician from

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He served as a surgeon in the Philadelphia Militia during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. He served as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

member of the

Pennsylvania House of Representatives The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. There are 203 members, elected for two-year terms from single member districts. It ...

three times; from 1795 to 1798, 1806 to 1808 and 1817 to 1818. He served as a member of 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 ...

for Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district from 1799 to 1803 and for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1803 to 1806. He served as a member of the

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

for Pennsylvania from 1809 to 1814. He also served as a member of the

Pennsylvania State Senate The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Senators are elected for four-year terms, stagger ...

for the 1st district from 1818 to 1821.

Biography

Leib was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

to George and Dorothea Leib. He studied and practiced medicine in Philadelphia, received a commission as a surgeon in the Philadelphia Militia in 1780 and served during the

. Following the war, Leib returned to Philadelphia and continued the practice of medicine. He served on the staff of several Philadelphia hospitals and was a member of the committee of correspondence in 1793. He was one of the organizers of the German Republican Society in Philadelphia. He represented the large German immigrant population in Philadelphia. He and Benjamin Bache became a part of a radical faction of the Society which led to a schism in the Society over the Whiskey Rebellion. Leib and his brother volunteered to join the military force sent to control the insurrection. He was elected as a member of the

and served from 1795 to 1798. He was elected to the

from Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district and served from 1799 to 1803. He continued in the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1803 to 1806. He resigned to return to the Pennsylvania House and served from 1806 to 1808. He served on the committee of correspondence for the Chesapeake–Leopard affair in June 1807. From 1805 to 1809, a power struggle ensued in the Pennsylvania Republican Party with Leib and William J. Duane on one side and Simon Snyder on the other. Duane and Leib represented the interests of Philadelphia, such as banking, trade and shipping, whereas Snyder represented the interests of rural Pennsylvania such as land ownership. In 1807, he was elected Brigadier-General of the Second Brigade of the Philadelphia Militia. Leib was elected as a

to the United States Senate by the state legislature in December 1808. Leib was elected to the term beginning on March 4, 1809, but assumed office on January 9, 1809, following the resignation of Samuel Maclay. In 1809, he was a member of the committee that formed the "Whig Society of Pennsylvania". He served as a U.S. Senator until February 14, 1814, and resigned to serve as postmaster of Philadelphia from 1814 to 1815. He returned to the Pennsylvania House for a third time, from 1817 until 1818 and served as a Pennsylvania State Senator for the 1st district from 1818 until 1821. He became

prothonotary A prothonotary is the "principal clerk of a court," from Late Latin, L.L. ''prothonotarius'' (Wiktionary:circa, c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine E ...

of the United States district court in Philadelphia in November 1822 and served in that role until his death in December 1822. He was interred at St. John's Lutheran Churchyard in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia. In 1924, he was reinterred to the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia when the church and burial ground were demolished during the construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

Bibliography

A Portrait of the evils of democracy, submitted to the consideration of the people of Maryland
Baltimore Printed, 1816

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Leib, Michael 1760 births 1822 deaths 18th-century American physicians Pennsylvania postmasters Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican Party United States senators Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Pennsylvania prothonotaries Pennsylvania state senators People from colonial Pennsylvania People of Pennsylvania in the American Revolution Physicians from Philadelphia Politicians from Philadelphia United States senators from Pennsylvania 19th-century members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly 19th-century United States senators 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 18th-century members of the United States House of Representatives