M-O: Maynard through Mullins

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

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.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 423-424)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 460-461:

MAYNARD, HORACE (August 30, 1814-May 3, 1882), congressman and Unionist, was the son of Ephraim and Diana Harriet (Cogswell) Maynard. Born in Westboro, Massachusetts, he was prepared for college at Millbury Academy and was graduated with high honors at Amherst College in 1838. He went immediately to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had been appointed tutor in the preparatory department of East Tennessee College (now the University of Tennessee), and where he made his home for the remainder of his life. He was soon advanced to a professorship of mathematics. On August 30, 1840, he was married to Laura Ann Washburn, the daughter of Azel Washburn of Royalton, Vermont. They had seven children. In 1844 he deserted teaching for the practice of law and entered political life as a Whig. More than six feet tall, thin, straight, with a swarthy complexion, dark and piercing eyes, and long, black hair that fell to his shoulders, he was popularly supposed to have Indian blood in his veins and was commonly referred to as "the Narragansett." In his political campaigns he displayed oratorical powers and made effective use of invective and sarcasm. He was able and successful, but he never was an idol of the people. One explanation for this can perhaps be found in the fact that as a university professor he wrote an article in which he characterized the masses as "the common herd," with whom he desired "no fellowship" (Temple, post, p. 147). Certainly this was used to defeat him in his first campaign for a seat in Congress in 1853. Four years later, however, he was elected as a candidate of the Whig and American parties and two years later was reelected.

In 1860 he campaigned for the Bell and Everett ticket in Massachusetts and in Tennessee. In the following year, when secession threatened, he joined forces with Andrew Johnson, Thomas, A. R. Nelson, Oliver P. Temple, and William G. Brownlow to fight bitterly against the withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union. His section of the state, the eastern, remained loyal to the Union, however, and he was returned in the August election to a third term in the federal Congress. In Washington he was an ardent but unsuccessful advocate of immediately sending a federal army to the relief of the Unionists of East Tennessee. In 1863 he became attorney general of Tennessee under the military governorship of Andrew Johnson and held this office, much to the dislike of conservative Unionists, until the reestablishment of civil rule ender Governor Brownlow. He was then reelected to Congress and took his seat in the House, on July 24, 1866, when Tennessee was readmitted to representation in that body. Here he broke with his fellow Unionist of Civil War days, President Johnson, and aligned himself with the radical Republicans. Consequently, he was thoroughly hated by the conservatives of his state, who took advantage of the first opportunity to gerrymander his di strict. He refused to retire to private life, however, and as a candidate for Congress from the state at large in 1872 defeated his two Democratic opponents, Andrew Johnson and Benjamin F. Cheatham [qq.v.]. Two years later he was the Republican party's unsuccessful candidate for the governorship. In 1875 his long and able services to his party were rewarded by President Grant, who appointed him minister to Turkey. After five years in Constantinople he returned to the United States to succeed David M. Key as postmaster-general in the cabinet of President Hayes. In the following year he retired to private life.

[Vital Records of Westborough, Massachusetts (1903); James Park, Life and Services of Horace Maynard (1903); Report of the Proc. of the Numismatic and Antiquaria1 Society of Philadelphia ... 1882 (1883); 0. P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee (1912); Amherst College Biographical Record of the Graduates and Non-Graduates (1927); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), series 1, volumes VII, XVI (pt. 2), XX (part 2), series 2, volumes I, IV (1882-99); Knoxville Daily Chronicle, May 4-6, 1882.]

P. M. H.



MCCLURG, Joseph Washington, 1818-1900, lawyer, legislator, soldier.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri.  Served in Congress December 1863-1868.  Elected Governor of Missouri in 1868.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Though opposed to slavery in principle, he did not liberate the slaves which his wife had inherited until shortly before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. In the House of Representatives he became an ardent disciple of Thaddeus Stevens [q.v.], one the leaders of radical Republicanism and emancipation.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 91; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 597-598; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 597-598:

MCCLURG, JOSEPH WASHINGTON (February 22, 1818-December 2, 1900), congressman, governor of Missouri, a first cousin of A. C. McClurg [q.v.], was born in St. Louis County, Missouri. His grandfather, Joseph, came to the United States from Ireland as a refugee in 1798, his family, including Joseph Washington McClurg's father, also named Joseph, following later. The second Joseph married Mary Brotherton, a native of St. Louis County, Missouri. Their son, orphaned at an early age, was reared by relatives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended school in Xenia; Ohio, and for two years (1833-35) was a student at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He then taught for a year or more in Louisiana and Mississippi; later he was admitted to the bar in Texas and practised law there. From 1841 to 1844 he was deputy sheriff of St. Louis County, having married in the former year Mary C. Johnson. In 1849 he was living in Hazelwood, Missouri, at which time he joined the California gold seekers, in charge of a caravan of twenty-four ox teams. Back in Missouri again in 1852, McClurg, with two partners, established a large wholesale and retail mercantile business at Linn Creek, which was increasingly prosperous.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he immediately took a strong stand for the Union. He organized, equipped (to considerable financial loss), and commanded a home-guard unit, called the Osage Regiment of Missouri Volunteers. Later, he became colonel of the 8th Cavalry, Missouri Militia, but resigned this position in 1862 when he was elected to Congress, in which he served practically three full terms. Though opposed to slavery in principle, he did not liberate the slaves which his wife had inherited until shortly before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Of great significance for his future political career was the fact that in the House he became an ardent disciple bf Thaddeus Stevens [q.v.], the bell-weather of radicalism. Moreover, his bitter attacks upon his congressional colleague, Francis P. Blair [q.v.], a leading conservative Unionist, endeared him to the hearts of all Missouri radicals. In 1868 McClurg resigned his seat in the House to run for governor of Missouri on the Radical Republican ticket.

Because of the military and strictly partisan enforcement of the noted test oath and registry law, enacted by the legislature in 1865-66, McClurg was elected by a majority of nearly 20,000. During the campaign, at the polls, and throughout his administration, the spirit and the principles of Thaddeus Stevens and the carpetbaggers were logically and proudly set forth in the public utterances and policies of McClurg and his advisers. Their aim was not only to disfranchise the "rebels," but also so to control the election machinery as to render the loyal Union Democrats and the Liberal Republicans powerless. The St. Louis Dispatch, in an admittedly partisan broadside (July 17, 1868), asserted that "McClurg is the embodiment of all that is narrow, bigoted, revengeful, and ignorant in the Radical party." If he was ignorant, it was only in the sense that he did -not comprehend the shortsightedness of the radical policies. He was, in fact, less a leader than a follower. Such radicals as Charles D. Drake [q.v.] and others long since forgotten really dominated the party of which McClurg was the nominal head. The controversies relating to negro and white suffrage claimed the major share of his attention during the two years he was in office. With the test oath and the registry law on the shelf in 1870, he was overwhelmingly defeated for the governorship. The memory of the proscriptions which he sponsored was largely responsible for the fact that Missouri remained in the Democratic column for over thirty years.

After his term as governor he lived at Linn Creek and engaged in various business enterprises. In 1885 he moved to Lebanon, where he lived until his death, except for the years 1889 to 1893, when he was register of the Federal Land Office at Springfield.

[General Catalog of the Graduates and Former Students of Miami University, I809-I909 (n.d.); G. G. Avery and F. C. Shoemaker, The Messages and Proclamations of The Governors ... of Missouri, volume IV (1924); T. S. Barclay, "The Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri," Missouri Historical Review, October 1925-October 19, 1926; Pictorial and Genealogy Record of Greene County, Missouri (1893); History of Laclede and Camden Counties, Missouri (1889); Kansas City Times, September 4, 1870; St. Louis Dispatch, July 17, 1868; St. Joseph Herald, December 10, 1869; Columbia Statesman, July 24, 1868; New York Times, April 24, 1872; Booneville Weekly Eagle, May 21, 1870; Missouri Democrat, October 1, 1869; Jefferson City Peoples' Tribune, September 7, 1870; St. Louis Globe-Democrat and St. Louis Republic, December 3, 1900; Booneville Weekly Advertiser, December 21, 1900.]

H.E.N.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 91:

McCLURG, Joseph Washington, legislator, born in St. Louis county, Missouri, 22 February, 1818. He was educated at Oxford college, Ohio, and taught in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1835-'6. He then went to Texas, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and made clerk of the circuit court in 1840. In 1844 he returned to Missouri and engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1861 he suffered from Confederate depredations on his property, became colonel of the Osage regiment, and subsequently of a regiment of National cavalry. He was a member of the state conventions of Missouri in 1861-'2-'3, and was elected and re-elected to congress while residing in Linn Creek, Camden county, first as an Emancipation and afterward as a Republican candidate, serving from 7 December, 1863, till 1868, when he resigned. In the latter year he was elected governor and served the full term. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 91.



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

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 491-492:

MEDILL, JOSEPH (April 6, 1823-March 16, 1899), journalist, was born in a village near St. John in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. He was of Scotch-Irish stock, and for generations his ancestors had been shipbuilders in Belfast. His father, William Medill, emigrated to America in 1819 and settled in an area that was later awarded to Canada by the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842. When he was nine his parents moved to Stark County, Ohio, and there he worked on the farm and received such education as the district schools and an academy in Massillon afforded. Upon reaching the age of twenty-one, he determined to enter a law office and after several years of study was admitted to the bar in 1846; but as law practice was at best uncertain, he turned to journalism. 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 (A. J. Turner, "Genesis of the Republican Party," Wisconsin State Register, March 1898; Cleveland, post, p. 85).

In the winter of 1854-55 he visited Chicago and with Dr. Charles Ray bought an interest in the Chicago Tribune, which was experiencing financial difficulties. He was at that time thirty-two years of age and fired with enthusiasm for the Republican party and the cause of freedom. In the campaign of 1856 he played an important part in the welding of discontented political groups into a compact Republican party and during the Lincoln-Douglas debates threw the resources of his paper behind the Republican candidate. He was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and more than once Lincoln conferred with him in the office of the Tribune. Although at first in favor of Salmon P. Chase, he soon arrived at the conclusion that Lincoln was the most available candidate and urged him on that ground. He always told with pleasure how he urged Carter of Ohio to change several votes to Lincoln in the Chicago convention, with the result that a landslide was started in favor of the Illinois candidate (Cleveland, post, p. 85). At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was opposed to any compromise with the South and at all times demanded an active prosecution of the war. Taking his stand in favor of emancipation and confiscation of southern property, he continually urged the administration to adopt a more radical course of action. He was among the first to advocate the arming of the slaves and insisted from the beginning of the conflict that the soldier in the field should not lose his right to vote. It was largely due to his efforts that several states in the Northwest passed laws to that effect in 1864 (Chicago Tribune, January 8, 21, February 4, 1864; Graphic, December 19, 1891; Andreas, post, volume II, p. 51). He was also one of the organizers of the powerful and influential Union defense committee, which became the mainstay of the government during the uncertain days of civil strife. In the reconstruction of the South following the war, he supported Congress and was heartily in favor of the radical policies of the Republican party.

He was elected to the Illinois constitutional assembly in 1869, and was the chairman of the committee on electoral and representative reform that wrote the minority-representation clause (Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention ... Illinois…  1869, 1870, volume I, pp. 56o-61). He served as one of the first civil-service commissioners under President Grant. Following the great fire which swept over Chicago in 1871, he was elected mayor and during his term of office labored diligently to remove the municipal government from politics. He greatly enhanced the appointive and removal po we r of the city administration. In 1874 he bought a majority of the stock of the Tribune company and during the remainder of his life controlled the policy of his paper. He had able colleagues, but it was he who gave the paper its impetus and direction. Until the day of his death he was actively in charge of the paper. While in San Antonio, Tex., he was ta k en ill with heart disease and died at the age of seventy-six. The day before his death he had written a short editorial, which appeared in the same issue of the Tribune that carried the news of his death. His last words were, " What is the news?" (Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1899). He was married on September 2, 1852, to Katharine Patrick, the daughter of James Patrick of New Philadelphia, Ohio. During the Civil War she took part in the labors of the sanitary commission and was active in all phases of war work. There were three children.

[Lyman Trumbull MSS. in Library of Congress; miscellaneous MSS. in Chicago Historical Society Library; manuscript biography written in I90i by M. Dodge in the office of the Chicago Tribune; H. I. Cleveland, "A Talk with ... the Late Joseph Medill," Saturday Evening Post, August s, 1899; Th e W. G. N.; a Handbook of Newspaper Administration (1922); Pictured E11cyc. of the World's Greatest Newspaper (copyright 1928); W. J. Abbot, "Chicago Newspapers," Review of Reviews, June 1895; A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, 3 volumes, 1884-86; Chicago Times-Herald, March 17, 1899, Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1899.]



MORRILL, Lot Myrick, 1813-1883, lawyer, temperance advocate, opposed slavery, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1876, two-term Republican Governor of Maine, U.S. Senator, 1861-1869.  Joined the Republican Party due to his position against slavery and its expansion into the new territories.  Supported the bill in Congress that emancipated slaves in Washington, DC.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. After the war, he supported higher education for African Americans.  In 1866, he supported voting rights for African Americans in Washington, DC. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 199-200; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 884; Congressional Globe; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 199-200:

MORRILL, LOT MYRICK (May 3, 1812-January 10, 1883), governor of Maine, United States senator, secretary of the treasury, one of the fourteen children of Peaslee and Nancy (Macomber) Morrill, was born in Belgrade, Maine. After attending the common-school and the local academy he taught in order to obtain money to attend Waterville (now Colby) College, which he entered at the age of eighteen. He remained there but a short time, however. For a year he was principal of a private school in western New York. Returning to Maine, he began the study of law under Judge Fuller of Readfield. Admitted to the bar in 1839, he built up a considerable law practice chiefly among Democratic friends. Being much in demanc1 as a speaker on temperance and political subjects, he won some local fame so that when he moved to the state capital, Augusta, in 1841, he was frequently employed before legislative committees. This was his school of politics. His law partners in Augusta were James W. Bradbury and Richard D. Rice. Becoming chairman of the state Democratic committee in 1849, he held that office until 1856, when he refused to attend the meetings of the state committee, writing, "The candidate [Buchanan] is a good one, but the platform is a flagrant outrage upon the country and an insult to the North" (Talbot, post, p. 232). The breach with his party, thus made complete, began in 1855 when he opposed pledging the Democratic party to further concessions to the slave states. The same step had already been take n by his brother, Anson Peaslee Morrill, and his friend, Hannibal Hamlin [qq.v.]. He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1854 and of the Senate in 1856. His immediate election to the presidency of the Senate by the Democratic majority, from whom he had already shown divergence of principles, has been explained on the ground that his ability on the floor was more feared than his prestige as president. His Republicanism became definite in 1856 and, although his nomination to the governorship was opposed by some because of his late conversion, he was elected and twice ree1ected governor, serving in 1858, 1859, and 1860. Both in the legislature and as governor he was a strong opponent of the repeal of Maine's prohibition law, against which there ha d been a reaction.

When Hannibal Hamlin resigned from the Senate to accept the vice-presidency under Lincoln, the state legislature, in January 1861, elected Morrill as his successor. Reelected, he served to March 4, 1869, being succeeded by Hannibal Hamlin, who defeated him by one vote J in the Maine Senate. In the so-called peace convention of February 1861 he opposed with conspicuous ability the arguments of Crittenden (L. E. Chittenden, A Report of the Debates and Proceedings ... of the Conference Convention, 1864, pp. 144-50), and he maintained the same position when the Crittenden Resolutions were presented to Congress in March. In March 1862 he spoke in favor of a bill to confiscate the property and to emancipate the slaves of "rebels," seeing clearly that the question was not one of law but one of placing in the hands of the military authorities a weapon to help them win the war (Speech ... Delivered in the Senate ... March 5, 1862, 1862, also in Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, pp. rn74-78). In April 1862 he led the debate which resulted in the act emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia (Ibid., p. 1516). Later, in June 1866, he was a prominent advocate of the act th at conferred suffrage on the colored citizens of the District (Ibid., 39 Congress, I Session, pp. 3432-34). He was a strong adherent of congressional Reconstruction (Reconstruction. Speech in the Senate ... February 5, 1868, 1868; also in Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 2 Session, app. pp. 110-17), and voted for the impeachment of President Johnson, although his colleague from Maine, William P. Fessenden [q.v.], voted for acquittal. On the death of Fessenden in September 1869 he was appointed to fill out the unexpired term. He was reelected by the state legislature in 1871.

Although he had previously refused to accept appointment as secretary of war, resigning from the Senate on July 7, 1876, he accepted Grant's appointment as secretary of the treasury to succeed Benjamin H. Bristow [q.v. ]. His studies as chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations had fitted him for the duties of this office and he was a worthy successor to Bristow. When he left the treasury on March 8, 1877, President Hayes offered him the ministry to Great Britain. Enfeebled health, following on a severe illness of 1870 and another attack of 1877, influenced him to accept the lucrative post of collector at Portland rather than a more important and responsible position. He held the collectorship at the time of his death in Portland. His wife, Charlotte Holland Vance, whom he had married in 1845, and four daughters survived him.

[G. F. Talbot, "Lot M. Morrill," Maine Historical Society Collections, 2 series, volume V (1894); J. W. North, The History of Augusta (1870); Biographical Encyclopedia of Maine (1885); C. E. Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (1899); A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred m America, volume II (1931); Advertiser (Portland), January 10, 1883; Daily Eastern Argus, January 11, 1883; date of birth from his daughter, Anne Morrill Hamlin.]

R. E. M.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409:

MORRILL, Lot Myrick, secretary of the treasury, born in Belgrade, Kennebec county, Maine, 3 May, 1813; died in Augusta, Maine, 10 January, 1883, entered Waterville college (now Colby university) in 1835, but did not remain through the year. He then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He removed to Augusta, established himself in practice, and was an active member of the Democratic party in Maine. In 1854 he was elected to the legislature, and on his re-election in 1856 he was chosen president of the senate. Subsequently Mr. Morrill denounced the course of his party on the question of slavery in Kansas, severed his connection with his former associates, was nominated in 1857 by the Republicans for governor, and elected by over 15,000 majority. He was twice re-elected. In 1860 Governor Morrill was chosen to the U. S. senate to fill the vacancy caused by Hannibal Hamlin's election to the vice-presidency. He entered the senate, 17 January, 1861, was placed on important committees, and attended the Peace conference of that year. During the two that followed he took an active part in public affairs, and in 1863 was elected senator for the term that ended in 1869. In the Republican caucus for a successor, Mr. Morrill was defeated by a single vote: but, as William P. Fessenden died in 1869, Morrill was appointed to serve out the remainder of Fessenden's term. In 1871 he was again elected senator, and in the discharge of his duties devoted much attention to financial questions. He opposed the bill for inflating the currency, which was vetoed by President Grant, and was in favor of the resumption act of 1875. He was noted as being a hard worker in committee-rooms, and was especially familiar with naval and Indian affairs. On Sec. William W. Belknap's resignation, President Grant asked Senator Morrill to take a seat in the cabinet, but he declined. In June, 1876, he was made secretary of the treasury. In November, 1876, he made an address to the moneyed men of New York from the steps of the sub-treasury department, and in his annual report in December he urged immediate and yet gradual contraction of the currency, and declared that specie payments could be resumed in 1879. When Mr. Hayes became president in 1877 he offered Mr. Morrill a foreign mission, but it was declined. He was appointed in March collector of customs for Portland district, Maine, which post he held at the time of his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409.

LOT M. MORRILL.

LOT M. MORRILL was born in Belgrade, Maine, May 3, 1813. In 1834, at the age of twenty-one, he entered "Waterville College, but soon after left the institution to commence the study of law. Five years later he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon a lucrative practice. Taking an active part in politics, he soon rose to prominence as a leader in the Democratic party. In 1854 he was elected a Representative in the State Legislature, and in 1856 he was elected to the State Senate, of which he was chosen President.

He had never been an apologist for slavery, though acting with the Democrats, and when they attempted to force slavery by fraud and violence upon the people of Kansas, he denounced the scheme and severed his connection with the party. In 1857 he was nominated by the Republican party for Governor of the State, and was elected by a majority of fifteen thousand votes. He administered the State Government to the satisfaction of the people, and was by them twice re-elected. In 1861 he was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Hannibal Hamlin. He took his seat on the 17th of January of that year, and in 1863 he was re-elected for the term ending March 4,1869. In the senatorial election, for the ensuing term, the contest was very warm between the friends of Mr. Morrill and Mr. Hamlin. In the Republican caucus the latter was nominated by a majority of one vote, and was accordingly elected by the Legislature.

In the Senate his record is that of a consistent Republican. A promoter of the Congressional plan of reconstruction, he opposed the "policy " of President Johnson, and voted for his conviction.



MORTON, Oliver Perry, 1823-1877, statesman, lawyer, jurist, anti-slavery activist.  Member of the Republican Party.  U.S. Senator and Governor of Indiana, 1861-1867. He was against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and when the Democratic state convention indorsed the Douglas measure he went over to the People's party, the forerunner of the Republican party in Indiana. He helped with the formation of the new party along national lines.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 262-264; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 956; Wm. D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (2 volumes, 1899); W. M. French, Life, Speeches, State Papers and Public Services of Governor Oliver P. Morton (1864); Memorial Addresses on ... Oliver P. Morton . .. in the Senate and House of Representatives (1878);). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 262-264:

MORTON, OLIVER PERRY (August 4, 1823- November 1, 1877), governor of Indiana and senator, was born in the decaying frontier village of Salisbury, Wayne County, Indiana. His full name was Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton. Both his parents, James Throck and Sarah (Miller) Morton, were of New Jersey birth, and on the paternal side the ancestral line began with John Throckmorton who emigrated from England with Roger Williams in 1631 and later settled in Providence Plantations. Oliver's father was the first to write his surname as Morton. When the boy was less than three years old his mother died, and he was taken to the farm of his maternal grandparents near Springfield (now Springdale), Ohio, where two of his aunts gave him their solicitous care. Scotch Presbyterianism pervaded their home, and he seems to have received an overdose of it, for he never became a church member, and later he was credited, quite properly, with exceedingly unorthodox views on religion. One of his aunts taught a neighboring school, which he attended, but much of his early education came from a rather indiscriminate reading of all the books he could get. For one year he attended the Wayne County Seminary at Centerville, Indiana, to which his father had removed when the village of Salisbury sank into hopeless decline. On his grandfather's death in 1838 he went to work as became a frontier youth of fifteen years, at first as a drug clerk, and later, when he quarreled with his employer and lost his job, as an apprentice to his brother William, who was a hatter. He thoroughly disliked the hatter's trade and obtained his release from service six months before the four years for which he was bound had ended. Financed by a little money from his grandfather's estate, he entered Miami University, where he spent two years in study, excelling in mathematics, learning to write good English, and enjoying himself thoroughly in debate.

In 1845 he left college to read law in a Centerville office, and in spite of his dwindling financial resources he was married on May 15, 1845, to Lucinda M. Burbank, also of Centerville. Five children were born to them, of whom the three sons survived him. Faced with. the necessity of maintaining a home of his own, he speedily began the practice of law, gained some advertising through an unsuccessful race for prosecuting attorney in 1848 on the Democratic ticket, and when he was only twenty-nine years old served out the unfinished term of a circuit judge who had died in office. Doubtless his brief judicial career, less than eight months, convinced him that he needed further legal training, for, before resuming his practice at Centerville, he attended one term at the Law School of the Cincinnati College. After this his progress in his profession was rapid, and in a few years he became the leader of the Wayne County bar. Since he was an unusually effective pleader, his services were in great demand, especially by railway corporations, whose fees helped out his income materially. His formal entrance into politics coincided with the beginnings of the Republican party. Earlier he had no particular sentiment on the slavery question and had even opposed the Wilmot proviso as prejudicial to harmony within the Democratic ranks. By 1854, however, his views had changed. He revolted openly against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and when the Democratic state convention of that year indorsed the Douglas measure he went over to the People's party, the forerunner of the Republican party in Indiana. He helped with the formation of the new party along national lines, and in 1856 he was its unsuccessful candidate for governor of Indiana. For the next four years he divided his time between politics and his profitable law practice, doubtless expecting to be the Republican candidate again in 1860. But this was not to be. For reasons of expediency the party leaders gave the nomination to Henry S. Lane, who had been a Whig, consoling Morton, who had been a Democrat, with second place on the ticket and the promise that in case the Republicans won the legislature Lane should be speedily transferred to the United States Senate, and Morton should succeed to the governorship.

All fell out as planned, and thus it happened that he became Indiana's war-time governor, according to James Ford Rhodes, "the ablest and most energetic of the war governors of the Western States" (History of the United States, volume IV, p. 182). Believing that war was necessary and inevitable, he visited Washington soon after Lincoln's inauguration to use his influence in favor of a vigorous policy towards the South, and he did what he could to prepare his state for the impending struggle. When at last the president's call for troops came, Indiana responded loyally, offering more than twice the number of men asked. Morton expected the war to be a hard-fought contest, and he was det ermined that none of those who volunteered should be refused th e opportunity to serve. He therefore called the legislature into special session to provide ways and means for accepting into state service such men as the national government could not use at the moment. To this and to other requests of the governor, who believed that the war should be made "instant and terrible" (Foulke, post, I, 118), the legislature responded with alacrity. Throughout the struggle he put the full power of his office and of his personality behind every request of the administration for men. Thanks in no small part to his  efforts, there were over 150,000 enlistments from Indiana during the four years with only a negligible number of men drafted.

He was at his best in his repeated and notable triumphs over the discouraged and disloyal agitators who tried to weaken the state's effective support of the war. Indiana, like the rest of the Old Northwest, had a large Southern element in its population in which sympathy with the Southern cause and opposition to the war soon became rife. Orders like the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Order of American Knights, or the Sons of Liberty did their best to retard enlistments, encourage desertions, free Confederate prisoners, and even form a new and independent northwestern confederacy. When the election of 1862 was held, Union military reverses and the absence of thousands of voters at the front strengthened the forces of discontent so that the Democratic legislature and state officers elected in Indiana that year w ere of pacifist views. According to a provision of the Indiana constitution that gave the governor a four-year, term, he remained in office, providentially commissioned, he felt, to thwart all "Copperhead" plots. In order to accomplish this end heroic measures were required; for example, a scheme of the majority in the legislature to take his military power from him and to vest it in a board of its own choosing was frustrated only by the withdrawal of the Republican legislators and, ultimately, by the adjournment of the session for want of a quorum. Since the usual appropriation bills had not been passed, he faced the alternative of calling the obnoxious legislature together again or himself raising the money to keep the state government in operation. To the surprise and chagrin of the Democrats, he chose the latter course. He used some profits from the manufacture of munitions in an arsenal he had established, obtained advances from private citizens and from loyal county officials, and borrowed heavily from the governernment at Washington. The legislature was not recalled, the state government functioned normally except that the governor reigned as a sort of dictator, and the business of helping win the war went on without relaxation. In 1864 he was reelected governor, and a Republican legislature was chosen with him, which in the main supported him in what he had done.

The arduous labor of war time told on him physically, and during the summer of 1865 he was visited by a stroke of paralysis that left him a hopeless cripple but did not cloud his brain. A trip to France in search of medical aid was of no avail for that purpose, but he delivered a personal message from President Johnson to Napoleon III, which pointed out the wisdom of the removal of the French troops from Mexico without formal demand from the United States and which was doubtless of some consequence. Returning to the United States he refused, in spite of his infirmity, to retire from politics, and he attacked the Democrats in the campaign of 1866 with a ruthlessness and a ferocity that set the pace for Republican orators for many a year. In an age of extreme partisanship his partisanship was rank. He saw no good in the Democratic party, the war-time record of which he never forgave, and he viewed individual Democrats with grave suspicions. Any Democratic victory seemed to him a dire calamity.

In 1867 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served until his death. Reconstruction was then the all-absorbing problem, and to it he devoted much thought. Immediately at the close of the war he had favored some such generous terms as were proposed by Lincoln and Johnson, but party necessities drew him irresistibly in the direction of the harsher policies advocated by the congressional leaders, and in the end he became one of the ablest and one of the least compromising of the supporters of "thorough" Reconstruction. Probably he did more than any other man to obtain the ratification of the negro suffrage amendment to the Constitution (Foulke, post, II, 117-18). His record on financial matters was as inconsistent as his record on reconstruction. In his earlier senatorial career he was quite free from soft-money heresies. Indeed, he formulated and introduced in 1868 a bill for the resumption of specie payments on January 1, 1872, that differed little from, the bill under which later on resumption was, actually accomplished, but hard times following the panic of 1873 seem to have changed his opinions on the money question. Familiar with the. problems of the western debtors, he saw clearly: their point of view, and he came to ridicule as fanaticism the same kind of insistence on a" return to specie payments of which, as he freely confessed, he had once been guilty himself. The hard times emergency, he thought, justified further, strictly limited, issues of paper (Foulke, post, II, 319-20).

He was a formidable contender for th e Republican nomination of 1876, but his physical condition, his soft-money tendencies, and his strict partisanship with its attendant lack of enthusiasm about civil reform, all told against him, while Hayes had no such liabilities. He took an active part in the dispute over the election of that year and was convinced that the Republicans had won. He opposed the plan embodied in th  electoral bill fo r settling the contest because of the chance it gave the Democrats to secure the presidency, but as a member of the electoral commission established when the bill became a law, he had a chance to do his full duty by his party. After the contest was over he went to Oregon to help investigate charges of bribery made against a newly elected senator from that state. He was unsparing of himself on the trip and perhaps on this account suffered, in August 1877, another stroke of paralysis. Returning at one to Indiana, he went first to the residence of his wife's mother in Richmond a d later to his own home in Indianapolis, where he died.

He was to a remarkable degree the typical politician of his period. He had, to be sure, a much higher sense of honor than some, and in money matters he was incorruptible. Yet his fanatical devotion to party, his glory in combat, his intolerance of opposition, his heated rhetoric were distinctly of his time. Powerful physically, of commanding voice and presence, he feared no man, nor did the affliction of his later years abate his courage. He was an able lawyer, but he preferred politics, and probably he was not greatly tempted by Grant's offer of the chief-justiceship on the death of Chase. To the end of his life he was a power to be reckoned with in American politics, loved and honored by his friends, cordially hated by his enemies, and almost never ignored. Like many another he coveted the presidency, but his failure to obtain it did not in the least embitter him.

[Wm. D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (2 volumes, 1899); W. M. French, Life, Speeches, State Papers and Public Services of Governor Oliver P. Morton (1864); Memorial Addresses on ... Oliver P. Morton . .. in the Senate and House of Representatives (1878); Oliver P. Morton  by direction of the Indiana Republican State Central Committee (1876); J. A. Woodburn, "Party Politics in Indiana during the Civil War" American Historical Assn. Report,  I902, volume I (1903); Logan Esary, A History of Indiana  (1918), volume II; Indianapolis Journal, November 2, 1877.]

J. D. H.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432:

MORTON, Oliver Perry, statesman, born in Saulsbury, Wayne county, Ind., 4 August, 1823; died in Indianapolis, Ind., 1 November, 1877. His father, a native of New Jersey, whose ancestors came from England with Roger Williams, dropped the first syllable in the family name of Throckmorton. At the age of fifteen the son was taken from school and indentured to a brother, who was a hatter. After working at this trade four years he determined to fit himself for the bar, spent two years at Miami university, studied law at Centreville, and began practice there in 1847. He soon attained professional eminence, and was elected a circuit judge in 1852, but at the end of a year, when his term expired by the adoption of a new state constitution, he willingly left the bench, and before resuming practice spent a year at a law-school in Cincinnati. Having been a Democrat with anti-slavery convictions, he entered into the people's movement in 1854, took an active part in the formation of the Republican party, and was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention the same year, and the candidate of the new party for governor. In a joint canvass with Ashbel P. Willard, the Democratic nominee, he established a reputation for political ability, but was beaten at the polls, and returned to his law practice. In 1860 he was nominated for lieutenant-governor on the ticket with Henry S. Lane, and during the canvass took strong ground in favor of exacting from the southern states obedience to the constitution. Up on convening, the legislature elected Governor Lane U. S. senator, and on 16 January, 1861, Mr. Morton took the oath as governor. He opposed every compromise with the Secessionist party, nominated to the Peace congress men of equally pronounced views, began to prepare for the coming conflict before Fort Sumter was fired upon, and when President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers he offered to send 10,000 from Indiana. The state's quota was raised at once. He reconvened the legislature on 24 April, obtained authority to borrow $2,000,000, and displayed great energy and ability in placing troops in the field and providing for their care and sustenance. He gave permission to citizens of Indiana to raise troops in Kentucky, allowed Kentucky regiments to be recruited from the population of two of the southern counties, procured arms for the volunteer bodies enlisted for the defence of Kentucky, and by thus co-operating with the Unionists in that state did much toward establishing the ascendency of the National government within its borders. When the question of the abolition of slavery arose, the popular majority no longer upheld the governor in his support of the National administration. In 1862 a Democratic legislature was chosen, which refused to receive the governor's message, and was on the point of taking from him the command of the militia, when the Republican members withdrew, leaving both houses without a quorum. In order to carry on the state government and pay the state bonds, he obtained advances from banks and county boards, and appointed a bureau of finance, which, from April, 1863, till January, 1865, made all disbursements of the state, amounting to more than $1,000,000. During this period he refused to summon the legislature. The supreme court condemned this arbitrary course, but the people subsequently applauded his action, and the state assumed the obligations that he incurred. The draft laws provoked the Secessionists in Indiana to form secret organizations and commit outrages on Union men. They plotted against the life of Governor Morton and arranged a general insurrection, to take place in August, 1864. The governor discovered their plans and arrested the leaders of the Knights of the golden circle, or Sons of liberty, as the association was called. In 1864 he was nominated for governor, and defeated Joseph E. McDonald by 20,883 votes, after an animated joint canvass. He resigned in January, 1867, to take his seat in the U. S. senate, to which he was re-elected in 1873. In the senate he was chairman of the committee on privileges and elections and the leader of the Republicans, and for several years he exercised a determining influence over the political course of the party. On the question of reconstruction he supported the severest measures toward the southern states and their citizens. He labored zealously to secure the passage of the 15th amendment to the constitution, was active in the impeachment proceedings against President Johnson, and was the trusted adviser of the Republicans of the south. After supporting the Santo Domingo treaty he was offered the English mission by President Grant, but declined, lest his state should send a Democrat to succeed him in the senate. At the Republican National convention in 1876 Mr. Morton, in the earlier ballots, received next to the highest number of votes for the presidential nomination. He was a member of the electoral commission of 1877. After having a paralytic stroke in 1865 he was never again able to stand without support, yet there was no abatement in his power as a debater or in the effectiveness of his forcible popular oratory. Immediately after his return from Europe, whither he had gone to consult specialists in nervous diseases, he delivered, in 1866, a political speech of which more than 1,000,000 copies were circulated in pamphlet-form. After visiting Oregon in the spring of 1877 as chairman of a senatorial committee to investigate the election of Lafayette Grover, he had another attack of paralysis, and died soon after reaching his home. See “Life and Public Services of Oliver Perry Morton” (Indianapolis, 1876).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 2., By William H. Barnes, 1869, p. 167:

OLIVER P. MORTON.

OLIVER P. MORTON was born in Wayne County, Indiana, August 4, 1823. His parents dying when he was quite young, he was placed under the care of a grandmother and two aunts, in the State of Ohio. He served for a while with his brother at the hatter's trade; but this not being a congenial employment, at the age of fourteen he entered the Wayne County Seminary. He is described by his preceptor as " a timid and rather verdant looking youth, too shy to bear, with head erect, a master's look." After completing his preparatory studies, he entered Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio. He displayed much talent as a student, and made great proficiency in his studies, and especially in forensic exercises. Leaving college without graduating, he returned to Indiana, and entered upon the study of law with Hon. John S. Newman. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and, as a jurist and an advocate, soon took rank among the first lawyers of the State.

In 1852, he was elected Judge of the Circuit Court. Two years later, the Democratic party, of which he was a member, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and passed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Mr. Morton, with many others who had been known as free-soil Democrats, abandoned his old party relations, and aided in forming the Republican party.

In 1856, he was nominated by the Republicans as their candidate for Governor of Indiana. He made a thorough and vigorous canvass of the State, in company with his Democratic competitor, Ashbel P. Willard. A party so powerful, championed by a leader so eloquent and popular, could not be overcome in a single campaign. Mr. Morton lost the election by about five thousand votes; but his speeches, delivered throughout the State, did much to build np and consolidate the Republican party in Indiana.

3 men, more than six times the number required, volunteered for the defence of the Union. In three days, six regiments, the quota of the State, were in readiness for service, fully armed and equipped. Twenty regiments were tendered in addition, and when they were not accepted by the Government, most of them were mustered into the State service, put in camp and drilled until the time came when the Government was glad to take them. No sooner were their first troops in the field than the Governor sent agents to look after their interests, to see that their necessities were supplied while in health, and that they were properly cared for when sick. To meet the extraordinary emergencies of the occasion, Governor Morton called an extra session of the Legislature. His message to this body, delivered April 25th, 1861, was a patriotic and eloquent presentation of the true relations of the States to the Federal Government, and the duty of Indiana to aid in crushing the rebellion.

During the extra session of the General Assembly the labors of the Executive Department were augmented to an extent never before equalled in the history of the State. Great discernment and discretion were exercised by the Governor in the selection of men to aid in recruiting, organizing and equipping the regiments. He laid aside party prejudices, and, in dispensing favors, rather showed partiality to his former political foes than to his friends. Loyalty and capacity were the only qualifications for position which he demanded, and during the early stages of the war he appeared to look for these in the Democratic party.

The doubtful attitude of the State of Kentucky gave additional anxiety and labor to the Governor of Indiana. Governor Magoffin, at heart a secessionist, had refused most positively to respond to the President's call for volunteers. While making professions of a desire to hold Kentucky in a neutral position, he was really rendering the rebels all the aid in his power. He artfully laid his plans to induce Indiana, Ohio, and other Northern border States, to assume the character of sovereign mediators between the Government and the seceded Slates. To his overtures Governor Morton promptly responded, "There is no ground in the Constitution, midway between the Government and a rebellious State, upon which another State can stand, holding both in check. A State must take her stand upon one side or the other; and I invoke the State of Kentucky, by all the sacred ties that bind us together, to take her stand with Indiana, promptly and efficiently, on the side of the Union."

From this time until the close of Magoffin's administration, Governor Morton was practically the governor of Kentucky. He dispatched numerous secret agents to watch the movements of Kentucky secessionists. Thus he was constantly advised in reference to the traitorous designs of Kentucky rebels and their Confederate allies. In view of the defenceless condition of the Indiana and Ohio border, he urged upon the President and the War Department the importance of gunboats and fortifications along the Ohio river.

From the beginning of the difficulties in Kentucky he unremittingly pressed upon the attention of the Government the necessity of taking decided steps toward the occupation of the State by the United States forces.

On the 16th of September, 1861, Governor Morton learned, through one of his secret agents, that the rebel General Zollicoffer had marched his brigade through Cumberland Gap, into Kentucky. On the same day General Buckner, who had for some time been stationed at Bowling Green in command of a body of " neutral State Guards," set out with his men for Louisville. General Rousseau had organized a brigade at Jeffersonville, Indiana, but out of respect for Kentucky's neutrality was ordered to St. Louis. Governor Morton, having been apprised of the movements of Zollicoffer and Buckner, had General Rousseau's marching orders countermanded. He was ordered to cross the Ohio into Kentucky; thus Louisville was saved from falling into the hands of the rebels, and the fatal charm of neutrality was broken.

Governor Morton withdrew his secret agents and appealed to the people of Indiana to render all possible aid in rescuing Kentucky from the hands of the secessionists. Many regiments responded to the call, and ere the lapse of many months Bowling Green, a strongly fortified position, was occupied by a Federal force Zollicoffer was defeated and slain at Mill-spring, and the soil of Kentucky cleared of rebel troops.

The important agency of Governor Morton in bringing about these results was universally acknowledged. The "Louisville Journal " said of him, "He has been, emphatically, Kentucky's guardian spirit from the very commencement of the dangers that now darkly, threaten her very existence. Kentucky and the whole country owe him a large debt of gratitude. Oh, that all the public functionaries of the country were as vigilant, as clear-sighted, as energetic, as fearless, as chivalric, as he."

The wants of Indiana troops in Missouri, West Virginia, and the Department of the Potomac, received his constant attention, and his numerous efficient agents were actively employed in every camp where Indiana regiments were stationed.

The reverses of the national arms had such a discouraging effect upon the country, that in most of the States the work of recruiting progressed slowly. Not so in Indiana. The faithfulness of Governor Morton in looking after his soldiers, and providing for their families at home, inspired the people of Indiana with such a degree of confidence that the volunteering spirit among them did not abate because of national disasters, and by the 11th of December, 1861, an aggregate of forty-four volunteer regiments from Indiana were in the service of the United States.

The approach of the first winter of the war seemed likely to find large numbers of our troops almost destitute of comfortable clothing, owing to the misappropriation of supplies, by incompetent and unprincipled quartermasters. Governor Morton sought to remedy this deficiency, so far as the Indiana troops were concerned, by taking the matter of supplying them with clothing into his own hands. Notwithstanding the obstructions thrown in his way, and the insults offered him by thieving officials, by indefatigable energy, he carried bis points, and had the satisfaction of being assured by his messengers that his soldiers would not Buffer from lack of clothing amid the rigors of winter in the mountains of Western Virginia.

Governor Morton's popularity among the soldiers, and his reputation in other States, having excited the jealousy of certain ambitious politicians, they gave currency to vague charges of mismanagement in State military matters, of corruption in the appointment of officers, and the awarding of contracts. In compliance with Governor Morton's urgent request, a Congressional Investigating Committee visited Indianapolis, and made rigid inquiry into the management of military matters in Indiana. The published report of the proceedings of this committee not only exonerates him from all blame, but shows the greatest care on his part to prevent fraud and peculation. It was stated by this committee that, notwithstanding the Indiana troops had been better armed and equipped than those of any other western State, the expense attending their outfit was less, in proportion to the number of men furnished, than that of any other State in the Union.

Governor Morton steadily rose in the estimation of the President and the Cabinet, until his influence became greater in Washington than that of any other man in the country outside the Executive Departments. Many times was his presence requested in Washington, and his counsel solicited in matters of the greatest moment to the Government.

Before the close of the year 1862, more than one hundred thousand men had enlisted from Indiana in the service of the United States. Most of these being Republicans, their absence greatly depleted the strength of the party at home. Mismanagement of officers and reverses in the field had cooled the ardor of many who had been supporters of the war. These causes operated to produce a defeat of the Republican party in Indiana in the autumn of 1862, and the election of Democratic State officers, and a majority of the Legislature. Fortunately for the State, Governor Morton held over, having been elected for a term of four years. He stood as the sole obstacle in the path of reckless men who desired to drag the State into alliance with the rebels.

The Governor transmitted to the Legislature a message in which he accurately set forth the condition of the State, and with calmness and dignity made such suggestions as were appropriate to the emergencies of the State and Nation. The Legislature insultingly refused to accept this message, and by a joint resolution complimented, and virtually adopted, the message of Governor Seymour of New York.

The Democratic majority in caucus drew up a bill designed to take all the military power of the State away from the Governor, and place it in the hands of four Democratic State officers. This bill was engrossed and only prevented from becoming a law by the withdrawal of the Republican members, leaving the Legislature without a quorum. When the Legislature was thus broken up, no appropriations had been made to defray the expenses of the State government for the next two years, and Governor Morton must either call the Legislature back at the risk of having the State involved in civil war, or borrow the money to carry on the State government. He determined to take the latter course, and succeeded in raising nearly two million dollars, with which he paid the expenses of the State government and the interest on the State debt. The money was borrowed from loyal counties in the State, from railroad companies, banks, private persons, and from the house of "Winslow, Lanier & Co., in New York. During these two years he acted as Auditor and Treasurer of State, kept the accounts in his own office, and disbursed the money upon his own checks. The next Legislature examined his accounts, and adopted them without the slightest exception, paid up all his borrowed money, and thus relieved him of the great responsibilities he had incurred.

The most persistent and dangerous opposition to Governor Morton's administration was a secret association, popularly known as "Knights of the Golden Circle." It had a lodgement in every section of the State, but became most numerous in those places where the people, not having frequent access to the mediums of public intelligence, became readily the dupes of designing men. The ultimate exposure of this organization showed that it numbered over 80,000 men, bound together by the most solemn oaths, thoroughly drilled and ready to obey the call of their masters at any time.

It was the plan and purpose of the conspirators to rise and seize the government arsenals, release rebel prisoners at various points in the North, furnish them with arms, and after assassinating State and United States officers, to take forcible possession of the government.

To ferret out and defeat the schemes of these conspirators was a work of no ordinary magnitude, but it was fully accomplished. The Governor employed secret detectives, through whose activity and tact he obtained an inside view of almost every lodge within the State. He was fully informed of all their plans, their financial resources, and their strength. Large quantities of arms, consigned to the conspirators, were seized and confiscated. Several of the chiefs of the conspiracy were arraigned, tried, convicted of treason and punished. The opportune discovery and exposure of this plot prevented a terrible outbreak and massacre on the soil of Indiana, and rescued the State from infamy and ruin.

In the fall of 1864, Governor Morton was re-elected by a majority of 22,000 votes. He continued with energy and ardor to prosecute the work which for four years had occupied his time and attention. He continued to raise soldiers, by volunteering and by draft, until the last call was more than met.

He passed the last year of the war in unceasing activity. At Washington, in council with the President; at the front, beholding the brave achievements of his soldiers, moving in person through the hospitals to ascertain the wants of the sick and wounded, and directing the operations of his numerous agents; at home, superintending sanitary movements, appointing extra surgeons and sending them to the field, projecting additional measures for the relief of dependent women and children, and attending personally to all the details of the business of his office—his labors were unsurpassed by those of any man in the civil or military service of the country.

The sudden collapse of the rebellion, and the return of the surviving heroes of the war, varied, but did not diminish, the labors of the Governor of Indiana. He made the amplest arrangements for the reception and entertainment of the Indiana volunteers at the State capital. Every regiment was received and welcomed by him in person. He gave special attention to the pay department, and saw that no unnecessary delay detained the veterans from their homes and families.

Finally, the war being ended, and the soldiers dismissed to their homes, the long excitement ended, and the day of relaxation came. For five years his powers of mind and body were taxed to the utmost. The immense weight of his official responsibilities, the embarrassments which beset him, the gigantic difficulties he had overcome, had, apparently, made no inroads upon his frame. The cessation of labor and excitement developed the evil results of over-work. In the summer of 1865 he was attacked with partial paralysis. The efforts of physicians to afford relief were fruitless, and a change of scene and climate was advised as the only means of obtaining relief. Accordingly, he devolved his official duties upon the Lieutenant Governor, and sailed for Europe. After an absence of several months he returned, partially relieved, and resumed his official duties. In January, 1867, he was elected to the United States Senate, and resigning the Governorship, he took his seat on the 4th of March, for the term ending in 1873.

In the Senate he has not failed fully to meet the high expectations of the country. Though somewhat disabled by disease, he has per formed all the work of a Statesman and a Senator. His speeches, heard by crowded galleries and an attentive Senate, have fallen with marked effect upon the country. Though often necessitated to speak in a sitting posture, he retains the commanding presence and the impressive delivery essential to the highest success in oratory. Unsurpassed in executive ability, as proved by a splendid career in another field, he has shown himself the peer of the greatest statesmen in legislative talent.



MOSES, FRANKLIN J. (1838-December 11, 1906), Lawyer, governor of South Carolina,  1872-1874, radical republican.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 275-276:

MOSES, FRANKLIN J. (1838-December 11, 1906), governor of South Carolina, had a career that fulfilled in most details the conventional Southern conception of a scalawag. He was born in 1838 in Sumter District, S. C., the son of Franklin J. and Jane (McLelland) Moses. His original name was Franklin Israel Moses, but for reasons unknown he and his father, for whom he was named, both dropped Israel entirely and substituted the initial J. His father belonged to a Jewish family that had served the state with distinction, and was, himself, an able and successful lawyer, a member of the state Senate from 1842 to 1862, commissioner of South Carolina before the North Carolina secession convention, a circuit judge in 1865, and, after the access ion of the Republicans to power in 1868, chief justice of the state, in which position he served with great distinction until his death in 1877. The younger Moses was a freshman in South Carolina College in 1855 but withdrew without finishing the course. On December 20, 1859, he married Emma Buford Richardson, the daughter of James S. G. Richard son, a distinguished lawyer. He began his public career in December 1860, as private secretary to Governor Francis W. Pickens, and he became an influence in politics. He raised the Confederate flag over Fort Sumter when the Federals surrendered that stronghold. He was made an enrolling officer with the rank of colonel under the Confederate conscription act. On November 28, 1866, he was admitted to the bar, and the following April he was elected a vestryman of the Sumter Episcopal Church. During 1866 and 1867, as editor of the Sumter News, he favored President Johnson's Reconstruction plans and in 1866 was a delegate to a state convention called to indorse the president.

In 1867 he suddenly became a renegade to all his previous code of conduct. His writings became so radical that he was dismissed from his editorship, and it was discovered that he was closely affiliated with the Union League. Blessed with great gifts of personality and eloquence and cursed with underlying moral weakness, he yielded to the temptation to seize the opportunity of leading the black majority that was gaining the political mastery of the state. Elected a delegate from Sumter District to the constitutional convention of 1868, he became chairman of an important committee and in his speeches advocated those measures calculated to plea se the negroes. In the new government he served, simultaneously, as speaker of the House of Representatives, as adjutant and inspector-general of the armed forces of the state, and as trustee of the state university. In 1872 he was elected governor by an overwhelming majority over the candidate of the reform faction of the Republican party, and he served for two years. In his public service he was thoroughly unscrupulous; while he was speaker he issued fraudulent pay certificates and accepted bribes for influencing legislation; as adjutant-general he misappropriated funds for the purchase of arms for the militia; as governor he accepted bribes for his approval of legislation, for pardons, and for official appointments. In his private life his extravagance and immorality caused public scandal.

When he finished his term as governor he was a ruined man. His ill-gotten gain passed from him as easily as it had come; in May 1874 it became known that he was a hopeless bankrupt. His associates deserted him; there was no thought of nominating him for reelection in 1874. When Governor Daniel Chamberlain [q.v.] refused to commission him as a circuit judge in 1875 after the legislature had elected him to that position, the action of the governor won universal applause. To save himself from prison Moses testified against his former associates. In 1878 his wife divorced him, and the knowledge of his career was hidden from his children. Some of the members of his family, feeling the disgrace of his career, changed their name to Harby. From 1878 until his death he was a hopeless wanderer, a victim of poverty and of the drug habit. His sole asset was his ingratiating manner. For a time he was moderator of the town meeting of Winthrop, Mass., and editor of a local newspaper. Several times he was convicted of petty frauds and thefts and served short terms in various prisons. He died at 'Winthrop, a victim of accidental asphyxiation.

[F. B. Simkins and R. H . Woody, S. C. during Reconstruction (1932); R. H. Woody, " Franklin J. Moses, jr.," N. C. Historical Rev., April 1933; J. S. Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C. (1905); B. A. Elzas, The Jews of S.C. (1903); Report of the Joint Investigating Committee on Public Frauds and Election of Hon. J. J. Patterson to the United States Senate Made to the General Assembly of S. C. (1878); Sumter News, December 6, 1866, April 25, 1867; (Columbia) State and (Charleston) News and Courier, December 12, 1906; Charleston Mercury, January 15, 1868; register of the Church of the Holy Comforter at Sumter; a few details of personal history from members of the Moses family of Sumter.]

F. B. S.
R.H.W.



MULLINS, James,   Represented Tennessee's 4th congressional district in the U. S. of Representatives from 1867 to 1869. He also served a single term in the Tennessee House of Representatives (1865–1867). Described as a "fierce fanatic of the Republican Party," Mullins supported the initiatives of Governor William G. Brownlow in the state legislature, leading efforts to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress:

MULLINS, JAMES, a Representative from Tennessee; born in Bedford County, Tenn., September 15, 1807; completed preparatory studies; apprenticed to the millwright's trade; colonel of the State militia in 1831; sheriff of Bedford County 1840-1846; compelled to flee from his home in 1862 on account of his loyalty to the Union; during the Civil War served in the Union Army 1862-1864; member of the State house of representatives, 1865-1867; elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress (March 4, 1867-March 3, 1869); died in Shelbyville, Bedford County, Tenn., June 26, 1873; interment in the Arnold Graveyard, about nine miles northeast of Shelbyville.

In Congress, Mullins served on the Committee on Territories and the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions. He was described as a "remarkably ready debater" who gave speeches "characterized by much native wit as well as rugged common sense." He voted to impeach Andrew Johnson in February 1868, and voted in favor of the Fifteenth Amendment (which extended voting rights to minorities) in February 1869.
Mullins did not seek reelection to a second consecutive term.

In April 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Mullins internal revenue collector of the fourth district. He held this office until his death.

Mullins' support of black suffrage and other initiatives of the Radical Republicans made him a target of the burgeoning Ku Klux Klan. While Mullins was campaigning for Congress in October 1870, a group of Klansmen attacked his farm, burning his barn, stables, and mills. In January 1871, a group of Klansmen attempted to break into the home of J.L. Roseborough in Shelbyville, presumably to attack Mullins, who was boarding there, but failed to gain entry.

Mullins died of cholera in Shelbyville on June 26, 1873.

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.