F: Fessenden through French

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

FESSENDEN, William Pitt, 1806-1869, lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Elected to Congress in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party opposing slavery. Moved to repeal rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions before Congress. Strong leader in Congress opposing slavery. Elected to the Senate in 1854. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Prominent leader of the anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate. As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Father was abolitionist Samuel Fessenden.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 368; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 861; 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. 2, p. 368:

FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT (October 16, 1806-September 8, 1869), lawyer, politician, financier, was the son of Samuel Fessenden and Ruth Greene, and a descendant of Nicholas Fessenden who came to America in the seventeenth century and settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts He was born out of wedlock at Boscawen, New Hampshire, and spent his early years in the home of his grandparents at Fryeburg, Maine, but when his father married in 1813 he became a member of the new household. He appears to have been a precocious boy and his entrance to college was delayed for some time on account of his extreme youth. He graduated from Bowdoin College, nevertheless, in 1823, although his diploma was withheld for a year on the ground that he had been "repeatedly guilty of profane swearing" and had "indicated a disorganizing spirit" and that "his general character and the bad influence of his example" called for punishment. Fessenden himself denied that he had been guilty of some of the alleged offenses. He was destined to receive the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Bowdoin in 1858 and to be a member of the governing boards of the college for the last twenty-six years of his life.

After graduation he studied law, with some interruptions, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. After two years at Bridgton he moved to Portland and except for a year in Bangor, maintained a residence there for the rest of his life. After his return from Bridgton he made his first appearance in public office when in 1831 he was elected to the legislature on the anti-Jackson ticket. He was engaged to Ellen, sister of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and her death before their marriage was a great blow to him. On April 23, 1832, he married Ellen Maria Deering, daughter of James Deering, a prominent Portland merchant. In 1835 he formed a partnership with William Willis which lasted until his election to the United States Senate almost twenty years later. He had by 1835 established a reputation as one of the able lawyers of the state. In a few years he was considered by many the equal of his father, then the leader of the Maine bar, against whom he frequently appeared in important litigation. He was active in the Whig party and in 1837 by special invitation accompanied Daniel Webster on a tour of several months in the western states. He was for many years on cordial terms with the great Whig leader, who had been his godfather in 1806, and with his family, but his letters show that he had some definite reservations as to Webster's political conduct and the chapter closed with Fessenden in opposition to his nomination for the presidency at the Whig convention of 1852.

In 1839 he was elected to another term in the Maine legislature, being a member of the judiciary committee and assisting in a revision of the statutes. The following year he was elected to Congress, where he remained a single term. His two years in the lower house were, naturally enough, without special distinction but some of his remarks in debate seem to have drawn favorable attention. His letters show that this first experience in Washington gave him certain unfavorable impressions of public life and participants in it, which he retained to the end. Unlike his abolitionist father, he was in the beginning conservative on the slavery issue, but a view of the situation at Washington aroused his contempt for "the mean subserviency of these northern hirelings" (Fessenden, post, I, 23), and in another letter he expressed admiration of John Quincy Adams for "his indomitable spirit and the uprighteousness of his soul." From that time on his hostility to the institution grew steadily and the following decade saw him among the active organizers of the new Republican party.

For twelve years following his retirement from Congress he held no important public office although he served two terms in the legislature in 1845-46 and 1853-54, was active in Whig party councils, and was several times an unsuccessful candidate for the national Senate and House. The growth of anti-slavery sentiment in Maine was decidedly to his advantage and on January 4, 1854, an anti-slavery combination in the legislature elected him to the United States Senate. He was sworn in on February 23, and on March 3 delivered the first great speech of his senatorial career, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill (Congressional Globe, 33 Congress, l Session, App., pp. 319- 24). For the next fifteen years he was one of the dominant figures in national affairs.

In 1857 he was assigned to the finance committee which, under existing rules, then handled both revenue and appropriation bills in the upper house. He had approximately ten years' service in the committee, more than half of this period as chairman, and, due to the responsibilities entailed by the Civil War, earned a permanent place among American public financiers. In 1857, when his most important work began, he suffered a severe loss in the death of his wife and his own health became permanently impaired. He is reported to have been one of the numerous victims of the mysterious epidemic said to have originated in the National Hotel. Thereafter he was inclined to be morose and unsociable in his habits and given to displays of irritability which would have been ruinous to any one but a man of commanding ability and high character. With a few friends, however, he was always on the best of terms and his letters to members of his family are hard to reconcile with his reputation for harshness and austerity. His constant references to his garden in Portland, or to fly-fishing on Maine trout streams, disclose a very different personality from the one appearing in speeches on the Morrill tariff, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment.

As a leader of the opposition to the Buchanan administration he advanced steadily in prestige and he was now regarded as one of the greatest debaters who had yet appeared in Congress. Contemporaries sometimes found it hard to realize that a man of his slight physique, poor health, and unobtrusive manners was nevertheless one of the greatest intellectual forces in the government. In 1859 he was elected for a six-year term and was thus assured of a full share in the opportunities and responsibilities of the Civil War. "Let them stand firm like men and not tremble and shake before rebellion," he wrote when the final break impended, and his own conduct justified such advice.

When the Thirty-seventh Congress met in July 1861, he became chairman of the finance committee and carried a tremendous burden of work and responsibility in putting the finances of the country on a war footing. He did a great deal of the preliminary work in preparing bills and was in charge of their passage on the floor of the Senate. His reputation as a debater is seen to be well deserved by an examination of the debates on the great revenue and appropriation measures of the war period. His quick temper is equally apparent and even with the lapse of years the rasp of some of his comments can still be felt. He consistently tried, apparently, to confine expenditures to the legitimate outlays necessitated by the war, to avoid dangerous and wasteful precedents, to follow strictly the regular rules of procedure, and, as far as possible in view of extraordinary needs, to be economical and businesslike. "it is time for us to begin to think a little more about the money" he declared on one occasion early in the war, "the event of this war depends upon whether we can support it or not" (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1038). Such a course inevitably meant opposition to a variety of personal and sectional projects and stirred the wrath of the proponents of a swarm of expensive, futile, but popular measures growing out of wartime conditions.

In general Fessenden supported: Secretary Chase's financial program and did much to secure its adoption by Congress. In the very important matter of the legal-tender notes, resorted to in 1862, he expressed disapproval and voted for the unsuccessful Collamer amendment striking this feature from the bill. His speech on the evils of irredeemable paper and the dangers of inflation is a classic on the subject (Ibid., pp. 762-67). He admitted, however, that the situation was without a parallel in the history of the United States and afterward stated that the legal tenders were probably the only resource available at the time. Later on, as secretary of the treasury, he stood firm against further inflation, and when the war was over assumed the offensive against greenback heresies. In one matter he had a clearer vision than most of his colleagues or Secretary Chase himself, namely, the need of a drastic taxing program, which was too long delayed by political cowardice and inertia. At the first war session he declared himself in favor of an income tax as best calculated to meet current needs (Ibid., 37 Congress, l Session, p.255).

On June 29, 1864, Secretary Chase resigned and President Lincoln promptly selected Fessenden as his successor, sending the nomination to the Senate while Fessenden himself was seeking a White House appointment to recommend Hugh McCulloch. He accepted the post reluctantly and with a definite understanding that he would be relieved as soon as the situation permitted. Faced at the beginning with an almost empty treasury, unpaid bills, including the army's pay, maturing loans, inadequate revenue, and countless difficulties in detail, he was able during his brief tenure to meet emergencies and to turn the department over to his successor in relatively sound condition. He raised the interest rate on government bonds and through the sales organization of Jay Cooke marketed another great loan, standing firmly against any further inflation of the currency. He had been reelected to the Senate for a third term on January 5, 1865, and his resignation as secretary took effect on March 3.

With the prestige of the preceding years behind him Fessenden was certain to take an outstanding part in Reconstruction. As Lincoln had said of him he was "a Radical without the petulant and vicious fretfulness of many Radicals" (John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, 1890, IX, 100). His opposition to some features of the Confiscation Act, his refusal to be stampeded into an attempt to expel Senator Garrett Davis who had written some foolish resolutions which were alleged to be treasonable, and similar incidents, had tended to differentiate his position from that of Sumner, Wade, and other leaders. As a matter of fact, however, in his views as to policy toward the Southern states, he was, as Carl Schurz says, "in point of principle not far apart from Mr. Stevens" (The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, III, 1908, p. 219). On December 21, 1865, he became chairman of the famous joint committee on Reconstruction and its report, largely his personal work, is one of the great state papers in American history. His views of Reconstruction might well be summarized by his statement in reply to President Johnson's attack on the committee. He said the South had been subdued under the laws of war and, "there was nothing better established than the principle that the conquerors had the power to change the form of government, to punish, to exact security, and take entire charge of the conquered people" (Fessenden, post, II, 9-10).He was equally emphatic that Reconstruction was a function of Congress and not of the President.

Fessenden's feeling toward the latter was made perfectly clear. He had little respect for him as a man and thoroughly disapproved of his policies and official conduct. He believed, however, that the President had not been guilty of any impeachable offenses and that the attempt to apply the remedy of impeachment would permanently lower the standards of American politics and government. He declined to vote on the Tenure of Office Act, but said that he disapproved of it on principle and that it would be productive of great evil. By 1867 he was definitely aligned with the conservatives. When impeachment finally came his position as a majority leader was especially difficult. His own view, stated again and again, was that the impeachment trial was a judicial process, not the summary removal of an unpopular and ill-advised executive. To a relative he wrote, "If he was impeached for general cussedness, there would be no difficulty in the case. That, however, is not the question to be tried" (Fessenden, post, II, 184). To Neal Dow, who had written him that Maine expected him to vote for conviction, he replied in terms worthy of Edmund Burke: "I wish you, my dear sir, and all others my friends and constituents, to understand that ... I, not they, have solemnly sworn to do impartial justice .... The opinions and wishes of my party friends ought not to have a feather's weight with me in coming to a conclusion" (Ibid., II, 187-88). The official reasons for his vote of "not guilty" are found in the lengthy opinion which he filed in the official record (Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 452-57).

Fessenden undoubtedly reached the high point of his career by this vote, but it brought a tremendous storm of partisan denunciation which he faced courageously and in confidence that his course would eventually be justified by events. Throughout his senatorial career he showed himself indifferent to public opposition or acclaim, and he had already taken the unpopular side on many less conspicuous issues. As the excitement of the trial passed away, the country began to appreciate his courage and wisdom and he lived long enough to realize that the tide was turning. Whether he could have secured a reelection is problematical as his death occurred before the attitude of the majority in the Maine legislature was definitely settled. His ability and strength of character, had he survived and been returned to the Senate for another term, would have been of inestimable value in the following decade. As it was, even if he appears at times to have interpreted America in terms of ledgers, balance sheets, and Supreme Court decisions, and if he lacked the sympathetic understanding of the feelings and motives of the common man which characterized Lincoln, he has a secure place among the great leaders of the Civil War era when courage in governmental circles was not always as much in evidence as on the battlefield.

[Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden, by his son Francis Fessenden (2 volumes, 1907), is the best source of information. While defective in arrangement and methods of presentation it gives a fair and comprehensive survey of his activities and contains personal correspondence and other material not available in official records. Brief sketches also occur in the following: G. H. Preble, "William Pitt Fessenden," New-England. History and Genealogical Register, April 1871; A. F. Moulton, Memorials of Maine (1916); L. C. Hatch, Maine: A History, volume II (1919), and History of Bowdoin College (1927).]

W.A.R.
R.G.C-I

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444:

FESSENDEN, William Pitt, senator, born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, 16 October, 1806; died in Portland, Maine, 8 September, 1869, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1823, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. He practised law first in Bridgeton, a year in Bangor, and afterward in Portland, Maine. He was a member of the legislature of that state in 1832, and its leading debater. He refused nominations to congress in 1831 and in 1838, and served in the legislature again in 1840, becoming chairman of the house committee to revise the statutes of the state. He was elected to congress as a Whig in 1840, serving one term, during which time he moved the repeal of the rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions, and spoke upon the loan and bankrupt bills, and the army. He gave his attention wholly to his law business till he was again in the legislature in 1845-'6. He acquired a national reputation as a lawyer and an anti-slavery Whig, and in 1849 prosecuted before the supreme court an appeal from an adverse decision of Judge Story, and gained a reversal by an argument which Daniel Webster pronounced the best he had heard in twenty years. He was again in the legislature in 1853 and 1854, when his strong anti-slavery principles caused his election to the U. S. senate by the vote of the Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats. Taking his seat in February, 1854, he made, a week afterward, an electric speech against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which placed him in the front rank of the senate. He took a leading part in the formation of the Republican party, and from 1854 till 1860 was one of the ablest opponents of the pro-slavery measures of the Democratic administrations. His speech on the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, in 1856, received the highest praise, and in 1858 his speech on the Lecompton constitution of Kansas, and his criticisms of the opinion of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, were considered the ablest discussion of those topics. He was re-elected to the senate in 1859 without the formality of a nomination. In 1861 he was a member of the Peace congress. By the secession of the southern senators the Republicans acquired control of the senate, and placed Mr. Fessenden at the head of the finance committee. During the civil war he was the most conspicuous senator in sustaining the national credit. He opposed the legal-tender act as unnecessary and unjust. As chairman of the finance committee, Mr. Fessenden prepared and carried through the senate all measures relating to revenue, taxation, and appropriations, and, as declared by Mr. Sumner, was “in the financial field all that our best generals were in arms.” When Sec. Chase resigned in 1864, Mr. Fessenden was called by the unanimous appeal of the nation to the head of the treasury. It was the darkest hour of our national finances. Sec. Chase had just withdrawn a loan from the market for want of acceptable bids; the capacity of the country to lend seemed exhausted. The currency had been enormously inflated, and gold was at 280. Mr. Fessenden refused the office, but at last accepted in obedience to the universal public pressure. When his acceptance became known, gold fell to 225, with no bidders. He declared that no more currency should be issued, and, making an appeal to the people, he prepared and put upon the market the seven-thirty loan, which proved a triumphant success. This loan was in the form of bonds bearing interest at the rate of 7·30 per cent., which were issued in denominations as low as $50, so that people of moderate means could take them. He also framed and recommended the measures, adopted by congress, which permitted the subsequent consolidation and funding of the government loans into the four and four-and-a-half per cent bonds. The financial situation becoming favorable, Mr. Fessenden, in accordance with his expressed intention, resigned the secretaryship in 1865 to return to the senate, to which he had now for the third time been elected. He was again made chairman of the finance committee, and was also appointed chairman of the joint committee on reconstruction, and wrote its celebrated report, pronounced one of the ablest state papers ever submitted to congress. It vindicated the power of congress over the rebellious states, showed their relations to the government under the constitution and the law of nations, and recommended the constitutional safeguards made necessary by the rebellion. Mr. Fessenden was now the acknowledged leader in the senate of the Republicans, when he imperilled his party standing by opposing the impeachment of President Johnson in 1868. He gave his reasons for voting “not guilty” upon the articles, and was subjected to a storm of detraction from his own party such as public men have rarely met. His last service was in 1869, and his last speech was upon the bill to strengthen the public credit. He advocated the payment of the principal of the public debt in gold, and opposed the notion that it might lawfully be paid in depreciated greenbacks. His public character was described as of the highest type of patriotism, courage, integrity, and disinterestedness, while his personal character was beyond reproach. He was noted for his swiftness of retort. He was a member of the Whig national conventions that nominated Harrison (1840), Taylor (1848), and Scott (1852). For several years he was a regent of the Smithsonian institution. He received the degree of LL.D. from Bowdoin in 1858, and from Harvard in 1864. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444.



FISH, HAMILTON (August 3, 1808-September 6, 1893), statesman. His attitude on the main national question of the time, as indicated by the declarations in his annual messages was against the opening of California and New Mexico to slavery.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, pp. 397-400:

FISH, HAMILTON (August 3, 1808-September 6, 1893), statesman, the son of Nicholas [q.v.] and Elizabeth (Stuyvesant) Fish, was born in New York and received his primary education in the private school of M. Bancel. He graduated with highest honors from Columbia College in 1827 and, after studying law in the office of Peter A. Jay for three years, was admitted to the bar and formed a partnership with William B. Lawrence, editor of Wheaton's Elements of International Law. True to the Federalist principles of his father, he adhered to the Whig party and became its candidate for the state assembly in 1834, failing to carry his Democratic district. His next candidacy, for Congress in 1842, was successful, but he was not returned for another term. He was defeated also in 1846 for the lieutenant-governorship of th e state by the opposition of the "anti-renters," whose attacks on the patroons' land-leasing system he had denounced. Next year, however, he was chosen for the office in a special election, and in 1848 he was elected governor. His administration was signalized by the passage of acts establishing free schools throughout the state and by extensions of the canal system. His attitude on the main national question of the time, as indicated by the declarations in his annual messages against the opening of California and New Mexico to slavery, was satisfactory enough to permit his selection for the treasury post in a reconstruction of the cabinet planned by President Taylor but cut off by his death (Autobiography of Thurlow Weed, 1883, p. 591).

Fish was not renominated for governor, but was supported by the Seward-Weed Whigs for the United States Senate in 1851. A deadlock in the legislature lasting over two months, caused by one Whig senator's dissatisfaction with his refusal to commit himself to the compromise measures of 1850, was only broken in his favor by a vote taken in the absence of two Democrats. In the Senate he achieved no special distinction. He followed his senior colleague, Seward, and his friend, Sumner, in their opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, though he was not disposed to make slavery a dominant issue in politics. Regretting the demise of the Whig party, he finally joined the Republican as the one according most nearly with his principles, but did not enter very energetically into its earlier activities. After the expiration of his term as senator he took his family to Europe for a stay of two years. By the time he returned his convictions had crystallized sufficiently to warrant him in working for Lincoln's election and in advising the outgoing administration to adopt a firm policy toward South Carolina and the seceding states. He was concerned in the outfitting of the Star of the West for supplying Fort Sumter, and expressed to General Scott the opinion that the firing on the ship meant war. During the Civil War he served on the Union defense committee of his state and as a commissioner of the federal government for the relief of prisoners, contributing to the ultimate negotiation of the exchange agreement.

He had no special political or personal claim to a place in Grant's cabinet, although their acquaintanceship had extended to his entertainment of the General in his home. He had no desire for office and was unresponsive to suggestions of a ministerial post. When, after encountering several difficulties in early appointments, the President offered him the post of secretary of state, he promptly declined by telegraph, but followed his refusal by a reluctant acceptance through a personal mission of General Babcock (New York Tribune, January 25, 1879). He was commissioned March 11, 1869. Intending to serve only until the administration had become stabilized, he remained in office through both of Grant's terms, despite repeated offers of resignation. He became a pillar of the administration and an influence for moderation in all its policies. In his own department he was an efficient executive, introducing reforms in the organization of personnel and classification of records. He brought to bear upon his duties a calm and orderly legal mind, a generally cautious temperament, and a fund of patience in working toward his ends against discouraging odds.

Fish's conduct of foreign relations in general was greatly affected by the question of annexation of the revolution-torn Dominican Republic. He sanctioned a mission of General Babcock thither which, from an inquiry concerning the acquisition of a naval base at Samana Bay, developed into an irregular agreement with the government in power for annexation. Grant strongly favored the project, and Fish, though doubtful, authorized the negotiation of a formal treaty, concluded November 29, 1869, which failed of ratification by the Senate. Grant's attempt, in 1871, to put the measure through by joint resolution was likewise defeated, despite the removal of Senator Sumner, its powerful opponent, from his position as chairman of the foreign relations committee. The President's need of Fish's support in these efforts and his antipathy toward Sumner, which arose out of their failure, favored the success of the Secretary's policies in other fields, albeit the breach of Fish's friendship with Sumner, which he attempted vainly to avert, was a painful experience.

The most notable achievement of Fish's administration of his office was the settlement of the controversy with Great Britain over damages suffered by Northern commerce during the Civil War through the British government's conduct as a neutral. The central factor in this controversy was the havoc wrought by Confederate cruisers equipped or supplied in British ports; and, commemorating the most famous of these, the American demands became, as stated in the final treaty, "generically known as the 'Alabama claims.'" But behind these lay a mass of obscure grievances which in some minds extended to holding England's recognition of Confederate belligerency responsible for doubling the length of the war, with resulting liabilities which transcended monetary compensations and could only be extinguished by such a gesture as the cession of Canada. This view of the case was put, in part by implication, by Senator Sumner in the debate which led to rejection, in April 1869, of a convention concluded by the previous administration. Since the President inclined to the same view, Sumner's speech set the tone of Fish's official policy for nearly two years, as expressed in instructions to Motley, the minister in London, and conversations with Thornton, British minister at Washington

(Senate Executive Document 11, 41 Congress, 3 Session, pp. 2-5; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, III, 1873, 329-36; E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 1,893, IV, 409-rn, 414; Adams, post, pp. 156-57, 160). Informally, however, he let it be understood that he was disposed to accept much less drastic terms, and a personal exchange of views to this effect was begun with Sir John Rose, a Canadian commissioner in the confidence of the British government, in July 1869 (J. C. B. Davis, Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims, 1893, pp. 45-46). Not until November 1870, when Sumner's influence was waning through his opposition to the President's Dominican policy, did Fish intimate to the British minister the possibility of a settlement not including territorial compensation (Adams, post, p. 162). In January 1871 an understanding was reached through Rose for a joint high commission to arrange a settlement of the Alabama claims in connection with various questions regarding Canada at issue between the two governments boundaries, fishing rights, navigation, and trade (J. B. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States Has Been a Party, I, 1898, 523-31). Sumner's now categorically expressed opinion, that a definitive settlement could be based only on "the withdrawal of the British flag ... from this hemisphere," was brushed aside. His removal from his committee chairmanship took place before the resulting agreement reached the Senate for ratification, but he did not then oppose it.

The commissioners began their work in March and on May 8, 1871, signed the Treaty of Washington, providing for arbitration of the Alabama claims under a set of definitions of neutral duties which held a neutral power bound to "use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping" of belligerent cruisers in its ports. The arbitration conducted at Geneva encountered difficulties owing to the fact that, since the British government refused to admit in advance its neglect of these duties and its consequent liability, the American government refused to limit its claims, but put forward a number of indirect ones in addition to the damage directly inflicted by the Confederate cruisers. These were at last eliminated, in accordance with Fish's design, by the tribunal which, on September 14, 1872, rendered a decision on the direct claims against Great Britain, fixing the amount of damages at $15,500,000. A most disturbing controversy was thus honorably settled. Some of the Canadian questions dealt with in the treaty, such as fishing rights and arrangements regarding trade, dragged on; but the water boundary in the Strait of San Juan de Fuca was adjusted in favor of the United States by an arbitral decision of the German Emperor in October 1872.

A stubborn insurrection in Cuba gave rise to a set of problems which embarrassed Fish throughout his eight years in office, obliging him to press on the Spanish government the claims of Americans for reparation of injuries at the hands of local authorities and to respond to its complaints regarding filibustering activities in the United States. Efforts to persuade Spain to an accommodation with the rebels accompanied his exertions to defeat advocates of recognition of them as belligerents and of intervention in their favor. Fish was personally opposed to such recognition, but he had to keep the possibility of its expediency in mind. The President was disposed to favor recognition of belligerency. On August 19, 1869, during an absence from Washington and while Fish was in the midst of an earnest though futile correspondence with Spain over a plan of pacification based on Cuban independence and the abolition of slavery, he signed a proclamation of neutrality. Fish deferred promulgating this document and later received Grant's acknowledgment that it had been a mistake (Adams, post, p. 19). Largely because of Grant's need of his support in the policy of Dominican annexation, Fish persuaded the President to reverse his attitude and declare recognition of belligerency unjustified in his annual message of December 6. The same situation helped him to secure a still stronger special message on June 13, 1870, when the advocates of recognition attempted, unsuccessfully, to push through a joint resolution of Congress in its favor. Meanwhile the American government's efforts with Spain were met with fair promises of reforms and redress of grievances, of which the fulfilment continually fell short. The tension was somewhat relieved, however, by an agreement, reached February 11, 1871, for a joint commission at Washington to decide on American claims for damages.

The situation in Cuba, which remained unimproved, continued to present fresh difficulties, and Fish's instructions to Sickles, the minister at Madrid, had been displaying for a year a rising impatience with the Spanish government, when, in November 1873, a crisis arose which threatened to bring on hostilities. The steamer Virginius, under American registry and with a mainly American crew, but belonging to the Cuban revolutionary committee in New York and employed in its filibustering enterprises, was captured and taken into a Cuban port, where the Spanish authorities summarily executed the captain and fifty-three of the crew and passengers. In an ultimatum to the Spanish government of November 14, Fish demanded release of the ship and survivors, signal punishment of the culpable officials, and a salute to the American flag within twelve days under threat of a severance of diplomatic relations. Warlike feeling rose in both countries, and Sickles had actually asked for his passports, when, on November 27, Fish reached an understanding with the Spanish minister at Washington to dispense with the salute if his government was able to prove the illegality of the ship's registry. This condition was easily met. The critical phase of the affair lasted only a fortnight, but the questions of indemnities and punishment of the responsible officials dragged on as additions to the already numerous causes of friction with Spain.

A fresh start toward a general settlement was made with the appointment of Caleb Cushing as minister to Spain in February 1874. By holding up recognition of the new government of Alfonso XII until the Virginius indemnity claims were met, an award was secured, March II, 1875 (Department of State, Instructions, Spain, XVII, 177; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1875, Volume II). With this question disposed of, the way was opened for negotiations of a broader scope looking toward the independence or autonomy of Cuba. These were initiated by Fish's instruction to Cushing of November 5, 1875, which was to be read to the minister of foreign affairs. It pointed out the necessity of bringing about the pacification of Cuba if relations between the United States and Spain were to continue "even on their present footing"; otherwise, "it may be the duty of other governments to intervene." Copies of the instruction were sent for communication to the British and the principal Continental governments, inviting them to express similar views to Spain. This diplomatic campaign was upset by the transmission to Cushing, on November 15, of a Spanish note meeting by specific undertakings all the particular points raised in recent correspondence. Fish finally, in an instruction of March 1, 1876, reduced his suggestions regarding Cuban administration to reforms in the direction of self-government and the effective abolition of slavery. The Spanish government parried these by noncommittal replies while pouring into Cuba reinforcements which practically extinguished the insurrection by the end of the year. With the satisfaction of American claims by awards of the joint commission and the elimination of various other causes of complaint, the discussions over Cuba ended.

In the course of Fish's long tenure of office, many other problems of foreign relations came before the United States. The government assumed the protection of the interests of North German subjects in France during the Franco-Prussian War and vainly offered its good offices for peace and its counsel for a moderate settlement. Fish and the minister at Paris, E. B. Washburne, successfully confronted Bismarck in asserting the right to pass sealed dispatches through the German lines during the siege of the city. Fish's advice contributed to the attainment of an understanding between the belligerents which prevented the extension of hostilities into the Far East. Concerning America's own relations with China, Fish upheld rigidly the special position of American citizens under early treaties, and he pursued a policy of cooperation with the European governments in affirming and extending foreign rights and prestige. An attempt by an armed expedition to extort a convention from Korea on the treatment of shipwrecked sailors was unsuccessful. American interests in the Pacific area were greatly promoted by a treaty of commercial reciprocity with Hawaii in 1875, which virtually incorporated those islands into the economic system of the United States.

Two attempts were made by Fish to secure agreements for the construction of an interoceanic canal. The first was with Colombia for use of the Panama route, but the treaty signed at Bogota on January 26, 1870, was so amended by the Colombian Senate that the strategic value of the enterprise was destroyed and' the United States failed to ratify. The second attempt was made in negotiations at Washington with a special envoy of Nicaragua, in February 1877, but no agreement could be reached as to the status of a proposed neutral zone. Among other questions which occupied Fish's attention, but which were marked by no definite developments, were almost incessant troubles on the Mexican border, handled generally with tactful regard for Mexican susceptibilities, and a controversy with Great Britain over the principles of extradition, in which Fish upheld the view that, in the absence of definite provisions to the contrary, embodied in a convention, the charge brought in court need not be identical with that on which surrender was obtained. One of the unpleasant incidents of his official business was the recall at his demand of the Russian minister Catacazy, in 1871, for interference in the Alabama claims negotiation s and public abuse of the President.

After his retirement from office Fish did not again emerge from the private life of a gentleman of ample means and cultivated tastes. Not least, indeed, among his qualifications for the principal office he held was his eminently respectable personality, combining cordiality with dignity, which gave a tone of culture and refinement to an otherwise rather tawdry administration. He had married, on December 15, 1836, Julia Kean, descendant of William Livingston, first governor of New Jersey. She created for him a charming home life, and her graciousness and tact as a hostess effectively adorned the generous hospitality which made their house the social center of Washington and contributed notably to the smooth conduct of official business. They had eight children, three of them sons. Nicholas, the eldest, was for some years in the diplomatic service, finally resigning the legation in Belgium to devote himself to banking. Hamilton was private secretary to his father as secretary of state, member and speaker of the New York Assembly, assistant treasurer of the United States at New York, and member of the Sixty-first Congress. Stuyvesant [q.z.1.J became a financier and railway executive. Like his father, Fish played a prominent part in non-political civic and social affairs. For long periods of years he served as trustee of Columbia College and as president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was also a president of the Union League Club and of the New York Historical Society, besides taking an active part in other literary and philanthropic organizations and in the affairs of the Episcopal Church.

[C. F. Adams, Jr., Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers (1902), contains extracts from diaries and letters. See also A. E. Corning, Hamilton Fish (1918); Senator G. F. Edmunds, Proceedings of the Leg. of th e State of New York in Memory of Hon. Hamilton Fish, held ... April 5, 1894; J. V. Fuller, in American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy, with bibliographical note, Volume VII (1928); De A. S. Alexander, A Political History of the Slate of New York, II (1906); New York Tribune, J an. 25, 1879, September 8, 1893; New York Times, September 8, 1893.]

J. V.F.



FLETCHER, Calvin, 1798-1866, Indianapolis, Indiana, banker, farm owner, state legislator. Member of the Whig, Free Soil and, later, Republican parties. Supported colonization movement in Indiana. During Civil War, he promoted the organization of U.S. Colored Troops in Indiana.

(Diary of Calvin Fletcher)



FOOT, Solomon, 1802-1866, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator. Opposed war with Mexico. Opposed slavery and its extension into new territories. Founding member of the Republican Party. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Congressional Globe; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 495; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 498)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 495:

FOOT, Solomon, senator, born in Cornwall, Addison County, Vermont., 19 November, 1802; died in Washington. D. C, 28 March, 1866. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1820, was principal of Castleton, Vermont, seminary in 1826-'8, tutor in Vermont University in 1827,'and in 1828-31 held the chair of natural philosophy in the Vermont Academy of Medicine, Castleton. He was admitted to the bar in the latter year, and began practice in Rutland, where he lived until his death. He was a member of the legislature in 1833, 1830-'8, and 1847, speaker of the house in 1837-'8 and 1847, delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1830, and state attorney for Rutland in 1830-42. He was then elected to Congress as a Whig, and served from 1843 till 1847. He was an unsuccessful candidate for clerk of the house in 1849. He was then chosen U. S. Senator from Vermont, and served from 1851 till his death, becoming a Republican in 1854. He was chairman of important committees, and was president pro tempore of the Senate during a part of the 30th Congress and the whole of the 37th. Senator Foot was prominent in debate, and took an active part in the discussions on the admission of Kansas to the Union in 1858. He was chosen president of the Brunswick and Florida Railroad Company about 1854, and visited England to negotiate the bonds of the company. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 495.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, pp. 498-499:

FOOT, SOLOMON (November 19, 1802-March 28, 1866), lawyer, politician, son of Solomon and Betsey (Crossett) Foot, was born at Cornwall, Vt. His father, a physician, died while he was still a child, but in spite of many difficulties and privations he secured an education, graduating at Middlebury College in 1826. For five years following graduation he engaged in teaching, most of the time as principal of Castleton Seminary, interrupted by one year (1827-28) as tutor at the University of Vermont. He studied law in the meantime, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and established himself in practise at Rutland. Though an able lawyer his early and long continued activity in public affairs prevented his attaining real prominence at the bar. In 1833 he was elected to the legislature as representative of Rutland. He was reelected in 1835, 1837, 1838, and 1847, and in each of the last three terms served as speaker. In the latter capacity, declared Senator Poland, "he first displayed that almost wonderful aptitude and capacity as the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, which afterward made him so celebrated throughout the nation" (Congressional Globe, 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1908). He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1836 and prosecuting attorney of Rutland County from 1836 to 1842.

He was an active Whig and as such was elected to Congress in 1842, serving two terms until 1847 when he declined a renomination and returned to his legal practise. His service in the House was without special interest or distinction but he was strongly opposed to the Mexican policy of the administration and denounced the war which resulted. In 1850 he was elected to the United States Senate and served until his death sixteen years later, being at that time the senior member in point of continuous service. His opposition to the extension of slavery led him to join the new Republican organization when the Whig party finally disintegrated. During his first term in the Senate he also served for a year (1854-55) as president of the Brunswick & Florida Railroad Company, visiting England in connection with the sale of its securities and the purchase of material.

Foot was not distinguished as an orator and most of his remarks are brief and pointed interjections in the course of debate. His speech of March 20, 1858, on the proposed admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution (Congressional Globe, 35 Congress, 1 Session, App., pp. 153-58) shows, however, that he was capable of sustained argument and close reasoning, had he wished to devote himself to long set addresses. It was as a presiding officer that he appears to have made the deepest impression on his contemporaries. He was president pro tempore throughout most of the Thirty-sixth Congress and all of the Thirty-seventh, besides being often called on to preside when the regular incumbents were not available. "He was perhaps more frequently called to the ... chair than any other Senator," said J. B. Grinnell of Iowa, who also declares that his services had left a permanent impress on the parliamentary decorum and methods of the Senate (Congressional Globe, 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1924). In parliamentary law Charles Sumner testified, "he excelled and was master of us all." Fessenden, Reverdy Johnson, and others paid similar tribute to his fine presence, fairness, courage, and dignity in the chair as well as to the personal qualities which made him one of the most popular members of the upper chamber. When his death was announced, the splenetic Gideon Welles, never given to flattery of his associates, and usually suspicious of senators in particular, wrote in his diary (Diary of Gideon Welles, 19n, II, 466) that he had been a firm friend of the Navy Department, was "pater senatus and much loved and respected." His most notable committee service was rendered as chairman of the committee on public buildings and grounds, in which capacity he was able, in spite of the stringency of the Civil War, to push forward the completion of the Capitol. Judged by occasional remarks in the course of debate on appropriation bills, he appears to have had certain ideals as to the future development of the government property in Washington not altogether common at that time. He was twice married: July 9, 1839, to Emily Fay; and April 2, 1844, to Mary Ann (Hodges) Dana. He died in Washington, D. C.

[Geo. F. Edmunds, in Addresses Delivered before the Vt. Historical Society, October 16, 1866 (1866); N. Seaver, A Discourse delivered at the Funeral of Hon. Solomon Foot (1866); L. Matthews, History of the Town of Cornwall, Vt. (1862); N. Goodwin, The Foote Family (1849); G. W. Benedict, in Hours at Home (New York), July 1866; W. H. Crockett, Vermont, V (1923), 368-69; Proc. Vt. Historical Society for the Years 1919-1920 (1921); Daily Morning Chronicle (Washington, D. C.), March 29, 30, April 2, 1866; Rutland Daily Herald, March 29-April 2, 1866; Burlington Times, March 31, April 7, 1866; Vt. Watchman & State Journal (Montpelier), April 6, 1866.)

W.A.R.



FOSTER, Lafayette Sabine, 1806-1880, statesman, Connecticut State Representative, Mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, U.S. Senator 1854-1867, Republican Party, opposed to slavery. Was the editor of the Norwich " Republican," a Whig journal, in 1835, and in 1839 and 1840 was elected to the legislature. He was twice defeated as the Whig candidate for governor, and in 1854 was again sent to the assembly, chosen speaker, and elected to the U. S. Senate on 19 May, 1854, by the votes of the Whigs and Free-Soilers. Though opposed by conviction to slavery, he resisted the efforts to form a Free-Soil Party until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He delivered a notable speech in the Senate on 25 June, 1850, against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and opposed the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1858. He was a member of the Republican Party from its organization in 1856. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 512-513; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 553; Congressional Globe)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 512-513:

FOSTER, Lafayette Sabine, statesman, born in Franklin, Connecticut, 22 November, 1806: died in Norwich, Connecticut, 19 September, 1880. His father, Captain Daniel, was an officer of the Revolution, who was descended on his mother's side from Miles Standish, and served with distinction at the battles of White Plains, Stillwater, and Saratoga. The son earned the means for his education by teaching, was graduated with the first honors at Brown in 1828, studied law, and was admitted to the Bar at Centreville, Maryland, while conducting an academy there in 1830. He returned to Connecticut, completed his legal studies in the office of Calvin Goddard, who had been his first preceptor, was admitted to the Connecticut Bar in November, 1831, and opened an office in Hampton in 1833, but in 1834 settled at Norwich. He took an active interest in politics from the outset of his professional life, was the editor of the Norwich " Republican," a Whig journal, in 1835, and in 1839 and 1840 was elected to the legislature. He was again elected in 1846 and the two succeeding years, and was chosen speaker. In 1851 he received the degree of LL. D. from Brown University. In 1851-'2 he was mayor of Norwich. He was twice defeated as the Whig candidate for governor, and in 1854 was again sent to the assembly, chosen speaker, and elected to the U. S. Senate on 19 May, 1854, by the votes of the Whigs and Free-Soilers. Though opposed by conviction to slavery, he resisted the efforts to form a Free-Soil Party until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He delivered a notable speech in the Senate on 25 June, 1850, against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and opposed the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1858. He was a member of the Republican Party from its organization in 1856, and in 1860 was again elected to the Senate. In December, 1860, he spoke in approval of the Powell resolution to inquire into the distracted state of the country, though he was one of the few who at that time believed that the southern leaders would force a disruption of the Union, and was in favor of resisting the extension of slavery beyond the limits recognized in the constitution, even at the cost of Civil War. Mr. Foster was intimately connected with the administration, and was often a spokesman of Mr. Lincoln's views. On 11 March, 1861, he moved the expulsion of Senator Lewis T. Wigfall, of Texas. In 1863 he advocated an appropriation for the gradual manumission of slaves in Missouri. In 1864, on the question of the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, he spoke in favor of preserving the earlier law of 1793, and thereby incurred the reproaches of the radical members of his party. He also opposed the bill granting the voting franchise to colored citizens of the District of Columbia without an educational qualification. He served on the committees on Indian affairs and land claims, and was chairman of the committee on pensions, and during the Civil War of that on foreign relations. In 1865 he was chosen president of the Senate pro tempore. After Andrew Johnson became president, Mr. Foster was acting vice-president of the United States. During the subsequent recess he travelled on the plains as member of a special commission to investigate the condition of the Indians. His senatorial term of office expired in March, 1867, and he was succeeded by Benjamin F. Wade in the office of vice-president. On account of his moderate and conservative course in the Senate his re-election was opposed by a majority of the Republicans in the Connecticut Legislature, and he withdrew his name, though he was urged to stand as an independent candidate, and was assured of the support of the Democrats. He declined the professorship of law at Yale in 1869, but after his retirement from the bench in 1876 delivered a course of lectures on "Parliamentary Law and Methods of Legislation." In 1870 he again represented the town of Norwich in the assembly, and was chosen speaker. He resigned in June of that year in order to take his seat on the bench of the supreme court, having been elected by a nearly unanimous vote of both branches of the legislature. His most noteworthy opinion was that in the case of Kirtland against Hotchkiss, in which he differed from the decision of the majority of the court (afterward confirmed by the U. S. Supreme Court) in holding that railroad bonds could not be taxed by the state of Connecticut when the property mortgaged was situated in Illinois. In 1872 he joined the liberal Republicans and supported Horace Greeley as a candidate for the presidency. In 1874 he was defeated as a Democratic candidate for Congress. He was a judge of the Connecticut superior court from 1870 till 1876, when he was retired, having reached the age of seventy years, and resumed the practice of law. In 1878-'9 he was a commissioner from Connecticut to settle the disputed boundary question with New York, and afterward one of the three commissioners to negotiate with the New York authorities for the purchase of Fisher's Island. He was also a member of the commission appointed in 1878 to devise simpler rules and forms of legal procedure for the state courts. By his will he endowed a professorship of English law at Yale, bequeathed his library to the town of Norwich, and gave his home for the free academy there. See "Memorial Sketch" (printed privately. Boston, 1881). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 512-513.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 553:

FOSTER, LAFAYETTE SABINE (November 22, 1806-September 19, 1880), Connecticut editor, judge, United States senator, was the eldest son of Daniel and Welthea Ladd Foster. His father, a descendant of Miles Standish, had been a captain in the Revolutionary War. Lafayette was born in Franklin, near Norwich, Connecticut. The family had slender means, and when he reached college age he was obliged to support himself. He attended Brown University, graduating with high honors in 1828. The following year he taught in an academy in Queen Annes County, Maryland, and then began the study of law in the office of Calvin Goddard of Norwich, who had been an active Federalist politician, and member of the Hartford Convention of 1814. In 1831 he was admitted to the New London County bar. Two years later he opened a law office in Hampton, in Windham County, but in 1835 returned to Norwich, which became his home thereafter. In 1835 he became editor of the Norwich Republican, a Whig journal (Caulkins, Norwich, pp. 582-83). On October 2, 1837, he married Joanna, daughter of James Lanman of Norwich, judge and United States senator. After her death in 1859, he married, October 4, 1860, Martha Lyman of Northampton, Massachusetts. Two daughters and a son were born of the first marriage, but all of them died in childhood.

There were no children from the second marriage. Foster became interested in politics early in his career. He first represented Norwich in the General Assembly in 1839. He was reelected in 1840, from 1846 to 1849 served three years in succession, and later served two single terms, in 1854 and 1870. Four times he was speaker of the House of Representatives. In the state elections of 1850 and 1851 Foster was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for governor. During 1851 and 1852 he was mayor of Norwich. In 1854 he was chosen United States senator, subsequently holding that position twelve years, from 1855 to 1867. While in the Senate he spoke frequently but his chief distinction was his election as president pro tempore of the Senate. In 1866 he failed to receive the Republican caucus nomination for a third senatorial term, presumably because his opinions were too conservative. In 1870 he became a judge of the Connecticut superior court, and served until 1876. He supported Horace Greeley for president in 1872. Later he was nominated for national representative by a combination of Democrats and liberal Republicans, but was not elected. In 1878 he served on a commission studying a simplification of legal procedure in Connecticut, and during 1878-79 he was a member of a commission to settle a boundary dispute with the state of New York. In appearance, Foster, was slight and unimpressive, his expression being grave and serious. He possessed, nevertheless, both humor and caustic wit, with which he frequently enlivened the otherwise dull sessions of legislative assemblies wherein he spent so much of his life.

[Memorial Sketch of Lafayette S. Foster (privately printed, Boston; 1881); F. C. Pierce, Foster Genealogy (1889); F. M. Caulkins, History of Norwich, Connecticut (1866); D. Loomis and J. G. Calhoun, Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut (1895); "Brown University Necrology for 1880-1881," printed in Providence Daily Journal, June 15, 1881; Hartford Daily Courant, September 21, 1880.]

J.M.M.



FOWLER, Orin, 1791-1852, Lebanon, Connecticut, clergyman. Free-Soil U.S. Congressman, temperance activist, strong opponent of slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 517; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 565)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 517:

FOWLER, Orin, clergyman, born in Lebanon, Connecticut, 29 July, 1791; died in Washington, D. C., 3 September, 1852. He was graduated at Yale in 1815, studied theology under President Dwight, taught in the academy in Fairfield, Connecticut, for a year, was licensed to preach on 14 October, 1817, made a missionary tour in the Mississippi valley in 1818, and in 1819 was settled over a Congregational Church in Plainfield, Connecticut. He was dismissed by this society in 1831, but was immediately called to a church in Fall River, of which he remained pastor until he entered Congress. In 1841 he delivered three discourses containing a history of Fall River since 1620, and an account of the boundary dispute between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He was appointed by a committee of citizens to defend the interests of the town before the boundary commissioners, published a series of articles on the subject in the Boston “Atlas,” and was elected in 1847 to the state senate, where he secured the rejection of the decision of the boundary commission by a unanimous vote. His constituents were so pleased with his ability as a legislator that they elected him in 1848 as a Free-Soil Whig to the National House of Representatives, and re-elected him for the following term. He was an advocate of temperance laws, and a strong opponent of slavery. In March, 1850, he replied to Daniel Webster's speech in justification of the Fugitive-Slave Law. He was the author of a “Disquisition on the Evils attending the Use of Tobacco” (1833), and “Lectures on the Mode and Subjects of Baptism” (1835). His “History of Fall River, with notices of Freeborn and Tiverton,” was republished in 1862 (Fall River). Appletons’ Cycolpædia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 517.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 565:

FOWLER, ORIN (July 29, 1791-September 3, 1852), Congregational clergyman, congressman, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, the son of Captain Amos and Rebecca (Dewey) Fowler. He was the oldest boy and the sixth child in a family of twelve. Prepared for college by his pastor, Reverend William B. Ripley, he entered Williams in 18u, but remained there for only one term. After further study at Bacon Academy, Colchester, Connecticut, he became a member of the sophomore class at Yale, graduating in 1815. For a short time he was preceptor of the academy in Fairfield, Connecticut, relinquishing the position in order to devote himself to a course in theology under Reverend Heman Humphrey [q.v.] of that town. On October 14, 1817, he was licensed to preach by the Association of the Western District of Fairfield County; and on June 3, 1818, at Farming ton, . Connecticut, he was ordained by the North Association of Hartford County with a view to missionary work in the West. After a year spent chiefly in Indiana he returned to Connecticut. To the Christian Spectator, August and September 1819, he contributed "Remarks on the State of Indiana." He was installed as pastor of the Congregational church, Plainfield, Connecticut, on March 1, 1820. The following year, October 16, he married Amaryllis, daughter of John H. Payson of Pomfret, Connecticut. After a pastorate of nearly eleven years, having incurred the ill will of some of his parishioners who professed to believe reports derogatory to his character, he was dismissed by the Windham Association of Ministers, January 27, 1831, although a public investigation had revealed nothing affecting his standing as a Christian minister. On July 7, 1831, he became pastor of the Congregational church in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Reference to a long-standing dispute over the boundary-line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in a series of discourses published under the title An Historical Sketch of Fall River from 1620 to the Present Time (1841) launched him on a political career. His fellow townsmen made him one of a committee to represent them before boundary commissioners of the two states. Their decision was displeasing to the town; and Fowler defended its position under the pseudonym "Plymouth Colony" in articles appearing in the Boston Daily Atlas between September 17 and October 18, 1847. As a result of these, on October 20, 1847, the Whig convention of Bristol County nominated him to the state Senate and he was elected. Here he was influential in causing the commissioners' report to be rejected by Massachusetts. His career in the legislature brought about his election to Congress in 1848 as a Free-Soil Whig, and the following year he took up his residence in Washington, although he was not formally dismissed from his church until May 1850. He was reelected for a second term, but died in Washington, September 3, 1852. He was an opponent of slavery and an advocate of temperance laws and cheap postage. "His strength in the House consisted not so much in eloquence and readiness of debate as in diligent research and knowledge of facts." Besides several speeches his publications include a sermon preached at the ordination of Israel G. Rose, March 9, 1825, entitled The Duty of Distinction in Preaching Explained and Enforced (1825); The Mode and Subjects of Baptism (1835), and A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco (1833, 1835, 1842).

[W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, II (1857); F . B . Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, VI (1912); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe, 32 Congress, 2 Session, p. 28].

H.E.S.



FRANCIS, John Morgan (March 6, 1823- June 18, 1897), editor, publicist, diplomat. He advocated the claims of the Free-Soil party. In 1849 he sold his interests and removed to New York to engage in business. He soon returned to Troy, however, to take charge of the Daily Whig; and in 1851 he founded the Troy Daily Times, with R. D. Thompson as partner. When the latter withdrew in 1853, he became the sole owner. Under his hands the Times was one of the leading papers of the state. Realizing the importance of local news, he stressed it consistently, and by the consequent popularity of the paper he contributed much to the strength of the Republican party, which he joined on its inception.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, pp. 580-581:

FRANCIS, JOHN MORGAN (March 6, 1823- June 18, 1897), editor, publicist, diplomat, was born at Prattsburg, New York, the son of Richard and Mary (Stewart) Francis. From his father, a midshipman in the British navy who emigrated to America in 1795, married, and settled in Steuben County, New York, he inherited the rugged physique characteristic of the family. Since he was next to the youngest of thirteen children, he received little formal education. His training as a journalist, however, provided him with an excellent background for a successful career. Beginning at fifteen as an apprentice on the Ontario Messenger, at Canandaigua, New York, he served successively in the editorial departments of the Wayne Sentinel and the Rochester Daily Advertiser. On December 8, 1846, he married a woman of considerable literary talent, Harriet Elizabeth Tucker, daughter of Pomeroy Tucker, editor of the Sentinel, and established himself in Troy as editor-in-chief of the Northern Budget. While connected with the Budget, a Democratic paper, of which he eventually became joint proprietor, he advocated the claims of the Free-Soil party. In 1849 he sold his interests and removed to New York to engage in business. He soon returned to Troy, however, to take charge of the Daily Whig; and in 1851 he founded the Troy Daily Times, with R. D. Thompson as partner. When the latter withdrew in 1853, he became the sole owner. Under his hands the Times was one of the leading papers of the state. Realizing the importance of local news, he stressed it consistently, and by the consequent popularity of the paper he contributed much to the strength of the Republican party, which he joined on its inception. In his devotion to the Union he never wavered. As a result the building occupied by the Times was sacked by a mob during the draft riots of 1863. Publication was suspended, however, for only a day; and the paper continued to gain in influence. When Francis died, he was succeeded by his son, Charles Spencer Francis [q.v.].

Although he never swerved from the ideals in which he believed, he was essentially practical in his approach toward public affairs. In New York he was a member of the state constitutional conventions of 1867-68 and 1894, in both of which he played a prominent part. In national politics he was also an influential figure. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first convention of the Republican party, and at the convention of 1880 he was one of the "die-hards" who supported President Grant. In recognition of his Republicanism he had been appointed in 1871 minister to Greece, where he remained for three years. After a tour of the world, he again engaged in politics. In 1881 President Garfield, to whom he had transferred his allegiance, included his name as minister to Belgium in his tentative list of appointments, but did not live to make the nomination. President Arthur, embarrassed by other commitments, named him to the post at Lisbon. In 1884 he was promoted to the mission at Vienna. He resigned the following year.

[C. E. Francis, Francis: Descendants of Robt. Francis of Wethersfield, Connecticut (1906), p. 194; files of the Troy Daily Times, especially the supplement of June 25, 1901, and the anniversary issue of June 25, 1926; a memorial volume published in 1897, containing sketches, appreciations, and reprints of newspaper obituaries; the volumes of reminiscences by his wife, especially By Land and Sea (1891); Rutherford Hayner, Troy and Rensselaer County, New York (3 volumes, 1925); Geo. B. Anderson, Landmarks of Rensselaer County (1897); N. B. Sylvester, History of Rensselaer County, New York (1880); New York Times, June 19, 1897; Northern Budget, June 20, 1897.)

R. P. B-r.



FRANK, Augustus, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

FRANK, AUGUSTUS, (nephew of William Patterson of New York and George Washington Patterson), a Representative from New York; born in Warsaw, Wyoming County, New York, July 17, 1826; attended the common schools; engaged in mercantile pursuits; director and vice president of the Buffalo & New York City Railroad Co.; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1856; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth, Thirty-seventh, and Thirty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1859-March 3, 1865); was not a candidate for renomination in 1864; director of Wyoming County National Bank in 1865; member of the State constitutional convention in 1867 and 1868; one of the managers of the Buffalo State Hospital for the Insane at Buffalo, New York, 1870-1882; organized the Bank of Warsaw in 1871 and served as president until his death; director of the Rochester Trust & Safe Deposit Co.; State commissioner for the preservation of public parks; member of the board of directors of the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad; delegate at large to the State constitutional convention in 1894; died in New York City April 29, 1895; interment in Warsaw Cemetery, Warsaw, New York.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)



FRELINGHUYSEN, Theodore, 1787-1862, Franklin, Somerset County, Newark, New Jersey, attorney, jurist, statesman, opposed slavery. U.S. Senator, 1829-1836. Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Chancellor of the University of New York. Whig Vice Presidential candidate. American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1833-1841. Member of the board of the African Education Society.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 543-544; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, p. 16; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 16, 86, 128, 189-190, 207, 225, 228)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 543-544:



FRELINGHUYSEN, Theodore, lawyer, born in Franklin, Somerset County, New Jersey, 28 March 1787; died in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 12 April 1861, was sent at the age of eleven to the grammar school connected with Queen's College (now Rutgers), where he remained two years, but, on the resignation of the rector of the school, returned to his home at Millstone. Having no great disposition to apply himself to study, he persuaded his father to give him the privilege of remaining at home and becoming a farmer. But consent to this plan had been only partially obtained when his father was called away on public business. His stepmother, a wise and estimable woman, believing that this arrangement would not be a judicious one, packed young Theodore's trunk and sent him to the classical academy recently established at Baskingridge, New Jersey, by the Reverend Dr. Robert Findley. Here he completed his preparatory studies, and in 1802 was admitted to the junior class of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, from which he was graduated with high honors in 1804. In the meantime, his father having died, his elder brother, John a lawyer, had taken charge of the homestead at Millstone. In the office of this brother he began the study of law, and, after being admitted to the bar, moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he married, and entered upon the practice of his profession, in which he soon attained eminence. In 1817 he was appointed attorney general by a legislature whose majority was opposed to him in politics. Twice afterward he was reappointed on the expiration of his term of office, and finally resigned it in 1829, having been elected a senator of the United States. Prior to this, however, he had declined the office of justice of the Supreme Court tendered to him in 1826. The first important matter on which he addressed the Senate was the bill for the removal of the Indians beyond the Mississippi River. This speech availed nothing, however, except to bring its author prominently before the nation, and to give to him the title of the “Christian statesman.” He also took an active part in the discussion of the pension bill, the president's protest, the removal of the deposits from the U. S. bank, the compromise, and the tariff. His senatorial term expired in 1835 when he resumed his professional labors in Newark. In 1836 Newark was incorporated as a City. In the following year Mr. Frelinghuysen was elected its mayor, and in 1838 he was re-elected to the same position. In 1839 he was unanimously chosen chancellor of the University of New York, and while in the occupancy of this office was, in May 1844, nominated by the Whig National Convention at Baltimore for the vice-presidency of the United States on the same ticket with Henry Clay. He continued in the discharge of his duties as chancellor of the University until 1850, when he accepted the presidency of Rutgers College, and in the same year was formally inducted into that office, continuing in it until the day of his death. Mr. Frelinghuysen was an earnest advocate of the claims of organized Christian benevolence, and it is said of him that no American layman was ever associated with so many great national organizations of religion and charity. He was president of no less than three of these during some period of their existence, while his name may be found on the lists of officers of all the rest with scarcely an exception. For sixteen years he was president of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. From April, 1846, till his death he was president of the American Bible Society; from 1842 till 1848, of the American tract Society; from 1826 till near the close of his life, vice president of the American Sunday School union; and for many years vice president of the American colonization Society. In the work of all these institutions he took an active part. His remains were buried in the grounds of the 1st Reformed Dutch Church in New Brunswick, N.J. See a memoir of him by Reverend Talbot W. Chambers, D.D. (1863). [General Frederick Frelinghuysen’s second son; Appleton’s, 1900].

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 1, pp. 16-17:

FRELINGHUYSEN, THEODORE (March 28, 1787-April 12, 1862), lawyer, senator, college president, was born in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey, the second son of General Frederick Frelinghuysen [q.v.] and Gertrude (Schenck) Frelinghuysen. At thirteen, with his father's consent, he left the grammar school connected with Queen's College (later Rutgers), to pursue farming rather than a liberal education. Soon afterward, however, his stepmother, during his father's absence, packed him off to Dr. Finley's academy at Basking Ridge where he received an excellent primary education, and from there he went to Princeton, graduating second in his class in 1804. He then read law with Richard Stockton of Princeton, was admitted to the bar in 1808 as an attorney, in 1811 as a counselor, and in 1817 received the title of sergeant at law. He began his practise of the law in Newark where, in 1809, he married Charlotte, daughter of Archibald Mercer. Having no children of their own, they adopted a nephew, Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen [q.v.]. The young lawyer's rise at the bar was rapid. Four years after his admittance he had an extensive and lucrative practise and in 1817 his abilities and personal character were so well recognized that he was made attorney-general of New Jersey. He received this appointment by the votes of a legislature, the majority of whose members were opposed to him in politics, a mark of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow citizens. Reelected in 1822 and 1827, he served until his election to the United States Senate in 1829. In 1826 the legislature had appointed him justice of the state supreme court which he declined, preferring to continue his practise at the bar. The best evidence of his ability to plead a cause is found in his argument made in the case of Hendrickson vs. Decow (I New Jersey Equity, 577), in which he successfully defended the claims of the Orthodox Quakers.

Although serving but a single term as United States senator (1829-35), Frelinghuysen became a national figure. The influence which he exerted at Washington can be explained only by the universal respect in which he was held by members of both parties. His six-hour speech (April 7, 8, and 9, 1830, Register of Debates in Congress, 21 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 309-20) in opposition to the bill for the removal of the Cherokee and other southern Indians to territory west of the Mississippi, though unsuccessful in defeating the measure, brought him prominently before the nation. He became known as the "Christian statesman," probably as a result of a poem by William Lloyd Garrison praising Frelinghuysen for his stand on the Indian question, and designating him "Patriot and Christian." Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and other well-known me paid tribute to the deep religious conviction of Frelinghuysen, and never did they resent in any way the solicitude with which he regarded their own personal religious lives (Chambers, post, pp. 178, 183). It was said of him that no American layman of his time was associated with so many great national organizations of religion and charity. For sixteen years he served as president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; from 1846 till his death he was president of the American Bible Society; president of the American Tract Society from 1842 to 1848; vice-president of the American Sunday School Union for fifty years; and for many years an officer of the American Colonization Society and of the American Temperance Union. Giving so much of his time and money, for he was a generous contributor to all these causes, it is not surprising that in 1835 Frelinghuysen seriously contemplated leaving the bar and entering the ministry (Chambers, post, p. 170). In 1839 he retired from his law practise and resigned as mayor of Newark, to which office he had been first elected in 1836 and reelected in 1838, to accept the chancellorship of the University of the City of New York. In 1844 he made his last appearance in a political role, as the Whig candidate for vice-president. The defeat of the Whig ticket was a surprise and bitter disappointment to him, especially because of his great admiration and affection for his running mate, Henry Clay. Ironically the votes of the New York Abolitionists for Birney gave the state and the presidency to Polk.

Frelinghuysen's success as an academic administrator did not rival his success as a lawyer. It was in the legal forum that his peculiar gifts of quick insight, sharp discrimination, and impetuous eloquence were best displayed. His abandonment of the profession of the law in favor of an academic career was always regarded as a mistake by his friends of the New Jersey bar. After eleven years as chancellor of the University in New York he resigned to assume the presidency of Rutgers College. Since an acute illness had impaired his accustomed good health, he welcomed this change, believing that the work at Rutgers would not be so exacting as that in New York, where he was under the continual burden of raising funds. His connection with Rutgers was far from being nominal, however, and he engaged actively in the work of enlisting the aid of old friends of the college who renewed their support under the leadership of their distinguished president. The results were evidenced by the increase in the enrolment and endowment as well as in a greatly enlarged course of study. It was while serving at Rutgers that Frelinghuysen's active life came to a close. He contracted a severe cold while attending_ church on Washington's birthday, 1862, and died after a few weeks' illness. His first wife having died in 1854, on October 14, 1857, he was married to Harriet Pumpelly of Owego, New York.

[Cortlandt Parker, A Sketch of the Life an d Public Services of Theodore Frelinghuysen (1844), and The Essex: Bar (1874); Talbot W. Chambers, Memoir of the Life and Character of the Late Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen (1 8 63); J. F. Folsom, The Municipalities of Essex County, New Jersey (1925), III, 4-5; J. L. Chamberlain, New York University (1901); W. H. S. Demarest, A History of Rutgers College, 1766-1924 (1924); W. L. Garrison, Sonnets and Other Poems (1843), pp. 69-71; State Gazette and Republican (Trenton, New Jersey), April 15, 1862; New York Tribune, April 14, 1862.]

C.R.E., Jr.



FRENCH, Robert, 1802-1882, politician, abolitionist, Temperance activist. Mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Massachusetts State Senator. Co-founder and President of the New Bedford Young Man’s Anti-Slavery Society. Member of the Whig and Free Soil parties. Opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and successfully passed legislation to oppose it in New Bedford.

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.