John Silva Meehan was an American printer and publisher. He was the fourth Librarian of the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 from 1829 to 1861.

Meehan, a United States Democratic party member, appointed Librarian of Congress by President Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

, replacing in the post the Whig-activist George Watterston

George Watterston

George Watterston was the third Librarian of the United States Congress from 1815 to 1829.-Biography:Watterston, the son of a builder from Jedburgh, Scotland, was born on board a ship in New York Harbor. When Watterston was eight, his family moved to Washington D.C., his father attracted by the...

, who opposed Jackson. However, Meehan’s tenure was a conservative one and he and his Congressional supporters advocated limits on the size of the Library. Many of the Library’s functions were transferred to other government agencies. When a fire destroyed 35,000 volumes in 1851, including two-thirds of the materials originally provided by President Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, the money provided by Congress for restoration was used solely for replacing lost materials and not for expansion. Meehan did provide a small collection of periodicals for Congressional perusal which, under later Librarians, became the periodicals division.

Meehan served under nine presidents. Despite Congressional opposition, President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 replaced Meehan with a Republican supporter, John G. Stephenson.