Jesse Bright was born into a German family in Norwich, New York, which moved to Madison, Indiana, in 1820.

As such, he was first in the presidential line of succession in the first two terms due to the death of Vice President William R. King in April 1853.

[5] In the beginning of 1862, the Senate of the 37th Congress, which was composed of twenty-nine Republicans and ten Democrats, voted to expel him for acknowledging Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States and for facilitating the sale of arms to the Confederacy.

The letter was found on a captured gun trader crossing the Confederate border during the First Battle of Bull Run.

Bright's longtime intra-party rival, Envoy to Prussia and War Democrat Joseph A. Wright, succeeded him in the Senate.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress