A: Akerman through Ashley

See below for annotated biographies of Radical Republicans. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

AKERMAN, Amos Tappan (February 23, 1821- December 21, 1880), lawyer, public official, radical republican. 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1. :

AKERMAN, AMOS TAPPAN (February 23, 1821- December 21, 1880), lawyer, public official, was one of a number of New England youths who, prior to 1860, settled in Georgia, became a part of the warp and woof of their adopted state, and gained honors in their new home. The son of Benjamin Akerman, a land surveyor, and Olive (Meloon) Akerman, he was born at Portsmouth, N.H. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, and graduated from Dartmouth in 1842. Shortly thereafter he went to Georgia, at first teaching school near Augusta. In 1846 he was engaged by Hon. John McPherson Berrien of Savannah as tutor of the latter's children. While thus employed, he studied law under Berrien, and was licensed to practice at Clarksville, the summer home of his legal preceptor. Soon thereafter he located at Elberton, practicing in partnership with Robert Hester. He married Martha Rebecca, the daughter of Reverend Samuel Galloway, a native of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but then residing in Georgia. Though opposed to the wisdom of secession as a remedy for what the South considered her wrongs, he followed his state into the Confederacy, serving first in the brigade under General Robert Toombs, and later in the quartermaster's department. In thus aligning himself with the new government, he did that which almost every son of the North did who at the time was a resident of the South. In early life an old-line Whig and a Union man, his political convictions made him a Republican during the political readjustments following the struggle, and he remained a firm adherent of that party.

Akerman's most valuable service to his adopted state was as a member of the state constitutional convention of 1868. It was held at a time when the greater part of the intelligence and character of the state was disfranchised by the federal authorities; fully a third of its membership was composed of ignorant negro ex-slaves, and nearly all of the others were mere adventurers-"carpet- baggers"-from the North who had drifted into the state following the close of hostilities. Fortunately there was a small minority of men of high character who acted as a check upon this irresponsible majority, and to Akerman and a few others like him was due the fact that the constitution was not more radical than it was. In 1869, he was appointed United States district attorney, and the Senate confirmed the appointment, but as he refused to take the test oath, his disabilities had to be removed by Congress before he would assume the office.

In July 1870 President Grant appointed him attorney general of the United States. Under certain bounties granted by Congress in 1862 and 1864 to certain trans-continental railways, one or more of these roads attempted to obtain large amounts of additional lands. The Secretary of the Interior, Columbus Delano, referred the matter to the Attorney General. He denied the right, and advised the Secretary to reject the claim. He was asked by the Secretary to reconsider the question, and did so, with the result that he became more convinced than ever that the claim of the railroads was illegal. The railroad magnates, Gould and Huntington, began a campaign against the Attorney General, and put heavy pressure on the President to remove him. Delano owned the Baltimore American, and that organ "opened fire" on Akerman. Finally, the President was persuaded to ask for his resignation, doing so in a letter dated December 13, 1871, marking it "Confidential." The letter read: "Circumstances convince me that a change in the office you now hold is desirable, considering the best interests of the government, and I therefore ask your resignation. In doing so, however, I wish to express my appreciation of the zeal, integrity, and industry you have shown in the performance of all of your duties, and the confidence I feel personally by tendering to you the Florida Judgeship, now vacant, or that of Texas. Should any foreign mission at my disposal without a removal for the purpose of making a vacancy, better suit your tastes, I would gladly testify my appreciation in that way. My personal regard for you is such that I could not bring myself to saying what I say here any other way than through the medium of a letter. Nothing but a consideration for public sentiment could induce me to indite this. With great respect, Your obedient servant, U.S. Grant." Akerman resigned, and George H. Williams of Oregon, friendly to the Pacific railroad companies, was appointed to succeed him. Declining the sops offered by the President, Akerman retired to private life. He moved to Cartersville, Ga., about 1870, and continued actively in the practice of the law until his death ten years later.

[I. W. Avery, History of Ga. (1881); Memoirs of Ga. (1895); L. L. Knight's Ga. and Georgians (1917); extended biographical sketch by (Mrs.) Ex-Senator Felton in the Cartersville [Ga.] Courant; unpublished diary of Akerman; additional information furnished by members of his family.]

W.G.



AMES, Adelbert: Union officer, Governor of Mississippi in 1868–1870 and 1874–1876.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. :

AMES, Adelbert, soldier, born in Rockland, Maine, 31 October, 1835. He was graduated at West Point in 1861, and assigned to the 5th artillery. He was wounded at the battle of Bull Run and brevetted for gallantry in that action, and was present at the siege of Yorktown, and the battles of Gaines's Mills, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Antietam, and Gettysburg, besides many of the minor engagements in Virginia throughout the civil war. He was brevetted colonel for gallantry, and commanded a brigade, and at times a division in the army of the Potomac, and in the operation before Petersburg in 1864. He was brevetted major-general of volunteers for his conduct at the capture of Fort Fisher, 13 March, 1865, and brevetted major-general, U. S. army, for “gallant and meritorious conduct in the field during the rebellion,” and on 30 April, 1866, mustered out of the volunteer service. On 28 July, 1866, he was promoted to the full rank of lieutenant-colonel, 24th infantry. On 15 July, 1868, he was appointed provisional governor of Mississippi, under acts of congress providing for such temporary government, and on 17 March, 1869, his command extended to include the 4th military district. The lately insurrectionary states were at the time divided into five such districts, each with a general officer in command, and a military force at his disposal. Mississippi was among the last of the states to comply with the conditions of reconstruction, and in the interval the community drifted into a state bordering upon anarchy, the provisional governor at times interfering in the interest of order. Under his direction an election was held 30 November, 1869, and on 11 January, 1870, the legislature was convened by his direction. General Ames was elected U. S. senator for the unexpired term from 4 March, 1869. In 1873 he was chosen governor of Mississippi by a popular vote, and resigned his seat in the senate. His administration was so repugnant to the democrats — or, in other words, to the white population — that between them and the republicans, mostly blacks, a feeling of hostility arose, so bitter that it culminated in a serious riot in Vicksburg, 7 December, 1873, and this was followed by atrocities all over the state, consisting for the most part in the punishment, often in the murder, of obnoxious republicans, white and black. The civil officers were unable to enforce the laws, and Governor Ames appealed to the general government for aid. Upon this, despatches of the most contradictory character were forwarded to Washington by the opposing parties, and, pending an investigation by congress, affairs were in a deplorable state of disorganization. An election held in November resulted in a general defeat of the republicans, both branches of the legislature becoming distinctly democratic. Governor Ames held that this election was largely carried by intimidation and fraud, and vainly sought to secure congressional interference. Soon after the legislature convened in January, 1876, articles of impeachment were prepared against all the executive officers, and, pending the trials, the machinery of state government was nearly at a standstill. Gov. Ames, seeing that conviction was inevitable, offered through his counsel to resign, provided the articles of impeachment were withdrawn. This was done, and he resigned at once and settled in Minnesota. Later he removed to Lowell, Mass.



ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party.  In Boston, he took a prominent part in the defense of fugitive slaves Shadrach, Burns and Sims.   Supported John Brown in his legal defense. 

(American National Biography, Volume 1, 2002, p. 489; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 72-73; Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, pp. 279-281).

Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, pp. 279-281:

ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (May 31, 1818- October 30, 1867), governor of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, Maine, of Massachusetts stock, his earliest ancestor of whom we have record, Robert Andrew, having come as it appears from England, settled in what is now Boxford, and died there a prosperous landowner in 1668. Robert's son, Joseph, moved to Salem, where the main stem of the Andrews continued to live. Jonathan Andrew, the father of the future governor, moved to Windham, Maine, in 1807, established a general store, married Nancy Green Pierce, prospered, and became the leading man of the village. On John Andrew's education unusual pains were lavished. His mother, a woman of attainments and force of character, had been a school-teacher and for a time taught the boy herself. Later, when the family was larger, finding the district school inadequate, the parents built a tiny school-house near their own door and here John, his brother, and two sisters were carefully grounded in the rudiments. The next stage, following the custom of the time, was the local academy and in due course the boy attended for a brief time the academies at Portland, North Yarmouth, and Bridgton. Late in 1831, when he was in his fourteenth year, the serious illness of his mother, to  whom he was much attached, called him home and he remained there until her death in the early spring of 1832. Soon afterward he returned to his studies, this time at Gorham Academy, where he prepared for college, entering Bowdoin in 1833. As a student he ranked among the lowest in his class. He spent more time in social fellowship than in study and graduated with more competency in argument and public speaking than in any other field. As a boy he had been stirred by the Anti-Slavery movement; he had now become a determined foe of slavery and his conviction on this issue was to shape h is political course.

He was not yet twenty when he arrived in Boston in 1837, and entered the law office of Fuller & Wash burn as a student, and he was still very youthful in appearance in 1840 when he was admitted to the bar. His progress in the profession was gradual, partly because he was of a slow-maturing type, partly because of his incurably sociable temperament which was always leading him away from the paths of legal preferment. He was active in the Unitarian Church and assistant editor of the church paper, secretary for many years of the Boston Port Society, and one of the most devoted visitors to the prisons, where he was to be found every Sunday afternoon and whence he derived more law cases than fees. It was said of him at this period, "No one who had a 'hard case,' with no money to pay for legal assistance, was ever turned away from his office for that reason; and no one however guilty was denied whatever assistance his case was fairly entitled to receive"(Chandler, p. 79). His father, with his younger son and two daughters, had removed from Maine to Massachusetts and settled at Boxford not far from Boston so as to be near the elder son. There the family hearth continued and the family life was maintained, Andrew returning constantly to recount his experiences in the city and to renew his strength in the atmosphere of love and admiration. So a decade passed while he established relations, made friends, set the foundations for the career which lay hidden before him. In 1847 he became engaged to Eliza Jones Hersey and in 1848was married.

During all this time, Andrew's interest in the Anti-Slavery movement never wavered. His association with the members of James Freeman Clarke's church and other reforming and aspiring groups had deepened the religious and humanitarian side of his nature. When the slavery question again became a burning issue he took a leading part in its discussion. Though he rejected the extreme positions of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, he maintained the firm and uncompromising opposition to slavery which represented the best spirit of Massachusetts. He took part with Bowditch, Howe, Sumner, Theodore Parker, Charles Francis Adams, and others in the fugitive slave case of the brig Ottoman in the summer of 1846 and read the resolutions at the Faneuil Hall meeting where John Quincy Adams, then in his eightieth year, presided. From this time on he was drawn into closer relations with Sumner and Howe and the Young Whigs. Politics, which had always fascinated him, now took a larger part of his thought. The campaign of 1848 stirred him deeply. He was one of the organizers of the Free-Soil party with its platform "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,'' and he gave himself whole-heartedly to the campaign. With the Know-Nothing movement which swept over Massachusetts four years later he had little in common, and it was not until the Republican party appeared that he was again able to engage with full conviction. In 1857 he was nominated and elected on the Banks or Republican ticket to the legislature. There in the session of 1858 he won distinction by a speech so brilliant and effective that it made him at once one of the leaders of the party. Though he declined reelection his place was established and his popularity grew.

John Brown's raid, his capture, trial, and death had an effect that could not have been predicted upon Andrew's career. When the raid failed and Brown was made prisoner, Andrew took a leading part in raising funds for his defense. When sentence had been pronounced, he took part in a public meeting to raise funds for Brown's family and on that occasion used the words, "John Brown himself is right," which aroused a storm of enthusiasm among anti-slavery men everywhere. When at the instance of the Southern senators a committee was set up to investigate the raid, Andrew was cited to appear and testify. His bearing and testimony before the committee, which had the widest publicity, gave lively satisfaction to anti-slavery men, especially to Massachusetts anti-slavery men. The episode made him more popular than before and in consequence he was almost unanimously chosen delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago and made chairman of the delegation. He shared in the nomination of Lincoln, went to Springfield to see him, and brought back a lofty but just opinion of the great leader. One honor led to another. It had long been growing evident that Andrew was one to whom his fellow citizens were well disposed. In the month of July, 1860, a well-informed observer described him as "the most popular man in Massachusetts." In the following month occasion offered a proof. Governor Banks, whose renomination was taken for granted, suddenly declined, five days before the nominating convention. The "machine" had settled upon Henry L. Dawes, a Conservative. But no sooner was it known that Andrew's nomination was a possibility than a legion of friends hastened to his support and he was nominated on the first ballot by a great majority. By an even greater majority-in fact the greatest popular majority in the history of the state up to that time-he was elected governor on the same ticket on which Lincoln became President.

Andrew was now at his utmost vigor of mind and body. Forty-two years of age, strong and sturdy of build, full of energy, capable of great effort and equal to unusual strains of endurance, he was ready for the great labors before him. The crisis was swift in appearance. He had not written his inaugural address before warnings reached him from Adams, and Sumner that the government at Washington was in danger. He at once took steps to put the state militia in a position of readiness. Other warnings followed and within a month he had obtained from the legislature an emergency fund of $100,000, with which to arm, equip, and transport the militia if needed for the defense of Washington. Then came the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops. Andrew so labored that the Massachusetts regiments were ready and went forward before those of any other state. The 6th Massachusetts was the only armed regiment to reach Washington on that critical 19th of April before the city was cut off from the North-as it remained for nearly a week. As the war went on, the Governor came to be more and more the embodiment of the patriotic spirit of the State. His short, rotund, figure, once ridiculed, became beloved. The upper circles of society found him an agreeable guest. The chorus, still remembered in Massachusetts, made to rally the pro-slavery mobs

"Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
   John Brown's dead"

would now have brought him votes in any town in the state. There was no longer any question about his reelection. The state felt that he was enlisted for the war.

In 1862, when the first fine enthusiasm was over, when the tale of deaths and wounds, losses and defeats chilled the spirits and the delay of emancipation discouraged the most ardent, the governors of several northern states united in what has been called the Altoona Conference to urge upon the President the emancipation of the negroes and a more vigorous prosecution of the war. Andrew was a member of the Conference. By a singular coincidence President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation the day before the Conference met, but the governors went on to Washington, conferred with the President, and doubtless contributed something to that increased vigor which became apparent from then on. With emancipation secured there was one other thing that Andrew had at heart. This was to give the negro the full standing of a man by making him a soldier and admitting him to the army. He urged that the negroes be organized into separate corps and regiments. Nothing that he ever undertook appealed to him more powerfully and when he finally had the consent of the War Department and got his first negro regiment, the 54th, organized he felt it a great achievement. "I stand or fall," he declared, 'as a man and a magistrate, with the rise and fall in history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment." It was a great venture for, without some such test, one may doubt whether the negro would have achieved his citizenship in the United States. At the election of 1864 Andrew was reelected governor. The end of the war was now in sight. Andrew, absorbed with the problems which would come with peace, labored to establish the negro in his rights and to provide for cooperation between the North and the South. In his farewell message delivered in January 1866, he advocated a lenient and friendly policy toward the Southern states and reconstruction without retribution. When he retired from office, at the close of 1866, it became apparent that the war had worn him out. His friends had already noted that he had overdrawn his physical resources, and he had been warned to husband his strength. Through the greater part of 1867 he continued, however, to take an active interest in public affairs; he worked for reform in the usury laws and in the divorce law, and took a prominent position in opposing the principle of total prohibition. He resisted several minor attacks of ill health and worked on at his legal business, but finally, on October 29, he was stricken with apoplexy and died on the following day amid the general grief of the city.

[Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (1904); Peleg W. Chandler, Memoir of Governor Andrew(1880); Albert Gallatin Browne, Sketch of the Official Life of John A. Andrew (1868); A Memorial Volume Containing the Exercises of the Dedication of the Statue of John A. Andrew (1878); Elias Nason, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. John Albion Andrew (1868); Samuel Burnham, "Hon. John Albion Andrew" in New England History and Genealogical Register, January 1869; Moorfield Storey, Life of Charles Sumner (1900), pp. 52, 192, 209, 271, 295.]

W. B. P.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 72-73)

ANDREW, John Albion, statesman, born in Windham, Maine, 31 May, 1818; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 30 October, 1867. His father, descended from an early settler of Boxford, Massachusetts, was a prosperous merchant in Windham. John Albion was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837. He was a negligent student, though fond of reading, and in his professional life always felt the lack of training in the habit of close application. He immediately entered on the study of the law in the office of Henry H. Fuller, in Boston, where in 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Until the outbreak of the war he practised his profession in that city, attaining special distinction in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrach Burns and Sims, which arose under the fugitive-slave law of 1850. He became interested in the slavery question in early youth, and was attracted toward many of the reform movements of the day. After his admission to the bar he took an active interest in politics and frequently spoke on the stump on behalf of the whig party, of which he was an enthusiastic member. From the year 1848 he was closely identified with the anti-slavery party of Massachusetts, but held no office until 1858, when he was elected a member of the state legislature from Boston, and at once took a leading position in that body. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago republican convention, and, after voting for Mr. Seward on the early ballots, announced the change of the vote of part of the Massachusetts delegation to Mr. Lincoln. In the same year he was nominated for governor by a popular impulse. Many feared that the radicalism of his opinions would render him unsafe in action, and the political managers regarded him as an intruder and opposed his nomination; yet he was elected the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since the adoption of the constitution of 1780 by the largest popular vote ever cast for any candidate. He was energetic in placing the militia of Massachusetts on a war footing, in anticipation of the impending conflict between the government and the seceded states. He had announced this purpose in his inaugural address in 1861, and, upon being inducted into office, he sent a confidential message to the governors of Maine and New Hampshire, inviting their cooperation in preparing the militia for service and providing supplies of war material. This course of action was not regarded with favor at the time by a majority of the legislature, although his opponents refrained from a direct collision. On receiving the president's proclamation of 15 April, 1861, he despatched five regiments of infantry, a battalion of riflemen, and a battery of artillery to the defence of the capital. Of these, the Massachusetts 6th was the first to tread southern soil, passing through New York while the regiments of that state were mustering, and shedding the first blood of the war in the streets of Baltimore, where it was assailed by the mob. Gov. Andrew sent a telegram to Mayor Brown, praying him to have the bodies of the slain carefully sent forward to him at the expense of the common wealth of Massachusetts. He was equally active in raising the Massachusetts contingent of three years' volunteers, and was laborious in his efforts to aid every provision for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. He was four times reëlected governor, holding that office till January, 1866, and was only then released by his positive declination of another renomination, in order to attend to his private business, as the pecuniary sacrifice involved in holding the office was more than he was able to sustain, and his health was seriously affected by his arduous labors. In 1862 he was one of the most urgent of the northern governors in impressing upon the administration at Washington the necessity of adopting the emancipation policy, and of accepting the services of colored troops. In September, 1862, he took the most prominent part in the meeting of governors of the northern states, held at Altoona, Penn., to devise ways and means to encourage and strengthen the hands of the government. The address of the governors to the people of the north was prepared by him. Gov. Andrew interfered on various occasions to prevent the federal authorities from making arbitrary arrests among southern sympathizers in Massachusetts previous to the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In January, 1863, he obtained from the secretary of war the first authorization for raising colored troops, and the first colored regiment (54th Massachusetts infantry) was despatched from Boston in May of that year. Gov. Andrew was particular in selecting the best officers for the black troops and in providing them with the most complete equipment. Though famous as the war governor of Massachusetts, he also bestowed proper attention on the domestic affairs of the commonwealth. In his first message he recommended that the provision in the law preventing a person against whom a decree of divorce has been granted from marrying again, should be modified; but the proposition met with strong opposition in the legislature, especially from clergymen, and it was not till 1864 that an act was passed conferring power upon the supreme court to remove the penalty resting upon divorced persons. He also recommended a reform in the usury laws, such as was finally effected by an act passed in 1867. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and recommended its repeal. A law requiring representatives in congress to be residents of the districts from which they are elected was vetoed by him on the ground that it was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, but was passed over his veto. Of the twelve veto messages sent by Gov. Andrew during his incumbency, only one other, in the case of a resolve to grant additional pay to members, was followed by the passage of the act over the veto. His final term as governor expired 5 January, 1866. In a valedictory address to the legislature he advocated a generous and conciliatory policy toward the southern states, “demanding no attitude of humiliation; inflicting no acts of humiliation.” Gov. Andrew was modest and simple in his habits and manner of life, emotional and quick in sympathy for the wronged or the unfortunate, exceedingly joyous and mirthful in temperament, and companionable with all classes of persons. The distinguished ability that shone out in his administration as governor of Massachusetts, the many sterling qualities that were summed up in his character, his social address, and the charm of his conversational powers, together with his clear and forcible style as an orator, combined to render him conspicuous among the state governors of the war period, and one of the most influential persons in civil life not connected with the federal administration. Soon after the expiration of his last term as governor he was tendered, but declined, the presidency of Antioch college, Ohio. He presided over the first national Unitarian convention, held in 1865, and was a leader of the conservative wing of that denomination—those who believed with Channing and the early Unitarians in the supernaturalism of Christ's birth and mission, as opposed to Theodore Parker and his disciples. After retiring from public life Mr. Andrew entered upon a lucrative legal practice. In January, 1867, he represented before the general court about 30,000 petitioners for a license law, and delivered an argument against the principle of total prohibition. His death, which occurred suddenly from apoplexy, was noticed by public meetings in various cities. He married, 25 Dec., 1848, Miss Eliza Jane Hersey, of Hingham, Massachusetts, who with their four children survived him. See “Memoir of Gov. Andrew, with Personal Reminiscences,” by Peleg W. Chandler (Boston, 1880), “Discourse on the Life and Character of Gov. Andrew,” by Rev. E. Nason (Boston, 1868), and “Men of Our Times,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A life of Gov. Andrew, by Edwin P. Whipple, was left unfinished at the time of Mr. Whipple’s death in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.



ASHLEY, James Mitchell, 1824-1896, Ohio, Underground Railroad activist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Adamant opponent of slavery.  Member, Free Soil Party, 1848.  Joined Republican Party in 1854.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 339; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 110; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 389-390; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 389-390:

ASHLEY, JAMES MITCHELL (November 14, 1824-September 16, 1896), congressman, counted ancestors among the early English settlers of Virginia- the name of Captain John Ashley appearing in the Virginia Charter of 1609. For nearly two centuries the descendants of Captain Ashley resided in and near Norfolk. One branch of the family drifted to the frontier of Pennsylvania, settling near Pittsburgh in the early years of the nineteenth century. James Mitchell, the oldest of several children of John C. and Mary Kilpatrick Ashley, was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; shortly thereafter the family removed to Portsmouth, Ohio. Both his father and grandfather were itinerant ministers of the church founded by Alexander Campbell. He had no schooling, his early education being acquired at home, chiefly under the guidance of his mother. From his ninth to his fourteenth year he frequently accompanied his father, who preached in a circuit extending through the border counties of Kentucky and western Virginia. Here the boy glimpsed something of the system of slavery, and early came to detest it. At the age of sixteen, rebelling against the austere regulations established by his father for the government of his household, he ran away from home and secured employment as a cabin boy and later as a clerk upon an Ohio river steamboat. A still more deep-seated abhorrence of slavery was acquired through his experiences on the southern rivers. Time and again he saw negroes, with safe-conducts of passage, sold back into slavery; the cruel treatment of slaves on board; and the utter disregard of their persons all through the country. Abandoning his work on the river, Ashley wandered through a number of southern states, visiting, among other places, the Hermitage, an event which he subsequently asserted made a profound impression upon him. While in Virginia, his expressions in opposition to slavery were so violent that he was told to leave the state.

Shortly after his return to Ohio, Ashley entered the printing office of the Scioto Valley Republican (1841), and subsequently was employed in various printing offices until he became editor of the Democrat in Portsmouth, Ohio (1848). During his experience as an editor he studied law with Charles O. Tracy, under whom he prosecuted his studies until he was admitted to the bar (1849), shortly after which he relinquished his connection with the Democrat. The ensuing two years were passed in Ports mouth in the work of boat construction. In 1851 he was married to Emma J. Smith of Kentucky, and in the same year removed to Toledo, where he engaged for a few years in the. wholesale drug business.

He was by this time keenly interested in the political issues of the day. Hitherto a Democrat, his intense antagonism to slavery swept him into the Free-Soil party (1848) and shortly thereafter into the Republican party (1854). He assisted in the formation of the latter in the Toledo district, and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at which John C. Fremont was nominated for the presidency (1856). Two years later he was himself nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress from his district and was elected. To this position he was consecutively reelected in 1860, 1862, 1864, and 1866. Among the more important measures introduced or advocated in the House by Ashley was that of minority representation, a bill being reported by him looking to the introduction of that principle in the territorial governments-his speech in support of his bill being the first on that subject made in Congress. During the extra session of July 1861 he prepared the first measure for the reconstruction of the southern states presented to Congress, and as chairman of the Committee on Territories, reported it to the House (March 12, 1862). The bill was tabled by a vote of 65 to 56, and the subject was not again revived at that session, but the ideas contained in the bill and the line of policy it outlined were embodied in the reconstruction measures finally adopted and carried into effect. In connection with Lot M. Morrill of Maine, Ashley drew up and had charge of the bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia (April 11, 1862). He introduced the first proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States, so as to abolish slavery (December 14, 1863), but the measure was at first defeated in the House. On a reconsideration Ashley succeeded in converting twenty-four border and northern Democrats and secured the passage of the measure (January 31, 1865). He considered this the greatest achievement of his life.

It was on the initiative of Ashley that the move for the impeachment of President Johnson was begun (January 7, 1867). Like many others of the extreme radicals, he dropped from political life after the trial and acquittal of the President. He was defeated in the ensuing fall election and left Congress March 3, 1869. He was appointed by President Grant territorial governor of Montana, but was removed within a year on account of his sharp criticisms of the President's policies. The final act of his political career was his active participation in the Liberal Republican convention of 1872 and his support of Greeley for the presidency in the ensuing campaign. Ashley's political principles were not formed by logical mental processes, but by sentiment aroused by personal experiences. Puritan in habit, suspicious, uncharitable of opposition and somewhat vain, he was a born radical. His personal courage, his hatred of oppression, and his love of liberty drew him into the emancipation cause-first for the negro and then, as he believed, by his warfare on Johnson, for the whole American people.

After his political career was over, he became interested in the possibility of a railroad extending from Toledo across to the Michigan Peninsula which would furnish an outlet for about 300 miles of country. He purchased valuable terminals at Toledo entirely on credit and proceeded to build the road north to Lake Michigan, which became the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Northern Michigan Railroad. He was its president from 1877 to 1893. This work illustrates perhaps better than any other the characteristic feature of his life, his pertinacity.

[Orations and Speeches by J. M. Ashley of Ohio (1894), ed. by Benjamin W. Arnett arid published by the Afro-American League of Tennessee, is the chief source of information. The Congressional Globe and the files of the Toledo Blade are indispensable sources for the period of Ashley's pol. career. His connection with reconstruction is detailed in "An Ohio Congressman in Reconstruction," a manuscript thesis prepared by his grand-daughter, Margaret Ashley Paddock, at Columbia University James G. Blaine's Twenty Years of Congress (1884) contains numerous estimates of Ashley's services from the viewpoint of a partisan Republican. Ashley's lib., containing his collection of private papers, was destroyed by fire during his lifetime.]

C. E. C.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 1., By William H. Barnes, 1869, p. 321.

JAMES M. ASHLEY is a native of Pennsylvania, and was born November 14, 1824. He left home before attaining his fifteenth year, and for a time was a cabin-boy on Western river steamboats. He subsequently worked in a printing office, and visiting Portsmouth, Ohio, where his father had at one time resided, he connected himself with the press, to which his tastes and inclinations appear to have led him, and presently became one of the editors of the Dispatch, and afterwards editor and proprietor of the Democrat.

From the editor's sanctum, Mr. Ashley went into the law office of C. O. Tracy, Esq., at that time one of the most distinguished lawyers of Southern Ohio. There he remained three years, and was admitted to the bar in 1849, but never practiced his profession.

He engaged for a time in boat-building, and in 1852 we find him at Toledo, Ohio, engaged in the drug business. Meanwhile he participated actively in politics, and in 1858 was elected to the Thirty-sixth Congress from the Tenth Ohio District.

Without experience in public life, Mr. Ashley entered upon his Congressional career at a time of unusual interest, when the tempest of Southern treason was gathering in the firmament. While many were faltering in the enforcement of the popular demand for the nationalization of freedom, he maintained a uniform consistency, and was among the foremost in demanding this reform. All the great measures which now shed luster and honor upon the record of the Republican party, were advocated by him long before their adoption, and many of them were by him first introduced into Congress. He prepared and reported to the House the first measure of Reconstruction submitted to Congress, which, though defeated at the time of its first presentation, finally received the overwhelming indorsement of his party, both in and out of Congress. He has presented several propositions which, at the time of their introduction, failed to command the united vote of his party in Congress, but not one of importance which did not finally receive that indorsement.

Mr. Ashley has ever been a most active and reliable friend of the soldier. Every measure for their benefit or relief has received his earnest and active support. During the war very much of his time, when not at his post in Congress, was spent in visiting them in the hospitals and upon the field, and their every want or request met with his hearty response. The greater portion of his salary was expended for their relief, and no demand upon his charity or labor in their behalf failed to meet a generous response at his hands. Since the close of the war he has been ever vigilant in looking after their claims against the Government, and his efforts have been of much service in securing them against tedious delays and the treachery of unscrupulous agents.

Mr. Ashley was the first to move in the House for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and made several speeches advocating that measure, and for some time stood comparatively alone.

On the 29th of May he took the lead again in introducing into the House a constitutional amendment, the object of which was to abolish the office of Vice-President, making the presiding officer of the Senate elective by that body, limiting the term of the President to four years, and providing for his election directly by the people.

Mr. Ashley made a speech advocating this amendment, on which a contemporary very properly remarks that “the time has been in our history when reputations for statesmanship were established by speeches of less ability.”

“The country,” said he in that speech, “has been distracted, and its peace imperiled more than once, because of the existence of the office of Vice-President. The nation would have been spared the terrible ordeal through which it passed in the contest between Jefferson and Burr in 1801 had there been no vice-presidential office. Had there been no such office, we would have been spared the perfidy of a Tyler, the betrayal of a Fillmore, and the baseness and infamy of a Johnson.

“ While each of the candidates for President and Vice-President professes to subscribe to the so-called platform of principles adopted by the conventions which nominate them, they nevertheless represent, as a rule, opposing factions in the party, and often at heart antagonistic ideas, which are only subordinated for the sake of party success. This was the case with Harrison and Tyler, Taylor and Fillmore, Lincoln and Johnson. When each of these Vice-Presidents, on the death of the President-elect, came into the presidential office, he attempted to build up a party which should secure his re-election. For this purpose they did not scruple to betray the great body of men who elected them to the office of Vice-President, nor did they hesitate at the open and shameless use of public patronage for that purpose. The weakest and most dangerous part of our executive system for the personal safety of the President is a defect in the Constitution itself. I find it in that clause of the Constitution which provides that the Vice-President shall, on the death or inability of the President, succeed to his office. The presidential office is thus undefended, and invites temptation. The life of but one man must often stand between the success of unscrupulous ambition, the designs of mercenary cliques, or the fear and hatred of conspirators."

In a recent address, Mr. Ashley paid the following tribute to certain prominent anti-slavery men of the country :

“To the anti-slavery men and women of the United States we owe our political redemption as a nation. They who endured social and political ostracism, the hatred of slave-masters, and the cowardly assaults of Northern mobs, in defense of those who were manacled and dumb, and could not ask for help, were the moral heroes of our great anti-slavery revolution. To them, and to many thousands whose names will never be written on the pages of history, but whose lives were as true, as unselfish, and as consecrated as any, is the nation indebted for its regenerated Constitution, its vindication of the rights of human nature, and its solemn pledge for the future impartial administration of justice. To me these are the men whose lives are the most beautiful and the most valuable... The world is full of men whose pure and unselfish lives ennoble and dignify the human race. My exemplars are the men who in all ages have lived such lives, whether religious reformers like Luther and Wesley, or philosophers and statesmen like Hampden and Sydney, Locke and Bacon, Cobden and Bright and John Stuart Mill; or like our own Washington and Lincoln, Phillips and Garrison, Stevens and Sumner, Greeley and Gerrit Smith. To me the only model statesman is he who secures liberty and impartial justice for all, and protects the weak against the strong. He is the statesman and the benefactor who aids in educating the ignorant, and in lightening the cares of the toiling millions."

For ten years Mr. Ashley held a seat in Congress by successive reelections. In the fall of 1868, however, the official returns gave the election to the Forty-first Congress to his opponent, but under such circumstances as to cause the seat to be contested.

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.