Louis St. Martin (May 17, 1820 – February 9, 1893) was an American politician from

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. He first was elected to the Louisiana state house of representatives in 1840. However, he then held a federal appointment for much of the mid-1840s. He was a member of the

Louisiana House of Representatives The Louisiana House of Representatives (french: link=no, Chambre des Représentants de Louisiane) is the lower house in the Louisiana State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. This chamber is composed of 105 repr ...

1846–1850. In 1850 he was elected a member of the

U. S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

representing the state of

in its First District, which at the time encompassed part of New Orleans and everything east of the city but south of Lake Pontchartrain.The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in Congress, p. 105 At this point he only served one term in Congress. He was 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 (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

. In 1852 he did not run for reelection and then went into business ventures. About this time he served as an election commissioner for the city of New Orleans. He was elected to Congress in 1864, but Congress refused to accept the reconstruction of Louisiana as it stood then and refused to seat any members of Congress from the state. St. Martin was again elected to the Forty-first Congress, but the house ruled the election invalid, and St. Martin was not returned by the latter election to that congress that allowed for Universal Male Suffrage in the state. In 1884, when the vote had again been essentially restricted to only white males in Louisiana, St. Martin was returned to the house, representing the First District which had virtually the same boundaries it had had when he was first sent to congress more than 30 years before. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1852, 1868, 1876 and 1880. St. Martin was born in

St. Charles Parish St. Charles Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Charles) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549. The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling. The parish was ...

and died in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. The long hiatus between St. Martin's two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives can be partially explained by the intervening

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

References

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* 1820 births 1893 deaths Democratic Party members of the Louisiana House of Representatives Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana 19th-century American politicians {{Louisiana-politician-stub