John Griffin Carlisle

John Griffin Carlisle was a prominent American politician in the Democratic Party during the last quarter of the 19th century. He served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1883 to 1889 and as United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1893 to 1897 during the Panic of 1893. As a Bourbon Democrat he was a leader of the conservative, pro-business wing of the party, along with President Grover Cleveland. Carlisle was born in what is now Kenton County, Kentucky, and began his public life as a lawyer in Covington, Kentucky, under John W. Stevenson. Despite the... political difficulties that taking a neutral position during the American Civil War caused him, Carlisle spent most of the 1860s in the Kentucky General Assembly, serving in the Kentucky House of Representatives and two terms in the Kentucky State Senate, and was elected Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky in 1871, succeeding his former law mentor Stevenson. After Carlisle's term as Lieutenant Governor ended in 1875, he ran for and won a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Kentucky's 6th district.
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