Sen. John Bell
Former Senator for Tennessee
Bell was a senator from Tennessee and was an American. He served from 1853 to 1859.
He was previously a senator from Tennessee as a Whig from 1847 to 1853; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Whig from 1839 to 1841; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Whig from 1837 to 1839; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Whig from 1835 to 1837; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Jackson from 1833 to 1835; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Jackson from 1831 to 1833; the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Jackson from 1829 to 1831; and the representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district as a Jackson from 1827 to 1829.
![Photo of Sen. John Bell [A-TN, 1853-1859]](/static/legislator-photos/401331-200px.jpeg)
Legislators who enslaved Black people
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Dec 1847 to Mar 1859, Bell missed 807 of 2,898 roll call votes, which is 27.8%. This is on par with the median of 25.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Mar 1859. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
- Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
