James B. Ray - Return To Private Life

Return To Private Life

Ray returned to his law practice which he moved to Indianapolis, after his term as governor. He found it difficult to find clients and public dislike for him did not fade. He ran for Clerk of Marion County in 1831 but was overwhelmingly defeated. He ran for Congress in 1837, but was soundly defeated by William Herod, 5,888–9,635. He attempted to run again in 1833, but dropped out after his inability to win became apparent.

His treatment led him to become even more firm in his views, which further hurt his standing. His behavior only worsened the situation; he was known to walk with a cane, for appearance only, and stop in the street and write in the air with it for no apparent reason. He ran advertisements in the newspaper offering to sell a "tavern-stand", a farm he did not own, and offering to construct a railroad from Charlestown, South Carolina to Indianapolis. He attempted a business venture and opened what he called at "Law, conveyancing, writing, abstract-making, land-agency, general and emigrants' intelligence and counsel office." The business soon folded for lack of customers. He had few friends and most people believed he had become mentally deranged. He took a trip to Wisconsin in 1848 and stopped in Cincinnati, Ohio, before returning home. There he developed cholera and he died on August 4, 1848, aged 54, and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

Read more about this topic:  James B. Ray

Famous quotes containing the words private life, return to, return, private and/or life:

    There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    In my walks I would fain return to my senses.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.
    Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)

    As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshiper and the worshiper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)