D: Davis through Drake

See below for annotated biographies of anti-slavery Whigs. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

DAVIS, Henry Winter, 1817-1865, statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 3rd District of Maryland, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1863-1865. Anti-slavery activist in Congress. Supported enlistment of African Americans in Union Army. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 97-98; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 119; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 6, p. 198; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe) He published a book entitled the “War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century” (Baltimore, 1853). His collected speeches, together with a eulogy by his colleague, John A. J. Cresswell, were published in New York in 1867.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 119:

DAVIS, HENRY WINTER (August 16, 1817- December 30, 1865), politician, statesman, was the son of Reverend Henry Lyon Davis, president of St. John's College (Maryland), an ardent Federalist and Episcopalian, and Jane (Brown) Winter, a cultured woman with aristocratic connections in the town of Annapolis. During the campaign of 1828 Davis's father was removed from his position by the partisans of Jackson on the board of trustees of the college, and set adrift under circumstances which greatly influenced the career of Henry Winter Davis. After a strenuous course at Kenyon College (Ohio), young Davis procured, after much delay and difficulty, the meager funds necessary to enable him to study law at the University of Virginia. He left the University in June 1840 with some knowledge of law, mainly Coke on Littleton, and began his career at Alexandria, Virginia, a handsome man of twenty-three, six feet tall, and of aristocratic bearing and manner. Here he quickly won an enviable reputation, obtained a good income from his profession, and on October 30, 1845, married Constance C. Gardiner, daughter of a prominent citizen of the town. After her death, he married, on January 26, 1857, Nancy Morris of Baltimore, whither he had moved in 1849. Attaching himself to the Whig party, Davis appeared on the platform as a speaker with Robert Winthrop and Horace Greeley in the unhappy campaign of General Winfield Scott for the presidency in 1852. In 1855 he was chosen to a seat in Congress where he immediately took a prominent place among the leaders of the Know-Nothing party. The hot disputes about Kansas left him unmoved, nor did the ardent campaign of 1856 budge him from his steady conservatism. He supported Fillmore, and endeavored to hold his neutral position from 1856 to 1860. But the decline of the Know-Nothing party and the break between Douglas and Buchanan compelled him to take sides. On the last clay of January 1860, after a deadlock of seven weeks, he cast his vote for William Pennington, Republican candidate for speaker. This enabled the new party to organize the House and to prepare more effectively for the presidential campaign already opened. The decision made Davis a national character, but the legislature of Maryland repudiated his action by a vote of 62 to 1. From that clay to his death every public act of Davis was a matter of immediate concern to the country. He was for a moment candidate for the Republican nomination for the vice-presidency, and thought of himself from that time forward as a suitable candidate for the presidency. He was guided by an overweening ambition, but his abilities as a statesman and an orator were acknowledged to be extraordinary. In his district he was both hated and loved beyond all other public men and his campaigns for reelection were violent and bloody. Notwithstanding his vote for the Republicans in January 1860, he was the guiding spirit of the Bell and Everett party in Maryland; and he procured the nomination of Thomas H. Hicks [q.v.], Unionist, for governor. His purpose was not to defeat the Republican party in Maryland, but the regular Democrats, with Breckinridge as their candidate. Bell and Everett won; Hicks likewise was successful.

Davis, serving the balance of his term in the House of Representatives during the critical winter of 1860-61, keenly desired to sit in the new cabinet. But Montgomery Blair, a member of perhaps the most influential family in the country and the leader of a forlorn hope of Republicans in Maryland, was chosen. Davis was alone and without a party, for the Union party was rapidly disintegrating. On February 7, when the Confederacy was just raising its head in Montgomery and the leading Republicans of the North were acquiescing in the secession movement, Davis in one of the important speeches of his life asserted that in Maryland they did not recognize the right of secession and that they would not be dragged from the Union (Congressional Globe, Appendix, 36 Congress, 2 Session). But Governor Hicks and the people of Maryland did recognize the right of Southerners to secede and they seemed about to take legislative action in that direction. Davis said later that but for his activity Lincoln would have been inaugurated in some Pennsylvania village. He wrote a public letter to the New York Tribune urging that th e Federal forts in Maryland be placed in the hands of Union men. Then he simply announced himself as a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives. It was the 15th of April. Four days later the 6th Massachusetts Regiment was attacked in Baltimore. One of the most spectacular and bitter of political contests ensued, with Davis everywhere the militant leader of the Unionists. On June 13 his opponent, Henry May, a Southern sympathizer, was elected by a vote of 8,335 to 6,287.

It was a decisive defeat, but Davis became even better known to the country, traveled widely, and spoke often for the Union. However, either his chagrin at the presence of Montgomery Blair in Lincoln's cabinet or the President's open violation of many of the sacred traditions of the country led him into opposition. He could hardly contain himself when he thought of the procedure in the many courts martial of the day, or of the thousands of men in prison without proved offense. To him the habeas corpus was sacred beyond a question. Before a very hostile Brooklyn audience, early in November, he bitterly arraigned the President and all about him. There are few instances of a speaker's attaining such complete mastery over his audience as Davis did on that occasion. Nor did he-ever cease to oppose most of the President's policies. He was not arrested or imprisoned, however, and in the hotly contested election of 1863 he was returned to the House, where he was at once made chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. He then became and remained a close friend and ally of Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. It was at the moment when Lincoln sent to Congress his program of reconstruction, known as the Louisiana Plan. Davis ranged himself at once on the side of the opposition, attacking upon every possible occasion the " usurpations" of the President, and ridiculing unmercifully the foreign policy of Seward, the management of the navy by Gideon Welles, the conduct of General Frank P. Blair as an army commander, and the unrelenting campaign of Montgomery Blair against himself in Maryland. In a little while the great majority of the House hung upon his words and followed him implicitly. He was more the master of that body than Thaddeus Stevens himself.

The most important of Davis's campaigns in the House of Representatives began early il1 the session and culminated in a victory over the President in spite of all that Seward, Welles, and the Blairs could do. Instead of reporting a reconstruction bill such as Lincoln suggested, Davis wrote and substituted a measure of his own. The President would leave the reconstructed states to abolish slavery themselves; Davis would compel immediate emancipation. The President would allow ten per cent of the voters to set up a new state government; Davis would require a majority. The President would proscribe only a few of the leading Confederates; Davis would proscribe a vast number. The President said nothing about repudiating Southern debts; Davis would compel repudiation of all Southern war debts, state and Confederate. His was a policy of "thorough," like that of the Cromwellians in England. Davis's principal speech in support of his drastic plan was made on March 22, 1864, when the supporters of the President and the rising radical opposition were engaged in the bitterest warfare. He denied the right of the President to reconstruct a state and considered the Emancipation Proclamation as invalid until approved by Congress. He claimed all power for Congress and wished so to reconstruct the Southern states, when they were completely beaten and utterly helpless, that no court could ever undo the work. The Davis bill passed the House and the Senate by large majorities. When at last, after his renomination and the adjournment of Congress, Lincoln pocket vetoed the measure, Davis was beside himself with rage. He took the extreme risk of a violent attack upon the nominee of his party at a moment when' few thoughtful men had any real hope of complete success in the war. In July, conferences of leading Republicans were held in New York. Davis took part. In the spirit of these troubled men, Davis wrote the famous Wade-Davis manifesto which appeared in the leading papers on August 8, 1864. In this document he reviewed the history of the congressional plan of reconstruction and ridiculed the President's plan in unmerciful language (Speeches and Addresses of Henry Winter Davis, pp. 415-426).

It is said that Davis never entered the White House during Lincoln's incumbency and that this manifesto brought the relations of the two men, as well as of the opposing groups in the Republican party, to the necessity of some understanding. The presidential election was pending and the people of the North had plainly lost heart. Davis was in Baltimore waging his campaign for reelection, while Seward, Weed, Welles, and the rest were fighting in Washington and elsewhere for the success of their chief. On July 1, Chase resigned and gave up his open fight on the President. On September 4, the news of victory at Atlanta reached Washington. Early in September, Montgomery Blair ceased his war upon Davis and offered his resignation. Before the end of September, Davis called at the White House and henceforth made speeches on behalf of the President. Lincoln was reelected and Chase took his seat as chief justice, but the ambitious chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations was defeated in his district.

When Congress met, however, in December 1864, Davis, now a "lame duck," was the most popular man in it. He fought through the short session, saw Andrew Johnson inaugurated with more than wonted pleasure, and, after the death of Lincoln, went to Chicago to make another of his great speeches: He attacked Johnson as he had attacked Lincoln, and outlined once more the program of congressional reconstruction which was indorsed by Charles Sumner at Worcester on September 14 and readopted by Congress the next year. Davis, still only forty-eight years old, looked forward to the day when he might sit in the coveted White House, mean while impeaching Andrew Johnson, as he must have sought the impeachment of Lincoln if the latter had lived. A private citizen of extraordinary prestige, he returned to Washington in December 1865, and with his mere presence at the door of the House of Representatives broke up the session. Exposed to inclement weather during the holidays, he took cold. This developed into pneumonia and on December 30 he died.

[There has never been an adequate study of Davis's career, though Bernard C. Steiner, The Life of Henry Winter Davis (1916), offers a brief review of the main facts and incidents. J. A. J. Creswell's sketch of Davis's life is published as an introduction to The Speeches and Addresses Delivered in the Congress of the U.S. and on Several Public Occasions, by Henry Winter Davis (1867). Gideon Welles and Adam Gurowski make frequent mention of him in their diaries.]

W.E.D.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 97-98:

DAVIS, Henry Winter, statesman, born in Annapolis, Maryland, 16 August, 1817; died in Baltimore, 30 December, 1865. His father, Reverend Henry Lyon Davis, of the Protestant Episcopal church, was the president of St. John's college, at Annapolis, and rector of St. Ann's parish. He lost both offices on account of his Federal politics, and removed to Wilmington, Delaware, leaving his son with Elizabeth Brown Winter, an aunt, who possessed a noble character, and was rigid in her system of training children. The boy afterward went to Wilmington, and was instructed under his father's supervision. In l827 the family returned to Maryland and settled in Anne Arundel county. Here Henry Winter became much attached to field-sports, and gave little promise of scholarly attainments. He roamed about the country, always attended by one of his father's slaves, with an old fowling-piece upon his shoulder, burning much powder and returning with a small amount of game. The insight into slavery that he thus gained affected him strongly. He said, in after years: “My familiar association with the slaves, while a boy, gave me great insight into their feelings and views. They spoke with freedom before a boy what they would have repressed before a man. They were far from indifferent to their condition; they felt wronged, and sighed for freedom. They were attached to my father, and loved me, yet they habitually spoke of the day when God would deliver them.” He was educated in Alexandria, and at Kenyon college, where he was graduated in 1837. His father died in that year, leaving a few slaves to be divided between himself and his sister, but he would not allow them to be sold, although he might have pursued his studies with ease and comfort. Rather than do this he obtained a tutorship, and, notwithstanding these arduous tasks, read the course of law in the University of Virginia, which he entered in 1839. The expenses of his legal studies were defrayed with the proceeds of some land that his aunt had sold for the purpose. He began practice in Alexandria, Virginia, but first attained celebrity in the Episcopal convention of Maryland by his defence of Dr. H. V. D. Johns against the accusation of Bishop Whittingham for having violated the canon of the Episcopal church in consenting to officiate in the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1850 he removed to Baltimore, where he held a high social and professional position. He was a prominent whig, and known as the brilliant orator and controversialist of the Scott canvass in 1852. He was elected a member of congress for the 3d district of Maryland (part of Baltimore) in 1854, and re-elected in 1856, serving on the committee of ways and means. After the dissolution of the whig party he joined the American or Know-nothing party. He was re-elected to congress in 1858, and in 1859 voted for Mr. Pennington, the republican candidate for speaker, thus drawing upon himself much abuse and reproach. The legislature of Maryland “decorated him with its censure,” as he expressed it on the floor of the house; but he declared to his constituents that, if they would not allow their representative to exercise his private judgment as to what were the best interests of the state, “You may send a slave to congress, but you can not send me.” After the attack on the 6th Massachusetts regiment in Baltimore in 1861, Mr. Davis published a card announcing himself as an “unconditional union” candidate for congress, and conducted his canvass almost alone amid a storm of reproach and abuse, being defeated, but receiving about 6,000 votes. When Mr. Lincoln was nominated in 1860, Mr. Davis was offered the nomination for vice-president, but declined it; and when the question of his appointment to the cabinet was agitated, he urged the selection of John A. Gilmer in his stead. He was again in congress in 1863-'5, and served as chairman of the committee on foreign affairs. Although representing a slave state, Mr. Davis was conspicuous for unswerving fidelity to the Union and advocacy of emancipation. He heartily supported the administration, but deprecated the assumption of extraordinary powers by the executive, and denounced congress as cowardly for not authorizing by statute what it expected that department to do. He early favored the enlistment of negroes in the army, and said, “The best deed of emancipation is a musket on the shoulder.” In the summer of 1865 he made a speech in Chicago in favor of negro suffrage. Mr. Davis was denounced by politicians as impractical. He used to say that he who compromised a moral principle was a scoundrel, but that he who would not compromise a political measure was a fool. Mr. Davis possessed an unusually fine library, and was gifted with a good memory and a brilliant mind, which was united with many personal advantages. Inheriting force and scholarship from his father, he had received also a share of his mother's milder qualities, which won many friends, although, to the public, he seemed stern and dictatorial. At his death congress set apart a day for the commemoration of his public services, an honor never before paid to an ex-member of congress. He published a book entitled the “War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century” (Baltimore, 1853). His collected speeches, together with a eulogy by his colleague, John A. J. Cresswell, were published in New York in 1867. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 97-98.



DAVIS, John, 1787-1854, Northborough, Massachusetts, lawyer, statesman, four-term U.S. Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, U.S. Senator, 1835-1841. He was elected to congress as a whig in 1824, and re-elected for the four succeeding terms, sitting from December, 1825, till January, 1834. Opposed the war with Mexico and introduction of slavery in U.S. territories. Supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the Compromise Acts of 1850.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 103-104; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p.133)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 103-104:

DAVIS, John, statesman, born in Northborough, Massachusetts, 13 January, 1787; died in Worcester, Massachusetts, 19 April, 1854. He was graduated at Yale with honor in 1812, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1815, and practised with success in Worcester. He was elected to congress as a whig in 1824, and re-elected for the four succeeding terms, sitting from December, 1825, till January, 1834, and taking a leading part as a protectionist in opposing Henry Clay's compromise tariff bill of 1833, and in all transactions relating to finance and commerce. He resigned his seat on being elected governor of Massachusetts. At the conclusion of his term as governor he was sent to the U.S. senate, and served from 7 December, 1835, till January, 1841, when he resigned to accept the governorship a second time. In the senate he was a strong opponent of the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren, and took a conspicuous part in the debates as an advocate of protection for American industry, replying to the free-trade arguments of southern statesmen in speeches that were considered extremely clear expositions of the protective theories. A declaration in one of his speeches, that James Buchanan was in favor of reducing the wages of American workingmen to ten cents a day, was the origin of the epithet “ten-cent Jimmy,” which was applied to that statesman by his political opponents for several years. A short speech against the sub-treasury, delivered in 1840, was printed during the presidential canvass of that year as an electioneering pamphlet, of which more than a million copies were distributed. He was again elected U. S. senator, and served from 24 March, 1845, till 3 March, 1853, but declined a re-election, and died suddenly at his home. He protested vigorously against the war with Mexico. In the controversy that followed, over the introduction of slavery into the U. S. territories, he earnestly advocated its exclusion. The Wilmot proviso received his support, but the compromise acts of 1850 encountered his decided opposition. He enjoyed the respect and confidence of his constituents in an unusual degree, and established a reputation for high principles that gained for him the popular appellation of “honest John Davis.”—His wife, who was a sister of George Bancroft, the historian, died in Worcester, Massachusetts, 24 January, 1872, at the age of eighty years. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.



DAYTON, William Lewis, 1807-1864, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Senator. Member of the Free Soil Whig Party. Opposed slavery and its expansion into the new territories. Opposed the Fugitive Slave bill of 1850. Supported the admission of California as a free state and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. First vice presidential nominee of Republican Party in 1856, on the ticket with John C. Frémont. Lost the election to James Buchanan.

(Goodell, 1852, p. 570; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 59; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 113; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, pp. 166-167; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 6, p. 280)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, pp. 166-167:

DAYTON, WILLIAM LEWIS (February 17, 1807-December 1, 1864), lawyer, politician, diplomat, great-grandson of Eli as Dayton [q.v.], was born at Baskingridge, New Jersey, his .father, Joel, being a mechanic who educated two sons to law and one to medicine. His mother, Nancy, daughter of Edward and Nancy (Crowell) Lewis, was a grand-daughter of Edward Lewis, a commissary of Washington's army. After finishing at the local academy under Dr. Brownlee, he was graduated from Princeton in 1825, taught school at Pluckemin, and read law with Peter D. Vroom at Somerville, being admitted to the bar in May term 1830. Despite feeble health and slowly maturing powers, his " large mind and strong common sense" (J. P. Bradley, post, 75) made Dayton a master of common law. Settling at Freehold, New Jersey, he attracted attention in November 1833 by persuading the court to quash certain indictments (L. Q. C. Elmer, post, 375), and became the leading lawyer there. Elected to the legislative council in 1837, as a Whig, he was chosen one of two new associate justices of the state supreme court on February 28, 1838. He decided the important case of Freeholders vs. Strader (3 Harrison, 110) but resigned in 1841, against friendly protests, to practise law in Trenton, the salary of a justice ($2,000) being too small to support his growing family. On July 2, 1842, Governor William Pennington appointed him United States senator for the unexpired term of S. L. Southard, and the legislature chose him for the full term to March 4, 1851. He resolutely defended his right to independence of action in the face of legislative instructions, insisting (December 1843) that, "if the legislature of New Jersey go further than to advise me of their wishes ... they usurp a power which does not belong to them" (Bradley, post, p. 85).

An independent Whig, he urged protection for home markets and industrial independence (speech of April 1844), and opposed the tariff of 1846. Favoring arbitration of the Northwestern claims, he thought statehood for Oregon undesirable and improbable. He voted against the treaty for the annexation of Texas (June 8, 1844), warning his Newark constituents that the annexation would mean the repeal of a protective tariff and four more slave states (speech of February 24, 1845). Although he protested against the Mexican War, " he invariably voted the necessary measures to sustain the executive in its prosecution" (Bradley, p. 99). He opposed the extension of slavery but voted for the ratification of the Mexican Treaty.

Following the policy of the new administration he opposed the compromise measures of 1850, especially the Fugitive-Slave Act, and lost his seat in the Senate to Commodore Robert Field Stockton, Democrat. Resuming law practise at Trenton, he was "almost invariably employed on one side or the other of every" important cause" (Bradley, post, 114). With Chancellor Green, S. G. Potts, and P. D. Vroom he had compiled the New Jersey revised statutes of 1847. He served as attorney-general of New Jersey 1857-61, and as such acted as prosecutor in the famous Donnelly murder case (2 Dutcher, 463, 601). His speech at the "Fusion Convention" in Trenton, May 28, 1856, resulted in his being nominated for vice-president on the ticket with Fremont, though many of his friends desired him to have first place, and in the Republican convention of 1860 his state supported him, on the first three ballots, for the presidential nomination (C. M. Knapp, New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1924). In 1861 he was appointed minister to France. Not knowing French, quite unversed in diplomacy, he yet established the best of relations with Louis Napoleon's government, with diplomatic colleagues, and with the press. He wore court dress since "he had not come to France to make a point with the government about buttons" (Elmer, post, p. 391) and gained the entire confidence of the Emperor whom he had "frequently met during his residence in New Jersey" (Galignani's Messenger, Paris, December 5, 1864). Keeping both governments advised on innumerable topics, he was able to avert French intervention, to stop Confederate use of French ports, to prevent construction of six Southern war vessels, to intern the Rappahannock, and to force the Alabama out to meet the Kearsarge. His long letter on the war, November 16, 1862, to Drouyn de Buys, produced gratifying results (Seward to Dayton, January 9, 1863, see Executive Document No. 38, 37 Congress, 3 Session). Seward came to have much confidence in him, and referred to his "approved discretion" (Seward to Dayton, February 8, 1864). Dayton died abruptly at 9 p. m., December 1, 1864, of apoplexy, leaving an estate of over $100,000. His wife, Margaret Elmendorf Van Der Veer, whom he married May 22, 1833, bore him five sons and two daughters. Their married life was entirely happy. He had no enemies. At his funeral John Bigelow said of Dayton, "He could not act falsely."

[T. P. Bradley, "A Memoir of the Life and Character of Hon. Wm. L. Dayton," in Proc. New Jersey Historical Society, series 23, IV, 69-118; L. Q. C. Elmer, The Constitution and Govt. of the Province and State of New Jersey ... with Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar (1872), pp. 372-96; genealogy in Lewis Letter (Lisle, New York), November December 1889, pp. 135, 138; obituaries in many newspapers.]

W.L.W-y

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 113:

DAYTON, William Lewis, statesman, born in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 17 February, 1807; died in Paris, France, 1 December, 1864. He was graduated at Princeton in 1825, and received the degree of LL. D. from that college in 1857. He studied law in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar in 1830, beginning his practice in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1837 he was elected to the state council (as the senate was then called), being made chairman of the judiciary committee. He became associate judge of the supreme court of the state in 1838, and in 1842 was appointed to fill a vacancy in the U. S. senate. His appointment was confirmed by the legislature in 1845, and he was also elected for the whole term. In the senate debates on the Oregon question, the tariff, annexation of Texas, and the Mexican war, he took the position of a free-soil whig. He was the friend and adviser of President Taylor, and opposed the fugitive-slave bill, but advocated the admission of California as a free state, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In 1856 he was nominated by the newly formed republican party for vice-president. In March, 1857, he was made attorney-general for the state of New Jersey, and held that office until 1861, when President Lincoln appointed him minister to France, where he remained until his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 113.



DENNISON, William, 1815-1882, Civil War governor of Ohio, lawyer, founding member of Republican Party, state Senator, opposed admission of Texas and the extension of slavery into the new territories. Anti-slavery man, supporter of Abraham Lincoln.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 142; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 241; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 6, p. 446).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 241:

DENNISON, WILLIAM (November 23, 1815-June 15, 1882), governor of Ohio, was the son of William Dennison, who with his New England wife, Mary Carter, about 1805 removed from New Jersey to Cincinnati, and there became a successful business man. The son attended Miami University, where he proved to be a capable student of political science, history, and literature. Graduating in 1835, he read law in the office of Nathaniel G. Pendleton, father of George H. Pendleton [q.v.]. He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and practised until 1848, when he was elected to the state Senate as a Whig. After a hot contest, which prevented organization of the Senate for two weeks, he was defeated as his party's candidate for the position of presiding officer.

In 1844, in his maiden speech before the public, Dennison had opposed the admission of Texas and the extension of the area of slavery. The position then taken foreshadowed his course through the next twenty years. As a member of the state Senate, he had a part in the fight for the repeal of the notorious "Black Laws," and while adhering to the Whig party through 1852 he was one of the first of the Ohio party leaders to join the Republican movement. In February 1856 he attended the preliminary convention at Pittsburgh and served as a member of the Committee on Resolutions; and in June he was acting chairman of the Ohio delegation in the Philadelphia Convention, which nominated Fremont. Three years later, as Republican candidate for governor, he defeated Judge Rufus P. Ranney, who ranked as the leader of the state bar, and thus found himself in the executive chair when the Civil War began. He came to the governor's chair with little experience in public affairs. Although he was well regarded by the business men of the capital city, to whom in large part he owed his nomination, he was but little known to the public, and his nomination was thought to be due to a dearth of able rivals. He campaigned with unexpected brilliance in 1859, but his success did not win for him the full confidence of the people, who decided that he was aristocratic and vain. Thus handicapped, he met the war crisis without adequate support in public opinion. Disposed in advance to be discontented, the people of Ohio were unable for a time to appreciate the energy and wisdom with which he performed his duties. Regarding the Ohio River as an unsafe line of defense for his state, Dennison dispatched McClellan with state troops to aid the loyal citizens of western Virginia in driving out the Confederates. He advocated a similar campaign in Kentucky, but the Federal government preferred to respect the state's neutrality. As a means of preventing the transportation of war supplies and war news without his approval, he practically assumed control of the railways, telegraph lines, and express companies at the outset of hostilities; and against the advice of his attorney-general, he used money refunded by the Federal government on account of state military expenditures without turning it into the treasury for reappropriation. Many complaints thus arose, not without some justification, in spite of the fact that he had with extraordinary promptness succeeded in placing in the field more than the state's quota of the troops called for by the Federal government. As a war governor, Dennison proved unpopular, and the party leaders did not venture to renominate him in 1861. Moreover, they felt the necessity of uniting with the War Democrats, and effected this purpose by supporting David Tod. Dennison accepted the situation without any show of personal feeling, and continued to give loyal support to his party. Governor Tod, in particular, constantly sought his advice and aid.

In 1864, Dennison acted as chairman of the Republican National Convention, and in the same year was appointed postmaster-general by Lincoln, which office he held until 1866, when he resigned it on account of dissatisfaction with President Johnson's course. In 1872 he was mentioned for the vice-presidential nomination, and in 1880 was defeated by Garfield for the Republican nomination as United States senator. In the same year he was chairman of the Sherman Committee in Ohio, and leader of his forces in the national convention. It is thought that had Grant been nominated, Dennison might have won the vice-presidency.

Notwithstanding his prominence in political affairs, Dennison was primarily a business man. Soon after his admission to the bar he had married the daughter of William Neil of Columbus, a promoter of stage transportation, and had settled in that city. In the early fifties he became president of the Exchange Bank, member of the city council, and organizer of the Franklin County Agricultural Society. In the dawning era of the railway, he was a pioneer promoter of the new type of transportation, leading in the organization, especially, of the Hocking Valley and Columbus & Xenia railroads. An enterprise of another type which he was influential in establishing was the Columbus Rolling Mills. By such ventures, notwithstanding heavy losses in the panic of 1873, he acquired a considerable fortune. To the end of his life, mostly on account of his reserved manner, few knew him well. On the street he spoke only to old and intimate friends. Yet no man knew better how to treat his fellows in parlor or office, and never, intentionally, did he mistreat friend or foe (Cincinnati Enquirer, June 16, 1882). He died in Columbus after a period of invalidism lasting about eighteen months.

[Most sketches of Dennison are based on Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War (1868), I, 1017-22, and index. See also E. O. Randall and D. V. Ryan, History of Ohio (1912), IV, Passim; Ohio Archeology and History Society Pubs., I, 1-23; IV, 444; IX, 149; Harper's Weekly, January 28, 1865; Ohio State Journal and Cincinnati Enquirer, June 16, 1882. The best source for the years of Dennison's governorship is his message of January 6, 1862, which includes documents.]

H. C. H.

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume II, p. 142:

DENNISON, William, war governor of Ohio, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 23 November, 1815; died in Columbus, 15 June, 1882. His father was a prosperous business man, and had him prepared for college in the best schools of Cincinnati. He was graduated at Miami in 1835, studied law in Cincinnati, under the direction of Nathaniel Pendleton and Stephen Fales, and practised in Columbus until 1848, in which year he was chosen to the state legislature. About this period Mr. Dennison became interested in banking and in railroad affairs, and was president of the Exchange bank and president of the Columbus and Xenia railroad company. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first National convention of the Republican party. He was chosen governor of Ohio in 1860 by the Republicans, and delivered his first message to the general assembly in 1861. At his suggestion the legislature voted $3,000,000 to protect the state “from invasion and insurrection,” and conferred power upon the executive to raise troops. Governor Dennison was an anti-slavery man and an ardent admirer of President Lincoln. In response to his call for 11,000 troops, he offered 30,000, sending agents to Washington to urge their acceptance. He took possession of the telegraph lines and railroads in the name of the state, and seized money in transitu from Washington to Ohio, which he gave to the quartermaster-general to clothe and equip soldiers. Governor Dennison was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1864, and was elected chairman. He was appointed by President Lincoln postmaster-general in 1864, and continued in that office, under President Johnson, until his resignation in 1866. Governor Dennison was a member of the National Republican convention at Chicago in 1880, and was leader of the friends of Senator John Sherman during the struggle for the nomination. He was also a candidate for senator in that year. He contributed largely to Dennison college, Granville, Ohio. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 142.



DIXON, James, 1814-1873, lawyer. Republican U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator representing Connecticut. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 186; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, pp. 328-329; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 6, p. 646; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, pp. 328-329:

DIXON, JAMES (August 5, 1814-March 27, 1873), congressman, was born in Enfield, Connecticut, the son of William and Mary (Field) Dixon. He prepared for college in the neighboring town of Ellington, and entered Williams at the age of sixteen, graduating with the class of 1834. Soon afterward he began the study of law under his father, and on being admitted to the bar, began practise in his home town, Enfield. In 1839 he moved to Hartford, and was taken into partnership with W. W. Ellsworth. On October 1 of the following year Dixon married Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend Jonathan Cogswell, professor of ecclesiastical history in the Theological Institute at East Windsor, Connecticut. His political career began in 1837, when at the age of twenty-three he was sent to the state legislature as a representative from Enfield. He was reelected the following year. After 1839 he became a leader of the Whig party in Hartford. In 1844 he served another term as state legislator. A year later he was sent to Congress, serving until 1849. In Congress he was a conservative Whig. His speeches in the House followed accepted lines of Whig policy. In 1846 he spoke against the reduction of import duties. The point at issue was, he declared, whether this country should employ its own labor to supply its wants, or give occupation to foreign workmen. The laboring classes, he asserted, desired a protective tariff (Congressional Globe, 29 Congress, I Session, App., pp. 1061 ff.). He spoke several times on the important question of the Mexican War. In 1847 he energetically supported the Wilmot Proviso (Ibid., 29 Congress, 2 Session, App., pp. 332 ff.). Later he upheld the Whig point of view that the war had been unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the president (Ibid., 30 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 227 ff.). Returning to Hartford from Congress, he resumed law practise, and was also for some years president of the Hartford Life Insurance Company. In 1854 he served a term as senator in the state legislature. Two years later he was elected to the United States Senate, where he remained until 1869, throughout the trying period of the Civil War, and the early years of Reconstruction. In the Senate, in 1859, he made a strong speech against the proposed acquisition of Cuba, on the ground that the matter was a Democratic party scheme for the purpose of furthering slavery interests (Ibid., 35 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 1335 ff.). Dixon was, of course, a loyal supporter of the Union cause during the Civil War. After the assassination of Lincoln, he became an ardent supporter of President Johnson, partly because of a desire for lenient treatment of the Southern states, and thus incurred the enmity of the radical Republicans. Having, therefore, no chance of receiving the Republican nomination for a third senatorial term, he stood for election in 1868 as a Democrat, but was defeated. In 1869, declining appointment as minister to Russia, he retired to private life, residing in Hartford, and being in rather feeble health until his death in 1873. Mrs. Dixon had died two years previously.

Outside of his political life, Dixon was something of a literary man, with a taste for poetry. He wrote several sonnets, which were published in the New England Magazine, and the Connecticut Courant. The poems are rather sweet and musical, although very amateurish. In public affairs, his attitude was thoroughly conservative. His political career was guided by ideals of abstract philosophy rather than by considerations of a purely practical, or temporary character. He was survived in 1873 by four children.

[The best source is The Harvey Book (1899), a genealogy. Supplementary details may be found in the Memorial History of Hartford County (2 volumes, 1886), ed. by J. H. Trumbull; Commemorative Biography Record of Hartford County, Connecticut (1901); Biography Dir. American Congress (1928); and in an obituary notice in the Hartford Courant, March 28, 1873. A few of Dixon's poems were published in The Poets of Connecticut (1843), by C. W. Everest.]

J.M.M.

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume II, p. 186:

DIXON, James, senator, born in Enfield, Connecticut, 5 August, 1814; died in Hartford, 27 March, 1873. He was graduated at Williams with distinction in 1834, studied law in his father's office, and began practice in Enfield, but soon rose to such eminence at the bar that he removed to Hartford, and there formed a partnership with Judge William W. Ellsworth. Early combining with his legal practice an active interest in public affairs, he was elected to the popular branch of the Connecticut legislature in 1837 and 1838, and again in 1844. In 1840 he married Elizabeth L., daughter of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Cogswell, professor in the Connecticut theological institute. Mr. Dixon at an early date had become the recognized leader of the Whig party in the Hartford congressional district, and was chosen in 1845 a member of the U. S. house of representatives. He was re-elected in 1847, and was distinguished in that difficult arena alike for his power as a debater and for an amenity of bearing that extorted the respect of political opponents even in the turbulent times following the Mexican war, and the exasperations of the sectional debate precipitated by the “Wilmot Proviso.” Retiring from congress in 1849, he was in that year elected from Hartford to a seat in the Connecticut senate, and, having been re-elected in 1854, was chosen president of that body, but declined the honor, because the floor seemed to offer a better field for usefulness. During the same year he was made president of the Whig state convention, and, having now reached a position of commanding influence, he was in 1857 elected U. S. senator, and participated in all the parliamentary debates of the epoch that preceded the civil war. He was remarkable among his colleagues in the senate for the tenacity with which he adhered to his political principles, and for the clear presage with which he grasped the drift of events. Six years afterward, in the midst of the civil war, he was re-elected senator with a unanimity that had had no precedent in the annals of Connecticut. During his service in the senate he was an active member of the committee on manufactures, and during his last term was at one time appointed chairman of three important committees. While making his residence in Washington the seat of an elegant hospitality, he was remarkable for the assiduity with which he followed the public business of the senate, and for the eloquence that he brought to the discussion of grave public questions as they successively arose before, during, and after the civil war. Among his more notable speeches was one delivered 25 June, 1862, on the constitutional status created by the so-called acts of secession—a speech that is known to have commanded the express admiration of President Lincoln, as embodying what he held to be the true theory of the war in the light of the constitution and of public law. To the principles expounded in that speech Mr. Dixon steadfastly adhered during the administration alike of President Lincoln and of his successor. In the impeachment trial of President Johnson he was numbered among the Republican senators who voted against the sufficiency of the articles, and from that date he participated no longer in the councils of the Republican party. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 186.



DIXON, Nathan Fellows, born 1812, Lawyer. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island. Member of 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 187; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume II, p. 187:

DIXON, Nathan Fellows, lawyer, born in Westerly, Rhode Island, 1 May, 1812; died there, 11 April, 1881, was graduated at Brown in 1833, attended the law-schools at New Haven and Cambridge, and practised his profession in Connecticut and Rhode Island from 1840 till 1849. He was elected to congress from Rhode Island in 1849, and was one of the governor's council appointed by the general assembly during the Dorr troubles of 1842. In 1844 he was a presidential elector, and in 1851 was elected as a Whig to the general assembly of his state, where, with the exception of two years, he held office until 1859. In 1863 he went to congress as a Republican, and served as a member of the committee on commerce. He was a member of the 39th, 40th, and 41st congresses, and declined re-election in 1870. He, however, resumed his service in the general assembly, being elected successively from 1872 till 1877. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 187.



DRAKE, CHARLES DANIEL (April 11, 1811-April 1, 1892), lawyer, jurist, United States senator, from 1861 to 1863 was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation.

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 425-426)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 425-426:

DRAKE, CHARLES DANIEL (April 11, 1811-April 1, 1892), lawyer, jurist, United States senator,
was the son of Dr. Daniel Drake [q.v.] and Harriet Sisson. The boy received cultural and literary training in his home, supplemented by academic instruction in Kentucky and Cincinnati schools. In 1827 he entered the naval academy at Annapolis where he remained for three years, resigning because of his sudden decision to study law. Arriving at St. Louis in 1834, he entered the practise of law, but was not a recognized leader of the local bar. Following a brief residence in Cincinnati, he returned in 1850 to St. Louis and shortly became active in politics. In the confused and chaotic political situation of the fifties he appeared, successively, as a Whig, a Know-Nothing, and a Democrat. He was elected as a Democrat to fill a vacancy in the legislature in 1859 and served out the term. In the critical campaign of 1860, Drake supported Douglas for president and the proslavery candidate, C. F. Jackson, for governor. He opposed secession but was not active in the spectacular events of the spring and summer of 1861 which culminated in the military defeat and political elimination of the disloyalists and assured the ultimate success of the Unionist cause. Early in the war, however, he became a leader in the attack on slavery as a legalized institution, an issue which to most Missouri leaders had been distinctly secondary to the preservation of the Union. Drake energetically led the radical or "charcoal" wing of the Unionist party, but from 1861 to 1863 was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation; the conservatives, led by Governor Gamble and supported by Lincoln, maintaining control of the situation. By 1863 the radical faction had become a distinct group, well organized under Drake and with a definite program, including immediate emancipation, a new constitution, and a system of drastic disfranchisement (Proceedings of the Missouri State Convention Held in Jefferson, City, June, 1863). The Radicals increased in strength and were successful in securing the authorization of a constitutional convention. In this body Drake, the vice-president, was easily the most active and conspicuous member. He was the directing force in the formation of the new constitution and the author of the sections dealing with the elective franchise (Journal of the Missouri State Convention, Held at the City of St. Louis, January 6-April10, 1865). He was peculiarly adapted to this position, for, as Carl Schurz wrote, "in politics he was inexorable ... most of the members of his party, especially in the country districts, stood much in awe of him" (Reminiscences, Volume III, 1908, p. 294). So pervasive and masterful was his influence that the adopted constitution became known as the "Drake constitution." The Radicals maintained absolute control of the state from 1865 to 1871, with Drake as their leader.

Never personally popular, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1867 as a recognition and reward for his services to his party. He took his stand with Morton, Wilson, and other extreme Radicals, in enthusiastic support of the Reconstruction measures, which permitted him to give full play to his dogmatism and intolerance. He regarded the wide-spread political and social disorder in the South as a sinister expression of the rebellious spirit in the whites and of a fixed purpose to prevent by violence the operation of the Republican party in the reconstructed states. He acted in accordance with the view that he was "a representative of radical radicalism"; and supported with obvious enthusiasm the Reconstruction legislation of 1867-70 (Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, l Session, pp. 41, 99, 109, 356). He regarded the Civil War as a social conflict, the South as a conquered province, and introduced proposals so radical that even his Republican colleagues refused to support them (Ibid., pp. 2,600, 3,920). In the trial of Johnson and in the consideration of the Fifteenth Amendment, Drake took an active part. In the meantime, his dictatorship of the Radical party in Missouri had been questioned, then successfully challenged, by the election of Carl Schurz [q.v.] to the Senate in 1869, despite Drake's bitter opposition. The factional division thus created between radicals and liberals came to a decisive test in the state campaign of 1870, where a combination of bolting liberals and Democrats triumphantly carried the state, and so amended the constitution as to end the various discriminations. With the passing of his leadership and almost of his party, Drake's position became precarious. He was unwilling and unable to adjust himself to the changed conditions, and realized that the Democrats would shortly regain control of Missouri. He accepted, therefore, from Grant in December 1870 the appointment as chief justice of the United States Court of Claims, and announced his definite withdrawal from politics. He served with distinction until his retirement in 1885. During his latter years Drake abandoned many of his former extreme views.

[Drake's Autobiography, MS., is useful for his early life, but disappointing for his political career. His views on the issues of the Civil War are in Union and Anti-Slavery Speeches (1864). His rise as a leader of the Missouri radicals is traced in the Missouri Democrat, 1863-71. A comprehensive account of that period is T. S. Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 1865-1871 (1926).]

T.S.B.

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.