Professional and Political Career
Cooper was appointed a Justice of the Peace from 1797 until 1805 and was also Sheriff of Sussex County from 1800 until 1812. He served in the State House in the 1816 and 1817 sessions and then again in the 1835/36 session. In 1817 he was appointed as an Associate Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Sussex County. He was elected Governor of Delaware in 1840 by defeating Warren Jefferson of Seaford, the Democratic candidate, and served as Governor from January 19, 1841 until January 21, 1845. Cooper is noted for complaining to the General Assembly that penal code was antiquated, requiring the Governor to issue an excessive number of pardons to properly administer justice according to the standards of the day.
Upon leaving office in 1841, Cooper, in his message,
“congratulates the State that her finances are free from embarrassment, and the surplus remained undiminished, while every demand which had been made on the Treasury had been promptly discharged. The currency, though reduced, was perfectly sound; the credit remained unimpaired, and no imputation or suspicion of fraud or public dishonor rested on the fair fame of the Commonwealth; while every consideration conspired to prove that the people of the State, as far as their condition was affected by the action of the State Government, were still preeminently prosperous and happy.”
| Delaware General Assembly |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Assembly | Senate Majority | Speaker | House Majority | Speaker | ||||||
| 1841–1842 | 61st | Whig | Charles Polk, Jr. | Whig | Robert Houston | ||||||
| 1843–1844 | 62nd | Whig | Presley Spruance | Whig | William O. Redden | ||||||
Read more about this topic: William B. Cooper
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