Michael C. Kerr
American politician (1827-1876)
Michael Crawford Kerr (March 15, 1827 – August 19, 1876) was an American lawyer and legislator who served as the first Democratic speaker of the United States House of Representatives after the Civil War.
Early life
He was born at Titusville, Pennsylvania and educated at the Erie Academy. He graduated from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1851. He moved to New Albany, Indiana in 1852 and was a member of the State Legislature from 1856 to 1857.
Political career
He was elected to Congress in 1864 as a War Democrat, having vigorously opposed the Copperhead element in his district. He won the praise of Republican Governor Oliver P. Morton for helping suppress illegal conspiracies by Copperheads.
Kerr served in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from Indiana from 1865 to 1873. In Congress he was looked upon as one of the leaders of the Democratic Party. He strongly opposed the Republican policy of Reconstruction in the Southern States. He was not re-elected in 1872.
“Michael C. Kerr” enters the record as american politician (1827-1876). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Michael, Kerr and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Michael C. Kerr” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Michael, Kerr and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q465836. VIAF identifies the subject as 45944950. The Library of Congress control number is n91085664. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1827, 1876, 1851 and 1852.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael C. Kerr” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.