John White Stevenson (May 4, 1812 – August 10, 1886) was an American politician and attorney who was the 25th governor of Kentucky and represented the state in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

After serving in the Kentucky legislature, he was chosen as a delegate to the state's third constitutional convention in 1849 and was one of three commissioners charged with revising its code of laws, a task finished in 1854.

A Democrat, he was elected to two consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives where he supported several proposed compromises to avert the Civil War and blamed the Radical Republicans for their failure.

In the Senate, he opposed internal improvements and defended a constructionist view of the constitution, resisting efforts to expand the powers expressly granted in that document.

[8] Vicksburg was a small settlement at the time and did not provide enough work to satisfy him, and, in 1840, he decided to travel to Covington, Kentucky, settling there permanently in 1841.

[5] Like many Kentuckians, Stevenson was sympathetic to the southern states' position in the lead-up to the Civil War, but he opposed secession as a means of dealing with sectional tensions.

[2] He blamed the Radical Republicans' rigid adherence to their demands for the failure of all such proposed compromises, and on January 30, 1861, denounced them in a speech that the Dictionary of American Biography called the most notable of his career in the House.

[2] For the duration of the war, which lasted until April 1865, he stayed out of public life in order to avoid being arrested as many other Confederate sympathizers were.

[13] The entire Democratic slate of candidates was elected, including Stevenson, who received 88,222 votes to R. Tarvin Baker's 32,505 and H. Taylor's 11,473.

[1] The only non-Confederate sympathizer to win election that year was George Madison Adams, congressman for the state's 8th district who, although a Democrat, was a former federal soldier.

[1] The Republicans faced many disadvantages, including the national party's persecution of President Johnson and a lack of local organization in many Kentucky counties.

[17] He urged the immediate restoration of all rights to ex-Confederates and denounced Congress for failing to seat a portion of the Kentucky delegation because they had sided with the Confederacy.

[18][20] He was silent, however, when state legislators and officials from various cities used lengthy residency restrictions and redrawn district and municipal boundaries to exclude black voters from specific elections.

[22] Stevenson opposed almost every effort to expand blacks' rights beyond the minimums assured by federal amendments and legislation.

[23] The law imposed small fines for the first offense, but the amount rapidly increased for subsequent infractions in order to deter repeat offenders.

[23] In Stevenson's first message to the legislature, he called on legislators to finally decide whether the state capital would remain at Frankfort or be moved to Lexington or Louisville, as some had wanted.

[25] He did persuade the legislators to make some improvements in the state's penal and eleemosynary institutions, including establishing a House of Reform for juvenile offenders.

[1][17] Mob violence, much of it perpetrated by vigilantes calling themselves "Regulators" who felt that local authorities had failed in their duties to protect the people, was an ongoing problem during Stevenson's administration.

[26] Wolford called out three companies of militia who suppressed "Rowzee's band" and sent another to put down a similar movement in Boyle County.

[23] The governor declared that he would never hesitate to send troops "whenever it becomes necessary for the arrest and bringing to justice of all those who combine together, no matter under what pretense, to trample the law under their feet by acts of personal violence.

[25][27] Although born in northern Kentucky, Burbridge had commanded colored troops during the Civil War, and had also been specifically ordered to suppress Confederate guerillas in his home state.

[28] Historian E. Merton Coulter wrote of Burbridge: "[The people of Kentucky] relentlessly pursued him, the most bitterly hated of all Kentuckians, and so untiring were their efforts, that it finally came to the point where he had not a friend left in the state who would raise his voice to defend him.

[1] In the Senate, Stevenson was a conservative stalwart, steadfastly opposing spending on internal improvements and maintaining a strict constructionist view of the constitution.

[30] He also opposed the appropriation of federal money to fund the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, because he did not believe Congress was given the authority to make such an allocation under the Constitution.

[32] In February 1873, Vice-President Schuyler Colfax named Stevenson as one of five members of the Morrill Commission to investigate New Hampshire Senator James W. Patterson's involvement in the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal.

[33] From December 1873 until the expiration of his term in 1877, Stevenson was generally recognized as the chairman (later known as the floor leader) of the minority Democratic caucus in the Senate;[34] he was the first person to have acted in the capacity.

[36] Because of his personal acquaintance with James Madison, whom he characterized as a proponent of dual federalism, Stevenson delivered an address on the subject at the Association's annual meeting.

[38][1][2] Association member Richard Vaux characterized Stevenson's presidential report reviewing state and federal legislation in 1885 as "most interesting and valuable to the profession".