John Minor Botts, an American politician, born in Dumfries, Prince William co., Va., Sept. 16, 1802, died in Culpeper co., Jan. 7, 1869. After practising law a few years in Richmond, he settled on a farm in Henrico county. In 1833 he was elected to the state legislature, and was several times reelected. In 1839 he was returned to the»27th congress, and there advocated most of the points of Mr. Clay's programme - a national bank, a protective tariff, and the distribution among the states of the proceeds of the public lands. Though long a warm and intimate friend of John Tyler, Mr. Botts at once abandoned him on his secession from the whig party; and in the presidential election of 1844 he supported Mr. Clay. After serving two terms in congress, he was defeated in 1843, but was again elected in 1847. In 1852 he resumed the practice of law in Richmond. After the death of Mr. Clay, and the dissolution of the whig party, he became attached to the American party. He was opposed to the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and sympathized with those southern members of congress who resisted the passage of the Lecompton bill in 1858. In 1861 he endeavored to prevent the secession of Virginia, and throughout the civil war was inflexibly faithful to the Union. He was imprisoned for a few weeks in 1862, and his farm in Culpeper county, where he then resided, was several times devastated.

After the war he published "The Great Rebellion, its Secret History," etc. (New York, 1866). He was one of the signers of the bail bond of Jefferson Davis (1867).