Whig Party (Anti-Slavery) - Part 4
The Whig Party (anti-slavery), also called conscience whigs faction of the Whig political party some from Massachusetts that was opposed to slavery on moral grounds. Was opposed to “Cotton Whigs,” who supported the cotton manufacturing industry in the North. Separated from Whig party in 1848. Conscience Whigs aided in the creation and founding of the Free Soil Party in 1848. Charles Francis Adams was the Free Soil candidate for president in 1848. (References)
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Officers, Members and Supporters - Part 4
Larimer, William
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
LARIMER, William, politician, born in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania. 24 October, 1809; died near Leavenworth, Kansas, 16 May, 1875. He moved to Pittsburg in 1834, and became a banker and merchant, treasurer of the Ohio and Pennsylvania, and afterward president of the Pittsburg and Connellsville, Railroad. He took an active part in the antislavery movement, assisted in the organization of the Liberty Party, and supported James G. Birney for president in 1840. After that he acted with the Whigs and was a political leader in Pennsylvania. In 1855 he went to Nebraska, was a zealous Republican, and served in the territorial legislature in 1856. He moved to Kansas in 1858, but in October of that year led a party of gold-seekers to the Pike's Peak Country. He built the first house in Denver, Colonel, and was U. S. commissioner and judge of probate. In the beginning of the Civil War he raised a regiment of volunteers in Colorado and was commissioned colonel, but resigned and returned to Kansas, where he re-entered the army as a captain of cavalry in 1863. He served in Kansas, Indian Territory, and Arkansas, and was mustered out in August. 1865. The remainder of his life was passed on a farm in the vicinity of Leavenworth. In 1872 he earnestly supported his friend Horace Greeley for the presidency. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 618.
Lawrence, Abbott
Lawrence, Amos Adams, 1814-1886, merchant, philanthropist, anti-slavery activist. Principal manager and treasurer of the Kansas Emigrant Aid Society. Worked to keep Kansas a free state. Lawrence, Kansas, was named in his honor. (Lawrence, William, Life of Amos A. Adams, with Extracts from his Diary and Correspondence, 1888; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 639; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 6, Pt. 1, p. 47)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
LAURENCE, Amos Adams, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 31 July, 1814; died in Nahant, Massachusetts, 22 August, 1886, was graduated at Harvard in 1835, entered mercantile life, invested capital in cotton-manufactories, and became president or director of many banks and industrial corporations in Massachusetts; also an officer in numerous charitable institutions. In 1853-'4 he associated himself with Eli Thayer and others in the colonization of Kansas and its development into a free state, and was the treasurer and principal manager of the Emigrant aid association, which sent out parties of settlers from New England during the Kansas struggle. He was twice nominated by the Whigs and Unionists for governor of Massachusetts. In the beginning of the Civil War he aided in recruiting the 2d Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. He built Lawrence hall, the Episcopal theological school in Cambridge, and was its treasurer for many years. In 1857-'60 he was treasurer of Harvard College, and in 1880 was chosen an overseer. The town of Lawrence, Kansas, and Lawrence University, at Appleton, Wisconsin, were named in his honor. A “Memoir” of him has been prepared by his son William (Boston, 1888). [Appleton’s 1892]
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (1861-1865), opponent of slavery. Issued Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863, freeing slaves in southern states. By the end of the Civil War, more than four million slaves were liberated from bondage. (Basler, Ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, New Jersey, Rutgers University, 1953, 9 Vols.; Dumond, 1961, pp. 224-225, 356; Miers, E. S., Lincoln Day by Day – A Chronology, Vols. 1-3; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 65, 66, 140, 241-243, 275, 368-370, 385, 690-691; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, pp. 715-727; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 6, Pt. 1, p. 242; National Archives and Records Administration [NARA], College Park, Maryland; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 13, p. 662)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
LINCOLN, Abraham, sixteenth president of the United States, born in Hardin County, Kentucky, 12 Feb., 1809; died in Washington, D. C., 15 April, 1865 […] he devoted himself with the greatest earnestness and industry to the study of law. He was appointed postmaster of New Salem in 1833, an office which he held for three years. The emoluments of the place were very slight, but it gave him opportunities for reading. At the same time he was appointed deputy to John Calhoun, the county surveyor, and, his modest wants being supplied by these two functions, he gave his remaining leisure unreservedly to the study of law and politics. He was a candidate for the legislature in August, 1834, and was elected this time at the head of the list. He was re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840, after which he declined further election. After entering the legislature, he did not return to New Salem, but, having by this time attained some proficiency in the law, he moved to Springfield, where he went into partnership with John T. Stuart, whose acquaintance he had begun in the Black Hawk war and continued at Vandalia. He took rank from the first among the leading members of the legislature. He was instrumental in having the state capital moved from Vandalia to Springfield, and during his eight years of service his ability, industry, and weight of character gained him such standing among his associates that in his last two terms he was the candidate of his party for the speakership of the House of Representatives. In 1846 he was elected to Congress, his opponent being the Reverend Peter Cartwright. The most important congressional measure with which his name was associated during his single term of service was a scheme for the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, which in the prevailing temper of the time was refused consideration by Congress. He was not a candidate for re-election, but for the first and only time in his life he applied for an executive appointment, the commissionership of the general land-office. The place was given to another man, but President Taylor's administration offered Mr. Lincoln the governorship of the territory of Oregon, which he declined. Mr. Lincoln had by this time become the most influential exponent of the principles of the Whig Party in Illinois, and his services were in request in every campaign. After his return from Congress he devoted himself with great assiduity and success to the practice of law, and speedily gained a commanding position at the bar. As he says himself, he was losing his interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him again. The profound agitation of the question of slavery, which in 1854 followed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, awakened all the energies of Lincoln's nature. He regarded this act, in which Senator Douglas was the most prominent agent of the reactionary party, as a gross breach of faith, and began at once a series of earnest political discussions which immediately placed him at the head of the party that, not only in Illinois but throughout the west, was speedily formed to protest against and oppose the throwing open of the territories to the encroachments of slavery. The legislature elected in Illinois in the heat of this discussion contained a majority of members opposed to the policy of Douglas. The duty of selecting a senator in place of General Shields, whose term was closing, devolved upon this legislature, and Mr. Lincoln was the unanimous choice of the Whig members. But they did not command a clear majority of the legislature. There were four members of Democratic antecedents who, while they were ardently opposed to the extension of slavery, were not willing to cast their votes for a Whig candidate, and adhered tenaciously through several ballots to Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat of their own way of thinking. Lincoln, fearing that this dissension among the anti-slavery men might result in the election of a supporter of Douglas, urged his friends to go over in a body to the support of Trumbull, and his influence was sufficient to accomplish this result. Trumbull was elected, and for many years served the Republican cause in the senate with ability and zeal.
As soon as the Republican Party became fully organized in the nation, embracing in its ranks the anti-slavery members of the old Whig and Democratic parties, Mr. Lincoln, by general consent, took his place at the head of the party in Illinois; and when, in 1858, Senator Douglas sought a re-election to the senate, the Republicans with one voice selected Mr. Lincoln as his antagonist. He had already made several speeches of remarkable eloquence and power against the pro-slavery reaction of which the Nebraska bill was the significant beginning, and when Mr. Douglas returned to Illinois to begin his canvass for the senate, he was challenged by Mr. Lincoln to a series of joint discussions. The challenge was accepted, and the most remarkable oratorical combat the state has ever witnessed took place between them during the summer. Mr. Douglas defended his thesis of non-intervention with slavery in the territories (the doctrine known as “popular sovereignty,” and derided as “squatter sovereignty”) with remarkable adroitness and energy. The ground that Mr. Lincoln took was higher and bolder than had yet been assumed by any American statesman of his time. In the brief and sententious speech in which he accepted the championship of his party, before the Republican Convention of 16 June, 1858, he uttered the following pregnant and prophetic words: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south.” This bold utterance excited the fears of his timid friends, and laid him open to the hackneyed and conventional attacks of the supporters of slavery; but throughout the contest, while he did not for an instant lower this lofty tone of opposition to slavery and hope of its extinction, he refused to be crowded by the fears of his friends or the denunciations of his enemies away from the strictly constitutional ground upon which his opposition was made. The debates between him and Senator Douglas aroused extraordinary interest throughout the state and the country. The men were perhaps equally matched in oratorical ability and adroitness in debate, but Lincoln's superiority in moral insight, and especially in farseeing political sagacity, soon became apparent. The most important and significant of the debates was that which took place at Freeport. Mr. Douglas had previously asked Mr. Lincoln a series of questions intended to embarrass him, which Lincoln without the slightest reserve answered by a categorical yes or no. At Freeport, Lincoln, taking his turn, inquired of Douglas whether the people of a territory could in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution. By his reply, intimating that slavery might be excluded by unfriendly territorial legislation, Douglas gained a momentary advantage in the anti-slavery region in which he spoke, but dealt a fatal blow to his popularity in the south; the result of which was seen two years afterward at the Charleston Convention. The ground assumed by Senator Douglas was, in fact, utterly untenable, and Lincoln showed this in one of his terse sentences. “Judge Douglas holds,” he said, “that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to go.”
This debate established the reputation of Mr. Lincoln as one of the leading orators of the Republican Party of the Union, and a speech that he delivered at Cooper Institute, in New York, on 27 Feb., 1860, in which he showed that the unbroken record of the founders of the republic was in favor of the restriction of slavery and against its extension, widened and confirmed his reputation; so that when the Republican Convention came together in Chicago in May, 1860, he was nominated for the presidency on the third ballot, over William H. Seward, who was his principal competitor. The Democratic Convention, which met in Charleston, South Carolina, broke up after numerous fruitless ballotings, and divided into two sections. The southern half, unable to trust Mr. Douglas with the interests of slavery after his Freeport speech, first adjourned to Richmond, but again joined the other half at Baltimore, where a second disruption took place, after which the southern half nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and the northern portion nominated Mr. Douglas. John Bell, of Tennessee, was nominated by the so-called Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln, therefore, supported by the entire anti-slavery sentiment of the north, gained an easy victory over the three other parties. The election took place on 6 Nov., and when the electoral college cast their votes Lincoln was found to have 180, Breckinridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. The popular vote stood: for Lincoln 1,866,462; for Douglas, 1,375,157; for Breckinridge, 847,953; for Bell, 590,631. […] Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, pp. 715-727.
Lord, Otis Phillips
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
LORD, Otis Phillips, jurist, born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, 11 July, 1812; died in Salem, Massachusetts, 13 March, 1884. He was graduated at Amherst in 1832, and at the Harvard law-school in 1836, subsequently settling in Ipswich and afterward in Salem, where he practised his profession. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1847-54, serving in the latter year as speaker, was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1853, and from 1859 till 1875 an associate justice of the state superior court. On the dissolution of the Whig Party. of which he had been a member, he was nominated for Congress in 1858 by an independent convention, and was defeated then, and again in 1860, when he was the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party. During the Civil War he was pro-slavery in his politics, and in 1866 he published a series of articles opposing the 15th Constitutional Amendment, he was elevated to the supreme bench in 1875, and held office till his retirement in 1882. Amherst gave him the degree of LL. D., in 1869. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 25-26.
McLure, Alexander Kelly
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
McLURE, Alexander Kelly, journalist, born in Sherman's Valley, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 9 January, 1828. In the earlier years of his life he divided his time between his father's farm and the village school, and at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to the tanner's trade. In 1846, on the urgent advice of his friend, the editor of the " Perry Freeman," to whose paper he had contributed, he began the publication of a Whig journal, the " Sentinel," at Mifflin, Pennsylvania At the close of the first year he set up the type, and did the press-work, besides editing the paper, with the aid of a single apprentice. He sold the " Sentinel " in 1850, purchased an interest in the "Chambersburg Repository," became its editor, and made it one of the most noted anti-slavery journals in the state. In 1853 he was the Whig candidate for auditor-general, being the youngest man ever nominated for a state office in Pennsylvania. In 1855 he was a member of the convention that met at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and organized the Republican Party, and in the following year was a delegate to the National Convention that nominated Fremont for the presidency. In 1856 he sold the " Repository," quitted journalism, and shortly thereafter was admitted to the bar. In 1857-'8 he was chosen to the legislature, and in 1859 to the senate of Pennsylvania, over a Democratic opponent from a strong Democratic district. He was a delegate to the National Republican Conventions of 1860 and 1864, and in the former played a conspicuous part in inducing the delegation from his state to disregard their instructions for Simon Cameron and vote for Abraham Lincoln. He was chosen chairman of the Republican State Committee, and organized and led his party in the canvass of that year. In 1862 he repurchased the "Chambersburg Repository," but in the burning of Chambersburg, in 1864, almost his entire property was destroyed. In 1868 he settled in Philadelphia, where he resumed the practice of the law. In 1872 he was chairman of the Pennsylvania Delegation to the National Convention that nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, was chosen chairman of the state committee that supported his election, and was elected as an Independent Republican to the state senate. In the following year he was an independent candidate for the mayoralty of Philadelphia, and came within nine hundred votes of being elected. During this year, with Frank McLaughlin, he established the "Times," a daily newspaper, and since its foundation he has been its editor-in-chief. He has opposed machine power in party management and official incompetency and dishonesty in Philadelphia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 89.
Mann, Horace, 1796-1859, Boston, Massachusetts, educator, political leader, social reformer. U.S. Congressman, Whig Party, from Massachusetts. Co-founder of the Young Men’s Colonization Society in Boston. Co-founded monthly paper, The Colonizationist and Journal of Freedom. He defended the American Colonization Society and its policies against criticism by William Lloyd Garrison. Opposed extension of slavery in territories annexed in the Mexican War of 1846. Said, “I consider no evil as great as slavery...” Argued against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Reelected to Congress and served from April 1848 until March 1853. (Mabee, 1970, pp. 64, 157, 160, 168, 170, 171, 261, 294, 409n9; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 190-191; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 6, Pt. 2, p. 240; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 14, p. 424; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 204)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
MANN, Horace, educator, born in Franklin, Massachusetts, 4 May, 1796; died in Yellow Springs, Ohio, 2 August, 1859. His father was a farmer in limited circumstances, and the son was forced to procure by his own exertions the means of obtaining an education. He earned his school-books when a child by braiding straw, and his severe and frugal life taught him habits of self-reliance and independence. From ten years of age to twenty he had never more than six weeks' schooling during any year, and he describes his instructors as "very good people, but very poor teachers." He was graduated at Brown in 1819, and the theme of his oration, " The Progressive Character of the Human Race," foreshadowed his subsequent career. After his graduation he was tutor in Latin and Greek in Blown, entered the Litchfield, Connecticut, law-school in 1821, and in 1823 was admitted to the bar, opening an office in Dedham, Massachusetts He was elected to the legislature in 1827, and in that body was active in the interests of education, public charities, and laws for the suppression of intemperance and lotteries. He established through his personal exertions the State lunatic asylum at Worcester, and in 1833 was chairman of its board of trustees. He continued to be returned to the legislature as representative from Dedham till his removal to Boston in 1833, when he entered into partnership with Edward G. Loring. In the practice of his profession he adopted the principle never to take the unjust side of any cause, and he is said to have gained four fifths of the cases in which he was engaged, the influence that he exerted over the juries being due in a great measure to the confidence that all felt in his honesty of purpose. He was elected to the state senate from Boston in 1833, was its president in 1836-'7, and from the latter year till 1848 was secretary of the Massachusetts board of education. While in the legislature he was a member and part of the time chairman of the committee for the revision of the state statutes, and a large number of salutary provisions were incorporated into the code at his suggestion. After their enactment he was appointed one of the editors of the work, and prepared its marginal notes and its references to judicial decisions. On entering on his duties as secretary to the Massachusetts board of education he withdrew from all other professional or business engagements and from politics. He introduced a thorough reform into the school system of the state, procuring the adoption of extensive changes in the school law, establishing normal schools, and instituting county educational conventions. He ascertained the actual condition of each school by "school registers," and from the detailed reports of the school committees made valuable abstracts that he embodied in his annual reports. Under the auspices of the board, but at his own expense, he went to Europe in 1843 to visit schools, especially in Germany, and his seventh annual report, published after his return, embodied the results of his tour. Many editions of this report were printed, not only in Massachusetts, but in other states, in some cases by private individuals and in others by legislatures, and several editions were issued in England. By his advocacy of the disuse of corporal punishment in school discipline he was involved in a controversy with some of the Boston teachers that resulted in the adoption of his views. By his lectures and writings he awakened an interest in the cause of education that had never before been felt. He gave his legal opinions gratuitously, superintended the erection of a few buildings, and drew plans for many others. In his "Supplementary Report" (1848) he said: "From the time I accepted the secretaryship in June, 1837, until March, 1848, when I tendered my resignation of it, I labored in this cause an average of not less than fifteen hours a day; from the beginning to the end of this period I never took a single day for relaxation, and months and months together passed without my withdrawing a single evening to call upon a friend." In the spring of 1848 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams. His first speech in that body was in advocacy of its right and duty to exclude slavery from the territories, and in a letter in December of that year he said: "I think the country is to experience serious times. Interference with slavery will excite civil commotion in the south. But it is best to interfere. Now is the time to see whether the Union is a rope of sand or a band of steel." Again he said: "I consider no evil as great as slavery, and I would pass the Wilmot proviso whether the south rebel or not." During the first session he volunteered as counsel for Drayton and Sayres, who were indicted for stealing seventy-six slaves in the District of Columbia, and at the trial was engaged for twenty-one successive days in their defence. In 1850 he was engaged in a controversy with Daniel Webster in regard to the extension of slavery and the fugitive-slave law. Mann was defeated by a single vote at the ensuing nominating convention by Mr. Webster's supporters; but, on appealing to the people as an independent anti-slavery candidate, he was re-elected, serving from April, 1848, till March, 1853. In September, 1852, he was nominated for governor of Massachusetts by the Free-Soil Party, and the same day was chosen president of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Failing in the election for governor, he accepted the presidency of the college, in which he continued until his death. He carried that institution through pecuniary and other difficulties, and satisfied himself of the practicality of co-education. His death was hastened by his untiring labors in his office. He published, besides his annual reports, his lectures on education, and his voluminous controversial writings, " A Few Thoughts for a Young Man" (Boston, 1850); "Slavery: Letters and Speeches" (1851); "Powers and Duties of Woman'' (1853); and "Sermons" (1861). See "Life of Horace Mann," by his wife (1865); "Life and Complete Works of Horace Mann " (2 vols., Cambridge, 1869); and "Thoughts selected from the Writings of Horace Mann " (1869). His lectures on education were translated into French by Eugene de Guer, under the title of "De l'importance de l'education dans une republique," with a preface and biographical sketch by Edouard R. L. Laboulaye (Paris, 1873).—His second wife, Mary Tyler (Peabody), author, born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1806; died in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. 11 February, 1887, was a daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. She resided in Salem during her youth, and afterward lived for the most part in or near Boston. During her husband's life she shared in all his benevolent and educational work, and her familiarity with modern languages enabled her to assist him greatly in his studies of foreign reforms. Her writings, especially those on the kindergarten system, with her sister, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, are distinguished for vigor of thought and felicity of expression. She published " Flower People " (1838); "Christianity in the Kitchen, a Physiological Cook Book " (Boston, 1857); "Culture in Infancy," with Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1863); " Life of Horace Mann " (1865); and " Juanita, a Romance of Real Life in Cuba." published after her death (1887. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 190-191.
Martindale, Henry Clinton, member of Congress, born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 6 May, 1780; died in Sandy Hill, Washington, New York, 22 April, 1860. He was graduated at Williams in 1800, studied law, and established himself in practice at Sandy Hill. After filling various local offices, he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and reelected for the three succeeding terms, serving from 1 December 1823, till 3 March, 1831. After an interval of one term he was returned for the fifth time, and served from 2 December, 1833, till 3 March, 1835.
Medill, Joseph
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
MEDILL, Joseph, journalist, born in New Brunswick, Canada. 6 April, 1823. His father moved in 1832 to Stark County, Ohio, where the son worked on a farm, subsequently studied law, and practised at Massillon. He founded a Free-Soil paper at Coshocton in 1849, established "The Leader," a Whig journal, at Cleveland in 1852, and in 1854 was one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Ohio. Soon afterward he went to Chicago, and with two partners bought, in May, 1855, the "Tribune," with which he has since been identified. He was a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1870, and the author of a minority representation clause. In 1871 he was a member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, and was elected mayor of Chicago. He spent a year in Europe in 1873-'4, and on his return purchased a controlling interest in the "Tribune," of which he became and continues editor-in-chief. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 285.
Miller, Jacob Welsh
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
MILLER, Jacob Welsh, senator, born in German Valley, Morris County, New Jersey, in November, 1800; died in Morristown, New Jersey, 30 September, 1862. He received an academic education, studied law, was admitted to the bar of his native county, and attained eminence there. He was state senator in 1838-'40, and in the latter year was elected to the U. S. Senate as a Whig, serving till 1853. He opposed the compromise measures of 1850, and in 1855 joined the Republican Party, of which he continued an active member until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 326.
Miller, Stephen
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
MILLER, Stephen, soldier, born in Perry County, Pennsylvania. 7 January, 1816; died in Worthington, Minnesota, 18 August, 1881. His grandfather, Melchior Miller, came from Germany about 1785. Stephen received a common-school education, became a forwarding and commission merchant in Harrisburg in 1837, was elected prothonotary of Dauphin County in 1849 and 1852, and in 1853-'5 edited the "Telegraph," a Whig journal at Harrisburg. In 1855-'8 he was flour-inspector of Philadelphia, and in the latter year he moved to Minnesota for his health, and engaged in business in St. Cloud. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860, and a presidential elector on the Lincoln ticket in that year. He enlisted as a private soldier in 1861, was made lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, and served with the Army of the Potomac till September, 1862, when he became colonel of the 7th Minnesota, and assisted, with his regiment, in quelling the Indian outbreak of that year in his adopted state. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers, 26 October, 1863, and shortly afterward elected governor of Minnesota, so that he resigned from the army on 18 January, 1864. He served as governor in 1864-'5, and from 1871 till his death was field-agent of the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad. He was also in the legislature in 1873, and a presidential elector on the Hayes ticket in 1876. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 329.
Orth, Godlove Stoner, 1817-1882, lawyer, diplomat. Member of the anti-slavery faction of the Whig Party. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana. U.S. Congressman December 1863-March 1871, December 1873-March 1875. Voted for Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, establishing citizenship, due process and equal protections, and establishing voting rights for African Americans. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 594-595; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 7, Pt. 2, p. 60; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 16, p. 772; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ORTH, Godlove Stoner, statesman, born near Lebanon, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, 22 April, 1817; died in Lafayette, Indiana, 16 December, 1882. He was a descendant of Balthazer Orth, a German, who in 1742 purchased of John Thomas and Richard Penn, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, 282 acres of land in Lebanon County, where on the birthplace of Godlove Orth was soon afterward built and still stands. His Christian name is a translation of the German Gottlieb, which was borne by many of his ancestors. He was educated at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1839, and began to practice in Indiana. He was a member of the Senate of that state from 1842 till 1848, and served one year as its presiding officer. In the latter year he was presidential elector on the Taylor and Fillmore ticket. He represented Indiana in the Peace Conference of 1861. The part that he took in its debates gave him a wide reputation, and his definitions of “state rights” and “state sovereignty” have been quoted by Hermann von Holst with approval. In 1862, when a call was made for men to defend Indiana from threatened invasion, he organized a company in two hours, and was made captain and placed in command of the U. S. Ram “Horner,” in which he cruised in the Ohio River, and did much to restore order on the borders of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. He was elected and re-elected to Congress as a Republican, serving from 7 December, 1863, till 3 March, 1871. Two years later he was chosen a member of the 43d Congress, and served from 1 December, 1873, till 3 March, 1875. During his long Congressional career he was the chairman and member of many important committees. He urged the vigorous prosecution of the war, and voted for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. After his return to Congress in 1866 he began to labor to secure from European governments the recognition of the right of expatriation, and lived to see it recognized in the treaties of the United States with most of the other powers. In 1868, at the request of the administration, he undertook the management of the legislation that looked to the annexation of Santo Domingo. At the same session he framed the “Orth Bill,” which reorganized the diplomatic and consular system, and much of which is still in force. Early in 1871 a recommendation, urging his appointment as minister to Berlin, was signed by every member of the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives, and President Grant at one time intended to comply with the request, but circumstances arose that rendered the retention of George Bancroft desirable. Mr. Orth soon afterward declined the office of commissioner of internal revenue. In 1876 he was the Republican candidate for governor, but withdrew from the canvass. He had frequently been a member of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in March, 1875, was appointed minister to Austria, after declining the mission to Brazil. He returned to the United States in 1877, and was again elected to Congress, serving from 18 March, 1879, until his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 594-595.
Palfrey, John Gorham, 1796-1881, author, theologian, educator, opponent of slavery. Member of Congress from Massachusetts from 1847-1849 (Whig Party). Early anti-slavery activist. Palfrey was known as a “Conscience Whig” who adamantly opposed slavery. He freed 16 slaves whom he inherited from his father, who was a Louisiana plantation owner. While in Congress, Palfrey was a member of a small group of anti-slavery Congressmen, which included Joshua Giddings, of Ohio, Amos Tuck, of New Hampshire, Daniel Gott, of New York, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. In 1848, Palfrey failed to be reelected from his district because of his anti-slavery views. In 1851, he was an unsuccessful Free Soil candidate for the office of Governor in Massachusetts. (Rayback, 1970, pp. 82, 95, 97, 245, 248; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 634; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 7, Pt. 2, p. 169; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 16, p. 932)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
PALFREY, John Gorham, author, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 2 May, 1796; died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 26 April, 1881, received his elementary education at a boarding-school kept by the father of John Howard Payne at Exeter, and was graduated at Harvard in 1815. He afterward studied theology, and was ordained pastor of the Brattle street Unitarian Church, Boston, 17 June, 1818, as successor to Edward Everett. His pastorate continued until 1830, when he resigned, and in 1831 he was appointed professor of sacred literature in Harvard, which chair he held till 1839. During the period of his professorship he was one of three preachers in the University chapel, and dean of the theological faculty. He was a member of the House of Representatives during 1842-'3, Secretary of State in 1844-'8, and was a member of Congress from Massachusetts, having been chosen as a Whig, from 6 December, 1847, till 3 March, 1849. In the election of 1848 he was a Free-Soil candidate, but was defeated. He was postmaster of Boston from 29 March, 1861, till May, 1867, and after his retirement went to Europe, where he represented the United States at the Anti-slavery Congress in Paris in the autumn of 1867. After his return he made his residence in Cambridge. He was an early anti-slavery advocate, and liberated and provided for numerous slaves in Louisiana that had been bequeathed to him. He was editor of the “North American Review” in 1835-'43, delivered a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1839 and 1842, contributed in 1846 a series of articles on “The Progress of the Slave Power” to the “Boston Whig,” and was in 1851 one of the editors of the “Commonwealth” newspaper. He was the author of two discourses on “The History of Brattle Street Church”; “Life of Colonel William Palfrey,” in Sparks's “American Biography”; “A Review of Lord Mahon's History of England,” in the “North American Review “; and also published, among other works, “Academical Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities” (4 vols., Boston, 1833'52), “Elements of Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, and Rabbinical Grammar” (1835); “Discourse at Barnstable, 3 September, 1839, at the Celebration of the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Settlement of Cape Cod” (1840); “Abstract of the Returns of Insurance Companies of Massachusetts, 1 December, 1846” ( 1847); “The Relation between Judaism and Christianity” (1854); and “History of New England to 1875” (4 vols., 1858-'64). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 634. [Grandson of William Palfry 1741-1780]. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 634)
Phillips, Stephen Clarendon, 1801-1857, philanthropist. U.S. Congressman, Whig Party. Also member of Free Soil Party. (Mabee, 1970, p. 161; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 437; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 763)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
PHILLIPS, Stephen Clarendon, philanthropist, born in Salem, Massachusetts, 1 November, 1801; died on St. Lawrence River, 26 June, 1857. He was graduated at Harvard in 1819, and began the study of law, but soon discontinued it to engage in business in Salem. He was in the lower house of the legislature in 1824-'30, was elected to the state senate in the latter year, and in 1832-'3 was again a member of the legislature. He was then chosen to Congress as a Whig to fill a vacancy, and served during three terms—from 1 December, 1834, until his resignation in 1838—when he became mayor of Salem, which place he then held until March, 1842. On his retirement from this office he devoted the whole of his salary as mayor to the public schools of Salem. He was the Free-Soil candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1848-'9, and a presidential elector in 1840. Mr. Phillips discharged several state and private trusts, and was many years a member of the State Board of Education. Retiring from public life in 1849, he engaged extensively in the lumber business in Canada, and met his death by the burning of the steamer “Montreal” while coming down the St. Lawrence River from Quebec. Mr. Phillips was president of the Boston Sunday-School Society, and author of “The Sunday-School Service Book,” in several parts (Boston). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 763.
Pringle, Benjamin
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
PRINGLE, Benjamin, jurist, born in Richfield, New York, 9 November, 1807. He received a good education and studied law, but gave up practice to become president of a bank at Batavia, New York. He was judge of Genesee County courts for one year, served two terms in Congress in 1853-'7, having been elected as a Whig, and in 1863 was in the legislature. Subsequently he was appointed by President Lincoln a judge of the Court of Arbitration at Cape Town under the treaty of 1862 with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 125.
Raymond, Henry Jarvic
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
RAYMOND, Henry Jarvis, journalist, born in Lima, Livingston County, New York, 24 January, 1820: died in New York City, 18 June, 1869. His father owned and cultivated a small farm on which the son was employed in his youth. He was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1840, studied law in New York, and maintained himself by teaching in a young ladies' seminary and writing for the " New Yorker," a literary weekly edited by Horace Greeley. On the establishment of the "Tribune " in April, 1841, Mr. Raymond became assistant editor and was well known as a reporter. He made a specialty of lectures, sermons, and speeches, and, among other remarkable feats, reported Dr. Dionysius Lardner's lectures so perfectly that the lecturer consented to their publication in two large volumes, by Greeley and McElrath, with his certificate of their accuracy. In 1843 he left the "Tribune" for the "Courier and Enquirer," and he remained connected with this journal till 1851, when he resigned and went to Europe to benefit his health. While on the staff of the "Courier and Enquirer" he formed a connection with the publishing-house of Harper Brothers, which lasted ten years. During this period a spirited discussion of Fourier's principles of socialism was carried on between Mr. Raymond and Mr. Greeley, and the articles of the former on this subject were afterward published in pamphlet-form. In 1849 he was elected to the state assembly by the Whigs. He was re-elected in 1850, and chosen speaker, and manifested special interest in the school system and canal policy of the state. The New York " Times " was established by him, and the first number was issued on 18 September, 1851. In 1852 he went to Baltimore to report the proceedings of the Whig National Convention, but was given a seat as a delegate, and made an eloquent speech in exposition of northern sentiment. In 1854 he was elected lieutenant-governor of the state. He was active in organizing the Republican Party, composed the " Address to the People" that was promulgated at the National Convention at Pittsburg in February, 1856, and spoke frequently for Fremont in the following presidential campaign. In 1857 he refused to be a candidate for governor of New York, and in 1858 he favored Stephen A. Douglas, but he finally resumed his relations with the Republican Party. In 1860 he was in favor of the nomination of William H. Seward for the presidency, and it was through his influence that Mr. Seward was placed in the cabinet. He was a warm supporter and personal friend of Mr. Lincoln in all his active measures, though at times deploring what he considered a hesitating policy. After the disaster at Bull Run he proposed the establishment of a provisional government. In 1861 he was again elected to the state assembly, where he was chosen speaker, and in 1863 he was defeated by Governor Edwin D. Morgan for the nomination for U. S. Senator. In 1864 he was elected to Congress, and in a speech on 22 December, 1865, maintained that the southern states had never been out of the Union. He sustained the reconstruction policy of President Johnson. On the expiration of his term he declined renomination, and he refused the mission to Austria in 1867. He assisted in the organization of the " National Union Convention" which met at Philadelphia in August,1866, and was the author of the" Philadelphia Address " to the people of the United States. In the summer of 1868 he visited Europe with his family, and after his return resumed the active labors of his profession, with which he was occupied till his death. As an orator Mr. Raymond possessed great power. As a journalist he did good service in elevating the tone of newspaper discussion, showing by his own example that it was possible to be earnest and brilliant without transgressing the laws of decorum. He wrote " Political Lessons of the Revolution" (New York, 1854); "Letters to Mr. Yancey" (1860); "History of the Administration of President Lincoln "(1864); and "Life and Services of Abraham Lincoln; with his State Papers, Speeches, Letters, etc." (1865). See Augustus Maverick's 'H. J. Raymond and the New York Press for Thirty Years " (Hartford, 1870). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 192-193.
Roberts, Jonathan Manning, 1771-1854, Upper Merion County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Senator, U.S. Congressman, opponent of slavery. Called for the prohibition of slavery from Missouri in the Senate. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, p. 274; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 8, Pt. 1, p. 9)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ROBERTS, Jonathan Manning, investigator, born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 7 December, 1821; died in Burlington, New Jersey, 28 February, 1888, studied law, was admitted to the bar at Norristown, Pennsylvania, in 1850, and practised his profession for about a year, but abandoned it and engaged in commercial pursuits. These proving financially successful, he found time to gratify his desire for metaphysical investigations. He also took an interest in politics, being an enthusiastic Whig and strongly opposed to slavery. He was a delegate to the Free-soil Convention at Buffalo, New York, that nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848, and subsequently canvassed New Jersey for that candidate. When the so-called spiritual manifestations at Rochester, New York, first attracted public attention, Mr. Roberts earnestly protested against the possibility of their having a supernatural origin. After several years of patient inquiry he came to the conclusion that they were facts that could be explained on scientific principles and resulted from the operation of natural causes. This conviction led to his establishing an organ of the new faith at Philadelphia in 1878 under the title of “Mind and Matter.” His fearless advocacy of his peculiar views involved him in litigation and caused his imprisonment. Finding the publication of a journal too great a tax on his resources, he abandoned it, and devoted the rest of his life to study and authorship. Among his manuscript, of which he left a large amount, is “A Life of Apollonius of Tyana” and “A History of the Christian Religion,” which he completed just before his death. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888. Vol. V, p. 274.
Roberts, Jonathan Manning
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ROBERTS, Jonathan Manning, investigator, born in Montgomery County. Pennsylvania, 7 December, 1821; died in Burlington, New Jersey, 28 February, 1888. studied law, was admitted to the bar at Norristown, Pennsylvania, in 1850, and practised his profession for about a year, but abandoned it and engaged in commercial pursuits. These proving financially successful, he found lime to gratify his desire for metaphysical investigations, he also took an interest in politics, being an enthusiastic Whig and strongly opposed to slavery. He was a delegate to the Free-soil Convention at Buffalo, New York, that nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848, and subsequently canvassed New Jersey for that candidate. When the so-called spiritual manifestations at Rochester, New York, first attracted public attention, Mr. Roberts earnestly protested against the possibility of their having a supernatural origin. After several years of patient inquiry he came to the conclusion that they were facts that could be explained on scientific principles and resulted from the operation of natural causes. This conviction led to his establishing an organ of the new faith at Philadelphia in 1878 under the title of "Mind and Matter." His fearless advocacy of his peculiar views involved him in litigation and caused his imprisonment. Finding the publication of a journal too great a. tax on his resources, he abandoned it, and devoted the rest of his life to study and authorship. Among his manuscript, of which he left a large amount, is "A Life of Apollonius of Tyana" and " A History of the Christian Religion," which he completed just before his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 274.
Robinson, William Stevens
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ROBINSON, William Stevens, journalist, born in Concord, Massachusetts, 7 December, 1818; died in Malden, Massachusetts, 11 March, 1876. He was educated in the public schools of Concord, learned the printer's trade, at the age of twenty became the editor and publisher of the "Yeoman's Gazette " in Concord, and was afterward assistant editor of the Lowell "Courier." He was an opponent of slavery while he adhered to the Whig Party, and when the Free-Soil Party was organized he left the "Courier," and in July, 1848, took charge of the Boston "Daily Whig." His vigorous and sarcastic editorials increased the circulation of the paper, the name of which was changed to the " Republican "; yet, after the presidential canvass was ended, Henry Wilson, the proprietor, decided to assume the editorial management and moderate the tone of his journal. Robinson next edited the Lowell "American," a Free-Soil Democratic paper, till it died for lack of support in 1853. He was a member of the legislature in 1852 and 1853. In 1856 he began to write letters for the Springfield "Republican" over the signature " Warrington," in which questions of the day and public men were discussed with such boldness and wit. that the correspondence attracted wide popular attention. This connection was continued until his death. From 1862 till 1873 he was clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. "Warrington," by his articles in the newspapers and magazines, was instrumental in defeating Benjamin F. Butler's effort to obtain the Republican nomination for governor in 1871, and in 1873 he was Butler's strongest opponent. Besides pamphlets and addresses, he published a "Manual of Parliamentary Law" (Boston, 1875). His widow published personal reminiscences from his writings entitled "Warrington Pen-Portraits," with a memoir (Boston, 1877).—His wife, Harriet Hanson, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 8 February, 1825, was one of the intellectual circle of factory-girls that composed the staff of the " Lowell Offering." She is a sister of John W. Hanson. She contributed poems to the Lowell "Courier" while Mr. Robinson was its editor, and from this introduction sprang a friendship that resulted in their marriage on 30 November, 1848. She was his assistant in his editorial work, and was as devoted as himself to the anti-slavery cause. She has also taken an active part in the woman's rights movement, and in 1888 was a member of the International council of women at Washington. D. C. Her works include "Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement" (Boston, 1881); "Early Factory Labor in New England" (1883); and " Captain Mary Miller," a drama (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 289-290.
Rockwell, Julius
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ROCKWELL, Julius, jurist, born in Colebrook, Connecticut, 26 April, 1805; died in Lenox, Massachusetts, 19 May, 1888. He was graduated at Yale in 1826, studied at the law-school, was admitted to the bar in 1829, and settled in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the following year. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1834, its speaker in 1835-'8, and then served as bank commissioner for three years. He was a representative in Congress from 2 February, 1844, till 3 March, 1851, having been elected as a Whig for four successive terms. He was a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1853. On Edward Everett's resignation of his seat in the U. S. Senate, Mr. Rockwell was appointed to fill the vacancy, and served from 15 June, 1854, till Henry Wilson was elected by the legislature and took his seat on 10 February, 1855. He was a presidential elector on the Fremont ticket in 1856, was again elected to the state house of representatives in 1858, and was chosen speaker, which office he had held when in the legislature before. In 1859 he was appointed one of the judges of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, serving till 1871, when he resigned, ne has since resided in Lenox, Massachusetts, and been connected with various banks. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 295.
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References
(Blue, 2005, pp. 9, 52, 52n33, 53, 196, 198, 204; Drake, 1950, p. 137; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 20, 22, 32-34, 37, 40-41, 43, 47-49, 54, 61, 67, 72, 136; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 513-514; Wilson, 1872, pp. 123-128; Braver, Kinney J. Cotton versus Conscience: Massachusetts Whig Politics and Southwestern Expansion, 1843-1848. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1967; Formisano, Ronald P. The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties 1790’s-1840’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983; O’Connor, Thomas. Lords of the Loom: The Cotton Whigs and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Scribner’s, 1968) |
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