Lewis & Clark College

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Nathaniel P. Banks was an American politician and soldier, Speaker of the House, Governor of Massachusetts, and a Union general during the American Civil War. A millworker by background, Banks was prominent in local debating societies. His abolitionist views fitted him better for the nascent Republican Party, through which he became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1856 and Governor of Massachusetts in 1857. At the outbreak of the civil war, Lincoln appointed Banks as one of the first ‘political’ major generals, over the heads of West Point regulars, who initially resented him, but came to acknowledge his influence on the administration of the war. After suffering an inglorious defeat in the Shenandoah and failed to reinforce Grant at Vicksburg. Banks was then put in charge of the Red River campaign, a doomed attempt to occupy eastern Texas. Banks had no faith in this strategy, but the outgoing General-in-Chief, Henry Halleck, is believed to have told Grant that it was Banks’ idea, in order to dodge responsibility for this expensive failure, for which Banks was removed from command. After the war, Banks returned to the Massachusetts political scene, where he influenced the Alaska Purchase legislation and supported women's suffrage.

1877

William Worth Belknap was born in 1829 in Newburgh, New York. He graduated from Princeton College in 1848, studied law at Georgetown University, was admitted to the bar in 1851, and then began a law practice in Iowa. In 1856, Belknap was elected to the Iowa state legislature, where he served as an antislavery Democrat for one two-year term. Belknap fought in the Civil War as a major in the Fifteenth Iowa Infantry and saw action at Shiloh, Corinth, and Vicksburg. By 1864, he had been promoted to brigadier general and was commanding the Fourth Division of the Seventeenth Corps. At war’s end, Belknap headed home to Iowa, where he served as the state’s collector of internal revenue. President Ulysses S. Grant tapped Belknap to become his secretary of war in 1869. Seven years later, Belknap resigned his post amidst accusations of corruption. Though the House of Representatives voted articles of impeachment against him, he was tried and acquitted by the Senate.

1877

Newton Booth was raised in Indiana. He graduated from Asbury College in 1846 and then studied law. Booth moved to California in 1850 where he enjoyed success as a merchant and wholesale grocer before beginning his political career. In 1863, Booth served one year as State Senator. He was sworn into office as Governor on December 8, 1871. In 1873, Booth helped organize a new independent republican political party, the "Dolly Vardens." Since this new political party was made up of a mix of “sore heads from any party or by any name,” the name seemed appropriate. With the support of the Dolly Vardens, Booth was elected to the U.S. Senate. He controversially remained in office as Governor until his swearing-in ceremony as Senator 18 months later. This questionable move prompted an attempt to amend the state constitution to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. A bachelor while in office, Booth married the widow of his former business partner in 1892. He died only five months later. Booth, considered one of the great public speakers of his day, died of cancer of the tongue.

1877

Matthew Calbraith Butler was an American military commander and politician from South Carolina. He served as a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, postbellum three-term United States Senator, and a major general in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. During the Civil War in the Confederate Army Butler served in the cavalry in Hampton's Legion, attaining Captain, June 12, 1861 and then Major in July 21, 1861. He then joined the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry as Colonel, August 22, 1862. He later attained the rank of Brigadier General in February 1864 and was thereafter referred to as "General Butler" in the postwar period. Financially ruined as a result of the war, Butler resumed his career as a lawyer in Edgefield and served in the South Carolina House of Representatives beginning in 1866. He became a member of the Democratic Party and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1870. In 1877, he was elected by the South Carolina state legislature to the United States Senate. He served in the U.S. Senate for three terms, from 1877 to 1895, but lost the Democratic primary in 1894 to Benjamin Tillman. He served on the Senate Foreign Relations, Territories, Military Affairs, Naval Affairs, Interstate Commerce, Civil Service and Retrenchment committees. Butler then practiced law in Washington, D.C., until 1898, when he was appointed major general of U.S. Volunteers during the Spanish-American War. After the American victory that year, he supervised the evacuation of Spanish troops from Cuba. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on April 15, 1899. In 1899 General Butler joined the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. In 1903, Butler was elected vice president of the Southern Historical Society, and in 1904 he relocated to Mexico, where he served as president of a mining company. Butler died in 1909 in Washington, D.C.Matthew Calbraith Butler was an American military commander and politician from South Carolina. He served as a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, postbellum three-term United States Senator, and a major general in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. During the Civil War in the Confederate Army Butler served in the cavalry in Hampton's Legion, attaining Captain, June 12, 1861 and then Major in July 21, 1861. He then joined the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry as Colonel, August 22, 1862. He later attained the rank of Brigadier General in February 1864 and was thereafter referred to as "General Butler" in the postwar period. Financially ruined as a result of the war, Butler resumed his career as a lawyer in Edgefield and served in the South Carolina House of Representatives beginning in 1866. He became a member of the Democratic Party and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1870. In 1877, he was elected by the South Carolina state legislature to the United States Senate. He served in the U.S. Senate for three terms, from 1877 to 1895, but lost the Democratic primary in 1894 to Benjamin Tillman. He served on the Senate Foreign Relations, Territories, Military Affairs, Naval Affairs, Interstate Commerce, Civil Service and Retrenchment committees. Butler then practiced law in Washington, D.C., until 1898, when he was appointed major general of U.S. Volunteers during the Spanish-American War. After the American victory that year, he supervised the evacuation of Spanish troops from Cuba. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on April 15, 1899. In 1899 General Butler joined the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. In 1903, Butler was elected vice president of the Southern Historical Society, and in 1904 he relocated to Mexico, where he served as president of a mining company. Butler died in 1909 in Washington, D.C.

1877

US Senator, Presidential Cabinet Secretary. Cameron was raised and educated near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Princeton College, Cameron worked in the banking and served as President of the Northern Central Railway Company of Pennsylvania from 1866 to 1874. He was appointed as Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant, serving from 1876 to 1877. Elected as a Senator from Pennsylvania to the United States Senate, serving from 1877 to 1897. He was the son of Simon Cameron, who also served as Secretary of War in the first months of the Civil War, and as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania.

1877

Jerome Bunty Chaffee was an entrepreneur and United States Senator from Colorado. Chaffee County, Colorado is named after him. He was born in Cambria, Niagara County, New York. He moved to Adrian, Michigan in 1844 and worked as a teacher until starting a dry goods business in the late 1840s. In 1852 he moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, and later to Elmwood, Kansas Territory where he started banking businesses and engaged in land speculation. In 1860 he moved to Colorado to invest in mining. He was one of the founders of the City of Denver, Colorado, and founded the First National Bank of Denver in 1865. Chaffee entered politics and helped organize the Colorado Territory, serving in its first legislature as speaker. He was the territorial delegate to the United States Congress starting in 1870. In 1876, after Colorado was admitted to the Union, Chaffee was elected to the United States Senate. He served for the duration of his term, until 1879, but did not seek reelection due to poor health. In 1884, Chaffee was elected state chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. His sole surviving child, daughter Fannie Josephine (1857-1909), married Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., a son of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. Chaffee died March 9, 1886 at the Grants' home in Salem Center, Westchester County, New York.

1877

Daniel Henry Chamberlain was a planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1877. Chamberlain was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. In 1862, he graduated with honors from Yale University and he then attended Harvard Law School, leaving in 1863 to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army with the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a regiment of black troops. He entered politics in 1868 as a delegate to the state constitutional convention from the Berkeley District. He served as Attorney General of South Carolina from 1868–1872. After he failed to win the Republican nomination for governor in 1872, Chamberlain practiced law in Charleston. In 1873, he was elected to the board of trustees of the University of South Carolina as the first black students and faculty joined the institution. He was elected Republican governor on November 3, 1874 when he defeated John T. Green. Chamberlain was noted for his support of civil rights, and opposition to excessive spending and patronage. After a bitterly fought 1876 campaign, his second term hinged on disputed votes from Laurens and Edgefield counties, where the counts greatly exceeded the population, and overwhelmingly favored his opponent, ex-Confederate Wade Hampton III. Chamberlain left South Carolina in April 1877 when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew Federal troops that had occupied the state since the Civil War. Chamberlain eventually became disillusioned with Reconstruction. Chamberlain moved to New York City and became a successful Wall Street attorney. He was a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University from 1883 until 1897. Chamberlain authored the 1902 book Charles Sumner and the Treaty of Washington, as well as numerous articles. He moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died of cancer on April 13, 1907.

1877

Nathan Clifford was an American statesman, diplomat and jurist, whose career culminated in a lengthy period of service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.Clifford was elected as a Democrat to the 26th and 27th Congresses, serving March 4, 1839 through March 3, 1843, and representing the Second and then the Third District. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1842.
In 1846, President James K. Polk appointed him 20th Attorney General of the United States after his predecessor, John Y. Mason, returned to being Naval Secretary. Clifford served in Polk's Cabinet from October 17, 1846, to March 17, 1848. Immediately after completing his service with the Justice Department he became the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, serving from March 18, 1848 to September 6, 1849. It was through Clifford that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was arranged with Mexico, by which California became a part of the United States. Clifford was president of the Electoral Commission convened in 1877 to determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, 1876. Clifford voted for Samuel Tilden (a fellow Democrat), but Rutherford B. Hayes famously won by a single vote in the Compromise of 1877. He believed that the commission acted incorrectly in nullifying Tilden's apparent victory at the polls and never accepted Hayes as the lawful president. Clifford was one of a handful of persons who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government. He died in Cornish, Maine in 1881.

1877

Roscoe Conkling was a politician from New York who served both as a member of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He was the leader of the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, the first Republican senator from New York to be elected for three terms, and the last person to refuse a U.S. Supreme Court appointment after he had already been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. While in the House, Congressman Conkling served as body guard for Representative Thaddeus Stevens, a sharp-tongued anti slavery Congressman, and fully supported the Republican War effort. Conkling, who was temperate and detested tobacco, was known for being a body builder through regularly exercising and boxing. Conkling was elected to the Senate in 1867 as a leading Radical, who supported the rights of African Americans during Reconstruction. As leader of the Stalwarts, Conkling controlled patronage at the New York Customs House. Although Senator Conkling was supported by President Ulysses S Grant, Conkling did not support Grant's Civil Service Commission reform initiative. Additionally Conkling refused to accept Grant's nomination of Conkling to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, believing his talents belonged in the Senate. Conkling publicly led opposition to President Hayes attempt to administer Civil Service Reform at the New York Customs House. In 1880, Conkling supported Ulysses S. Grant for President, however, James A. Garfield was nominated and elected President. Conkling's conflict with President Garfield over New York Customs House patronage led to his resignation from the Senate in May, 1881.Conkling practiced law in New York until his death in 1888.

1877

Charles Devens Jr. was a Civil War Union Brevet Major General and politician. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Devens graduated from Boston Latin School and eventually Harvard College in 1838, and from the Harvard Law School in 1840. He was admitted to the bar in Franklin County, Massachusetts, where he practiced from 1841 to 1849.He was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate in 1848, US Marshall of Massachusetts, 1849 to 1853 and served on the US Department of Jusice in 1860. When the Civil War erupted, he was apponited Colonel of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry and was wounded in action at the Battle of Ball Bluff. He was promoted Brigadier General in April 1862 and commanded the 1st Brigade of the IV Corps in the Maryland Campaign. Assigned commander of the 1st Division, XI Corps in 1863, he fought at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Battle of Cold Harbor and in the Overland Campaign. During the Siege of Petersburg, he commanded the 3rd Division, XXIV Corps and his troops were the first to occupy Richmond, Virginia in April 1865. For distinguished service, he was brevetted Major General of US Volunteers and served as commander of the military district of Charleston, South Carolina until 1866. After the war, he was judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Judical Court and was US Attorney General in the Cabinet of President Rutherford Hayes.

1877

George Franklin Edmunds was a Republican U.S. Edmunds began studying law as a teenager, spending time in both the office of his brother in law and the office of David A. Smalley and Edward J. Phelps. He was admitted to the bar as soon as he was eligible in 1849. He practiced in Burlington, and became active in politics by serving in local offices including Town Meeting Moderator. A Republican, he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 1854. He served until 1860, and was Speaker from 1857 to 1860. He moved to the Vermont State Senate in 1861, where he served until 1862. While in the State Senate, Edmunds was chosen to serve as President pro tempore. Edmunds subsequently won reelection for State Senate in 1868, 1874, 1880 and 1886, and served from April 1866 until resigning in November 1891. In the Senate, Edmunds took an active part in the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson. He was influential in providing for the electoral commission to decide the disputed presidential election of 1876 and served as one of the commissioners, voting for Republicans Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler. He was the author of the Edmunds Act against polygamy in Utah and the Sherman Antitrust Act to limit monopolies. While serving in Congress he continued to practice law, as did many other members of Congress at the time. He held retainers from railroads and other corporations, including those which could be affected by Senate action. Edmunds was a candidate for President at the 1880 Republican National Convention. Nominated by Frederick H. Billings, he received 34 votes on the first ballot. His support remained at 31 or 32 votes through the 29th ballot, after which his supporters began to trend towards eventual nominee James A. Garfield.

1877

William Maxwell Evarts was an American lawyer and statesman who served as U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator from New York. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of author, editor, and Indian removal opponent Jeremiah Evarts, and the grandson of Declaration of Independence signer Roger Sherman. William attended Boston Latin School, graduated from Yale College in 1837 and then attended Harvard Law School.He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1841, and soon took high rank in his profession. He married Helen Minerva Bingham Wardner in 1843. They had 12 children between 1845 and 1862, all born in New York City. A Whig Party supporter before joining the fledgling Republican Party, Evarts was appointed an assistant United States district attorney and served from 1849-1853. In 1860 he was chairman of the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention.He was chief counsel for President Andrew Johnson during the impeachment trial. Evarts served as United States Attorney General for Johnson from July 1868 until March 1869.[4] Evarts was appointed Attorney General after the Senate declined to re-confirm Henry Stanbery to the office, which Stanbery had resigned from in order to participate in the defense of Johnson in the impeachment trial. Evarts served as counsel for President-elect Rutherford B. Hayes, on behalf of the Republican Party, before the Electoral Commission in the disputed presidential election of 1876. During President Hayes's administration he was Secretary of State. He was a delegate to the International Monetary Conference at Paris 1881. From 1885 to 1891 he was a U.S. Senator from New York. While in Congress (49th, 50th and 51st Congresses), he served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Library from 1887 to 1891. He was also a sponsor of the Judiciary Act of 1891 also known as the Evarts Act, which created the United States courts of appeals. He led the American fund-raising effort for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, serving as the chairman of the American Committee. Senator Evarts retired from public life due to ill health in 1891.

1877

Hamilton Fish was an American statesman and politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York, a United States Senator and United States Secretary of State. Fish has been considered one of the best Secretaries of State in the United States' history. Fish came from a prominent wealthy New York family and attended Columbia College of Columbia University. Upon graduation, Fish worked as New York's commissioner of deeds, and ran unsuccessfully for New York State Assembly as a Whig candidate in 1834. After his marriage, Fish returned to New York politics in 1843 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Fish settled the controversial Alabama Claims with Great Britain through his development of the concept of international arbitration. Fish kept the United States out of war with Spain over Cuban independence by handeling the Virginius Incident. In 1875, Fish initiated the process for Hawaiian statehood, by having negotiated a reciprocal trade treaty for the island nation's sugar production. Fish organized a peace conference and treaty in Washington D.C. between South American countries and Spain. Fish settled the Liberian-Grebo war. Fish supported Abraham Lincoln as the Republican candidate for President in 1860. During the American Civil War Fish raised money for the Union war effort and served on Lincoln's presidential commission that made successful arrangements for Union and Confederate troop prisoner exchanges. When Ulysses S. Grant was elected President in 1868, he appointed Fish as U.S. Secretary of State in 1869. Fish implemented a new concept of international arbitration, where disputes between countries were settled by negotiations, rather than military conflicts. Fish was involved in a political feud between Sen. Charles Sumner and President Grant's unsuccessful controversial attempt for the annexation of the Dominican Republic. Fish organized a naval expedition in an unsuccessful attempt to open trade with Korea in 1871. Leaving office and politics in 1877, Fish returned to private life and continued to serve on various historical associations. Fish's male descendants would later serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for three generations.

1877

John Brown Gordon was one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted Confederate generals during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a strong opponent of Reconstruction and is thought by some to have been the titular leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia during the late 1860s. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from 1873 to 1880, and again from 1891 to 1897. He also served as the 53rd Governor of Georgia from 1886 to 1890. Gordon was born on his father's plantation in Upson County, Georgia, the fourth of twelve children. Many Gordon family members fought in the Revolutionary War. He was an outstanding student at the University of Georgia. He studied law in Atlanta and passed the bar examination. Gordon and his father, Zachariah, invested in a series of coal mines in Tennessee and Georgia. He also practiced law. Gordon married Rebecca "Fanny" Haralson, daughter of Hugh Anderson Haralson, in 1854, and they had a long and happy marriage.

1877

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant) was the 18th president of the United States (1869–1877) following his success as military commander in the American Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox Court House. As president, Grant led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African American citizenship, and defeat the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant's Indian peace policy reduced Indian violence and created the Board of Indian Commissioners, conflict continued that culminated in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. In foreign policy, Grant sought to increase American trade and influence, while remaining at peace with the world. Although his Republican Party split in 1872 as reformers denounced him, Grant was easily reelected. During his second term the country's economy was devastated by the Panic of 1873, while investigations exposed corruption scandals in the administration. The conservative white Southerners regained control of Southern state governments and Democrats took control of the federal House of Representatives. By the time Grant left the White House in 1877, his Reconstruction policies were being undone.

1877

Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a Democratic Party politician from South Carolina. Near the end of the Reconstruction, he was elected as 77th Governor of South Carolina, serving 1876-1879, and later was elected as a U.S. Senator. His election as governor was marked by extensive violence by the Red Shirts, a paramilitary group that served the Democratic Party to work to disrupt elections and suppress black voting in the state. They contributed to the Democrats regaining control of the state government. Hampton grew up in a wealthy planter family, receiving private instruction. He had four younger sisters. His was an active outdoor life; he rode horses and hunted, especially at his family's North Carolina summer retreat, High Hampton. The youth was known for taking hunting trips alone into the woods, hunting American black bears with only a knife. Some accounts credit him with killing as many as 80 bears. In 1836 Hampton graduated from South Carolina Colleg and was trained for the law, although he never practiced. His father assigned certain plantations to him for his management in South Carolina and Mississippi.

1877

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). Hayes, an attorney in Ohio, became city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. Hayes was promoted to the rank of major general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to three terms. In 1876, Hayes was elected president though he lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election and Hayes ended all federal army intervention in Southern politics. That caused the collapse of Republican state governments and, with Democratic disfranchisement of most blacks, first by violence and fraud, and then by law at the turn of the century, led to a one-party Democratic South into the 1960s, giving outsized power for white conservatives. Hayes believed in meritocratic government, equal treatment without regard to race, and improvement through education. He ordered federal troops to quell the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. He implemented modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland-Allison Act, which would have put silver money into circulation and raised prices, insisting that maintenance of the gold standard was essential to economic recovery. His policy toward Western Indians anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887. Hayes kept his pledge not to run for re-election, retired to his home in Ohio, and became an advocate of social and educational reform.

1877

Benjamin Harvey Hill was a U.S. Representative, U.S. senator and a Confederate senator from the state of Georgia. attended the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia where he was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society and graduated in 1844 with first honors. He was admitted to the Georgia bar later in 1844. He married Caroline E. Holt in Athens, Georgia in 1845.Hill's arguments related to the conservative belief that disunion would ultimately lead to the abolition of slavery and the downfall of Southern society. Unlike many Confederate politicians, Hill had a long and distinguished career as a "reconstructed" Southerner and U.S. politician. He ultimately became a Democrat after the Civil War ended. He spoke out passionately against Radical Reconstruction and in the summer of 1867 made a series of speeches in Atlanta, the most famous being the Davis House speech of July 16, 1867, denouncing the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. His courage and eloquence enhanced his regional fame and won him national recognition.In 1875 he was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, serving from May 5, 1875 - March 3, 1877. He quickly won a reputation as a spokesman for the South. He was later elected by the Georgia legislature to the U.S. Senate on January 26, 1877, as Reconstruction was ending. He served in the U.S. Senate from March 4, 1877, until his death on August 16, 1882.

1877

Ward Hunt was an American jurist and politician. He attended Union College and took the bar un 1831. He was a Democratic member from Oneida County of the New York State Assembly in 1839, and was Mayor of Utica in 1844. In 1848, he joined the Free Soil Party, and in 1855 he was among the founders of the New York Republican Party. He remained in private practice until 1865, when he was elected to an eight-year term on the New York Court of Appeals on the Republican ticket, to succeed to the seat held by his former law teacher and partner Hiram Denio. Hunt became Chief Judge in 1868 after the sudden death of Chief Judge William B. Wright. In 1870, he was legislated out of office, but was appointed one of the Commissioners of Appeals.He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1868 to 1869, and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1872 to 1882. Hunt had little impact on the court, siding with the majority in all but 22 cases in his ten years on the job and writing only four dissenting opinions. His most notable contribution came while riding circuit in New York, where he presided over The United States v. Susan B. Anthony. Citing the 14th Amendment, Anthony argued that she was constitutionally guaranteed the right to vote and had not broken the law when she voted in the 1872 election. Justice Hunt refused to allow Anthony to testify on her own behalf, allowed statements given by her at the time of her arrest to be allowed as "testimony," explicitly ordered the jury to return a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury afterwards, and read an opinion he had written before the trial even started. Hunt found that Anthony had indeed broken the law and fined Anthony $100 (which she refused to pay).

1877

Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll was a lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, teacher, and orator of United States during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic". Ingersoll practiced law and was involved in several prominent trials as an attorney, notably the Star Route trials, a major political scandal in which his clients were acquitted. He also defended a New Jersey man charged with blasphemy. Although he did not win acquittal, his vigorous defense is considered to have discredited blasphemy laws and few other prosecutions followed. Ingersoll represented the noted con-artist, James Reavis, the 'Baron of Arizona' for a time, pronouncing his Peralta Land Grant claim airtight. Ingersoll was most noted as an orator, the most popular of the age, when oratory was public entertainment. He spoke on every subject, from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, but his most popular subjects were agnosticism and the sanctity and refuge of the family. He committed his speeches to memory although they were sometimes more than three hours long. His audiences were said never to be restless. Many of Ingersoll's speeches advocated freethought and humanism, and often poked fun at religious belief. Ingersoll died from congestive heart failure at the age of 65.

1877

James Kerr Kelly was an American politician born in Pennsylvania. He was a United States Senator for Oregon from 1871 to 1877, and later Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Prior to his election to the Senate he had been elected to both houses of the local legislature, serving in the Territorial House and State Senate, and was a member of the Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857. Kelly was born in Centre County, Pennsylvania in 1819. For his higher education he graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1839. James Kelly then studied law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the Dickinson School of Law and was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania in 1842. Upon entering the legal profession, Kelly began private practice in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, then was the deputy attorney general for Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. In 1849 he left for California and the newly discovered gold fields, then moved on to the Oregon Territory in 1851. In Oregon he set up a law practice in Portland and was one of three people selected to help re-write the laws of the territory. While living in Oregon, Kelly became active in politics and was elected as a Democrat to the territorial legislature serving from 1853 to 1857, and was selected as president of the legislature twice. In 1857 he was a member of the constitutional convention formed to prepare for Oregon's admission into the Union in 1859. Upon statehood, Kelly was elected to the Oregon State Senate and served from 1860 to 1864. In 1864, he ran for a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, but lost to Republican James H. D. Henderson. He was also unsuccessful in running for governor in 1866. Then in 1870, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and served from March 4, 1871 to March 4, 1877. He did not run for re-election. From 1878 to 1880 Kelly was a justice on the Oregon Supreme Court. In 1890 he returned to the east coast, settling in Washington, DC, where he practiced law. James Kerr Kelly died on September 15, 1903.

1877

David McKendree Key was a Democratic U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1875 to 1877 as well as the U.S. Postmaster General under President Hayes, and a United States federal judge. Key was born in Greene County, Tennessee. In 1826 the family moved to Monroe County where Key was reared, graduating from Hiwassee College in 1850. He selected the legal profession and the same year of his graduation he read law to be admitted to the bar. He married Elizabeth Lenoir in 1857, and fathered nine children. When the Civil War broke out, Key enlisted in the Forty-third Confederate Tennessee Regiment of Infantry, served until the close of the war, and was mustered out as a lieutenant colonel. Key was a member of the Tennessee state constitutional convention of 1870, which composed the basic instrument of government of the state still in effect, and in August of the same year was elected chancellor of the Chattanooga (3rd) division, but resigned in 1875 to accept the appointment by Tennessee Governor James D. Porter to the vacant Senate seat created by the death of Andrew Johnson.Defeated in the next senate election in the Tennessee General Assembly, Key was appointed Postmaster General in 1877 by President Hayes, and served until August 25, 1880. His appointment as Postmaster General was part of the Compromise of 1877. Key's work as Postmaster General is harshly criticized by Mark Twain in The Autobiography of Mark Twain. On May 19, 1880, Key was nominated by President Hayes to a joint seat on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Key was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 27, 1880. Key retired from the bench on January 21, 1895. He died in Chattanooga in 1900.

1877

George Washington McCrary was a four-term Republican Congressman from Iowa's 1st congressional district, a United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes, and a federal circuit judge. McCrary was born near Evansville, Indiana in 1835. Two years later, he moved with his parents to Wisconsin Territory, to what is now Van Buren County, Iowa. He studied law in Keokuk, Iowa at the law firm of future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel F. Miller, then was admitted to the bar in 1856, and, at the age of twenty, commenced practice in Keokuk. He served as the Secretary of War under President Hayes from March 12, 1877 to December 1879, when he resigned to accept his next appointment. As Secretary, he withdrew federal troops from the remaining reconstruction governments in South Carolina and Louisiana, and used federal troops in the 1877 railway strike and in Mexican border disturbances. But the greatest military conflicts during his watch occurred in the American West, in battles with certain Native American tribes in Colorado, New Mexico, and elsewhere. He was elected as a 3rd Class member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). This was probably due to President Hayes' influence as a prominent member of MOLLUS. On December 1, 1879, President Hayes nominated McCrary to become a judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Eighth Circuit. Referencing his family's financial need after his many years of public service, he left the court in 1884 to become general counsel for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. He died in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1890, at age 54, after suffering from a stomach tumor.

1877

John Edward McCullough was an American actor. He was born in Coleraine, Ireland. He went to America at the age of sixteen, and made his first appearance on the stage at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, in 1857. In support of Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth he played second roles in Shakespearean and other tragedies, and Forrest left him by will all his prompt books. Virginius was his greatest success, although even in this part and as Othello he was coldly received in England (1881). On the night of September 29, 1884, he broke down on stage at McVicker's Theater in Chicago and was unable to recite his lines. The audience, thinking he was drunk, hissed and booed. In fact, McCullough was suffering from the early stages of general paresis. He was later committed to the Bloomingdale Asylum but continued to decline and finally died in an asylum in Philadelphia. His "insane ravings" became popular and were imitated in one of the first audio recordings.

1877

Samuel Freeman Miller was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court who served from 1862 to 1890. He earned a medical degree in 1838 from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. While practicing medicine for a decade, he studied the law on his own and was admitted to the bar in 1847. Favoring the abolition of slavery, he supported the Whigs in Kentucky. Miller moved to Keokuk, in Iowa, a state more amenable to his views on slavery. Lincoln nominated Miller to the Supreme Court on July 16, 1862, after the beginning of the American Civil War. His reputation was so high that Miller was confirmed half an hour after the Senate received notice of his nomination. His opinions strongly favored Lincoln's positions, and he upheld his wartime suspension of habeas corpus and trials by military commission. After the war, his narrow reading of the Fourteenth Amendment—he wrote the opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases—limited the effectiveness of the amendment. Miller wrote the majority opinion in Bradwell v. Illinois, which held that the right to practice law was not constitutionally protected under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He later joined the majority opinions in United States v. Cruikshank and the Civil Rights Cases, holding that the amendment did not give the U.S. government the power to stop private—as opposed to state-sponsored—discrimination against blacks. In Ex Parte Yarbrough, (1884), however, Miller held that the federal government had broad authority to act to protect black voters from violence by the Ku Klux Klan and other private groups. In all, Miller wrote twice the number of opinions as any of his colleagues on the Court. When Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase died in 1873, attorneys and law journals across the country lobbied for Miller to be appointed to succeed him, but President Ulysses Grant was determined to appoint an outsider. After the 1876 presidential election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, Miller served on the electoral commission that awarded the disputed electoral votes to the Republican Hayes. In the 1880s, his name was floated as a Republican candidate for president. Miller also served as President of the Unitarians' National Conference in 1884. He died in Washington, D.C., while still a member of the court.

1877

Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton, commonly known as Oliver P. Morton, was a U.S. Republican Party politician from Indiana. He served as the 14th Governor of Indiana during the American Civil War, and was a stalwart ally of President Abraham Lincoln. During the war, Morton thwarted and neutralized the Democratic-controlled Indiana General Assembly. He exceeded his constitutional authority by calling out the militia without approval, and during the period of legislative suppression he privately financed the state government through unapproved federal and private loans. He was criticized for arresting and detaining political enemies and suspected southern sympathizers. But the famous "War Governor" unquestionably did more to help the war effort than any other man in the state, and earned the lifelong gratitude of former Union soldiers for his support. During his second term as governor, and after being partially paralyzed by a stroke, he was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate. He was a leader among the Radical Republican reconstructionists, and supported numerous bills designed to reform the former Southern Confederacy. In 1877, during his second term in the senate, Morton suffered a second debilitating stroke that caused a rapid deterioration in his health; he died later that year.

1877

John was converted to the Christian faith at the age of sixteen and became a member of the M.E. Church. John entered the Seminary at Cazenovia, New York, where he pursued college preparatory and theological studies, intending to enter Wesleyan University. But acting on the advice of friends, he did not proceed to college, but instead entered the Methodist ministry. John entered upon pastoral work in 1848 as a member of the Oneida Annual Conference of the M.E. Church. In 1855 he was transferred to the Troy Annual Conference. In 1857-58 Rev. Newman was stationed in Albany, New York, where his preaching first attracted attention outside his own denomination. In 1858 he was transferred to the New York Annual Conference and stationed in New York City. In the spring of 1860 he sailed for Europe. After an extensive tour on the Continent he visited the East, and for a year made a thorough study of Bible lands: Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine. As a result of his research he wrote a book on the Holy Land, entitled "From Dan to Beersheba." Newman began his mission in New Orleans, where he soon built a church worth fifty thousand dollars. He founded a seminary and an orphan asylum, as well, each with ample buildings and endowments. Indeed, out of the mission Rev. Newman then organized grew four Annual Conferences of the M.E. Church. In 1869 Rev. Newman was appointed to Washington as Pastor of the Metropolitan M.E. Church, which he helped organize. He retired from this pulpit in the Spring of 1872. n the Spring of 1873 Dr. Newman was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as Inspector of United States Consulates in Asia, serving 1874-76. In discharge of the duties of this position, Dr. Newman crossed the Pacific Ocean, traveling extensively in China, Japan, and other oriental countries with which the U.S.A. had diplomatic relations. Upon his resignation from the Madison Ave. church, Rev. Newman visited California. He was then called upon to minister to President Ulysses S. Grant in his final illness. Dr. Newman then was appointed a third time to the Metropolitan Church in Washington, serving a final two years.

1877

Charles O'Conor was an American lawyer who appeared as a candidate in the 1872 U.S. presidential election. O'Conor was born in New York City.
At the age of 16, Charles O'Conor began to study law, and in 1824, before he had attained the statutory age of 21, he was admitted to the bar. He brought the Forrest divorce case to a successful issue for his client, Mrs. Forrest. Contending against John Van Buren and other eminent counsel, he secured her a liberal alimony. This case brought him more than ever into national reputation. Others of his celebrated private cases were the Slave Jack case in 1835, the Lispenard will case in 1843, the Lemmon slave case in 1856, the Parrish will case in 1862, and the Jumel suit in 1871, involving the title to $6,000,000 in real estate. In 1869 he was elected president of the New York Law Institute. In 1848 he became a member of the Directory of the Friends of Ireland, a society that was organized in anticipation of a rising in Ireland, and he presided at some of the meetings in the same year. In this year he was also a candidate on the Democratic ticket for Lieutenant Governor of New York, but was defeated. In 1852, he was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket, voting for Franklin Pierce. He was United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1853 to 1854. In politics he supported the States' rights Democrat and sympathized throughout the American Civil War with the southern states. After the war he became senior counsel for Jefferson Davis on his indictment for treason. He also appeared upon Davis's bond when the latter was admitted to bail. These facts and O'Conor's connection with the Roman Catholic Church affected unfavourably his political fortunes. In the U.S. presidential election, 1872, O'Conor was nominated for the presidency by the "Bourbon Democrats" or "Straight-Out Democrats", who refused to support Horace Greeley, and by the "Labor Reformers". He declined the nomination but received 21,559 votes.The election was won by incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant of the Republican Party. He erected a house at Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1881, with a fire-proof library adjoining it, and lived there until his death in 1884.

1877

John James Patterson was a businessman and United States Senator from South Carolina. Born in Waterloo, Pennsylvania, he grew up there and attended the public schools, and then attended Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. During the 1850s he engaged in newspaper and banking businesses in Pennsylvania; he was publisher of the Juniata Sentinel in 1852 and became editor and part owner of the Harrisburg Telegraph in 1853. He first entered politics in 1859 when he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, in which he served until 1861. In 1861, when the Civil War began, he joined the United States Army and served as a captain in the Fifteenth U.S. (regular) Infantry. Meanwhile, he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1862, but was unsuccessful.
After the war Patterson moved to Columbia, South Carolina and engaged in railroad construction. He again entered politics and in 1873 was elected by the South Carolina Legislature to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. He was criticized by many in South Carolina for being a carpetbagger. Patterson was the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor from 1875 to 1877 and a member of the committee on territories from 1877 to 1879. By the time his term ended in 1879, Reconstruction had ended and the Democrats had taken nearly all power in South Carolina, so Patterson had no hope of reelection. He continued to live in Washington, D.C. after leaving the Senate and engaged in financial enterprises. In 1886 he moved to Mifflintown, Pennsylvania where he lived until his death. He continued to be active in business, particularly in running a company that installed electric lightbulbs.

1877

Samuel Jackson Randall was a Pennsylvania politician, attorney, soldier, and a prominent Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives during the late 19th century. He served as the 33rd Speaker of the House and was a contender for his party's nomination for the President of the United States in two campaigns. Randall graduated from the University Academy in Philadelphia, and was a member of the Philadelphia Common Council from 1852-1856. He served on the Pennsylvania State Senate for one term from 1858-1860.= During the Civil War, he served as a member of the First Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry in 1861 for three months, and again as a captain in 1863 during the Gettysburg Campaign. He served as Provost Marshal at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, under Major Granville Haller in the days before the battle and had the same role at Columbia, Pennsylvania during the battle of Gettysburg. As Speaker of the House, Randall came into national attention in 1875 when he led a Democratic filibuster of Republican Reconstruction measures. He was named chair of the Appropriations Committee in 1875 when Democrats took control of the House. While Chairman, Randall was diligent in cutting extravagance and pork-barrel provisions from spending bills, and led the small protectionist minority in Democratic ranks to make coalitions with Republicans and stymie two different attempts in his own party to make a down-payment on tariff reform.Randall was considered for the Democratic presidential candidacy in 1880 and 1884. In neither case did he stand much chance. Outlasting all his colleagues in continuous service, Randall died in Washington, D.C. in 1890 while still in office.

1877

Aaron Augustus Sargent was an American journalist, lawyer, politician and diplomat. He was sometimes called the "Senator for the Southern Pacific Railroad". Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, he attended the common schools and then was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. In his youth he worked as a printer in Philadelphia and then, in 1847, moved to Washington, D.C., where he was a secretary to a Congressman. He moved to California in 1849 and settled in Nevada City in 1850. There he was on the staff of the Nevada Daily Journal, eventually becoming that newspaper's owner. He was admitted to the California bar in 1854 and began practicing in Nevada City, becoming district attorney for Nevada County in 1856. He was served in the California Senate in 1856.Sargent was elected as a Republican to the 37th Congress; skipped several terms and was reelected to the 41st and 42nd Congresses. In 1861 he was the author of the first Pacific Railroad Act that was passed in Congress. He was elected to the United States Senate and served 1873 to 1879. During his time in the Senate he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Mines and Mining during the 44th Congress and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Naval Affairs during the 45th Congress. In January 1878, Senator Sargent introduced the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, allowing women the right to vote. Sargent’s wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was a leading voting rights advocate, and a friend of such suffrage leaders as Susan B. Anthony. The bill calling for the amendment would be introduced unsuccessfully each year for the next forty years. After leaving the Senate he practiced law in San Francisco for three years, leaving to become United States Ambassador to Germany for two years, and held office until the action of the German authorities in excluding American pork from the empire made his incumbency personally distasteful. He made an unsuccessful attempt for the Republican nomination for the Senate in 1885. He died in San Francisco in 1887.

1877

Carl Christian Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, U.S. Minister to Spain, Union Army General in the American Civil War, U. S. Senator, and Secretary of the Interior. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate. Schurz, a native of Liblar, Germany, attended a Gymnasium in Cologne and then enrolled in the University of Bonn in 1847. He was studying to obtain a doctorate degree and to become a professor of History when his studies were interrupted by the German Revolution. He joined the revolutionary army, fighting in several battles against the Prussian Army.] When the revolutionary army was defeated at Rastatt in 1849, Schurz escaped to Switzerland, knowing that the Prussians intended to kill their prisoners. He returned to Germany, where he led a secret mission that freed Gottfried Kinkel from prison. Schurz then resided in Paris, until he was expelled by French authorities in 1851. He emigrated to the United States, originally residing in Philadelphia., Schurz and his wife moved to Wisconsin, where he joined and campaigned for the Republican Party. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Schurz Minister to Spain. After returning from Spain in 1862, Schurz was appointed Union Brigadier General by Lincoln. During Reconstruction, Schurz was opposed to federal military enforcement and protection of African American civil rights, and held nineteenth century ideals of Anglo superiority and fears of miscegenation. In 1870, Schurz formed the Liberal Republican Party, which opposed President Ulysses S. Grant's annexation of Santo Domingo, and his use of the military to destroy the Ku Klux Klan in the South under the Force Acts. Schurz lost the 1874 Senatorial election to Democratic Party challenger and former Confederate, Francis Cockrell. After leaving office, he worked as an editor for various newspapers. In 1877, Schurz was appointed Secretary of Interior by President Rutherford B. Hayes. Although Schurz honestly attempted to reduce the effects of racism toward Native Americans his solutions towards American Indians were repressive. Indians were forced to move into low quality reservation lands that were unsuitable for tribal economic and cultural advancement. Promises made to Indian chiefs at White House meetings with President Rutherford B. Hayes and Schurz were not always kept.

1877

Julius Hawley Seelye was a missionary, author, United States Representative, and former president of Amherst College. The system of Latin Honors in use at many universities worldwide is said to have been created by him. Seelye was born September 14, 1824, in Bethel, Connecticut, to Seth and Abigail (Taylor) Seelye. He prepared himself for college, then attended Amherst College from 1846 to 1849, when he graduated. He then continued his studies at Auburn Theological Seminary from 1849–1852, and at Halle, Prussia from 1852–1853. He married Marilyn Dockfill, who eventually died of tuberculosis. Seelye was ordained in Schenectady, New York, on August 10, 1853. From 1853–1858 he was the pastor of the First Dutch Reformed Church in Schenectady. In 1858 he returned to Amherst College, serving as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy until 1890. During that time, he was the President of the Amherst College Corporation, and a Trustee of Amherst College, from 1876–1890, and the fifth President of the College from 1877–1890. He was pastor of the Amherst College Church from 1877–1892. Seelye was also a trustee of Mount Holyoke College from 1872 to 1895. Seelye was a member of the 44th Congress, from 1875–1877.

1877

John Sherman was an American Republican representative and senator from Ohio during the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. He also served as both Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State and was the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Sherman ran for the Republican presidential nomination three times, coming closest in 1888, but never winning. His brothers included General William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame, Charles Taylor Sherman, a federal judge in Ohio, and Iowa banker Hoyt Sherman. Born in Lancaster, Ohio, Sherman later moved to Mansfield, Ohio, where he began a law career before entering politics. Initially a Whig, Sherman was among those anti-slavery activists who formed what became the Republican Party. He served three terms in the House of Representatives. As a member of the House, Sherman traveled to Kansas to investigate the unrest between pro- and anti-slavery partisans there. He rose in party leadership and was nearly elected Speaker in 1859. Sherman was elevated to the Senate in 1861. As a senator, he was a leader in financial matters, helping to redesign the United States' monetary system to meet the needs of a nation torn apart by civil war. After the war, he worked to produce legislation that would restore the nation's credit abroad and produce a stable, gold-backed currency at home. Serving as Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, Sherman continued his efforts for financial stability and solvency, overseeing an end to wartime inflationary measures and a return to gold-backed money. He returned to the Senate after his term expired, serving there for a further sixteen years. During that time he continued his work on financial legislation, as well as writing and debating laws on immigration, business competition law, and the regulation of interstate commerce. In 1897, President William McKinley appointed Sherman Secretary of State. Failing health and declining faculties made him unable to handle the burdens of the job, and he retired in 1898 at the start of the Spanish–American War. Sherman died at his home in Washington, D.C. in 1900.

1877

George Eliphaz Spencer was an American politician and a U.S. senator from the state of Alabama. Born in Champion, New York, he was educated at Montreal College in Canada. After relocating to Iowa he engaged in the study of law. He married English author Bella Zilfa in 1862. During the Civil War, Spencer enlisted as a captain on October 16, 1862. While serving on the staff of Brigadier-General Grenville M. Dodge, he requested a transfer to the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Union), a volunteer regiment made up of Southern Unionists, which did not have a permanent commander. Receiving a promotion to colonel, he led the regiment from September 11, 1863 till his resignation on July 5, 1865. After the war, Spencer returned to Alabama to practice law. His wife died of typhoid fever in 1867. For a time he served as register in bankruptcy for the fourth district of Alabama. Elected as a Republican to the United States Senate upon readmission of Alabama to the Union, Spencer served from July 13, 1868, to March 4, 1879. He was appointed a commissioner of the Union Pacific Railroad with help from his previous leader, Major-General Dodge. In 1877, he married prominent actress "May" Nunez. The couple then spent two years on a ranch in Nevada tending to mining interests before settling in Washington, DC, about 1880. Spencer died in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1893.

1877

Theodore Tilton was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton (same surname). On his twentieth birthday of October 2, 1855, he married Elizabeth Richards, known as "Libby Tilton". Tilton's newspaper work was fully supportive of abolitionism and the Northern cause in the American Civil War. From 1860 to 1871, he was the assistant of Henry Ward Beecher; however, in 1874, he filed criminal charges against the clergyman for "criminal intimacy" with his (Tilton's) wife. During this period, he was the 1869 commencement speaker for the Irving Literary Society. Following the apparent acquittal of Beecher in the trial (the public view was ambivalent to his acquittal), Tilton moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. In the 1880s, ironically enough, Tilton frequently played chess with fellow American exile (but ex-Confederate) Judah Benjamin until the latter died in 1884.

1877

Thompson was born in Culpeper County, Virginia. He left Virginia in 1831 and lived briefly in Louisville, Kentucky before finally settling in Lawrence County, Indiana. There, he taught school, kept a store, and studied law at night. Admitted to the bar in 1834, he practiced law in Bedford, Indiana, and served four terms in the Indiana General Assembly from 1834 to 1838. He served as President pro tempore of the Indiana Senate for a short time and briefly held the office of acting Lieutenant Governor. In the presidential election of 1840, he zealously advocated the election of William Henry Harrison. Thompson then represented Indiana in the United States Congress, serving in the United States House of Representatives from 1841 to 1843 and again from 1847 to 1849. During the 1850s Thompson and some of his fellow Whigs transferred allegiance to the American Party, better known as the Know Nothing Party. They did so due to their suspicion of the increased immigration from Ireland and Germany, but also because of the view of the northern portion of the American Party to be opposed to slavery In the election of 1860 Thompson was his state's leader of those who organized the Constitutional Union Party. Thompson was placed on the National Committee, but gave up the on third party strategy in August and supported Abraham Lincoln so as not to risk a Democratic victory in Indiana. Following the American Civil War, Thompson served as judge of the 18th Circuit Court of the state of Indiana from 1867 to 1869. Active in Republican politics, he was the Platform Committee chairman at the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago, he offered Vice President Schuyler Colfax's name for renomination at the 1872 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, and gave the nominating speech for Oliver H. P. Morton for President at the 1876 Republican National Convention in Cincinnati. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Navy; and he held that office until December 1880.

1877

Allen Granberry Thurman was a Democratic Representative, Ohio Supreme Court justice, and Senator from Ohio, as well as the nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President of the United States in 1888. Both his parents were teachers; his father also a Methodist minister. In 1815, his parents emancipated their slaves and moved to Chillicothe, Ohio. He attended the academy run by his mother, and then studied law as an apprentice to his uncle, William Allen (who later became a Senator from Ohio). At the age of eighteen, Thurman worked on a land survey, and at twenty-one became private secretary to the Governor of Ohio, Robert Lucas. In 1835 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and became his uncle's law partner. In 1837 his uncle entered the Senate. On November 14, 1844, Thurman married Mary Dun Thomplins (or Tompkins), and they were the parents of three children. Congressman The same year he was elected to the House of Representatives as its youngest member. He generally supported the majority of the Democrats on all issues except internal improvements, on which he tended to vote with the Whigs. He supported the Polk Administration's conduct of the Mexican-American War, spoke in favor of the 54°40' northern limit to the Oregon territory, and voted for the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery from the territory gained from Mexico. In 1851 he was elected to a four-year term on the Ohio Supreme Court, the last year as the chief justice. He then returned to private law practice in Columbus. He never accepted the right of a state to secede, but he felt it was unwise to fight a state that had already left the Union, so during the American Civil War, he was opposed to Lincoln's policies. In 1867, he ran for Governor of Ohio, on a platform opposed to extending suffrage to blacks, but lost to Rutherford B. Hayes in a close election. The Ohio voters chose a Democratic state legislature, however, which selected Thurman as Senator for the term beginning in 1869. During the twelve years he served in the Senate, he became the leader of the Democrats in that body. He was known for constant hard work,good preparation, and courteous treatment of his opponents, and other members ranked him among the top three senators of his time, in terms of ability.

1877

James Noble Tyner was a lawyer, U.S. Representative and United States Postmaster General from Indiana. Born in Brookville, Indiana, Tyner pursued an academic course and graduated from Brookville Academy in 1844. He was a businessman for ten years, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1857, commencing practice in Peru, Indiana. He served as secretary of the Indiana Senate from 1857 to 1861 and was a special agent for the United States Post Office Department from 1861 to 1866. In 1869, Tyner was elected a Republican to the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1869 to 1875. U.S. Representative Tyner served on the Post Office Committee, the Post Roads Committee, and the Education and Labor Committee. U.S. Representative Tyner advocated the removal of the Franking Privilege in his first speech in the House on February 5, 1870. Tyner was appointed Postmaster General in the cabinet of President Ulysses S. Grant, serving from 1876 to 1877. After the end of the Grant administration, he was demoted to Assistant Postmaster General, serving from 1877 until his resignation in 1881. He was a delegate to the International Postal Congress in Paris, France, in 1878 and in Washington, D.C. in 1897. During his tenor as Assistant Attorney General, Tyner was investigated in mid-1903 for corruption in the Post Office. Tyner was indicted for fraud and taking a bribe. Tyner's wife and daughter-in-law, during the postal investigation, had secretly taken documents from Tyner's safe at Tyner's office in the Postal Department. Tyner was acquitted for lack of evidence, however, he lost his job as Assistant Attorney General as a result of the postal investigation. He died in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 1904.

1877

Benjamin Franklin "Bluff" Wade was a United States Senator during Civil War reconstruction known for his leading role among the Radical Republicans. Had the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 led to a conviction at trial in the Senate, he would have become the 18th President of the United States. Wade was born in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1800 to Mary and James Wade. After being admitted to the bar in 1828, he began practicing law in Jefferson, Ohio. Wade formed a partnership with Joshua Giddings, a prominent anti-slavery figure, in 1831. He became the prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula County by 1836, and as a member of the Whig Party, Wade was elected to the Ohio State Senate, serving two two-year terms between 1837 and 1842. He established a new law practice with Rufus P. Ranney and was elected presiding judge of the third district in 1847. Between 1847 and 1851, Wade was a judge of common pleas in what is now Summit County (Ohio). After the decline of the Whigs' power, Wade joined the Republican Party, and in 1851 he was elected by his legislature to the United States Senate. There, he associated witl Radical Republicans. He fought against the controversial Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He was one of the most radical politicians in America at that time, supporting women's suffrage, trade union rights, and equality for African-Americans. During the American Civil War, Wade was highly critical of President Abraham Lincoln, and was especially angry when Lincoln was slow to recruit African-Americans into the armies. He actively advocated for the bill that abolished slavery and had a direct hand in the passing of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Morrill Land Grand Act of 1862.

1877

Morrison Remick "Mott" Waite was an attorney and politician in Ohio. He served as the seventh Chief Justice of the United States from 1874 to his death in 1888. Chief Justice Waite was primarily known for overturning federal laws passed during Reconstruction that protected African Americans. An active member of the Whig Party, Waite was elected to a term in the Ohio Senate in 1849–1850. He made two unsuccessful bids for the United States Senate, and was offered (but declined) a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. In the mid-1850s, because of his opposition to slavery, Waite joined the fledgling Republican Party and helped to organize it in his home state. In 1871, Waite received a surprise invitation to represent the United States as counsel before the Alabama Tribunal at Geneva. In his first national role, he gained acclaim when he successfully won a $15 million award from the tribunal. In 1872, he was selected to preside over the Ohio constitutional convention. Waite was confirmed unanimously as Chief Justice on January 21, 1874, receiving his commission the same day. Waite took the oaths of office on March 4, 1874. Waite concurred with the majority in the Head Money Cases (1884), the Ku-Klux Case (United States v. Harris, 1883), the Civil Rights Cases (1883), Pace v. Alabama (1883), and the Legal Tender Cases (including Juillard v. Greenman) (1883). Among his own most important opinions were those in the Enforcement Act Cases (1875), the Sinking Fund Cases (1878), the Railroad Commission Cases (1886) and the Telephone Cases (1887).

1877

Elijah Ward was a U.S. Congressman during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Ward was born in Sing Sing, New York. He pursued classical studies, engaged in commercial pursuits in New York City and at the same time attended the law department of New York University. He was admitted to the bar in 1843 and commenced practice in New York City. He was judge advocate general of the State 1853-1855, and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1856. He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth Congress , but was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1858. He was subsequently elected to the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses, but again was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1864. He resumed the practice of law in New York City, and then was elected to the Forty-fourth Congress. He was chairman, Committee on Commerce (Forty-fourth Congress). Ward was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1876. He died in Roslyn, Nassau County, New York; interment was in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City.

1877

William Almon Wheeler was born in Malone, New York, and attended Franklin Academy and the University of Vermont, although monetary concerns forced him to drop out without graduating. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, practiced law in Malone, and was District Attorney of Franklin County from 1846 to 1849. He was a member of the New York State Assembly (Franklin Co.) in 1850 and 1851; and of the New York State Senate (17th D.) in 1858 and 1859. He was elected as a Republican to the 37th United States Congress, holding office from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863. He was President of the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1867-68. He was elected to the 41st, 42nd, 43rd and 44th United States Congresses, holding office from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1877. Wheeler was also President of the New York Northern Railroad. Wheeler was inaugurated as Vice President in March 4, 1877 and served until March 4, 1881. Since Wheeler was a recent widower, his wife having died three months before he took the oath of office, he was a frequent guest at the White House's alcohol-free luncheons. As Vice President, Wheeler presided over the Senate. According to Hayes, Wheeler "was one of the few Vice Presidents who were on cordial terms, intimate and friendly, with the President. Our family were heartily fond of him." Hayes had long announced that he would not run for a second term, and Wheeler was not mentioned for the 1880 Republican presidential nomination.

1877