Anti-Slavery Whigs
Anti-Slavery Whig Political Leaders
The following is a list of American anti-slavery Whig political leaders, all opponents of slavery. This list was drawn from a number of primary and secondary sources. The two principle sources that we have used are Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1888) and Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography (1927).
At present, this list includes 240 names.
We are including in this list all Whig anti-slavery activists and opponents of slavery, whatever their motives, whether humanitarian, economic or political. Some of these individuals were against slavery in principle, on moral grounds, some with political motives
This list is a work in progress. We intend to continue our research and add more names to this list. We will also be including biographical sketches of each of these individuals and additional references.
This list was prepared by Eric Saul. Special thanks to Amy Fiske for help in the preparation and organization of this compilation and manuscript. It is a labor of love and devotion for more than three years. Amy’s great great great uncle was Major General Henry Warner Slocum, who was commander of the Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Twentieth Corps of the Union Army and commander of the Army of Georgia in the Georgia and Carolinas Campaigns, November 1864 through April 1865. Slocum participated in the abolition movement before the Civil War.
Click on the entries below to view an annotated list of biographies of anti-slavery Whig political leaders. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Also see below for an index and a bibliography.
A
B
C
Campbell through Clayton
Colfax through Cushing
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
Sackett through Sherman
Silliman through Stillwell
Stone through Switzler
T
U
V
W
Wade through Washburn
Webb through Wheeler
White through Winthrop
X
Y
Z
Index
The following is a list of anti-slavery Whigs included in this biographical directory. It includes 240 individuals for whom Scribner’s and Appletons’ encyclopedic biographies are available. To read the biographies, click on the links below for each letter of the alphabet (or see links above).
A
ADAMS, John Quincy, 1767-1848, Massachusetts, sixth U.S. President (1825-1829), U.S. Congressman (1831-1848), U.S. Secretary of State, lawyer, anti-slavery leader, activist, abolitionist, son of second U.S. President John Adams. As president his administration was Whig. Opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1819, which allowed the expansion of slavery in southern states. Fought against the “Gag Rule” in Congress, which prevented discussion of the issue of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Gag Rule was revoked in 1844.
ANDERSON, Lucien, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Anderson was a Representative from Kentucky; born near Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky, June 23, 1824; attended the public schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1845 and commenced practice in Mayfield; presidential elector on the Whig ticket of Scott and Graham in 1852; member of the State house of representatives 1855-1857; elected as an Unconditional Unionist to the Thirty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1863-March 3, 1865); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1864; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864; resumed the practice of his profession; died in Mayfield, Kentucky, October 18, 1898.
ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, lawyer, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party. Opponent of slavery. In Boston, he took a prominent part in the defense of fugitive slaves Shadrach, Burns and Sims. Supported John Brown in legal defense.
ANDREWS, Sherlock James, jurist, born in Wallingford, Connecticut, 17 November, 1801; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 February, 1880. He was elected to Congress in 1840 as a Whig, and served for a single term.
ANTHONY, Henry Bowen, 1815-1884, Republican, statesman, newspaper editor, Governor of Rhode Island, U.S. Senator 1859-1884, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
APPLETON, William, merchant, born in Brookfield, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1786; died in Longwood, near Boston, 20 February, 1862. He was elected as a Whig to Congress, serving from 1851 to 1855, and again was a member in the special session from 4 July to 6 August, 1861.
ARNOLD, Samuel Greene, historian, born in Providence, Rhode Island 12 April 1821; died there 13 February, 1880. In 1852 he was chosen lieutenant-governor of his state, the only man elected on the Whig ticket, and he again occupied that office in 1861 and 1862.
ARTHUR, Chester Alan, twenty-first president of the United States, born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, 5 October, 1830; died in New York City, 18 November, 1886.
B
BABCOCK, James Francis, journalist, born in Connecticut in 1809; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 18 June, 1874. He controlled the nominations of the Whig Party for many years, and, though hostile to the Free-Soil Party at its inception, he finally gave it a hearty welcome in 1854.
BAKER, Edward Dickenson, soldier, born in London, England, 24 February, 1811; killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff, 21 October, 1861. Baker entered the political field as a Whig. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1837, of the state senate in 1840, and representative in Congress in 1844.
BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, 1793-1863, New Haven, Connecticut, lawyer, jurist, statesman, U.S. Senator. Lead counsel, with John Quincy Adams, for the slaves of the Amistad ship. Strong supporter of the Lincoln and the abolition movement in the United States.
BARTLEY, Mordecai, governor of Ohio, born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 16 December, 1783; died in Mansfield, Ohio, 10 October, 1870. In 1844 he was elected governor of Ohio on the Whig ticket. During the Mexican War, when the president issued his call for troops, Governor Bartley, though opposed to the war, promptly responded, superintending their organization in person. He remained a Whig until the disruption of that party, and subsequently acted with the Republicans.
BASHFORD, Coles, governor of Wisconsin, born near Cold Spring, Putnam County, New York, 24 January, 1816; died 25 April, 1878. He was a member of the Whig State Convention in 1851, and in 1852. He was chosen for the state senate, from which he resigned in 1855. He was the first Republican governor of the state, serving from 1855 to 1857
BATES, Edward, 1793-1869, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Society of Friends, Quaker. Whig Party Congressman. U.S. Attorney General, Lincoln’s cabinet. Member, Free Labor Party, Missouri. Anti-slavery activist. Opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
BELL, John, statesman, born near Nashville, Tennessee, 15 February, 1797; died at Cumberland Iron Works, Tennessee, 10 September, 1869. When petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were resented in the House of Representatives in 1836, Mr. Bell voted to receive them, and he also opposed the “Atherton gag” in 1838. In this course he was supported by his constituents, though assailed in his position.
BELL, Luther Vose, was born in Chester, New Hampshire, 20 December, 1806; died in camp near Budd's Ferry, Maryland, 11 February, 1862. In 1852 he was nominated by the Whigs for Congress, and in 1856 for governor of the state.
BINGHAM, John Armor, 1815-1900, Republican Congressman, judge, advocate, U.S. Army. Elected to congress as a republican in 1854, and re-elected three times, sitting from 1855 till 1863. Bingham was one of the writers and sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. One of three military judges presiding in the Lincoln assassination trial.
BIRD, Francis William, 1809-1894, anti-slavery political leader, radical reformer. Member of the anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs,” leader of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party. Led anti-slavery faction of the newly formed Republican Party. Supported abolitionist Party leader Charles Sumner. Opposed Dred Scott decision. “Bird Club” greatly influenced radical Republican politics in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate. Organized Emancipation League. Supported enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army and emancipation of Blacks in the District of Columbia. Supported women’s rights, Indian rights, suffrage rights for Chinese, and other causes.
BLISS, Philemon, 1813-1889, lawyer, U.S. congressman, 1854, Chief Justice, Dakota Territory in 1861, elected Supreme Court of Missouri, 1868. Supported Whig party. Later helped found anti-slavery Free Soil Party. Agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).
BLOW, Henry Taylor, 1817-1875, statesman, diplomat. Active in pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Blow was born in Southampton county, Virginia, July 15, 1817. In 1830 he removed to Missouri, and soon after graduated at the St. Louis University. He engaged extensively in the drug and lead business. He served four years in the Senate of Missouri. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln Minister to Venezuela, but resigned the position before the expiration of a year. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Missouri to the Thirty-Eighth Congress, and was re-elected to the Thirty-Ninth. He was succeeded in the Fortieth Congress by Carman A. Newcomb.
BOTTS, John Minor, statesman, born in Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, 16 September, 1802; died in Culpepper, Virginia, 7 January, 1869. In 1833 he was elected as a Whig to represent his county in the legislature, where he at once became prominent, and several times reelected. In 1839 he was elected to Congress. He was one of the few southern members that supported John Quincy Adams in his contest against the regulations of the house infringing the right of petition, adopted by the majority in order to exclude appeals from the abolitionists.
BRADFORD, Augustus W. governor of Maryland, born in Maryland about 1805; died 1 March, 1881. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and became an active Whig politician. He was an earnest unionist during the Civil War.
BRADLEY, Joseph P., jurist, born in Berne, Albany County, New York, 14 March, 1813. In his earlier years he was attached to the Whig Party, and later be a Republican.
BRIGGS, George Nixon, governor of Massachusetts, born in Adams, Massachusetts, 13 April, 1796; died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 12 September, 1861. In 1830 was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving six successive terms.
BROWNLOW, William Gannaway, journalist, born in Wythe County, Virginia, 29 Aug. 1805; died in Knoxville, Tennessee, 29 April, 1877. He became editor of the Knoxville “Whig” in 1838, and from his trenchant mode of expression became known as “the fighting parson.”
BUCKLAND, Ralph Pomeroy, soldier, born in Leyden, Massachusetts, 20 January, 1812. He was a delegate to the Whig National Convention of 1848, served as state senator from 1855 till 1859, and in 1861 was appointed colonel of the 72d Ohio Infantry.
BURCHARD, Charles, 1810-1879, New York, Wisconsin, political leader, opposed slavery. Member of the Whig and Liberty Parties. Major in the Civil War.
C: Cam-Cla
CAMPBELL, Lewis Davis, diplomatist, born in Franklin, Ohio, 9 August, 1811; died 26 November, 1882. He published a Whig newspaper at Hamilton, Ohio, from 1831 till 1836, supporting Henry Clay, and was then admitted to the bar and began to practice at Hamilton. He was elected to Congress as a Whig, and served from 3 December 1849, till 25 May, 1858.
CHANDLER, Zachariah, 1813-1879, statesman, abolitionist. Mayor of Detroit, 1851-1852. U.S. Senator 1857-1975, 1879. Secretary of the Interior, 1875-1877. Active in Underground Railroad in Detroit area. Helped organize the Republican Party in 1854. Introduced Confiscation Bill in Senate, July 1861. Was a leading Radical Republican senator. Chandler was a vigorous opponent of slavery. He opposed the Dred Scott U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1858, opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
CHASE, Salmon Portland, 1808-1873, statesman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1864-1873, lawyer, abolitionist, member, Whig, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Anti-Slavery Republican Party. “A slave is a person held, as property, by legalized force, against natural right.” – Chase.
CLARK, Daniel, 1809-1891, lawyer, jurist, organizer and founder of the Republican Party, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, ardent supporter of the Union. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
CLARK, Myron Holley, 1806-1892, Governor of New York State. Supported by the anti-slavery wings of the Democratic and Whig Parties.
CLARKE, Freeman, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1863-March 3, 1865); voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Delegate to the Whig National Convention at Baltimore in 1852; vice president of the first Republican State convention of New York in 1854.
CLAY, Cassius Marcellus, 1810-1903, Madison County, Kentucky, anti-slavery political leader, emancipationist, large landowner, statesman, lawyer, diplomat, soldier, newspaper publisher. Granted land for Berea College, Berea, Kentucky. Prominent anti-slavery activist with Kentucky State legislature and member of the Republican Party. Published anti-slavery paper, True American, in Lexington, Kentucky.
CLAY, Henry, 1777-1852, Kentucky, statesman, political leader, U.S. Senator, Congressman, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 12th, 13th, and 18th Congress, Presidential candidate. Founder of the American Colonization Society and its President from 1837-1852, Vice President, 1833-1837.
CLAYTON, John Middleton, jurist, born in Dagsborough, Sussex County, Delaware, 24 July, 1796; died in Dover, Delaware, 9 November, 1856. In 1829 he was sent to the U. S. Senate, and in 1831 appointed a member of the convention to revise the constitution of Delaware. In 1835 he was again returned to the Senate as a Whig, but resigned in 1837 to become Chief Justice of Delaware, an office which he held for three years. From 1845 till 1849 he was again U. S. Senator, and at the latter date became Secretary of State under President Taylor. He was elected a senator for the third time, and served in that capacity from March, 1851, until his death.
C: Col-Cus
COLFAX, Schuyler, 1823-1885, Vice President of the United States, statesman, newspaper editor. Active in Whig Party. Member of Congress, 1854-1869. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana. Secretary of State. Opposed slavery as a Republican Member of Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Strongly opposed the extension of slavery in the territories.
COLLAMER, Jacob, 1791-1865, lawyer, jurist. Whig Congressman. Supported the Free Soil-Party and the non-extension of slavery into the new territories. U.S. Senator from Vermont. U.S. Senator, 1854-1865. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
CONKLING, Roscoe (October 30, 1829-April 18, 1888), War Republican and radical Republican U.S. senator. One of the great "spread eagle" orators of his day, before he was thirty years of age he was a valued figure at Whig conventions of his county and state. He became mayor of Utica in 1858, was elected to Congress in the autumn of the same year, and represented his district at Washington, 1859-67, except for the single term 1863-65.
COOPER, James, senator, Union general, born in Frederick county, Maryland, 8 May, 1810; died in Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio, 28 March, 1863. He was elected to Congress as a Whig, and served for two terms, from 2 December, 1839, till 3 March, 1843. Elected to the U. S. Senate as a Whig, holding office from 3 December, 1849, till 3 March, 1855.
CORWIN, Thomas, 1794-1865, Lebanon, Ohio, attorney, statesman, diplomat, opposed slavery, U.S. Congressman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Treasury. Director of the American Colonization Society, 1833-1834.
COVODE, John, 1808-1871, abolitionist. U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania, serving 1855-1863, representing the 35th District and the Republican Party. He was elected to Congress as an anti-masonic Whig in 1854, and re-elected as a Republican in 1856.
COWEN, Benjamin S., Physician, born in Washington County, New York, in 1793; died in St. Clairsville, Ohio, 27 September, 1869. In 1840 he was elected to Congress by the Whigs, where he succeeded Joshua R. Biddings as Chairman of the Committee on Claims. He took strong ground in favor of the tariff of 1842, and throughout his Congressional career was looked upon as a consistent anti-slavery man.
COWLES, Edwin (September 19, 1825-March 4, 1890), journalist. Published the Forest City Democrat, a Free-Soil Whig newspaper. In 1854, the name was changed to the Cleveland Leader. He was one of the founders of the Republican party. At the beginning of the Civil War he became an advocate of immediate emancipation of the slaves.
COX, JACOB DOLSON (October 27, 1828-August 8, 1900), Union general, governor of Ohio, secretary of the interior, author. Took a prominent part in bringing about the fusion of Whigs and Free-Soilers, and in 1855 was a delegate to the convention in Columbus which organized the Republican party in the state.
CRESWELL, John Angel James, 1828-1891, statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland, 1863-1865. U.S. Senator 1865-. Supported the Union. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. From 1863 to 1865 he was a member of the national House of Representatives; but in March of the latter year he was elected to the Senate to fill the unexpired term of Thomas H. Hicks. In January 1865, after Maryland had freed its slaves, he made a strong impression by a speech in the House in favor of general emancipation. As senator, he stood for manhood suffrage, the compensation of loyal owners of drafted slaves, and strict enforcement of the Civil Rights Act.
CUSHING, Caleb, 1800-1879, Boston, Massachusetts, statesman, soldier, lawyer, politician, U.S. Attorney General. Argued against slavery and defended the principles of the American Colonization Society and colonization. He supported the nomination of John Quincy Adams for the presidency, and was a whig until the accession of John Tyler. When the break in the whig party occurred, during the administration of President Tyler, Mr. Cushing was one of the few northern Whigs that continued to support the president.
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DAVIS, Henry Winter, 1817-1865, statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 3rd District of Maryland, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1863-1865. Anti-slavery activist in Congress. Supported enlistment of African Americans in Union Army. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
DAVIS, John, 1787-1854, Northborough, Massachusetts, lawyer, statesman, four-term U.S. Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, U.S. Senator, 1835-1841. He was elected to congress as a whig in 1824, and re-elected for the four succeeding terms, sitting from December, 1825, till January, 1834. Opposed the war with Mexico and introduction of slavery in U.S. territories. Supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the Compromise Acts of 1850.
DAYTON, William Lewis, 1807-1864, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Senator. Member of the Free Soil Whig Party. Opposed slavery and its expansion into the new territories. Opposed the Fugitive Slave bill of 1850. Supported the admission of California as a free state and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. First vice presidential nominee of Republican Party in 1856, on the ticket with John C. Frémont. Lost the election to James Buchanan.
DENNISON, William, 1815-1882, Civil War governor of Ohio, lawyer, founding member of Republican Party, state Senator, opposed admission of Texas and the extension of slavery into the new territories. Anti-slavery man, supporter of Abraham Lincoln.
DIXON, James, 1814-1873, lawyer. Republican U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator representing Connecticut. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
DIXON, Nathan Fellows, born 1812, Lawyer. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island. Member of 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
DRAKE, Charles Daniel (April 11, 1811-April 1, 1892), lawyer, jurist, United States senator, from 1861 to 1863 was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation.
E
EARLE, John Milton, 1794-1874, Leicester, Massachusetts, businessman, abolitionist, statesman, political leader, newspaper publisher, pioneer and leader in the anti-slavery/abolitionist movement. Member of Whig and Free Soil parties. Husband of abolitionist Sarah H. Earle.
ELIOT, Thomas Dawes, 1808-1870, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, 1854-1855, 1859-1869. Founder of the Republican Party from Massachusetts. Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as a member of Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Active in the Free-Soil Party.
EWING, Thomas, 1789-1871, West Liberty, Ohio, statesman, attorney, Whig U.S. Senator, 1831-1837, from Ohio, opposed slavery as a Senator. Secretary of the Treasury, 1841-1847. Secretary of the Interior. Opposed Fugitive Slave Law, Henry Clay’s Compromise Bill, and called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Adopted future Civil War General William T. Sherman as a boy.
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FESSENDEN, William Pitt, 1806-1869, lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Elected to Congress in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party opposing slavery. Moved to repeal rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions before Congress. Strong leader in Congress opposing slavery. Elected to the Senate in 1854. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Prominent leader of the anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate. As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Father was abolitionist Samuel Fessenden.
FISH, Hamilton (August 3, 1808-September 6, 1893), statesman. His attitude on the main national question of the time, as indicated by the declarations in his annual messages was against the opening of California and New Mexico to slavery.
FLETCHER, Calvin, 1798-1866, Indianapolis, Indiana, banker, farm owner, state legislator. Member of the Whig, Free Soil and, later, Republican parties. Supported colonization movement in Indiana. During Civil War, he promoted the organization of U.S. Colored Troops in Indiana.
FOOT, Solomon, 1802-1866, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator. Opposed war with Mexico. Opposed slavery and its extension into new territories. Founding member of the Republican Party. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
FOSTER, Lafayette Sabine, 1806-1880, statesman, Connecticut State Representative, Mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, U.S. Senator 1854-1867, Republican Party, opposed to slavery. Was the editor of the Norwich " Republican," a Whig journal, in 1835, and in 1839 and 1840 was elected to the legislature. He was twice defeated as the Whig candidate for governor, and in 1854 was again sent to the assembly, chosen speaker, and elected to the U. S. Senate on 19 May, 1854, by the votes of the Whigs and Free-Soilers. Though opposed by conviction to slavery, he resisted the efforts to form a Free-Soil Party until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He delivered a notable speech in the Senate on 25 June, 1850, against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and opposed the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1858. He was a member of the Republican Party from its organization in 1856. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
FOWLER, Orin, 1791-1852, Lebanon, Connecticut, clergyman. Free-Soil U.S. Congressman, temperance activist, strong opponent of slavery.
FRANCIS, John Morgan (March 6, 1823- June 18, 1897), editor, publicist, diplomat. He advocated the claims of the Free-Soil party. In 1849 he sold his interests and removed to New York to engage in business. He soon returned to Troy, however, to take charge of the Daily Whig; and in 1851 he founded the Troy Daily Times, with R. D. Thompson as partner. When the latter withdrew in 1853, he became the sole owner. Under his hands the Times was one of the leading papers of the state. Realizing the importance of local news, he stressed it consistently, and by the consequent popularity of the paper he contributed much to the strength of the Republican party, which he joined on its inception.
FRANK, Augustus, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
FRELINGHUYSEN, Theodore, 1787-1862, Franklin, Somerset County, Newark, New Jersey, attorney, jurist, statesman, opposed slavery. U.S. Senator, 1829-1836. Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Chancellor of the University of New York. Whig Vice Presidential candidate. American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1833-1841. Member of the board of the African Education Society.
FRENCH, Robert, 1802-1882, politician, abolitionist, Temperance activist. Mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Massachusetts State Senator. Co-founder and President of the New Bedford Young Man’s Anti-Slavery Society. Member of the Whig and Free Soil parties. Opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and successfully passed legislation to oppose it in New Bedford.
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GALLOWAY, Samuel, 1811-1872, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, Ohio, educator, opponent of slavery. When the question of slavery began to agitate the country, Galloway allied himself with the anti-slavery men, although he preferred working within the Whig party to joining any of the avowedly anti-slavery political parties. In 1854 he was elected to Congress.
GAMBLE, Hamilton Rowan, 1798-1864, lawyer, political leader. Member of the American Colonization Society. Governor and Secretary of State of Missouri. Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice (Whig Party). Dissented in Missouri Supreme Court decision of “Dred Scott v. Emerson” case, 16th Governor of Missouri, 1861-1864.
GATES, Seth Merrill, 1800-1877, abolitionist leader, lawyer, newspaper editor, U.S. Congressman, Whig Party, Western New York. Anti-slavery political leader in House of Representatives. In 1848 Gates was the Free-Soil candidate for lieutenant-governor of New York, but was not elected. He wrote the protest of the Whig members of Congress in 1843 against the proposed annexation of Texas.
GIDDINGS, Joshua Reed, 1795-1865, lawyer, statesman, anti-slavery U.S. Congressman, Northern Whig from Ohio, elected in 1838. First abolitionist elected to House of Representatives. Worked to eliminate “gag rule,” which prohibited anti-slavery petitions. Served until 1859. Leader and founder of the Republican Party. Supported admission of Florida as a free state. Opposed annexation of Texas and the war against the Seminoles in Florida. Argued that slavery in territories and District of Columbia was unlawful. Active in Underground Railroad. Was censured by the House of Representatives for his opposition to slavery. Opposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and against further expansion of slavery into the new territories acquired during the Mexican War of 1846.
GILBERT, Abijah, 1806-1881, New York, advocate of abolitionism. Member of the Whig and Republican Parties. U.S. Senator from Florida, 1869-1875.
GILLETT, Francis, 1807-1879, Connecticut, U.S. Senator, co-founder of the Republican Party, anti-slavery advocate. Member of the Liberty, Free Soil Party, and co-founder of the Republican Party. Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in the Senate in 1854.
GILMER, Thomas Walker, 1802-1844, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Governor of Virginia, U.S. Congressman. Member of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and Secretary of the Albemarle, Virginia, auxiliary of the ACS. Worked with William Broadnax in March 1833 to get state appropriation for support of the ACS. It appropriated $18,000 a year for five years.
GILMORE, Joseph Albree, governor of New Hampshire, born in Weston, Vermont, 10 June, 1811; died in Concord, New Hampshire 17 April, 1867. He was politically a Whig; in 1858 was elected as a Republican to the state senate, was re-elected in 1859, and made president of the Senate that year.
GILPIN, Edward Woodward, jurist, born in Wilmington, Delaware, 15 July, 1805; died in Dover, Delaware, 29 April. 1876. He was a Whig in early life, but became a Democrat in 1856. During the Civil War he was an ardent Unionist.
GOODLOE, Daniel Reaves, 1814-1902, associate editor and editor of anti-slavery newspaper, The National Era, in Washington, DC, the newspaper of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. He obtained a position with the Whig Standard, of which he shortly became editor. Worked, with abolitionist leader Gamaliel Bailey. Goodloe also wrote for the New York Tribune. He was a friend of Horace Greeley and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Goodloe wrote Inquiry into the Causes Which Have Retarded the Accumulation of Wealth and Increase of Population in the Southern States: In Which the Question of Slavery is Considered in a Politico-Economical Point of View. By a Carolinian. [1846].
GOVE, William Hazeltine, politician, born in Weare, New Hampshire, 10 July, 1817: died there, 11 March, 1876. He early became an active worker in the anti-slavery cause, a supporter of the Liberty Party, and later a prominent Free-Soiler. While connected with the latter party he became well known as a stump speaker, and gained the title of the " silver-tongued orator of New Hampshire."
GRANGER, Amos Phelps, cousin of Francis, politician, born in Suffield, Connecticut, 3 June, 1789; died in Syracuse, New York, 20 August, 1866. He was chairman of the Whig delegation from New York in the National Convention of 1852 that nominated Winfield Scott for the presidency, in the Auburn Convention of 1853.
GRANGER, Francis (December 1, 1792-August 28, 1868), American political leader. In 1834 he returned to Congress, serving two more terms in the House. During this period he joined John Quincy Adams in opposing Southern restriction on the right of petition against slavery and earned the hostility of the slave-holders. Opposed to the annexation of Texas.
GREELEY, Horace, 1811-1872, journalist, newspaper publisher, The New York Tribune. Anti-Slavery Whig, member activist in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Major opponent of slavery. Co-founder, Liberal Republican Party in 1854. Supporter of the Union.
GRIMES, James Wilson, 1816-1872, statesman, lawyer. U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Governor of Iowa, 1854-1858. Supported by Whigs and Free Soil Democrats. Elected as Republican Senator in 1859. Re-elected 1865. He upheld the inviolability of the Missouri Compromise; and in his inaugural address on December 9, 1854, made it plain that he would do everything in his power to combat the further spread of slavery.
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HALE, Nathan (August 16, 1784-February 8, 1863), journalist. His newspaper Advertiser was first Federalist, then Whig, and finally Republican, that it opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, and that Hale supported those parties in their successive incarnations and opposed all measures seeking to extend slavery or to establish it more firmly.
HALL, Hiland, jurist, born in Bennington, Vermont, 20 July, 1795; died in Springfield, Massachusetts, 18 December, 1885. Served in congress from 1833 till 1843, elected as a Whig. Judge Hall was an earnest advocate for anti-slavery, and a delegate to the first National Republican Convention in 1856. In 1858 he succeeded Ryland Fletcher as governor of Vermont, and was re-elected in 1859.
HARLAN, James, 1820-1899, statesman. Whig U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Elected senator in 1855 representing Iowa. Re-elected, served until 1865, when appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Lincoln. Re-elected to Senate in 1866, served until 1873.
HARLAN, John Marshall, lawyer, jurist, born in Boyle County, Kentucky, 1 June, 1833. On 29 November, 1877, became associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, as successor of David Davis.
HARRIS, Ira, 1802-1875, jurist. Republican U.S. Senator from New York. Served as U.S. Senator from 1861-1867. Served as U.S. Senator from 1861-1867. In 1861 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican. He succeeded William H. Seward, defeating Horace Greeley and William M. Evarts. In the Senate he was a member of important committees and exercised considerable influence. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
HARRISON, Henry Baldwin (September 11, 1821-October 29, 1901), governor of Connecticut. Active in politics, he was successively a Whig, a Free-Soiler, and a Republican. In 1854 he was elected to the state Senate on the Whig ticket. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on corporations and a member of committees appointed to consider a revision of the statutes and to compile laws regarding education. He introduced the personal-liberty bill which was passed by this session of the General Assembly of Connecticut to nullify in the state the Fugitive-Slave Law passed by Congress.
HARVEY, Louis Powell, governor of Wisconsin, born in East Haddam, Connecticut, 22 July, 1820; died in Savannah, Tennessee, 19 April, 1862. Edited a Whig newspaper.
HAWES, Richard, lawyer, born in Caroline County, Virginia, 6 February, 1797; died in Bourbon County, Kentucky, 25 May, 1877. He was a member of the legislature in 1828, 1829, and 1836, and in the latter year he was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving until 1841.
HAYES, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893, Delaware, Ohio,, 19th President of the United States, 1877-1881. Governor of Ohio, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1865-1867, abolitionist, lawyer, soldier. Defended fugitive slaves in pre-Civil War court cases. His wife, Lucy, Webb, was also an abolitionist. Member of the Whig Party and early member of the Republican Party. Served with distinction as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.
HOAR, Ebenezer Rockwood (February 21, 1816-January 31, 1895), lawyer, jurist, anti-slavery conscience Whig and Free-Soil member. U.S. congressman. Hoar was opposed to the extension of slavery into the new territories. U.S. attorney-general.
HOAR, Samuel, lawyer, statesman, born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 18 May, 1788; died in Concord, Massachusetts, 2 November, 1856. Elected a representative in Congress as a Whig, serving from 7 December, 1835, till 3 March, 1837. Founding member of the Massachusetts Free-Soil Party, founding member of the Massachusetts Republican Party. Anti-slavery political leader.
HOWARD, Jacob Merritt, 1805-1871, lawyer. Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan. U.S. Congressman 1841-1843. Founding member of Republican Party in 1854. Elected in 1862. Served until March 1871. As a member of the judiciary committee he drafted the first clause of the Thirteenth Amendment. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
HOWE, Dr. Samuel Gridley, 1801-1876, abolitionist leader, philanthropist, physician, reformer. Actively participated in the anti-slavery movement. Whig and Free Soil candidate for Congress from Boston in 1846. From 1851-1853 he edited the anti-slavery newspaper, the Commonwealth. Active with the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. Member of the American Freedman’s Inquiry Commission, 1863. Supported radical abolitionist John Brown. Husband of Julia Ward Howe.
HOWE, Timothy Otis, 1816-1883, lawyer, jurist. He was an ardent Whig. Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. Elected 1861, served until 1879. During his long career he served on the committees of finance, commerce, pensions, and claims, was one of the earliest advocates of universal emancipation, and in a speech in the senate on 29 May, 1861, advocated in strong terms the negro-suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
HOWELL, James Bruen, senator, born near Morristown, New Jersey, 4 July. 1816; died in Keokuk, Iowa, 17 June, 1880. In 1841 he moved to Kosauque, Iowa, practised law, and engaged in politics, and was the editor of the "Des Moines Valley Whig." A loyal Whig, he early took leadership in that party in Iowa; but with the joining of the issue over the extension of slavery, he was among the first to urge the merging of all free-soil elements in a new organization and signed the call for the convention to organize the Republican party in the state. He was a delegate to the first national convention of the Republicans in 1856. He was an ardent admirer of Lincoln and opposed the administration only when it seemed to falter in its policy regarding slavery.
HUNT, Washington (August 5, 1811-February 2, 1867), governor of the state of New York. Although early in his career he had been a Democrat, he joined the Whigs and in 1842 he was elected to Congress. He served continuously until 1849, and in the Thirtieth Congress he was chairman of the committee on commerce. Opposed to human servitude and political proscription in every form, he severely criticized President Tyler because he believed Tyler labored zealously for the extension of slavery in the Southwest. In 1849, thanks to the efforts of Thurlow Weed, for many years Hunt's intimate friend and political backer, Hunt was chosen comptroller of the state of New York.
HURLBUT, Stephen Augustus, Union soldier, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 29 November, 1815: died in Lima, Peru, 27 March, 1882. He was a presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1848, was a member of the legislature in 1859. 1861, and 1867, and presidential elector at large on the Republican ticket in 1868.
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JACKSON, Mortimer Melville, jurist, born in Rensselaerville, Albany County, New York. 5 March, 1814. He was a member of the territorial convention that was held in Madison soon after the election of Harrison to the presidency, when the Whig Party was first organized in Wisconsin. As chairman of the committee, he prepared and reported the resolutions embodying the platform of that organization, and strongly opposed the extension of slavery in the territories.
JACKSON, William Hicks, 1783-1855, Massachusetts, newspaper publisher, abolitionist, temperance activist. U.S. Congressman, Whig Party. Vice president, 1833-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Founding member, Liberty Party. President of the American Missionary Society from 1846-1854. His antislavery views had him support the Free-Soil party after its establishment in 1848.
JOHNSON, Reverdy, 1796-1876, lawyer, diplomat, statesman, U.S. Senator, opposed annexing territories acquired in the war with Mexico. Strongly opposed the annexation of Mexican territory, for he feared that it would revive the whole problem of the extension of slavery. Although he thought that slavery was wrong, he believed that its expansion into the territories was a local concern, but, nevertheless, in order to avert the threatened disaster to the Union he urged compromise and suggested that the slavery question be submitted to the Supreme Court. Ardent supporter of the Union. Believed that African Americans should be recruited into the Union Army and as a result should gain their emancipation.
JOHNSTON, William Freamie, governor of Pennsylvania, born in Greensburg. Westmoreland County Pennsylvania, 29 November, 1808; died in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 25 October, 1872. As an anti-slavery Whig, he took strong grounds against the Fugitive-Slave Law.
JULIAN, George Washington, 1817-1899, Society of Friends, Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana, vice president of the Free Soil Party, 1852. Member of U.S. Congress from Indiana, 1850-1851. Was against the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. Fought in court to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to their owners. Joined and supported early Republican Party. Re-elected to Congress, 1861-1871. Supported emancipation of slaves. Husband of Ann Elizabeth Finch, who was likewise opposed to slavery. After her death in 1860, he married Laura Giddings, daughter of radical abolitionist Joshua Giddings.
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KAPP, Friedrich (April 13, 1824-October 27, 1884), publicist and historian. He and his friends became interested in the slavery question and his writings and political agitation brought him into the front ranks of the newly founded Republican party, for which his labors were incessant and fruitful. No German did more, with the exception of Carl Schurz [q.v.], to unite the German-Americans in support of the Union during the Civil War.
KELLOGG, Orlando, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses and served from March 4, 1863, until his death.
KENNEDY, John Pendleton (October 25, 1795-August 18, 1870), author and statesman. . Opposed extension of slavery in the new U.S. territories. “He had begun to fill public office, through election in 1820 to the Maryland House of Delegates. During these years he was an ardent supporter of John Quincy Adams. Early in 1838 he was elected as a Whig to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives caused by the death of Isaac McKim. He failed of reelection in November of that year but was successful in 1840 and 1842. In Congress he was chairman of the committee of commerce for a time. He strongly opposed the annexation of Texas and held that its admission by joint resolution was unconstitutional.”
KING, Daniel Putnam, statesman, born in Danvers, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1801; died there, 26 July, 1850. In 1842 Mr. King was elected to Congress as a Whig, and he kept his seat until the end of his life, taking an active part in debate in opposition to the war with Mexico.
KING, John Alsop, 1788-1867, statesman, lawyer, soldier, political leader, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, Governor of New York, son of Rufus King. He opposed compromises on issues of slavery, especially the Fugitive Slave Law. Supported admission of California as a free state. Active in the Whig Party and later founding member of the Republican Party in 1856. Elected Governor of New York in 1856, serving one term.
KING, Leicester, 1789-1856, Warren, Ohio, abolitionist leader, political leader, businessman, jurist, leader of the anti-slavery Liberty Party. Manager, 1837-1839, and Vice President, 1839-1840, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Ohio State Senator, 1835-1839. Member, Whig Party. U.S. Vice Presidential candidate, Liberty Party, in 1848.
KING, Rufus (January 26, 1814-October 13, 1876), soldier, editor, diplomat. As a Whig congressman he voted against the fugitive slave bill and the other compromise measures of 1850.
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LANE, Henry Smith, 1811-1881, U.S. Senator. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. He was a Whig member of the state House of Representatives (1838-39) and took an active part in the campaign of 1840. Elected to the twenty-sixth federal House of Representatives to fill a vacancy caused by resignation and reelected to the next Congress, he served from August 3, 1840, to March 3, 1843. Early in his life, he recognized that slavery was out of harmony with the spirit of the age, but he opposed the methods of the active abolitionists. However, when the Republican party was founded upon the principle of opposition to slavery in the territories, he became one of its leaders in Indiana. He presided over the national convention of 1856.
LARIMER, William, politician, born in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania. 24 October, 1809; died near Leavenworth, Kansas, 16 May, 1875. 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.
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.
LINCOLN, Abraham, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (1861-1865), opponent of slavery. U.S. Congressman. Being a Clay Whig in a Democratic body, he belonged to the minority; but he became Whig floor leader and directed the fortunes of his party in the lower house, receiving in several sessions the full party vote for the speakership. On national issues, which were necessarily of concern to him as a prominent party worker, he acted as a regular Whig. Opposed extension of slavery. As president 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.
LORD, Otis Phillips, jurist, born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, 11 July, 1812; died in Salem, Massachusetts, 13 March, 1884. On the dissolution of the Whig Party, of which he had been a member, he was nominated for Congress in 1858.
LOWE, Ralph Phillips (November 27, 1805- December 22, 1883), governor and chief justice of Iowa.
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MCCLURE, Alexander Kelly, editor, lawyer, legislator, supporter of the Whig and Republican Parties. 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.
MCELRATH, Thomas (May 1, 1807-June 6, 1888), publisher, partner of Horace Greeley in the publication of the New York Tribune. He was also among those who protested against the action of Congress in resolving to table without debate, printing, or reference, all petitions regarding slavery.
MCLEAN, John, 1785-1861, Morris County, New Jersey, jurist, attorney. U.S. Supreme Court Justice, January 1830-. Dissented against the majority of Justices on the Dred Scott case, stating that slavery was sanctioned only by local laws. Free Soil and later Republican Party candidate for President of the U.S.
MCMICHAEL, Morton (October 20, 1807- January 6;-1879), editor, mayor of Philadelphia, supporter of the Republican Party.
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.
MARSH, George Perkins (March 15, 1801-July 23, 1882), lawyer, diplomat, and scholar. In 1834 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and during two successive terms proved himself a supporter of high tariff and in opposition to slavery and the Mexican War. He joined the Republican party in 1856.
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.
MARVIN, Dudley (May 29, 1786-June 25, 1852), U.S. Congressman, supported the Free-Soil movement in the new territories. The controversy over slavery in the territory newly acquired from Mexico brought him once more into the sectional debate. "It will not be denied," he asserted, "that the introduction of slavery equally excludes from a participation in the enjoyment of these acquisitions the free laboring men of the North" (Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, I Session, App., p. 1211). The right of the federal government to exclude slavery from the territories he declared to be derived from the sovereign rights of the nation, the territories having been acquired in the first place "by the act of war-an act of sovereignty in which the respective sovereign States in the Union neither were nor could be known"
MATTOCKS, John (March 4, 1777-August 14, 1847), U. S. congressman and governor. In 1820, he was elected to the national House of Representatives, and later served for two other terms-in 1825-27 and 1841-43. He was a vigorous opponent of negro slavery, and his most noteworthy appearance in debate was in a speech on the presentation of a petition for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.
MAYNARD, Horace (August 30, 1814-May 3, 1882), U.S. Congressman and Unionist. In 1857, he was elected as a candidate of the Whig and American parties and two years later was reelected. Fought against the withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union.
MEDILL, Joseph (April 6, 1823-March 16, 1899), journalist. With three younger brothers he purchased the Coshocton Whig in 1849 and immediately renamed it the Republican. Within two years he moved to Cleveland and established the Daily Forest City. A year later he consolidated it with a Free-Soil journal and established the Cleveland Leader. Accepting the election of 1852 as foreshadowing the end of the Whig party, he labored diligently for the organization of a new party to be called Republican. In March 1854 a secret meeting was held in the office of the Cleveland Leader and plans adopted for the new anti-slavery party. There is evidence to show that he was the first man to advocate the name Republican even before the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed.
MERCER, Charles Fenton, 1778-1858, Leesburg, Virginia, soldier, political leader, opponent of slavery. Vice President, American Colonization Society, 1834-1841, Director, 1839-1840, life member. Called the “American Wilberforce.” Introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress for the federal government to “make such regulations and arrangements, as he deem expedient, for safeguarding, support and removal of” the Africans in the United States. $100,000 was appropriated by the bill. It became the Slave Trade Act of 1819. It became law on March 4, 1819.
MERRILL, Samuel (October 29, 1792-August 24, 1855), Indiana official. During the existence of the Whig party, he adhered to it-with a strong anti-slavery leaning-and was an active party worker, and a manager of the State Colonization Society.
MILLER, Jacob Welsh, senator, born in German Valley, Morris County, New Jersey, in November, 1800; died in Morristown, New Jersey, 30 September, 1862. 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.
MILLER, Samuel Freeman, 1816-1890, lawyer, jurist, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Supported emancipation. Leader of the Republican Party. Appointed by Abraham Lincoln as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
MILLER, Stephen, soldier, born in Perry County, Pennsylvania. 7 January, 1816; died in Worthington, Minnesota, 18 August, 1881. In 1853-'5 edited the "Telegraph," a Whig journal at Harrisburg. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860, and a presidential elector on the Lincoln ticket.
MINTURN, Robert Bowne (November 16, 1805-January 9, 1866), merchant. Minturn was whig and later a Republican and was first president of the Union League Club.
MORGAN, Edwin Dennison, 1811-1883, merchant, soldier, statesman. Member of the Whig Party, Anti-Slavery Faction. Republican U.S. Senator from New York. Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1856-1864. Governor of New York, 1858-1862. Commissioned Major General of Volunteers, he raised 223,000 troops for the Union Army. U.S. Senator, 1863-1869. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
MORRILL, Justin Smith, 1810-1898, abolitionist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont. Served as Congressman December 1855-March 1867. U.S. Senator 1873-1891. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. In 1854 he was elected as an Anti-Slavery Whig to the House of Representatives, commencing an unbroken service of twelve years in the House and almost thirty-two years in the Senate, to which he was elected in 1866.
MORRIS, Edward Joy (July 16, 1815- December 31, 1881), legislator, diplomat, and author. He took a leading part in the movement for the organization of the Republican party and was elected to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to June 8, 1861, when he resigned.
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NELSON, Thomas Henry (c. 1823-March 14, 1896), lawyer, diplomat. In his active law practice in western Indiana and eastern Illinois he met as a legal opponent, and presently as a friend, Abraham Lincoln. He became a leader of the Whig party, and was one of the founders of the Republican party in the Middle West. Several times he was a delegate to state and national conventions.
NEWBERRY, John Stoughton (November 18, 1826-January 2, 1887), lawyer, manufacturer, U.S. congressman. From his majority he had supported and voted the Whig ticket, but upon the formation of the Republican party he joined forces with it and thereafter remained a stanch supporter.
NEWELL, William Augustus (September 5, 1817-August 8, 1901), congressman and governor of New Jersey. In 1856 he had identified himself with the American party and was elected governor of New Jersey; he served two terms from 1857 to 1861. In these critical years he led in the unification of the interests of the American and Republican parties in the state. By 1860 he had become a Republican and was a delegate to the Republican convention at Chicago.
NILES, Hezekiah (October 10, 1777-April 2, 1839), newspaper editor, Niles' Weekly Register. Niles devoted many editorials to the institution of slavery, which he declared should be abolished, though gradually. While in Delaware he was an officer of the state abolition society.
NORTON, Jesse O., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Elected as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress and reelected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1853-March 3, 1857); was not a candidate for renomination in 1856; judge of the eleventh judicial district of Illinois 1857-1862; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1863-March 3, 1865); was not a candidate for renomination in 1864; delegate to the Union National Convention at Philadelphia in 1866.
NOYES, William Curtis (August 19, 1805-December 25, 1864), New York lawyer. Originally a Whig, he became a Republican upon the dissolution of the former party (1856). He was defeated for the office of state's attorney general in 1857, though running ahead of the party ticket. As a stanch Republican, he publicly attacked the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and Fugitive Slave Law. He was a delegate to the Peace Conference in Washington (1861), where he labored to harmonize conflicting views between the sections. His unionist convictions are summed up in the title of an address, which he delivered in 1862 to support the Emancipation Proclamation: One Country! One Constitution! One Destiny!
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OGLESBY, Richard James (July 25, 1824-April 24, 1899), governor of Illinois and senator. His father was a farmer, owned a few slaves, and was a member of the Kentucky legislature. In 1833 his parents, two brothers, and a sister died of the cholera and the family property was sold, including the slaves. He maintained that it was the sale of these slaves, especially of Uncle Tim, whom he later bought and freed, that made him an abolitionist.
ORTH, Godlove Stein, 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.
OTIS, Harrison Gray (October 8, 1765- October 28, 1848), statesman. As mayor of Boston he refused to interfere with William Lloyd Garrison. He, however, did denounce the abolitionist movement, which he foretold would bring about a division of the Union, but refused to countenance any suppression of free speech on slavery in his city.
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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.
PARKER, James (March 3, 1776-April 1, 1868), legislator. During his legislative career he was particularly interested in the act of 1817 establishing free schools in the state, the act authorizing aliens to purchase and hold real estate in New Jersey, and the act passed in 1820 prohibiting, under the severest penalties, the exportation of slaves from the state.
PARKER, Joel (January 25, 1795-August 17, 1875), jurist. In politics he was Whig, then Republican. When Senator Charles Sumner was brutally attacked in congress over the issue of slavery, he made a speech of protest which, according to a correspondent to the Edinburgh Review (October 1856, p. 595), "for earnestness and solemnity of denunciation has not been anywhere surpassed."
PHILLIPS, Stephen Clarendon, 1801-1857, philanthropist. U.S. Congressman, Whig Party. Also member of anti-slavery Free Soil Party.
PIERPONT, Francis Harrison (January 25, 1814-March 24, 1899), governor of the "restored" state of Virginia, 1861-68. Being an ardent antislavery and Union man, he supported Lincoln in 1860. When Virginia in 1861 decided in favor of secession, Pierpont organized a mass meeting at Wheeling in May which called a convention to meet in that town during the following month. This convention, holding that the secessionist officials of the state had vacated their offices, elected Pierpont provisional governor of Virginia. He thereupon organized the Unionist members of the legislature from the western counties into a rump legislature; a constitution was framed, and the name West Virginia adopted. Representatives from this government were seated in the Federal Congress, and in 1863 the state was admitted to the Union.
PIKE, James Shepard, 1811-1882, journalist, diplomat, anti-slavery activist. Washington correspondent and associate editor of the New York Tribune. He was as an uncompromising anti-slavery whig, and later as an ardent Republican.
PORTER, Alexander, 1796-1844, St. Martinsville, Louisiana, jurist, U.S. Whig Senator, 1834-1837, 1843-1844. American Colonization Society (ACS), Vice-President, 1834-1841. President, Louisiana auxiliary of the ACS.
POULSON, Zachariah, 1761-1844, abolitionist, publisher, “American Daily Advertise, Reformer,” Active in the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society. Published the American Daily Advertiser, a Whig journal.
PRINGLE, Benjamin, jurist, born in Richfield, New York, 9 November, 1807. He was judge of Genesee County courts for one year, served two terms in Congress in 1853-'7.
PUTNAM, James Osborne (July 4, 1818-April 24, 1903), lawyer, diplomat. He was a consistent Whig and sorrowed over the dissolution of the party, then joined new American party. He was influential in bringing many who had joined it into the Republicans. In 1860 he was one of the two Republican presidential electors-at-large, and was active in the campaign.
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QUINCY, Josiah, 1772-1864, statesman. Quincy was elected as a State Senator in Massachusetts in the spring of 1804. While in the Massachusetts State Senate, he called for the state to suggest the amending of the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the clause specifying that slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person. This was called the Ely Amendment. In the autumn of 1804, Quincy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. At age 83, he began publishing anti-slavery tracts opposing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and denouncing Daniel Webster and his compromise measures on slavery. He supported Republican anti-slavery presidential candidates John C. Frémont, in 1856, and Abraham Lincoln, in 1860.
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RAMSEY, Alexander, 1815-1903. Republican U.S. Senator and governor from Minnesota. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. U.S. Congressman (Whig Party) elected 1842, serving until 1847, from Pennsylvania. First Territorial Governor of Minnesota, 1849-1853. Governor of state 1860-1863. Elected U.S. Senator 1863, serving until 1875. Appointed Secretary of War in 1879.
RANDALL, Alexander Williams (October 31, 1819-July 26, 1872), lawyer, sixth governor of Wisconsin, 1858-1861, politician, administrator. Acting in 1848 with the Van Buren free-soil Democrats, and a little later with the "Barnburner" faction which in 1854 generally went "Free-soil," he was elected to the state Assembly. For a few months, under appointment by the first Republican governor, he filled an unexpired term as judge of the Milwaukee circuit. In 1857 Randall was elected governor, although Carl Schurz, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, was defeated. He was reelected in 1859, and was in office when the Civil War began in 1861. Advocate for Black voting rights. Raised troops for Union Army. Postmaster General, 1866-1869.
RAYMOND, Henry Jarvis, (January 24, 1820-June 18, 1869), editor, politician, U.S. congressman. His affiliation was with the Free-soil group in the party led by William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed. Raymond played a considerable part in the Anti-Nebraska movement. In February 1856 Raymond attended the Pittsburgh meeting that founded the national Republican party, and wrote its statement of principles. Raymond's lieutenant-governorship was an important factor in electing Abraham Lincoln president in 1860. Supported the abolition of slavery after July, 1861. In 1864 Raymond was one of the Republican leaders in the nation; he wrote most of the platform of the Republican convention at Baltimore and played the chief part in Andrew Johnson's nomination for vice-president, as Lincoln's agent. He voted for the Freedman's Bureau Bill and he opposed the Civil Rights Bill, but voted for its substance in the Fourteenth Amendment.
RICE, Alexander Hamilton, 1818-1895. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Boston, Massachusetts. Four term Congressman, December 1859-March 1867. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
RIDDLE, Albert Gallatin (May 28, 1816-May 16, 1902), lawyer, congressman. “He was an ardent Whig and was against slavery. Upon the nomination of Zachary Taylor, he issued the call for a mass meeting at Chardon that inaugurated the Free-Soil party of Ohio. Soon afterward, he was nominated by the Whigs and Free-Soilers of his district for the state House of Representatives, was elected, and became at once the recognized leader of these two groups in the House from 1848 to 1850.”
ROBERTS, Jonathan Manning, 1771-1854, Upper Merion County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Senator, U.S. Congressman, opponent of slavery. He was 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. Called for the prohibition of slavery from Missouri in the Senate.
ROBINSON, William Stevens, (December 7, 1818-March 11, 1876); journalist, in 1848 he served as secretary of the Free-Soil Convention which met in Worcester. His outspoken opinions on slavery and Massachusetts politics cost him his position, and he returned to Lowell, Massachusetts to start the Lowell American, which he conducted for nearly four years, becoming recognized as one of the most radical of Massachusetts anti-slavery journalists.
ROCKWELL, Julius, jurist, born in Colebrook, Connecticut, 26 April, 1805; died in Lenox, Massachusetts, 19 May, 1888. He was a representative in Congress from 2 February, 1844, till 3 March, 1851, having been elected as a Whig for four successive terms.
ROLLINS, Edward Henry, 1824-1889. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire. He performed important services in the merger of Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Whigs, and anti-slavery Democrats into a coherent and enthusiastic party. The even balance of party strength and the fact that New Hampshire elections came in the spring made the state a pivotal one in national affairs and the work of Rollins attracted much attention. He was chairman of the Republican state committee from 1856 to 1861, resigning in the latter year because of his election to Congress.
Served in Congress July 1861-March 1867. U.S. Senator 1877-1883. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
ROLLINS, James Sidney, 1812-1888, lawyer, soldier. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri. After Mexican War (1846), opposed extension of slavery into the new territories. Served as Congressman July 1861-March 1865. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
ROOT, Joseph M., 1807-1879, Brutus, New York, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, Mayor of Sandusky, Ohio. Whig Congressman and later Free Soil Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Thirty-First Congress.
ROOT, Joseph Pomeroy (April 23, 1826-July 20, 1885), physician, diplomatist, “he was chairman of the Free-State Executive Committee, and in August 1857 was elected to the Kansas Senate under the Topeka constitution.”
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SACKETT, William Augustus, 1811-1895, New York, lawyer, politician. Elected to U.S. House of Representatives from New York as a member of the Whig Party. Served in Congress two terms from 1849-1853. Opposed extension of slavery into the New territories and the fugitive slave laws. Early member of the Republican Party.
SAGE, Russell, (August 4, 1816--July 22, 1906), congressman and financier. He was nominated for congressman in 1850 and defeated, but ran again successfully in 1852. He was reelected representative in 1854, but retired at the end of that term. In Congress he advocated the Homestead Law and free soil for Kansas.
SARGENT, Aaron Augustus (October 28, 1827-August 14, 1887), United States senator. He was nominated for the California assembly by the new American Party in 1852. He was active in the organization of the Republican party in California, and for some years was a member of the party's state executive committee. He bought the Daily Journal in Nevada City. As editor and manager, he conducted this paper as a Whig organ.
SCAMMON, Jonathan Young, 1812-1890, Whitefield, Maine, lawyer, businessman, educator, newspaper publisher, Whig and Republican state leader, member of the Free Soil Party. Introduced legislation to exclude slavery from the California and New Mexico territories. Founded the Chicago Journal in 1844, the Chicago Republican in 1865. T. W. Goodspeed, The University of Chicago Biographical Sketches, volume II (1925).
SCHENCK, Robert Cumming, 1809-1890, diplomat, Union general. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Three-term Whig Representative to Congress, December 1843-March 1851. Re-elected December 1863, 1864, 1866, 1868. A strong anti-slavery man, Schenck was one of the first to urge Lincoln's nomination and was an active Republican campaigner in 1860. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Son of James Findlay Schenk, naval officer.
SCHUYLER, George Washington (February 2, 1810-February 1, 1888), state official, author. In politics Schuyler was a Whig with strong anti-slavery sentiments which had him follow William H. Seward into the Republican party. His first political recognition came from the Union Republican convention of 1863 which nominated him for state treasurer. Running on a ticket as candidate for secretary of state, and pledged to support the Lincoln administration, he was elected and served two years.
SCOTT, Winfield, (June 13, 1786-May 29, 1866), Commanding general U.S. Army, pacificator, and presidential nominee representing the Whig party.
SEATON, William Winston (January 11, 1785-June 16, 1866), journalist, editor. Seaton was a Whig, a Free Mason, and a Unitarian. For many years he was an official in the American Colonization Society; he favored gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves, but opposed the Garrison abolitionists. American Colonization Society, Manager, 1833-1839, Executive Committee, 1839-1841. Editor of the National Intelligencer in Washington, DC. Elected Mayor of Washington, DC, in 1840, serving 12 years in office. Co-published Annals of Congress.
SERGEANT, John, 1779-1852, lawyer. U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. Opposed extension of slavery into the territories. Stated in Congressional debate of 1819: “It is to no purpose, to say that the question of slavery is a question of state concern. It affects the Union, in its interests, its resources, and character, permanently; perhaps forever. One single State, to gratify the desire of a moment, may do what all the Union cannot undo; may produce an everlasting evil, shame and reproach. And why? Because it is a State right… Sir, you may turn this matter as you will; Missouri, when she becomes a State, grows out of the Constitution; she is formed under the care of Congress, and admitted by Congress; and if she has a right to establish slavery, it is a right derived directly from the Constitution, and conferred upon her through the instrumentality of Congress.” Further, Sergeant said, “If Missouri be permitted to establish slavery, we shall bring upon ourselves the charges of hypocrisy and insincerity, and upon the Constitution a deep stain, which must impair its lustre, and weaken its title to the public esteem.”
SEWARD, William Henry, 1801-1872, statesman, U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, U.S. Senator from New York, abolitionist, member Anti-Slavery Republican Party.
SHERMAN, John, 1823-1900, statesman. Whig U.S. Congressman, 1855. Republican U.S. Senator. Brother of General William T. Sherman. His attitude as a conservative Whig, in the alarm and excitement that followed the attempt to repeal the Missouri Compromise, secured his election to the 34th Congress. He acted with the Republican Party in supporting John C. Frémont for the presidency because that party resisted the extension of slavery. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
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SILLIMAN, Benjamin Douglas, 1779-1864, Connecticut, educator, scientist, opponent of slavery. Member and active supporter of the Connecticut Society of the American Colonization Society. Whig political leader. Supported Kansas Free State movement.
SLADE, William, 1786-1859. Governor of Vermont. U.S. Congressman from Vermont (Whig party). Submitted numerous anti-slavery petitions to Congress, December, 1837. He distinguished himself as an uncompromising opponent of slavery, and with John Quincy Adams fought tenaciously against the gag rules. Submitted 430 anti-slavery petitions to Congress. Opposed slavery in the District of Columbia and introduced a bill in the House in December 1837 that called for its abolition. He supported gradual emancipation.
SMITH, Caleb Blood, (April 16, 1808- January 7, 1864), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer. As a U.S. congressman he participated in debates on the Oregon question, slavery in the Territories and the District of Columbia, the tariff, and the Dorr rebellion, but his principal efforts were directed against the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico. Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Interior.
SMITH, Charles Perrin (January 5, 1819- January 27, 1883), New Jersey Republican politician, Whig newspaper editor, genealogist, supporter of the Union.
SMITH, Oliver Hampton (October 23, 1794-March 19, 1859), lawyer, representative and senator, was of Quaker descent. In December 1836, the Indiana General Assembly elected him as a Whig to a seat in the United States Senate. His principal speeches in the Senate were on measures relative to the public lands, banking, bankruptcy, the Cumberland road, and the abolition of slavery in the Territories.
SMITH, Truman, senator, a nephew of Nathaniel and Nathan Smith, born in Woodbury, Connecticut., 27 November, 1791; died in Stamford, Connecticut, 3 May, 1884. He conducted that presidential campaign as chairman of the Whig National Committee. He strenuously combated the views of Stephen A. Douglas in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
SOUTHARD, Samuel Lewis, 1787-1842, Trenton, New Jersey, attorney. Whig U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, 1823-1829. American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1834-1841.
SPENCER, John Canfield (January 8, 1788-May 17, 1855), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer. Joining the Whig party, he became secretary of state of New York in 1839, and was opposed to the annexation of Texas.
SPERRY, Nehemiah Day (July 10, 1827-November 13, 1911), congressman and postmaster of New Haven. Originally a Whig. In 1856 he was a member of the platform committee of the national convention of the American party that nominated Fillmore and was one of those who bolted the convention because of its refusal to take a strong anti-slavery stand. From then on his affiliations were with the Republican party, and for many years, as chairman of the state Republican committee, he dominated Republican politics in Connecticut.
SPINNER, Francis Elias (January 21, 1802-December 31, 1890), treasurer of the United States. Identifying himself with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress from the Herkimer district in 1854. In the protracted speakership contest of 1855-56 he refused to caucus with the House Democrats and was the only representative elected as a Democrat whose vote was cast for Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.]. For the rest of that Congress he was affiliated with the Whig-Republican majority. He served on the committee that dealt with the Brooks-Sumner assault. To the two succeeding Congresses he was elected as a Republican.
SPRAGUE, Peleg (April 27, 1793-October 13, 1880), jurist, regarded slavery as a great political and moral evil.
STANBERY, Henry (February 20, 1803-June 26, 1881), lawyer, attorney-general of the United States. He identified himself with the Whig and later the Anti-slavery wing of the Republican party and was an ardent supporter of the Lincoln administration during the Civil War.
STEARNS, George Luther, 1809-1867, Medford, Massachusetts, merchant, industrialist, Free-Soil supporter, abolitionist. In 1848, as a Conscience Whig, he liberally supported the Free-soil campaign with his money Chief supporter of the Emigrant Aid Company which financed anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. Founded the Nation, Commonwealth, and Right of Way newspapers. Member of the “Secret Six” who secretly financially supported radical abolitionist John Brown, and his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, on October 16, 1859. Recruited African Americans for the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, U.S. Army.
STEVENS, Thaddeus, 1792-1868, statesman, lawyer, abolitionist leader. Anti-slavery leader in U.S. House of Representatives. As member of Whig Party and leader of the radical Republican Party, urged Lincoln to issue Emancipation Proclamation. Led fight to pass Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery and establishing citizenship, due process and equal protections for African Americans. He is depicted in the 2012 film “Lincoln”.
STILWELL, Silas Moore (June 6, 1800-May 16, 1881), lawyer and writer on financial topics, member of the Whig Party in New York. Supporter of the Union during the Civil War.
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STONE, William Leete, 1792-1844, New York, author, newspaper editor, American Colonization Society (ACS), Executive Committee, 1839-1840. Officer in the New York City auxiliary of the ACS. Advocated the abolition of slavery by Congress. Published anti-slavery articles in his newspapers. Drafted petition for emancipation of slaves at the Anti-Slavery Convention in Baltimore in 1825.
STRANAHAN, James Samuel Thomas, (April 25, 1808-September 3, 1898), capitalist, civic leader. Elected to Congress as a Whig in 1854, associate of abolitionist leader Gerrit Smith.
STUART, Alexander Hugh Holmes (April 2, 1807-February 13, 1891), congressman, secretary of the interior. In 1841 he became a member of the federal House of Representatives. There he was one of the few Southerners who supported Adams in his, opposition to the "gag rule," and, when Clay broke with President Tyler, Stuart took the side of the former. Supported the Whig party.
STUART, John Todd, lawyer, born near Lexington, Kentucky, 10 November, 1807; died in Springfield, Illinois, 28 November, 1885. He was a Whig until the formation of the Republican Party, served in the legislature from 1832 till 1836.
SUMMERS, George William (March 4, 1804-September 19, 1868), U.S. congressman from western Virginia. He was Whig candidate for governor in 1851 under the new constitution and in his campaign not only denied the right of secession but maintained the duty of the president to enforce federal laws in South Carolina should that state attempt to secede. His defeat by Joseph Johnson, the Democratic nominee, was due in part to charges that he was affiliated with abolitionists, or at least was too friendly toward the Methodists who were preaching abolition.
SUMNER, Charles, 1811-1874, Boston, Massachusetts, statesman, lawyer, writer, editor, educator, reformer, peace advocate, anti-slavery political leader. U.S. Senatorial candidate on the Free Soil ticket. Entered the Senate in December 1851. He was the earliest and most important anti-slavery voice in the Senate. He opposed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Sumner was an organizer and co-founder of the Republican Party. He was severely beaten on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senator Preston S. Brooks. It took him three and a half years to recover. Strong supporter of Lincoln and the Union. He was among the first to support emancipation of slaves. As a U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
SWANK, James Moore, James Moore, statistician, born in Loyalhanna, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 12 July, 1832. In 1852, he published a weekly Whig newspaper at Johnstown. Pennsylvania, where, in 1853, he established the "Tribune," with which he was connected until 1870.
SWITZLER, William Franklin (March 16, 1819-May 24, 1906), journalist, historian, and politician. An was an ardent Whig editorially. He served three terms in the Missouri legislature, being elected in 1846, 1848, and 1856, and supported progressive and anti-slavery measures. During the Civil War he was so strong a Unionist that a guerrilla band threatened his life.
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TALLMADGE, James, Jr., 1778-1853, New York, lawyer, soldier, opponent of slavery. U.S. Congressman. Lieutenant Governor of New York. Introduced legislation in House of Representatives to prohibit slavery in new state of Missouri in 1819. It was called the Tallmadge Amendment. Challenged Illinois right to statehood with state constitution permitting existence of slavery in the new state. The Tallmadge Amendment to the Congressional Bill for Missouri Statehood read: “And approved, that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes…” The House of Representatives adopted the amendment; the U.S. Senate did not. Tallmadge declared: “The interest, honor, and faith of the nation required it scrupulously to guard against slavery’s passing into a territory where they [Congress] have power to prevent its entrance.” (16 Con., 1 Sess., 1819-1820, II, p. 1201) Tallmadge further said: “If the western country cannot be settled without slaves, gladly would I prevent its settlement till time shall be no more.”
TAPPAN, Mason Weare, 1817-1886, lawyer, soldier. U.S. Congressman, Free Soil Party, 1855-1861.
TAYLOR, John W., 1784-1854, abolitionist. Nine term Democratic U.S. Congressman from New York, 1813-1833. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Proposed legislation in 1819 to prohibit slavery in Arkansas Territory. Later organized the Whig and National Republican Parties. Taylor said during a debate on slavery: “Our votes this day will determine whether the high destinies of this region, of these generations, shall be fulfilled, or whether we shall defeat them by permitting slavery, with all its baleful consequences, to inherit the wind.” (15 Cong., 2 Sess., 1818-1819, p. 1170).
TEMPLE, Oliver Perry (January 27, 1820- November 2, 1907), lawyer and author. He took a leading part in the Southern Commercial Convention held in Knoxville in 1856, as proponent and advocate of resolutions against the reestablishment of the slave trade.
TEN EYCK, John Conover, 1814-1879, lawyer. Republican U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Was a Whig until 1856. Joined Republican Party in 1856. Chosen senator in 1859. Served until March 1865. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
THOMPSON, Richard Wigginton, (June 9, 1809-February 9, 1900), lawyer, politician, author. He was a presidential elector, first on the Whig and later on the Republican ticket. Presidents Taylor, Fillmore, and Lincoln made him offers of offices, but he declined. He was active in the secession controversies and during the Civil War served as provost marshal for the Terre Haute district.
TRACY, Benjamin Franklin (April 26, 1830-August 6, 1915), lawyer, soldier, secretary of the navy. In 1854 he organized the Republican party in the county. He was reelected district attorney in 1856. As an assemblyman, in 1862, he urged full support of the national government in the Civil War.
TUCK, Amos, 1810-1879, Parsonfield, Maine, lawyer, politician, abolitionist. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Free-Soil and Whig anti-slavery member of the U.S. Congress. Opposed the Democratic Party and its position supporting the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery to the new territories. Elected to Congress in 1847 and served until 1853. Prominent anti-slavery congressman, allied with Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio and John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts.
TYSON, Job Roberts (February 8, 1803-June 27, 1858), lawyer, congressman, historical writer. Participating actively in the reforms of the thirties, he was a friend of temperance and against lotteries. He hoped to solve the slavery problem by colonization, served in the ranks of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, and drafted a report on the impropriety of capital punishment. Whig congressman for one term, 1855-57.
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UPHAM, William, 1792-1853, Leicester, Massachusetts, lawyer, member of Vermont House of Representatives, Whig U.S. Senator, 1843-1853. Opposed slavery. He stated, “Slavery is a crime against humanity and a sore evil in the body politic.”
UPSON, Charles, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Michigan to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and was re-elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
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VAN DYKE, John, jurist, born in Lamington, New Jersey, 3 April. 1807; died in Wabasha, Minnesota, 24 December, 1878. He was elected to Congress in 1847 and served two terms, during which his course was marked by bitter opposition to slavery. In politics he was a Whig, and afterward one of the founders of the Republican Party in New Jersey.
VAN RENSSELAER, Henry, soldier, born in Albany, New York, in 1810; died in Cincinnati, Ohio, 23 March, 1864. He was a member of Congress in 1841-'3, having been elected as a Whig.
VINTON, Samuel Finley, 1792-1862, South Hadley, Massachusetts, Whig U.S. Congressman, attorney. He opposed the annexation of Texas, and opposed a direct tax for the prosecution of the war with Mexico. Vinton was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for election as governor of Ohio in 1851. Aided President Lincoln in the process of emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia by Congress.
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WADE, Benjamin Franklin, 1800-1878, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator, strong and active opponent of slavery. In 1839, opposed enactment of stronger fugitive slave law, later calling for its repeal. Demanded the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. U.S. Senator, March 1851-1869. Opposed Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. Supported passage of the Confiscation Act, which prevented escaped slaves from being returned to their former owners by the Union Army. Reported a bill in the Senate to abolish slavery in U.S. Territories in 1862. Voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
WARD, Marcus Lawrence, (November 9, 1812-April 25, 1884), governor of New Jersey, congressman, philanthropist. In 1856 he first took an active part in politics, embracing with vigor the cause of the newly formed Republican party. Because of his intense anti-slavery convictions, he went to Kansas in 1858 to take part in the struggle against the admission of slavery there, but found too much mob violence for his taste. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Republican convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. In 1865 he was elected governor of New Jersey by a large majority.
WASHBURN, Cadwallader Colden, (April 22, 1818-May 14, 1882), soldier, congressman, governor of Wisconsin, anti-slavery Republican congressman. Washburn's excellent reputation, and his early adherence to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded, brought him an unsolicited nomination and election to Congress in 1854. He sat in three successive congresses, his brother Israel [q.v.] represented a Maine district, and his brother Elihu an Illinois district. The three brothers, to the satisfaction of their respective constituencies, lent one another much aid, particularly on local matters. His outstanding act was to oppose vigorously a House plan to pacify the South by so amending the Constitution as to continue slavery indefinitely. His participation in the Washington Peace Convention of 1861 showed his desire to prevent war.
WASHBURN, Elihu Benjamin, 1816-1887, statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman from December 1853 through march 1869. Called “Father of the House.” Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
WASHBURN, Israel, (June 6, 1813-May 12, 1883), lawyer, congressman, governor of Maine, was a brother of Elihu B. Washburne, Cadwallader C. Washburn, and William D. Washburn [qq.v.]. In 1850 was elected, and for the next ten years represented the Penobscot district, first as a whig and later as a Republican. During part of that time his brothers Cadwallader and Elihu were all in the House, representing Wisconsin and Illinois respectively. His part in founding the Republican party was his most distinctive work in Washington. On May 9, 1854, the day after the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed the House, he called a meeting of some thirty anti-slavery representatives at the rooms of two Massachusetts congressmen; this group took further steps toward organizing a new party and Washburn is a strong contender for the honor of having been the first to suggest the name "Republican." He used it publicly shortly afterwards in a speech at Bangor. Washburn steadily and strongly opposed the extension of slavery.
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WEBB, James Watson (February 8, 1802- June 7, 1884), journalist and diplomat, He became a chief supporter of the Whig party. He was an anti-abolitionist but a Free-Soiler, and during the 1850's urged the preservation of the Union even at the cost of war.
WEBSTER, Daniel, 1782-1852, statesman, U.S. Secretary of State, orator, author, strong opponent of slavery. Vice President of the American Colonization Society, 1833-1841. President of the Society for the Suppression of the Slave Trade in 1822.
WELD, Theodore Dwight, 1803-1895, Cincinnati, Ohio, New York, NY, reformer, abolitionist leader, anti-slavery lobbyist. Co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) in December 1833. Manager, 1833-1835, and Corresponding Secretary, 1839-1840, of the Society. Weld was a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement. He converted many late leaders to the cause. Among them were the Tappan brothers, Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, Edwin Stanton, Henry Ward Beecher and his wife, future author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriett Beecher Stowe. While at Lane University, Weld led debates on slavery. These were very controversial. As a result, the university ended the debates. This led to many of the students at Lane leaving in protest and going to Oberlin College. Many of these students became Agents for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Weld published American Slavery, As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839). Also wrote The Bible Against Slavery (1839) and Slavery and the Internal Slave Trace in the United States (London, 1841). In the 1840s, he worked with prominent anti-slavery Whig Congressmen.
WELLING, James Clarke, educator, born in Trenton, New Jersey, 14 July, 1825. Adhering to the old-line Whigs as against the Republican and the Democratic Parties, he supported the Bell-Everett ticket for president and vice-president in 1860. Steadfastly resisting the disunion movement at the south in all its phases, he gave to the war for the Union his loyal support. He advocated Lincoln's proposition of emancipation with compensation to loyal owners, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and its abolition throughout the Union by constitutional amendment.
WHEELER, William Almon, (June 30, 1819-June 4, 1887), vice-president of the United States. He was active in politics, at first as a Whig, and after 1855 as a Republican. He was district attorney of Franklin County, 1846-49; assemblyman, 1850-51, serving during his second term as chairman of the ways and means committee; state senator and president pro tem Pore of the Senate, 1858-60; member of Congress, 1861-63.
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WHITE, Albert Smith, (October 24, 1803- September 4, 1864), lawyer, representative and senator, jurist. In 1836 he was elected to a seat in the national House of Representatives as a Whig, and in March 1839 was elected to the Senate. He served once more in the House of Representatives as a Republican from March 1861 to March 1863. His most notable activity was the introduction of a resolution for the appointment of a select committee to propose a plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the border states (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1563). As chairman of such a committee he reported bills for indemnifying the loyal owners of slaves in Maryland, Missouri, and other states. Although the plan had the warm support of President Lincoln, it was not popular with White's constituents and cost him his renomination.
WHITTLESAY, Elisha, 1783-1863, Canfield, Ohio, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, American Colonization Society (ACS), Vice-President, 1836-41. He was one of the founders of the Whig party.
WILLARD, Joseph (March 14, 1798-May 12, 1865), lawyer and historian. He an ardent Whig and later was a Free-Soiler in 1847 and an abolitionist in 1850; finally, he almost welcomed the Civil War as means to end of slavery.
WILLEY, Waitman Thomas, 1811-1900, lawyer. U.S. Senator from Virginia (1861), later West Virginia (1863). Willey was elected by the Unionist legislature at Wheeling to take the seat of U.S. Senator James M. Mason. Served in Senate until March 1871. He presented the constitution of West Virginia and was instrumental in securing its acceptance by Congress and the ratification by the people of the "Willey amendment" providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in the proposed state. Thus, West Virginia was the only state to secede from the Confederacy. Became a Radical Republican. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
WILSON, Henry, 1812-1875, abolitionist leader, statesman, U.S. Senator and Vice President of the U.S. Massachusetts state senator. Member, Free Soil Party. Founder of the Republican Party. Strong opponent of slavery. Became abolitionist in 1830s. Opposed annexation of Texas as a slave state. Bought and edited Boston Republican newspaper, which represented the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. Called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1815. Introduced bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the granting of freedom to slaves who joined the Union Army. Supported full political and civil rights to emancipated slaves. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
WINDOM, William, 1827-1891, lawyer. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Served in U.S. Congress 1859-1869, U.S. Senate, 1870-1877.
WINTHROP, Robert Charles, statesman, born in Boston, 12 May, 1809. After a brief professional career he became active in local politics as a Henry Clay Whig. From 1834 till 1840 he was a member of the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature, of which he was chosen speaker in 1838, 1839, and 1840. In the last-named year, he was elected to Congress, where he served ten years with much distinction.
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YATES, Richard (January 18, 1815-November 27, 1873), Civil War governor of Illinois. Elected to Congress in 1850 and again in 1852 he had during one of his terms the distinction of being the only Whig member from Illinois. In this period he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Having taken an antislavery stand he joined the Republican party and was a member of the national conventions which nominated Lincoln in 1860 and Grant in 1868. As contrasted with that of radical abolitionists, however, his attitude was conservative, resembling Lincoln's.
YEADON, Richard (October23, 1802-April25, 1870), lawyer, editor. He served at least three terms (1856-60; 1862-64) in the state House of Representatives, where he contributed to strengthening financial and simplifying testamentary and land-title law and opposed the reopening of the African slave trade.
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Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.
Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.