HENDERSON, John, United States senator, born in a northern state in 1795; died in Pass Christian, Mississippi, in 1857. He removed to Mississippi in early manhood, and began the practice of law in Woodville, Wilkinson County, about 1820. In 1835 he served in the state legislature, and was the author of the resolutions impeaching the validity of the laws that admitted members to the legislature from the counties that had been newly formed out of Indian cessions. In 1849 he was elected to the United States senate as a Whig. At the expiration of his term he allied himself with the politicians of the extreme southern school, favored the annexation of Texas, the conquest of Cuba and Mexico, and was connected with General John A. Quitman in his schemes regarding those enterprises. In 1851 he was arrested with General Quitman, and tried before the United States district court at New Orleans for violating the neutrality laws of t818 by his complicity with the Lopez expedition against Cuba. He was acquitted, but afterward retired from public life.