John Weiss Forney (30 September 1817 – 9 December 1881) was an American newspaper publisher and politician. He was clerk of the United States House of Representatives from 1851 through 1856, and again from 1860 through 1861. He was thereafter secretary of the United States Senate from 1861 through 1868. Biography He was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania and at the age of 16 entered the printing office of the Lancaster Journal. Four years later he purchased the Lancaster Intelligencer, and in 1840 he became proprietor of the Journal and combined the two papers under the name of the Intelligencer and Journal. In 1845 President James K. Polk appointed him deputy surveyor of the port of Philadelphia, and he disposed of the Intelligencer and Journal, and purchased a half interest in the Pennsylvanian, a Democratic paper of great influence, which under his editorial control attained a national importance. From 1851 to 1855 he was Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and, while continuing to write for the Pennsylvanian, he edited the Union, the organ of the Northern Democrats. While Clerk, it became Forney's duty to preside during a protracted struggle for the speakership in 1855, which resulted in the election of Nathaniel P. Banks. His tact as presiding officer won the applause of all parties. In 1855 he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati, and was instrumental in securing the nomination of Pennsylvania's candidate, James Buchanan. He conducted Buchanan's successful campaign for the presidency, and Buchanan would have given him a cabinet office if the appointment had been more popular in the South. In January 1857, Buchanan's influence was not strong enough to win Forney a seat in the United States Senate, which went instead to Simon Cameron. In August 1857, Forney established the Philadelphia Press, an independent Democratic newspaper. At first a Douglas Democrat and a supporter of Buchanan, upon the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution in the latter days of the Buchanan administration, he declined to support the Buchanan administration's effort to secure the admission of Kansas on that basis, and joined the Republican Party. He contributed to the organization of the Republican Party and its early successes. From 1859 to 1861, he was a second time clerk of the House, and he published in Washington, D.C. the Sunday Morning Chronicle, which in 1862 was changed to a daily, and was throughout