M: McClure through Morris

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

MCCLURE, Alexander Kelly, editor, lawyer, legislator, supporter of the Whig and Republican Parties. In 1850, purchased an interest in the "Chambersburg Repository," became its editor, and made it one of the most noted anti-slavery journals in the state. In 1853 he was the Whig candidate for auditor-general.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 89:

McLURE, Alexander Kelly, journalist, born in Sherman's Valley, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 9 January, 1828. In the earlier years of his life he divided his time between his father's farm and the village school, and at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to the tanner's trade. In 1846, on the urgent advice of his friend, the editor of the " Perry Freeman," to whose paper he had contributed, he began the publication of a Whig journal, the " Sentinel," at Mifflin, Pennsylvania At the close of the first year he set up the type, and did the press-work, besides editing the paper, with the aid of a single apprentice. He sold the " Sentinel " in 1850, purchased an interest in the "Chambersburg Repository," became its editor, and made it one of the most noted anti-slavery journals in the state. In 1853 he was the Whig candidate for auditor-general, being the youngest man ever nominated for a state office in Pennsylvania. In 1855 he was a member of the convention that met at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and organized the Republican Party, and in the following year was a delegate to the National Convention that nominated Fremont for the presidency. In 1856 he sold the " Repository," quitted journalism, and shortly thereafter was admitted to the bar. In 1857-'8 he was chosen to the legislature, and in 1859 to the senate of Pennsylvania, over a Democratic opponent from a strong Democratic district. He was a delegate to the National Republican Conventions of 1860 and 1864, and in the former played a conspicuous part in inducing the delegation from his state to disregard their instructions for Simon Cameron and vote for Abraham Lincoln. He was chosen chairman of the Republican State Committee, and organized and led his party in the canvass of that year. In 1862 he repurchased the "Chambersburg Repository," but in the burning of Chambersburg, in 1864, almost his entire property was destroyed. In 1868 he settled in Philadelphia, where he resumed the practice of the law. In 1872 he was chairman of the Pennsylvania Delegation to the National Convention that nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, was chosen chairman of the state committee that supported his election, and was elected as an Independent Republican to the state senate. In the following year he was an independent candidate for the mayoralty of Philadelphia, and came within nine hundred votes of being elected. During this year, with Frank McLaughlin, he established the "Times," a daily newspaper, and since its foundation he has been its editor-in-chief. He has opposed machine power in party management and official incompetency and dishonesty in Philadelphia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 89.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, p. 593-594:

MCCLURE, ALEXANDER KELLY (January 9, 1828-June 6, 1909), editor, lawyer, legislator, son of Alexander and Isabella (Anderson) McClure, was born in Sherman's Valley, Perry County, Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish descent. He was reared on his father's farm, educated at home, and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to a tanner. At the same time he learned the printing trade in the office of the Perry County Freeman, where he absorbed Whig political principles. In the late forties he edited and published the Juniata Sentinel at Mifflintown. In 1849 he was commissioned colonel on the staff of Governor Johnson, and in the following year he was appointed deputy United States marshal for Juniata County. In 1852 he became part owner of the Franklin Repository, published in Chambersburg, and shortly afterward he secured full control. Under his direction it became one of the influential newspapers in the state. After failing of election as the Whig candidate for auditor-general in 1853, he turned his attention to law. He was admitted to the bar in 1856 but continued to devote most of his time to the Repository. He took particular interest in the organization of the Republican party and was a member of the state convention that met in Pittsburgh in the summer of 1855. In 1860 he was a member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Republican National Convention which was committed to Simon Cameron for the presidency. When it became evident that two-thirds of the delegates from the other states were in favor of William H. Seward, Curtin and McClure succeeded in switching the Pennsylvania vote from Cameron to Lincoln. McClure was elected chairman of the Republican state committee and in this office perfected a complete political organization in every city, county, township, and precinct in the state. Following a campaign of unprecedented aggressiveness Andrew G. Curtin was elected governor and later Lincoln swept the state by a large majority.

After a term in the state House of Representatives in 1858, McClure was elected in 1859 to the state Senate. There he was spokesman for Pennsylvania's war governor, and as chairman of the Senate committee on military affairs he was active in support of both state and federal governments for the preservation of the Union. In 1865 he was again in the House of Representatives. At the request of President Lincoln, he accepted a commission as assistant adjutant-general of the army and placed seventeen regiments in the field. In 1868 he became a resident of Philadelphia. He opened a law office and immediately became active in civic affairs. He was a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention that nominated General Grant in 1868. Differing with the dominant Republican leadership in 1872 he became chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Liberal Republican national convention which nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency. He gave further evidence of political independence by running as a Citizen's candidate, with Democratic indorsement, for the state Senate in the West Philadelphia district; and after a bitter contest was sworn in. In 1874 he was the Citizen's-Democratic candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, making his canvass upon charges of gross corruption in the city administration, but he was defeated. In response to a demand for a newspaper to support the independent forces in Philadelphia, McClure in conjunction with Frank McLaughin on March 13, 1875, established the Times which became a well-known newspaper in the country. McClure was a man of impressive appearance and was in demand as a speaker on public occasions. He was twice married, first to Matilda s: Gray, on February 10, 1852; and second to Cora M. Gratz, on March 19, 1879. His later years we're largely devoted to literary work, his books including Three Thousand Miles through the Rocky Mountains (1869); The South: Its Industrial, Financial and Political Condition (1886); Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times (1892); Our Presidents and How We Make Them (1900); To the Pacific and Mexico (1901); Colonel Alexander K. McClure's Recollections of a Half Century (1902); and Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania (2 volumes, 1905). He edited Famous American Statesmen and Orators (6 volumes, 1902).

[In addition to McClure's books see: Encyclopedia of Contemporary Biography of Pennsylvania (1893), volume III; H. H. Hain, History of Perry County, Pennsylvania (1922); Who's Who in America, 1908--09; J. A. McClure, The McClure Family (1914); the Press (Philadelphia), June 7, 1909.]

L. C. P.



MCELRATH, THOMAS (May 1, 1807-June 6, 1888), publisher, partner of Horace Greeley in the publication of the New York Tribune. He was also among those who protested against the action of Congress in resolving to table without debate, printing, or reference, all petitions regarding slavery.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, p. 36:

MCELRATH, THOMAS (May 1, 1807-June 6, 1888), publisher, partner of Horace Greeley in the publication of the New York Tribune, was born at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. After an early apprenticeship on the Harrisburg Chronicle, he pushed on to Philadelphia, finding employment in a book-printing establishment. He later returned to Williamsport and studied law. Equipped now for a struggle with fortune, he went to New York City, where he was employed as proof-reader and head salesman by the Methodist Book Concern, and subsequently he engaged on his own account in the publication of school books and religious works. In 1828 he was admitted to the bar, formed a partnership with William Bloomfield and Charles P. Daly, and entered upon a lucrative practice. In 1833 he was married to Elizabeth Price of New York City. His ability and attractive personal qualities brought him advancement. Elected as a Whig to the New York Assembly, he won attention by a minority report on the petition for removing the state capital from Albany to Utica, his report closing with a recommendation to transfer the seat of government to New York. During the same session he presented for the judiciary committee an adverse report on a petition for the abolishment of capital punishment. He was also among those who protested against the action of Congress in resolving to table without debate, printing, or reference, all petitions affecting slavery.

In 1841 McElrath became business manager of the New York Tribune, then in its uncertain infancy. On July 31 Horace Greeley made this terse announcement over his name: "The principal Editorial charge of the paper will still rest with the subscriber; while the entire business management of the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner." McElrath declared "his hearty concurrence in the principles, Political and Moral" on which the Tribune had been conducted. Surveying this combination of sanctum and counting-room, James Parton, in his life of Greeley, exclaimed: "Oh ! that every Greeley could find his McElrath and blessed is the McElrath that finds his Greeley!" (post, p. 162). Although the business manager did not share every enthusiasm of his partner's flaming pen, the steady course of the Tribune as a publishing concern insured a constant enlargement of its influence and prosperity. When muscular men of the "bloody sixth" ward, in resentment of plain language, swore to wreck the Tribune building, McElrath did his share to put the office in a state of defense. When he withdrew from the Tribune in 1857, to become corresponding secretary of the American Institute, the paper had risen to a position of social and political leadership.

McElrath had numerous official trusts. He was a master of chancery for New York City in 1840; state director of the Bank of America in 1841; New York alderman in 1845-46; appraiser-general of the New York district in 1861, by appointment of President Lincoln; custom-house officer in 1866; United States commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1867; commissioner to the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and superintendent of American exhibitions; general executive officer of the New York state commission at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876; and commissioner of the World's Fair in New York in 1884. In 1864 he had resumed the post of publisher of the Tribune and was associated with Greeley in the publication of works issued by the firm. He himself was the author of a standard work of reference, A Dictionary of Words and Phrases Used in Commerce (1871).

[James Parton, The Life of Horace Greeley (1889); Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the U. S. from 1690 to 1872 (1873): J. C. Derby, Fifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers (1864); New York Tribune, June 7, 1888.)

R. E. D.



MCLEAN, John, 1785-1861, Morris County, New Jersey, jurist, attorney. U.S. Supreme Court Justice, January 1830-. Dissented against the majority of Justices on the Dred Scott case, stating that slavery was sanctioned only by local laws. Free Soil and later Republican Party candidate for President of the U.S.

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 144; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 127-128; Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans. Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 127-128:

McLEAN, JOHN (March 11, 1785-April 4, 1861), congressman, postmaster-general, jurist, was born in Morris County, New Jersey, the son of Fergus and Sophia (Blackford) McLean. His parents came to America from Ireland, the father being descended from the Scottish clan of McLean. A weaver by trade, he became a farmer, but having a large family and being limited in means, he soon decided to go West. In 1789 the family moved to Morgantown, Virginia, then to Jessamine, near Nicholasville, Kentucky, thence to Maysville, Kentucky, and finally, in 1799, settled on a farm near Lebanon, in what is now Warren County, Ohio. During these wanderings young McLean's education suffered. He attended school as opportunity offered and as the pressing needs of the family permitted. Determined to get further instruction, he worked for wages and at sixteen was able to hire private tutors. Two years later he went to Cincinnati, where he was formally indentured for two years to the clerk of the Hamilton County court. By working part of the day in the office he was able to support himself. Meanwhile, he read law with Arthur St. Clair, one of the best counselors in the West, and the son of General St. Clair. He also joined a debating club, in which he acquired facility of expression.

In 1807 he was admitted to the bar. The same year he married Rebecca Edwards and moved to Lebanon, where he founded the Western Star, a weekly newspaper. Commencing to practise in Lebanon, he soon won recognition by his industry and scrupulous care. In October 1812 he was elected as a War Democrat to Congress from the Cincinnati district, which then included Warren County. He was reelected in 1814 "by the unanimous vote of all the electors who took part in the election. Not only did no one vote against him, but also no one who voted for any office at the election, refrained from voting for him" (Force, post, 271-72). He vigorously sponsored the war with England and advocated bills to indemnify persons for property lost in the public service, to grant pensions to officers and soldiers, and to pay congressmen a salary of $1500 per annum instead of the per diem allowance. In 1815 he declined to be a candidate for the United States Senate. The following year he resigned his seat in Congress to become judge of the supreme court of Ohio, to which office he had been elected by the state legislature. He remained upon the bench until 1822, when President Monroe appointed him commissioner of the land office. The next year he was made postmaster-general, and in the direction of this office he acquired a national reputation as an able administrator. Heretofore, this branch of the public service had been inefficient and disorganized. Under his management contractors were held to their agreements and incompetent and unfaithful officials were removed. He was reappointed by President John Q. Adams and, it is claimed, used his official position to work against the reelection of his superior (Bassett, post, II, 412, 413). McLean was not in sympathy with President Jackson's policy as to removals, and, after declining the portfolios of secretary of war and secretary of the navy, he was nominated by Jackson to be associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on March 7, 1829. "It is a good and satisfactory appointment," wrote Joseph Story, "but was, in fact, produced by other causes than his fitness or our advantage. The truth is ... he told the new President, that he would not form a part of the new Cabinet, or remain in office, if he was compelled to make removals upon political grounds" (W. W. Story, post, I, 564). He was assigned to the seventh circuit, which then included the districts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio; later, the districts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. He took his seat in January 1830 and served until his death. On the bench he was dignified, courteous, painstaking, fearless, and able. Not until his health began to fail, two years before his death, was he absent a single day from his duties. He was not a great judge but his decisions on the circuit were seldom reversed and he was not often in the minority in the Supreme Court. In the celebrated Dred Scott case he dissented from the majority of the court and rendered an opinion of his own, which defined his position upon the slavery question (19 Howard, 558, 559). He held that slavery had its origin merely in force and was contrary to right, being sustained only by local law.

During his term on the bench he was frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for the presidency. He maintained that a judge was under no obligation to refrain from the discussion of political affairs and steadfastly defended the propriety of his candidacy. He declined the nomination in the Anti-Masonic Convention of 1831, and was proposed as a candidate by the Ohio legislature in 1836. His name was considered by the convention of "Free Democracy" in 1848 and was before the whig Convention in 1852. In the Republican Convention of 1856 he received 196 votes, and, although seventy-five years of age, he still hoped for the nomination in the Republican Convention of 1860.

His first wife, by whom he had four daughters and three sons, died in December 1840, and three years later he married Sarah Bella Garrard, widow of Colonel Jephtha D. Garrard and the youngest daughter of Israel Ludlow.

[M. F. Force, in Memorial Biographies of the New-England Historical Genealogical Society, volume IV (1885); Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in U.S. History (1922); W.W. Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story (1851); J. S. Bassett, Andrew Jackson (1911); B. P. Poor, Perley's Reminiscences (1886); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); 66 U. S. Reports (1 Black), 8-13; F. H. Hodder, "Some Phases of the Dred Scott Case," in Mississippi Valley History Review, June 1929; Cincinnati Commercial, April 5, 1861; Cincinnati Gazette, April 5, 1861.]

R.C.M.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

McLEAN, John, jurist, born in Morris County, New Jersey, 11 March, 1785; died in Cincinnati, Ohio, 4 April, 1861. In 1789 his father, a poor man with a large family, moved to the west and settled, first at Morgantown, Virginia, subsequently at Nicholasville, Kentucky, and finally, in 1799, on a farm in Warren County, Ohio. Young McLean worked on the farm that his father had cleared till he was sixteen years old, then received private instruction in the classics for two years, and at the age of eighteen went to Cincinnati to study law, and, while acquiring his profession, supported himself by writing in the office of the clerk of the county. In the autumn of 1807 he was admitted to the bar, and began practice at Lebanon. In October, 1812. he was elected to Congress from his district, which then included Cincinnati, by the Democratic Party, defeating two competitors in an exciting contest, and was re-elected by the unanimous vote of the district in 1814. He supported the Madison administration, originated the law to indemnify individuals for the loss of property in the public service, and introduced an inquiry as to pensioning the widows of fallen officers and soldiers. He declined a nomination to the U. S. Senate in 1815. and in 1816 was elected judge of the supreme court of the state, which office he held till 1822, when President Monroe appointed him commissioner of the general land-office. In July, 1823, he was appointed Postmaster-General, and by his energetic administration introduced order, efficiency, and economy into that department. The salary of the office was raised from $4,000 to $6,000 by an almost unanimous vote of both houses of Congress during his administration. He was continued in the office by President John Q. Adams, and was asked to remain by General Jackson in 1829, but declined, because he differed with the president on the question of official appointments and removals. President Jackson then tendered him in succession the War and the Navy Departments, and, on his declining both, appointed him an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He entered upon his duties in January, 1830. His charges to grand juries while on circuit were distinguished for ability and eloquence. In December, 1838, he delivered a charge in regard to aiding or favoring "unlawful military combinations by our citizens against any foreign government with whom we are at peace," with special reference to the Canadian insurrection and its American abettors. The most celebrated of his opinions was that in the Dred Scott Case, dissenting from the decision of the court as given by Chief-Justice Taney, and enunciating the doctrine that slavery was contrary to right and had its origin in power, and that in this country it was sustained only by local law. He was long identified with the party that opposed the extension of slavery, and his name was before the Free-soil Convention at Buffalo in 1848 as a candidate for nomination as president. In the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1856 he received 196 votes for the same office to 359 for John C. Fremont. In the Republican Convention at Chicago in 1860 he also received several votes. He published " Reports of the United States Circuit Court" (6 volumes, 1829-'55); a " Eulogy on James Monroe" (1831); and several addresses. John's son. Nathaniel Collins, soldier, born in Warren County, Ohio, 2 February, 1815. was graduated at Augusta College. Kentucky, in 1832, studied for a year or two longer at Harvard, and took his degree at the law-school there in 1838. He married a daughter of Judge Jacob Burnet the same year, and began practice in Cincinnati, where he attained success at the bar. He entered the National Army on 11 January, 1862, as colonel of the 75th Ohio Volunteers, being commissioned brigadier-general on 29 November, 1862, and resigned on 20 April, 1865. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 144.



MCMICHAEL, Morton (October 20, 1807- January 6;-1879), editor, mayor of Philadelphia, supporter of the Republican Party.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 142-142:

MCMICHAEL, MORTON (October 20, 1807- January 6;- 1879), editor, mayor of Philadelphia, was born in Bordentown, New Jersey, and educated in the local schools. His family had come to America from the north of Ireland; his father, John McMichael (1777-1846), was employed on the estate of Joseph Bonaparte; his mother was Hannah Maria Masters. Upon the removal of his parents to Philadelphia, McMichael continued his education there. The statement sometimes made that he attended the University of Pennsylvania is apparently an error. He read law with David Paul Brown and was admitted to the bar in 1827. He was already active in journalism, having become editor of the Saturday Evening Post the previous year. In 1831 he resigned this position to become editor-in-chief of the newly established Saturday Courier. The same year he married Mary, daughter of Daniel Estell of Philadelphia, by whom he had eight children. About this time he began his political career as a police magistrate, displaying early his power of leadership by dispersing a mob in the slavery riot of 1837 and preventing the burning of a negro orphanage. For a number of years he was an alderman and in 1836 was active on the commission for school reform in the city.

The division of his activities between politics and journalism continued throughout his life. He entered upon his career as a newspaper publisher in 1836, when with Louis A. Godey and Joseph C. Neal [qq.v.] he started the Saturday News and Literary Gazette. Eight years later he associated himself with Neal in editing Neals Saturday Gazette. From 1842 to 1846 he was one of the editors of Godey's Lady's Book. In 1847 he became joint owner, with George R. Graham [q.v.], of the Philadelphia North American, which in July of the same year absorbed the United States Gazette. Robert Montgomery Bird [q.v.] joined the enterprise at this time. After the withdrawal of Graham in 1848 and the death of Bird in 1854, McMichael became sole owner. He retained his interest in the paper until his death and by a vigorous and progressive editorial policy succeeded in making it the leading Whig journal of the country. During these early years his activity in publishing brought him into intimate association with Leland, Boker, Poe, Richard Penn Smith, and other well-known literary men then in the city. He contributed to the magazines and other occasional publications, and one of his poems was highly praised by Poe in Graham's Magazine (December 1841).

From 1843 to 1846 he was sheriff of Philadelphia, again displaying unusual vigor and courage in ending the anti-Catholic or "Native American" riots of 1844. Always active in the cause of civic betterment, he lent his support and that of his paper to the hotly contested movement for the consolidation of various independent districts of Philadelphia under one government, and was in no small measure responsible for the ultimate passage of the Consolidation Act of 1854. As early as 1858 he was mentioned as a possible candidate for mayor and eight years later was elected to that office, filling it from 1866 to 1869. During the Civil War, in which two of his sons served with distinction, he was one of the founders of the Union League, and later became its fourth president (1870-74). When the Fairmount Park Commission was formed in 1867 he was made president and was reelected repeatedly until his death. He declined the appointment as minister to Great Britain tendered him by President Grant, on the ground that he could not afford to support the office with the proper dignity. In 1872 he was temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention which renominated Grant for president, and at this time was considered for the vice-presidency. He was a delegate at large to the fourth constitutional convention of Pennsylvania in 1873. After a trip to Europe (1874) he was appointed, in 1875, to the board of managers of the Centennial Exposition: In 1876 he declined, on account of ill health, the chairmanship of the Republican National Convention at Cincinnati. In 1877 he was awarded the degree of LL.D. by the University of Pennsylvania.

Although the only public offices McMichael ever held were in Philadelphia, his influence was wide. By concerning himself with issues and refusing to tolerate personal abuse, he did much to improve the tone of the newspaper press. He was a brilliant speaker and hardly a function in Philadelphia passed without finding him its presiding officer or the orator of the occasion. He died in Philadelphia, and was buried in North Laurel Hill Cemetery.

[North American, January 7, 8, and Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 7, 9, 1879; J. T. Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia (1884); In re Morton McMichael (privately printed, 1921), ed. by Albert Mordell; J. W. Forney, Memorial Address upon the Character and Public Services of Morton McMichael (1879) and Anecdotes of Public Men, volume II (1881); F. L. Mott, A History of American Magazines (1930); Paulson's American Daily Advertiser, April 28, 1831.]

A. C. B.



MANN, Horace, 1796-1859, Boston, Massachusetts, educator, political leader, social reformer. U.S. Congressman, Whig Party, from Massachusetts. Co-founder of the Young Men’s Colonization Society in Boston. Co-founded monthly paper, The Colonizationist and Journal of Freedom. He defended the American Colonization Society and its policies against criticism by William Lloyd Garrison. Opposed extension of slavery in territories annexed in the Mexican War of 1846. Said, “I consider no evil as great as slavery...” Argued against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Reelected to Congress and served from April 1848 until March 1853.

(Mabee, 1970, pp. 64, 157, 160, 168, 170, 171, 261, 294, 409n9; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 190-191; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 6, Pt. 2, p. 240; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 14, p. 424; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 204)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 190-191:

MANN, Horace, educator, born in Franklin, Massachusetts, 4 May, 1796; died in Yellow Springs, Ohio, 2 August, 1859. His father was a farmer in limited circumstances, and the son was forced to procure by his own exertions the means of obtaining an education. He earned his school-books when a child by braiding straw, and his severe and frugal life taught him habits of self-reliance and independence. From ten years of age to twenty he had never more than six weeks' schooling during any year, and he describes his instructors as "very good people, but very poor teachers." He was graduated at Brown in 1819, and the theme of his oration, " The Progressive Character of the Human Race," foreshadowed his subsequent career. After his graduation he was tutor in Latin and Greek in Blown, entered the Litchfield, Connecticut, law-school in 1821, and in 1823 was admitted to the bar, opening an office in Dedham, Massachusetts He was elected to the legislature in 1827, and in that body was active in the interests of education, public charities, and laws for the suppression of intemperance and lotteries. He established through his personal exertions the State lunatic asylum at Worcester, and in 1833 was chairman of its board of trustees. He continued to be returned to the legislature as representative from Dedham till his removal to Boston in 1833, when he entered into partnership with Edward G. Loring. In the practice of his profession he adopted the principle never to take the unjust side of any cause, and he is said to have gained four fifths of the cases in which he was engaged, the influence that he exerted over the juries being due in a great measure to the confidence that all felt in his honesty of purpose. He was elected to the state senate from Boston in 1833, was its president in 1836-'7, and from the latter year till 1848 was secretary of the Massachusetts board of education. While in the legislature he was a member and part of the time chairman of the committee for the revision of the state statutes, and a large number of salutary provisions were incorporated into the code at his suggestion. After their enactment he was appointed one of the editors of the work, and prepared its marginal notes and its references to judicial decisions. On entering on his duties as secretary to the Massachusetts board of education he withdrew from all other professional or business engagements and from politics. He introduced a thorough reform into the school system of the state, procuring the adoption of extensive changes in the school law, establishing normal schools, and instituting county educational conventions. He ascertained the actual condition of each school by "school registers," and from the detailed reports of the school committees made valuable abstracts that he embodied in his annual reports. Under the auspices of the board, but at his own expense, he went to Europe in 1843 to visit schools, especially in Germany, and his seventh annual report, published after his return, embodied the results of his tour. Many editions of this report were printed, not only in Massachusetts, but in other states, in some cases by private individuals and in others by legislatures, and several editions were issued in England. By his advocacy of the disuse of corporal punishment in school discipline he was involved in a controversy with some of the Boston teachers that resulted in the adoption of his views. By his lectures and writings he awakened an interest in the cause of education that had never before been felt. He gave his legal opinions gratuitously, superintended the erection of a few buildings, and drew plans for many others. In his "Supplementary Report" (1848) he said: "From the time I accepted the secretaryship in June, 1837, until March, 1848, when I tendered my resignation of it, I labored in this cause an average of not less than fifteen hours a day; from the beginning to the end of this period I never took a single day for relaxation, and months and months together passed without my withdrawing a single evening to call upon a friend." In the spring of 1848 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams. His first speech in that body was in advocacy of its right and duty to exclude slavery from the territories, and in a letter in December of that year he said: "I think the country is to experience serious times. Interference with slavery will excite civil commotion in the south. But it is best to interfere. Now is the time to see whether the Union is a rope of sand or a band of steel." Again he said: "I consider no evil as great as slavery, and I would pass the Wilmot proviso whether the south rebel or not." During the first session he volunteered as counsel for Drayton and Sayres, who were indicted for stealing seventy-six slaves in the District of Columbia, and at the trial was engaged for twenty-one successive days in their defence. In 1850 he was engaged in a controversy with Daniel Webster in regard to the extension of slavery and the fugitive-slave law. Mann was defeated by a single vote at the ensuing nominating convention by Mr. Webster's supporters; but, on appealing to the people as an independent anti-slavery candidate, he was re-elected, serving from April, 1848, till March, 1853. In September, 1852, he was nominated for governor of Massachusetts by the Free-Soil Party, and the same day was chosen president of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Failing in the election for governor, he accepted the presidency of the college, in which he continued until his death. He carried that institution through pecuniary and other difficulties, and satisfied himself of the practicality of co-education. His death was hastened by his untiring labors in his office. He published, besides his annual reports, his lectures on education, and his voluminous controversial writings, " A Few Thoughts for a Young Man" (Boston, 1850); "Slavery: Letters and Speeches" (1851); "Powers and Duties of Woman'' (1853); and "Sermons" (1861). See "Life of Horace Mann," by his wife (1865); "Life and Complete Works of Horace Mann " (2 vols., Cambridge, 1869); and "Thoughts selected from the Writings of Horace Mann " (1869). His lectures on education were translated into French by Eugene de Guer, under the title of "De l'importance de l'education dans une republique," with a preface and biographical sketch by Edouard R. L. Laboulaye (Paris, 1873).—His second wife, Mary Tyler (Peabody), author, born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1806; died in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. 11 February, 1887, was a daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. She resided in Salem during her youth, and afterward lived for the most part in or near Boston. During her husband's life she shared in all his benevolent and educational work, and her familiarity with modern languages enabled her to assist him greatly in his studies of foreign reforms. Her writings, especially those on the kindergarten system, with her sister, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, are distinguished for vigor of thought and felicity of expression. She published " Flower People " (1838); "Christianity in the Kitchen, a Physiological Cook Book " (Boston, 1857); "Culture in Infancy," with Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1863); " Life of Horace Mann " (1865); and " Juanita, a Romance of Real Life in Cuba." published after her death (1887. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 190-191.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 240-243:

MANN, HORACE (May 4, 1796-August 2, 1859), educator, one of five children of Thomas and Rebecca (Stanley) Mann, was born on the ancestral farm in the town of Franklin, Massachusetts, a descendant of William Mann, an early settler of Cambridge, M ass. From his father, who died of tuberculosis in 1809, Horace inherited a frail constitution and a susceptibility to this disease. His parents were people of meager education but of sterling character, and imparted to their children habits of industry and high ideals. Mann's childhood was an unhappy one passed in poverty, unremitting toil, repression, and fear. The studies and methods of the district school w ere stultifying, the school masters ignorant, and their discipline stern and terrifying. Still more terrifying were the Sunday sermons preached by the Reverend Nathaniel Emmons [q .v.], in which were pictured the eternal torments of those damned fo r the glory of God. Night after night the little lad, filled with grief and horror over the possible fate awaiting his loved ones, sobbed himself to sleep. Although Franklin possessed a town library, it brought little relief to the mind of the harrowed child, made up a s it was chiefly of old histories and theological works. Undoubtedly, the immediate influence of school, church, and town library upon this highly sensitive boy were repressive, if not injurious; nevertheless, to the spirit of revolt engendered by their defects can be traced directly many of the most important reform efforts of his later life.

The superiority of Mann's mental gifts was revealed in connection with his preparation for college. Up to the time he was sixteen, he had never attended school more than eight or ten weeks in any one year, and he did not begin preparing for college, until 1816. Then, in six months, under the direction of a n eccentric but brilliant itinerant teacher named Barrett, he completed a course of study which enabled him to enter the sophomore class of Brown University. Here he made a brilliant record, graduating with high honors in 1819. He now enter ed a law office in Wrentham, Massachusetts, but after a few months returned to Brown as a tutor in Latin and Greek. In 1821 he left Brown to enter the famous law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, and in 1823 was admitted to the bar of Norfolk County, Massachusetts. For fourteen years, fir st at Dedham, Massachusetts., and after 1833 at Boston, he practised with marked success. Meanwhile, he had begun his public career as a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, first serving in the House (1827-33), and then in the Senate (1833-37). During the last two years, he was president of the Senate, and as such signed the epoch-making education bill which became a law April 20, 1837. This bill provided for a state board of education, to consist of the governor, lieutenant-governor, and eight citizens to be appointed by the governor. It empowered the board of education to appoint and employ a secretary at an annual salary of $1,000 (increased in 1838 to $1,500), and to make annual reports to the state legislature.

It had been expected that the board would choose as its first secretary James G. Carter [q.v.], the framer of the bill, a man whose services to education undoubtedly eclipsed those of any other citizen of the state up to that time. The selection of Mann, largely through the influence of Edmund Dwight [q.v.], was, however, a matter of no greater surprise than Mann's acceptance, involving, as it did, his abandonment of a lucrative legal practice and the prospect of an alluring political career; but his reasons for acceptance are not difficult to discover. Though exceedingly successful, he had never been ardently enthusiastic about his profession; from early childhood he had been possessed with a consuming desire to do something for the benefit of mankind; he saw in the secretaryship, moreover, a means of combating the grief and despair which had held him in clutch ever since the death of his wife, Charlotte Messer, daughter of President Asa Messer [q.v.] of Brown University, whom he had married September 12, 1830, and who had died childless, August 1, 1832.

The educational situation awaiting the new secretary offered ample scope for his many talents. The school-district system legalized in 1789 had brought with it a multitude of evils, including disastrous decentralization, a decline in public interest, and a decrease of financial support. Free schools, the one-time glory of colonial Massachusetts, were now regarded with contempt by the well-to-do classes, who more and more patronized private schools. The effects of this attitude were everywhere evident in short school terms, dilapidated and unsanitary schoolhouses, untrained and underpaid teachers, and irrational methods of teaching. To remedy these conditions as far and as soon as possible was the task awaiting Mann. Clothed with almost no authority except to collect and disseminate information, he brought to his new duties such a degree of courage, vision, and wisdom that during the brief period of twelve years in which he held office, the Massachusetts school system was almost completely transformed. His first task was to arouse and to educate public opinion with reference to the purpose, value, and needs of public education. With this end in view, he organized annual educational conventions in every county for the benefit of teachers, school officials, and the public. He not only addressed these meetings himself, but pressed into service distinguished clergymen, lawyers, and college professors. Realizing that there was little hope of any improvement in the schools apart from the improvement of the teaching profession, he rapidly consummated plans which led to the establishment of teachers' institutes and normal ' schools. During the second year of his office, Edmund Dwight, through Mann, anonymously offered $10,000 to the state of Massachusetts for improving the preparation of elementary teachers, provided the state would furnish a like amount. Dwight's gift and its conditions were accepted by the legislature, and within two years Massachusetts had established the first three state normal schools in the United States.

In 1838, with the avowed purpose of bringing about a better understanding of the problems of the public school, he started a semi-monthly magazine, the Common School Journal, which he edited for ten years. A far more important channel through which he disseminated a knowledge of existing conditions and needed reforms were the twelve annual reports which he prepared (1837-48) as secretary of the state board of education. Each contains not only the customary statistical data, but a presentation and discussion of school problems of crucial importance. The needs and remedies growing out of these problems are set forth with convincing clearness and with the fervor or a prophet and reformer.

The results of his labors were remarkable. When he became secretary, elementary men teachers were receiving an average-annual wage of $185, and women, $65; one-sixth of the children of the state were being educated in private schools and academies, and approximately one-third were without any educational opportunities whatsoever. In multitudes of districts the school term did not extend beyond two or three months. Under Mann's influence, a minimum school year of six months was established by an act passed in 1839. More than $2,000,000 was spent in providing better schoolhouses and equipment. Appropriations for public education were more than doubled. The proportion of private school expenditure to that of public schools decreased from seventy-five to thirty-six per cent. of total school costs. Salaries of public school masters were increased by sixty-two per cent. and those of women, by fifty-four per cent. The high-school law of 1827, largely a dead letter prior to his time; became effective, with the result that at least fifty new high schools were established during as secretaryship and opportunities for free public secondary education became widely distributed throughout the state. The professional training of teachers was placed on a firm basis, the elementary curriculum was enriched, and improved methods of instruction, including especially the Pestalozzian object methods and the word method of teaching reading, were introduced.

It was inevitable that Mann's aggressive efforts should sooner or later arouse bitter opposition. As a Unitarian, he contended that the Bible should be read in public schools, but without comment. He had scarcely entered upon his progressive educational program when one church after another began to charge him and the board of education with being responsible for creating a godless system of schools. With these charges came the demand that sectarian instruction, which had been excluded from the schools by an act of 1827, should be restored. Mann met these sectarian attacks with vigor, courage, and a final victory of great importance, not only to the schools of Massachusetts, but to the nation at large. Immediately after his marriage to his second wife, Mary Tyler (Peabody) Mann [q.v.], on May 1, 1843, he sailed for Europe with two purposes in mind: to recover his health, and to discover what America might learn from European schools. He spent five months studying educational conditions in England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland. His observations and conclusions, embodied in his seventh annual report, drew no comparison between the schools of the United States and those of European countries; nevertheless, his high commendation of German schools was interpreted by a considerable numb er of Boston school masters as implying a drastic criticism of their own professional preparation and practices. An acrimonious controversy ensued from which, however, Mann again came forth victorious.

In 1848 he resigned his secretaryship, having been elected to the United States House of Representatives as an anti-slavery Whig to succeed John Quincy Adams. Although allied with antislavery forces, Mann was not an abolitionist; nevertheless, he was eventually led into open conflict with Daniel Webster, whose friendship arid political support he had enjoyed up to this time. In 1852 he met defeat as the candidate of the Free-Soilers for the governorship of Massachusetts. He then accepted the presidency of the recently established Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio. Besides serving as president, he taught political economy, intellectual philosophy, moral phi1osophy, and natural theology. In 1859, owing to bad management, lack of funds; and internal dissensions, the -college was sold for debt and reorganized. Following his delivery of the baccalaureate address of that year, Mann, exhausted and broken by the anxieties and persecution amid which he had labored, retired to his home, where he died within a few weeks. He was survived by his wife and their three sons.

Mann espoused many other causes beside that of the common schools, notably the establishment of state. hospitals for the insane and the restriction of slavery, lotteries, and the liquor traffic. Essentially a Puritan without a theology, he denounced not only profanity and intemperance, but smoking and ballet dancing. His lasting place in American history rests, however, upon his services to public education. His influence in this field extended far beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts. Copies of his annual reports and other educational writings were widely disseminated throughout the United States with the result that one state after another sought and followed his advice. Owing to his efforts combined with those of other educational pioneers, there ensued a period so marked by educational progress and reform that it has ever since come to be known as the period of the common-school revival in the United States.

Among the many influences which played an important part in developing the character, philosophy, ideals, and aims of Horace Mann were the writings of Emerson and those of the Scotch philosopher and phrenologist, George Combe. Although Mann acquired from Combe a belief in phrenology, undoubtedly the greatest source of Combe's influence over him was the Scotch philosopher's unswerving faith in the unlimited improvability of the human race through education. The motivating principle of Mann's life was nowhere better or more clearly expressed than in the oft-quoted words with which I he closed his-last Commencement address at Antioch College: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." In addition to his twelve annual reports which are included in abbreviated form in Mary Mann's Life (post, volume III), and numerous articles in magazines, he published Lectures on Education (1845).

[Biographies and biographical sketches of Mann have been published in English, French, and Spanish. Of these the most important in English are: Life and Works of Horace Mann, ed. by Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (3 volumes, 1865-68), enlarged and ed. by G. C. Mann (5 volumes, 1891); B. A. Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the U. S. (1898); G. Compayre, Horace Mann and the Public School in the U.S. (tr. 1907); A. E. Winship, Horace Mann the Educator (1896). See also R. B. Culver, Horace Mann and Religion in the Massachusetts Public Schools (1929). For a genealogy of the Mann family, consult G. S. Mann, Mann Memorial; A Record of the Mann Family in America (1884). For bibliographies consult B. P. Mann, in Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1895-96 (1897), volume I, and B. A. Hinsdale, supra, pp; 311-19; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe]

F. H. S.



MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS (March 15, 1801-July 23, 1882), lawyer, diplomat, and scholar. In 1834 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and during two successive terms proved himself a supporter of high tariff and in opposition to slavery and the Mexican War. He joined the Republican party in 1856.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 297-298:

MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS (March 15, 1801-July 23, 1882), lawyer, diplomat, and scholar, a first cousin of James Marsh [q.v.], was born at Woodstock, Vermont. His father, Charles Marsh, an eminent lawyer, was a descendant of John Marsh who settled at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636, and the son of Joseph Marsh, a former lieutenant-governor of Vermont; his mother, Susan (nee Perkins), at the time of her marriage to his father was the widow of Josias Lyndon Arnold. His ancestors on both sides belonged to the intellectual aristocracy of New England. Brought up in a family of Puritan restraint, George was a frail and serious child who played by preference with girls and almost ruined his eyesight when he was seven by too assiduous reading. Unable for long periods to use his eyes, he learned by listening to others read and entered Dartmouth College in 1816 having had only a few months of formal schooling. There he was recognized as the most brilliant scholar in his class. Studious almost to excess, he learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German in his spare time, yet a dry humor made him not unpopular with classmates. In 1820 he graduated with highest honors and immediately tried teaching, but finding it distasteful, studied law in his father's office. Admitted to the bar in 1825, he practised in Burlington, Vermont, where he not only became prominent in his profession but also found time to familiarize himself with the Scandinavian languages. On April 10, 1828, he married Harriet, daughter of Ozias Buell of Burlington, and her death in 1833, within a few days of that of the older of their two sons, was a crushing blow. Six years later he married Caroline, daughter of Benjamin Crane of Berkley, Massachusetts. Meanwhile his ability as a lawyer, business man, and scholar had been recognized, and in 1835 he was appointed by the governor to the supreme executive council of the state. In 1834 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and during two successive terms proved himself a cogent if dry speaker in support of high tariff and in opposition to slavery and the Mexican War.

In 1849 President Taylor appointed him minister to Turkey, and at Constantinople his encyclopedic knowledge of languages was most useful. He cooperated with Sir Stratford Canning in aiding many refugees from the central European revolutions of 1848 and arranged for the departure of Kossuth and fifty compatriots on an American frigate. In the summer of 1852 he was sent to Athens, where the United States had no regular diplomatic representative, to investigate the case of Jonas King [q.v.], an American missionary imprisoned by the local authorities. After careful study of the copious evidence in modern Greek, Marsh found him the victim of unscrupulous and bigoted persecution and returned the next spring to demand redress. While the Greek government procrastinated, the minister was recalled to Constantinople by an acrimonious dispute over Martin Koszta, a Hungarian revolutionist half-naturalized in the United States and illegally seized in Smyrna by an Austrian naval commander. Instructed by John Porter Brown [q.v.], the American charge at Constantinople, Captain Duncan N. Ingraham [q.v.] of the American sloop of war St. Louis had demanded the prisoner and cleared his ship for action to enforce compliance before the Austrian discreetly delivered him to the French consul. Marsh and the Austrian ambassador pointed out with equal correctness that both naval officers had flagrantly disregarded the sovereignty of Turkey, but the Porte did nothing, and excitement soon died down.

Recalled by a new administration in 1854, Marsh labored to mend his bankrupt fortunes, acted as railroad commissioner for the state of Vermont, and delivered at Columbia University and the Lowell Institute lectures on English philology and etymology which established his reputation as an outstanding authority in those fields. Having joined the Republican party in 1856, he was sent by President Lincoln as the first United States minister to the new kingdom of Italy in 1860. This post he held for the remaining twenty-one years of his life, gaining great prestige with the Italian government through his obvious hone sty and sympathy with their aims, and building up a greater reputation as a scholar by his numerous reviews and encyclopedia articles. He died at Vallombrosa, near Florence, and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome.

A man of great personal dignity and reserve, Marsh was master of a punning humor and could turn a compliment prettily. with interests which ranged from comparative grammar to physiography and from the gathering of reptiles for the Smithsonian Institution to the collection of engravings, which were ultimately acquired by the Smithsonian, he was a sort of universal genius, a conscientious and erudite scholar in many fields. His early interest in Scandinavia resulted in the publication of A Compendious Grammar of the Old-Northern or Icelandic Language (1838), largely a compilation from the work of R. K. Rask; while another aspect of the same study showed itself in his preaching a gospel of old Teutonic simplicity and virtue, to which he attributed everything good in the English tradition (The Goths in New-England, 1843). His travels in the Near East inspired The Camel, His Organization, Habits, and Uses, Considered with Reference to His Introduction into the United States (1856). He was one of the early workers associated with the Oxford Dictionary (J. A. H. Murray, A New English Dictionary, volume I, 1888, Preface, p. v). His Lectures on the English Language (1860) and The Origin and History of the English Language (1862) were excellent philological and etymological works for their day but have since become antiquated. His Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864; revised edition of 1874 entitled The Earth as Modified by Human Action), embodying the fruit of many years' acute observation during his extensive travels, has been called "the fountainhead of the conservation movement" (Lewis Mumford, The Brown Decades, 1931, p. 78). It was a pioneer effort "to suggest the possibility and the importance of the restoration of disturbed harmonies and the material improvement of waste and exhausted regions" (Preface, quoted by Mumford, p. 75), and had a significant influence both at home and abroad.

[H. L. Koopman, Bibliog. of George Perkins Marsh (1892); Caroline Crane Marsh, Life and Letters of G. P. March (1888), projected as a two-volume work, only one volume published; S. G. Brown, A Discourse Commemorative of the Hon. George Perkins Marsh (1883); D. W. Marsh, Marsh Genealogy (1895); H. L. Mencken, The American Language (1919), pp. 8, 144; Proc. American Acad. Arts and Sci., volume XVIII (1883); Atti delta R. Accademia dei Lincei ... 1882-83 (3 series VII, 1883); the Nation (New York), July 27, August 3, October 12, 1882; New York Times, July 25, 1882.]

W. L. W., Jr.



MARTINDALE, Henry Clinton, member of Congress, born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 6 May, 1780; died in Sandy Hill, Washington, New York, 22 April, 1860. He was graduated at Williams in 1800, studied law, and established himself in practice at Sandy Hill. After filling various local offices, he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and reelected for the three succeeding terms, serving from 1 December 1823, till 3 March, 1831. After an interval of one term he was returned for the fifth time, and served from 2 December, 1833, till 3 March, 1835.



MARVIN, Dudley (May 29, 1786-June 25, 1852), U.S. Congressman, supported the Free-Soil movement in the new territories. The controversy over slavery in the territory newly acquired from Mexico brought him once more into the sectional debate. "It will not be denied," he asserted, "that the introduction of slavery equally excludes from a participation in the enjoyment of these acquisitions the free laboring men of the North" (Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, I Session, App., p. 1211). The right of the federal government to exclude slavery from the territories he declared to be derived from the sovereign rights of the nation, the territories having been acquired in the first place "by the act of war-an act of sovereignty in which the respective sovereign States in the Union neither were nor could be known"

(Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 353-354:

MARVIN, DUDLEY (May 29, 1786-June 25, 1852), congressman, the son of Elisha and Elizabeth (Selden) Marvin, was born in Lyme, Connecticut, where his ancestor, Reinold Marvin who emigrated from Essex County, England, before 1638, finally settled and died. He attended the Colchester Academy in Connecticut and then followed the path of New England pioneers westward into New York and settled in Ontario County at Canandaigua. With a general education such as was afforded by a small New England academy of that time he studied law and was admitted to the bar, probably in 1811. At the outbreak of war with Great Britain the following year he took active military duty with the state militia and served as lieutenant. After peace had been declared he continued to take a prominent part in the militia, rising eventually to the rank of major-general. He was married on January 31, 1818, to Mary Jepson Whalley, the daughter of Joseph and Hannah (Saltonstall) Whalley of Canandaigua. They had one child.

Marvin practised law successfully and was recognized as one of the ablest barristers in the western counties of the state. In 1822 he was elected to Congress, as an Adams Democrat, and was reelected in 1824 and in 1826. He came under the influence of Henry Clay's leadership and espoused the Whig cause. In Congress he advocated with distinction the dominant interests of the rising industrial power of the North, a protective tariff and the limitation of slavery. During his first term he became a member of the committee on manufactures and was an ardent advocate of a protective tariff. In the debate over the celebrated tariff of 1824 he defended against Southern opposition the cause of the Northern manufacturing interests, then slowly developing. He maintained that the tax that falls in the first instance upon the cotton planters "is paid back again by all other States, in the various proportions in which they are consumers of cotton" (Annals of Congress, 18 Congress, 1 Session, col. 1527). The fact that two-thirds of the cotton crop was consumed abroad did not in his mind disturb the logic of the Northern position. After completing his third term in Congress, he went to Maryland and to Virginia for a time and then removed to New York City to practise law there and in Brooklyn. About 1843 he again removed to the outlying districts of the state and settled in Ripley, Chautauqua County. In 1847 he returned to Congress as a Whig and served for one term. The stirring controversy over slavery in the territory newly acquired from Mexico brought him once more into the sectional debate. "It will not be denied," he asserted, "that the introduction of slavery equally excludes from a participation in the enjoyment of these acquisitions the free laboring men of the North" (Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, I Session, App., p. 1211). The right of the federal government to exclude slavery from the territories he declared to be derived from the sovereign rights of the nation, the territories having been acquired in the first place "by the act of war-an act of sovereignty in which the respective sovereign States in the Union neither were nor could be known" (Ibid., p. 1209). The remainder of his life was spent in Ripley. He interested himself in community affairs, was active in the temperance movement, and in the Presbyterian Church.

[A. W. Young, History of Chautauqua County (1875); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); G. F. and W. T. R. Marvin, Descendants of Reinold and Matthew Marvin (1904) as authority for dates of birth and death.]

G.L.R.



MATTOCKS, John (March 4, 1777-August 14, 1847), U. S. congressman and governor. In 1820, he was elected to the national House of Representatives, and later served for two other terms-in 1825-27 and 1841-43. He was a vigorous opponent of negro slavery, and his most noteworthy appearance in debate was in a speech on the presentation of a petition for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.

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

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 423-424:

MATTOCKS, JOHN (March 4, 1777-August 14, 1847), congressman and governor, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the youngest son of Samuel Mattocks. Originally a farmer, the father moved in 1778 to Tinmouth, Vermont, where he served in the state legislature, became a judge and chief justice of the Rutland county court, and was long state treasurer (1786-1801). At the age of fifteen, his son went to live with a married sister, Rebecca Miller, in Middlebury. Largely self-educated, he studied law first with Samuel Miller and later at Fairfield, with Judge Bates Turner, 'and was admitted to the bar in February 1797. In the same year, he opened an office at Danville, Caledonia County, Vermont, but moved three years later to Peacham, in the same county, where he was soon engrossed in politics.

In 1807 he was sent to the legislature, where, in all, he sat five terms-1807, 1815, 1816, 1823, and 1824. In 1820, he was elected to the national House of Representatives, and later served for two other terms-in 1825-27 and 1841-43. He was a vigorous opponent of negro slavery, and his most noteworthy appearance in debate was in a speech on the presentation of a petition for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. He was chosen in 1832 as judge of the supreme court of Vermont, but resigned within a year. In 1843, running as a Whig, he was elected governor of Vermont, but declined a reelection. He was proud of the fact that he was never defeated for any office for which he was a candidate. While governor, he made an unsuccessful effort to establish Thanksgiving on December 25. The people at large objected to having New England Thanksgiving "disgraced by ... Popish nonsense," and Churchmen objected to Christmas being merged into a "Pumpkin pie Holiday" (Chandler, post, p. 37).

In 1806 he was made a director of the Vermont State Bank. During the War of 1812 he was a brigadier-general in the Vermont militia. He married, September 4, 1810, Esther Newell, of Peacham, who died, July 21, 1844, leaving three sons and one daughter. Of the sons, one became a clergyman, one an attorney, and one a physician.

Mattocks was perhaps best known as a lawyer. During nearly fifty years of practice, he became the most important figure at the Vermont bar. It was said that he was frequently engaged in every jury trial at a session of the county court and won every case. He adopted an easy, conversational manner, with no rhetorical flourishes, making his appeal mainly on the basis of common sense. He was a large and robust man, somewhat inclined to corpulency, and of a sanguine temperament. To his younger colleagues at the bar he was exceedingly kind and helpful. In his own time he was notorious, like Rufus Choate, for his crabbed and illegible handwriting. His witty stories and clever repartee were frequently quoted. He was an orthodox Congregationalist, of firm religious principles.

[W. H. Crockett, Vermont (1921), volume III; A. M. Hemenway, The Vermont Historical Gazetteer, volume I (1868); J. G. Ullery, Men of Vermont (1894); 0. P. Chandler, in Vermont Bar Assn. Constitution, Proceedings, Papers, and Addresses, 1886, volume II (1887); Vermont Patriot (Montpelier), August 26, 1847.]

C.M.F.



MAYNARD, Horace (August 30, 1814-May 3, 1882), U.S. Congressman and Unionist. In 1857, he was elected as a candidate of the Whig and American parties and two years later was reelected. Fought against the withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union.

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

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

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

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

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

P. M. H.



MEDILL, Joseph (April 6, 1823-March 16, 1899), journalist. With three younger brothers he purchased the Coshocton Whig in 1849 and immediately renamed it the Republican. Within two years he moved to Cleveland and established the Daily Forest City. A year later he consolidated it with a Free-Soil journal and established the Cleveland Leader. Accepting the election of 1852 as foreshadowing the end of the Whig party, he labored diligently for the organization of a new party to be called Republican. In March 1854 a secret meeting was held in the office of the Cleveland Leader and plans adopted for the new anti-slavery party. There is evidence to show that he was the first man to advocate the name Republican even before the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography1888, Vol. IV, p. 285:

MEDILL, Joseph, journalist, born in New Brunswick, Canada. 6 April, 1823. His father moved in 1832 to Stark County, Ohio, where the son worked on a farm, subsequently studied law, and practised at Massillon. He founded a Free-Soil paper at Coshocton in 1849, established "The Leader," a Whig journal, at Cleveland in 1852, and in 1854 was one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Ohio. Soon afterward he went to Chicago, and with two partners bought, in May, 1855, the "Tribune," with which he has since been identified. He was a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1870, and the author of a minority representation clause. In 1871 he was a member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, and was elected mayor of Chicago. He spent a year in Europe in 1873-'4, and on his return purchased a controlling interest in the "Tribune," of which he became and continues editor-in-chief. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 285.

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

MEDILL, JOSEPH (April 6, 1823-March 16, 1899), journalist, was born in a village near St. John in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. He was of Scotch-Irish stock, and for generations his ancestors had been shipbuilders in Belfast. His father, William Medill, emigrated to America in 1819 and settled in an area that was later awarded to Canada by the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842. When he was nine his parents moved to Stark County, Ohio, and there he worked on the farm and received such education as the district schools and an academy in Massillon afforded. Upon reaching the age of twenty-one, he determined to enter a law office and after several years of study was admitted to the bar in 1846; but as law practice was at best uncertain, he turned to journalism. With three younger brothers he purchased the Coshocton Whig in 1849 and immediately renamed it the Republican. Within two years he moved to Cleveland and established the Daily Forest City. A year later he consolidated it with a Free-Soil journal and established the Cleveland Leader. Accepting the election of 1852 as foreshadowing the end of the Whig party, he labored diligently for the organization of a new party to be called Republican. In March 1854 a secret meeting was held in the office of the Cleveland Leader and plans adopted for the new anti-slavery party. There is evidence to show that he was the first man to advocate the name Republican even before the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed (A. J. Turner, "Genesis of the Republican Party," Wisconsin State Register, March 1898; Cleveland, post, p. 85).

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

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

[Lyman Trumbull MSS. in Library of Congress; miscellaneous MSS. in Chicago Historical Society Library; manuscript biography written in I90i by M. Dodge in the office of the Chicago Tribune; H. I. Cleveland, "A Talk with ... the Late Joseph Medill," Saturday Evening Post, August 5, 1899; Th e W. G. N.; a Handbook of Newspaper Administration (1922); Pictured Encyc. of the World's Greatest Newspaper (copyright 1928); W. J. Abbot, "Chicago Newspapers," Review of Reviews, June 1895; A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, 3 volumes, 1884-86; Chicago Times-Herald, March 17, 1899, Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1899.]



MERCER, Charles Fenton, 1778-1858, Leesburg, Virginia, soldier, political leader, opponent of slavery. Vice President, American Colonization Society, 1834-1841, Director, 1839-1840, life member. Called the “American Wilberforce.” Introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress for the federal government to “make such regulations and arrangements, as he deem expedient, for safeguarding, support and removal of” the Africans in the United States. $100,000 was appropriated by the bill. It became the Slave Trade Act of 1819. It became law on March 4, 1819.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 61; Mason, 2006, pp. 124-125, 269; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 163; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 31, 48, 50-51, 70, 73, 176-178, 184, 207, 307; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 300; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, p. 539)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, p. 539:

MERCER, CHARLES FENTON (June 16, 1778-May 4, 1858), congressman from Virginia, was born at Fredericksburg, Virginia, the youngest son of Eleanor (Dick) and James Mercer [q.v.]. His mother died when he was two years old and thirteen years later his father died leaving heavy debts, which the son later undertook to pay. The boy entered the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1795 and graduated in 1797 at the head of his class. In college he began his lifelong friendship with John Henry Hobart [q.v.] and became a devout Episcopalian. From 1797 until 1802 he read law at Princeton and at Richmond, Virginia. When war with France threatened in 1798 he volunteered and was twice offered a commission in the army, but since the threat of war had already passed he declined. In 1802 he was licensed to practise law. Soon afterward he went to England on business and also visited France. On his return he settled at Aldie, Loudoun County, Virginia, and began the practice of his profession. He became a member of the House of Delegates of Virginia in 1810 and served until he resigned in 1817 to enter Congress. While a member of the legislature he took a leading part in efforts to increase the banking capital of Virginia, to found a new bank, to promote the colonization in Africa of free negroes from the United States, and to build roads and canals. He offered a bill to provide for a complete system of public education, from common-school to state university, which was defeated in the Senate in the spring of 1817 after having passed the House (see his Discourse on Popular Education: Delivered in ... Princeton ... September 26, 1826, 1826). He was also the author of the act by which a sword and pension were given to George Rogers Clark. During the War of 1812 he served with the Virginia troops, rising to the rank of brigadier-general.

His enthusiasm for internal improvements, the suppression of the slave trade, and the colonization of free negroes gave direction to his efforts when he became a member of the federal House of Representatives in 1817. He was chairman of the committees on roads and canals and on the District of Columbia. Though a member of the Federalist party until its dissolution and then a Whig, he was never an ardent party man. He enjoyed the friendship of Monroe and of John Quincy Adams. He disliked Jackson and Van Buren and on January 26, 1819, delivered an address in Congress in which he assailed Jackson's course in the Seminole War (Annals of Congress, 15 Congress, 2 Session, cols. 797-831). He was a strong Unionist but was alarmed at the rapidly increasing power of the president and was opposed to the executive's control over federal patronage. He was active in the movement that resulted in the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and was for five years, from 1828 to 1833, president of the company. He was a leader in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-30, in which he advocated manhood suffrage, equal representation, and the popular election of important officers with the whole power of his distinguished oratorical ability.

Resigning from Congress on December 26, 1839, he became cashier of a bank in Tallahassee, Florida. He was original grantee, partner, and agent of the Texas association, a company which obtained a contract to settle colonists in Texas and to receive pay from the Republic in land. When the convention in 1845 declared colonization contracts unconstitutional he and his associates brought suit to force payment, but the case was decided against them in the United States courts. In 1845 he published An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the United States. In 1847 he built a house near Carrollton, Kentucky, which he made his home until 1853, when he disposed of his property there. For three years he traveled in Europe, working in the interest of the abolition of the slave trade. Ill with cancer of the lip, he returned to Fairfax County, Virginia, where he was nursed by relatives until his death. He was never married.

[J. M. Garnett, Biographical Sketches of Hon. Charles Fenton Mercer (1911); W. F. Dunaway, "Charles Fenton Mercer," manuscript thesis in the Library of University of Chicago; Wm. and Mary College Quarterly, January 1909, p. 210; The Correspondence of John Henry Hobart, esp. volume III (1912); John McVicar. The Early Life and Professional Years of Bishop Hobart (1838); Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ed. by C. F. Adams, volumes IV-X (1875-76), esp. X, p. 360, for Adams' explanation of Mercer's becoming a bank cashier at Tallahassee.]

C.F.A.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 300:

MERCER, Charles Fenton, soldier, born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 6 June, 1778; died in Howard, near Alexandria, Virginia, 4 May, 1858. He was graduated at Princeton in 1797, and commissioned captain of cavalry the next year by General Washington, in anticipation of war with France, but subsequently studied law, and after a tour abroad in 1802-'3, practised his profession. He was a member of the Virginia legislature in 1810-'17, and during the war of 1812 was aide to the governor and in command of the defences of Norfolk, with the rank of brigadier-general. He was chairman of the committee on finances in the legislature in 1816, and introduced the bill for the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, of which he became president. He was elected to congress as a Federalist in this year, and returned till 1840, a longer period of continued service than that of any of his contemporaries. He was an active protectionist, and an opponent of slavery. He visited Europe in 1853 and conferred with eminent men of several countries in the interests of abolition. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 300.



MERRILL, Samuel (October 29, 1792-August 24, 1855), Indiana official. During the existence of the Whig party, he adhered to it-with a strong anti-slavery leaning-and was an active party worker, and a manager of the State Colonization Society.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 563-564:

MERRILL, SAMUEL (October 29, 1792-August 24, 1855), Indiana official, was the second of nine sons of Jesse and Priscilla (Kimball) Merrill of Peacham, Vermont. His first American ancestor, Nathaniel Merrill, settled at Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1635. Samuel Merrill attended an academy at Peacham and studied for a year, 1812-13, as a sophomore at Dartmouth College. He then taught school and studied law for three years at York, Pennsylvania. In 1816 he settled at Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, in the next year was admitted to the bar, and soon took his place as an active member of the community. Appointed tax assessor, he made the round of the county on foot for necessary economy; he was a contractor in the erection of a stone jail; superintendent of a town Sunday school started as early as 1817; and a representative of the county in the General Assemblies of 1819-20, 1820-21, and 1821-22. The General Assembly elected him state treasurer on December 14, 1822, and he held the office for four terms, till 1834. In 1824 he moved the state offices from Corydon to Indianapolis, one wagon sufficing for all the records and money. It took eleven or twelve days to cover the distance (125 miles by present highways); the road through the wilderness was impassable in some places, and a new way had to be cut through the woods.

He lived henceforth at the capital. In the absence of teachers, he personally conducted a school; he acted for a time as captain of the first military company, served as a commissioner for the erection of the state capitol building, which was finished in 1835, was an early president of the Temperance Society, a manager of the State Colonization Society, a trustee of Wabash College, and the second president of the Indiana Historical Society, 1835-48. He was active in the organization of the Second Presbyterian Church (New School) and an intimate friend of Henry Ward Beecher during his pastorate. On January 30, 1834, the General Assembly elected him president of the State Bank of Indiana. In this capacity he personally examined each of the thirteen branches twice a year. An excellent law and the efficient service of such officers as Merrill, Hugh McCulloch, and J. F. D. Lanier [qq.v.] combined to develop one of the best of all the state banks. After two terms in the office, Merrill was replaced by the choice of a Democratic legislature. From 1844 to 1848 he was president of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, during which time it was completed to Indianapolis. He spent the next two years compiling a third edition of the Indiana Gazetteer and in 1850 he bought Hood and Noble's bookstore, which later, under the name of the Merrill Company, undertook some publishing and event usually entered into the Bowen-Merrill (now the Bobbs-Merrill) publishing company. He also, with others, constructed a mill on Fall Creek.

On April 12, 1818, Merrill married Lydia Jane Anderson of Vevay, daughter of Captain Robert and Catherine (Dumont) Anderson. Ten children were born to them. Aft er his wife's death in 1847, he was married, second, to Elizabeth Douglas Young, of Madison, Indiana. Throughout his life he was the personification of traditional New England Puritanism: conscientious, industrious, and devout. He is said to have read the entire Bible every year after he reached the age of twelve. The square-cut features, tightly closed lips, and clean-shaven face shown in most of his portraits reveal a sober, straightforward, uncompromising character. A bitter, twenty-four page pamphlet which he published in 1827 attacking Governor James Brown Ray illustrates the roughness with which he performed "an unpleasant task." During the existence of the Whig party, he adhered to it-with a strong anti-slavery leaning-and was an active party worker. He died in Indianapolis and was buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, […].

C. B. C.



MILLER, Jacob Welsh, senator, born in German Valley, Morris County, New Jersey, in November, 1800; died in Morristown, New Jersey, 30 September, 1862. Elected to the U. S. Senate as a Whig, serving till 1853. He opposed the compromise measures of 1850, and in 1855 joined the Republican Party.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 326:

MILLER, Jacob Welsh, senator, born in German Valley, Morris County, New Jersey, in November, 1800; died in Morristown, New Jersey, 30 September, 1862. He received an academic education, studied law, was admitted to the bar of his native county, and attained eminence there. He was state senator in 1838-'40, and in the latter year was elected to the U. S. Senate as a Whig, serving till 1853. He opposed the compromise measures of 1850, and in 1855 joined the Republican Party, of which he continued an active member until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, pp. 326.



MILLER, Samuel Freeman, 1816-1890, lawyer, jurist, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Supported emancipation. Leader of the Republican Party. Appointed by Abraham Lincoln as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume IV, pp. 328-329; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, p. 637; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 516; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 2, pp. 637-640:

MILLER, SAMUEL FREEMAN (April 5, 1816-October 13, 1890), associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, was born at Richmond in the blue-grass region of Kentucky. His father, Frederick Miller, was a Pennsylvania German who had gone west in 1812. His mother was Patsy Freeman, whose family had emigrated from North Carolina. In 1836, without formal education, Miller entered the medical department of Transylvania University, at Lexington. He attended lectures for one year and then settled at Barbourville," county seat of Knox County, on the road leading down from Cumberland Gap. The autumn of 1837 found him back at Transylvania, where on March 9, 1838, he was "examined and received" for the degree of M.D. For the next twelve years he practised medicine in the mountain community about Barbourville. Here he married Lucy Ballinger, whose family was locally prominent. In the spring of 1837 the young men of the town formed a debating society. From the start Miller was its most active member. Here current political questions were threshed out, and Miller came to recognize that he had a flair for statecraft. He became a justice of the peace and a member of the county court. Surreptitiously he studied law, and on March 22, 1847, he was admitted to the bar of Knox County.

Like most of his neighbors, Miller was a Whig. He favored the gradual abolition of slavery in Kentucky, and aspired, unsuccessfully, to membership in the constitutional convention of 1849 where slavery was to be a leading issue. When the peculiar institution was fastened more firmly upon the state, he decided to seek a more congenial sphere of action. In 1850 with his wife and children he moved to Keokuk, Iowa, and formed the law partnership of Reeves & Miller. Shortly afterward he was left a widower, and in 1857, his partner having died, he was married to the latter's widow, Elizabeth (Winter) Reeves. While his practice was increasing he found time to engage in the organization of the Republican party, and in projects for building plank roads and railroads. He was a candidate for the nomination for governor in 1861. During the early months of the war he drew upon his meager resources to advance funds to meet the state's unforeseen needs. In 1862 President Lincoln was under the necessity of making nominations for the Supreme Court. To him a sound view on public questions was a better recommendation than profundity of legal learning, and Miller was actively supported by the Iowa delegation, which circulated a recommendation among the members of both houses of Congress, and by the lawyers of several western states. On July 16, 1862, he was nominated and unanimously confirmed as an associate justice. He was at the time the chairman of the district Republican committee at Keokuk.

The development in power and authority of this self-made jurist is interesting. His training had been woefully unsystematic but was such as tended to develop independence of judgment and capacity for hard thinking. In later years he came to recognize the superiority in education and training enjoyed by leading eastern jurists. Yet with a certain self-satisfaction he insisted that it was "from some western prairie town ... that future Marshalls and Mansfields shall arise and give new impulses and add new honor to the profession of the law" (Albany Law Journal, July 5, 1879, p. 29). His first term was Taney's last but one, and though Miller had cherished a hatred of the author of the Dred Scott opinion, the newest and the eldest of the justices parted fast friends. Throughout the war and reconstruction no judge was more stanch than Miller in the support of national authority. When in Ex parte Garland (4 Wallace, 333) the Court held that the requirement of a test oath of former loyalty from lawyers, teachers, and ministers amounted to an ex post facto law and a bill of attainder, Miller and the other Republicans argued that the measure was constitutional and proper. He was with the majority in the Legal Tender Cases (12 Wallace, 457) when by the advent of Justices Strong and Bradley this feature of the war program was narrowly saved from judicial repudiation.

A characteristic opinion is that in Crandall vs. Nevada (6 Wallace, 35). The legislature had imposed a tax on every person leaving the state. The Court was unanimous in holding the tax unconstitutional. Miller, as its spokesman, relied upon the broadest considerations of policy: "The people of these United States constitute one nation. They have a government in which all of them are deeply interested .... That government has a right to call to this point [the capital] any or all of its citizens to aid in its service .... The citizen also has correlative rights. He has the right to come to the seat of government to assert any claim he may have upon that government, or to transact any business he may have with it." Thus the tax was objectionable in that it conflicted with these implications of the nature of the union and of federal citizenship. In Loan Association vs. Topeka (20 Wallace, 655), a question of great contemporary importance was raised: Might a state or municipality grant public funds to aid a private enterprise? Miller approached the problem not in the light of constitutional provisions, but of his conception of natural law. "It must be conceded that there are ... rights in every free government beyond the control of the State. A government which recognized no such rights, which held the lives, the liberty, and the property of its citizens subject at all times to the absolute disposition and unlimited control of even the most democratic depository of power, is after all but a despotism . . . . There are limitations on such [public] power which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments. Implied reservations of individual rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name .... There can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a public purpose."

A courageous and emphatic dissent was that in Gelpcke vs. City of Dubuque (1 Wallace, 175) in Miller's second year on the bench. The city had issued bonds for the purchase of railroad stock, under the authority of a state law which had been held good at the time of the issue. Subsequently the state supreme court reversed itself and held the statute ultra vires. A foreign bondholder brought suit on the bonds in the federal courts. Would the Supreme Court, as in most other cases, accept the jurisprudence of the state court as the rule of decision ? The mischief seemed so great that the majority upheld the validity of the bonds. Two of Miller's deepest convictions united in compelling his dissent. First, he was always opposed to any tendency to allow a state to grant away its taxing power. Time and again in the next twenty years he dissented on this score. Then again, though a nationalist, he was impressed with the importance of maintaining an ample autonomy for state governments. He was strong in his belief that it was not the function of federal courts to sit in judgment on state courts expounding state law.

The latter conviction appears more maturely in the Slaughter House Cases (16 Wallace, 36). The Carpet-bag government of Louisiana granted a monopoly of the slaughtering business at New Orleans. Rival butchers contended that this action abridged their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States and was a denial of due process of law and equal protection of the laws. Thus the Fourteenth Amendment came to receive its fir st authoritative construction at the hands of the Court. A majority of five, speaking through Miller, started from the proposition that there is a distinction between those rights which inhere in state citizenship and those which inhere in federal citizenship. It was only the latter with which the new amendment dealt. The monopoly might deny the plaintiffs some right conferred by the state constitution; but no federal privilege or immunity had been abridged. To hold otherwise, said Miller,. "would constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States." The argument on due process and equal protection of the laws was briefly answered with the prophecy that "we doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class ... will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision."

This was not a scholastic discussion of state rights: it signified that the majority of the Court refused to read into the words of a Reconstruction amendment a promise of federal protection of vested property rights against the exertions of state power. Thus the nationalizing purposes of some of the Radical Republican authors of the amendment were frustrated. In the long run Miller's effort was somewhat unsuccessful, for those implications which he severed from the "privileges and immunities" clause were later grafted on to the "due process" clause of the same amendment.

Miller was more concerned with the practical result of a decision than with its doctrinal basis. Mere precedents were unimpressive aside from the authority of the judges who made them. He was disposed to let no technicalities stand in the way of what seemed right or just. Thus in United States vs. Lee (106 U. S., 196) he held that "no man in this country is so high that he is above the law," adding that, notwithstanding a government's immunity to suit, an action of ejectment may be maintained against an officer who holds the possession of property under an invalid title claimed by the United States. In the case involving a federal marshal who was being held for the killing of a citizen who had attacked Justice Field on circuit (In re Neagle, 135 U. S., 1), Miller held that it is an obligation of the President, fairly inferrible from the Constitution, to protect federal judges, and that the marshal had been acting in pursuance of "a law" of the United States, and was therefore entitled to be liberated on a writ of habeas corpus from the custody of the state authorities. Notwithstanding this tendency to view legal questions in the large, Miller could, on occasion, engage in minute hair-splitting (Kring vs. Missouri, 107 U.S., 221; Medley, Petitioner, 134 U.S., 160). Of the nobility and generosity of Miller's nature there is ample evidence. Yet he felt that he was, as Chief Justice Chase said, "beyond question, the dominant personality . . . upon the bench" (Strong, post, p. 247). With this confidence came a certain blunt impatience with lesser minds and with futile arguments. The reference to him as "that damned old Hippopotamus" by one attorney in his circuit court was not unnatural (Gregory, post, p. 60). Miller was anxious to accelerate the administration of justice, and advocated a curtailment of the appellate jurisdiction of the Court (United States Jurist, January 1872, Western Jurist, February 1872). He never achieved the chief justiceship, though he was more than once considered for the position.

On the bench Miller retained his interest in the Republican party. He was one of the majority in the Electoral Commission of 1876. Yet he was content to rely upon his judicial labors to win his name immortality, and unlike Chase and Field refrained from gazing toward the presidency. Yet he would have been quite willing to become a compromise candidate if the convention of 1884 had become deadlocked. In stature he was tall and massive. He looked, dressed, and acted the part of a great magistrate. He enjoyed good living and bright company. In the midst of this satisfying life he found no opportunity to save money and died almost penniless. He was in active service on the supreme bench and as circuit justice until the day of his death, which occurred at his residence in Washington. During his tenure of office he participated in more than five thousand decisions of the Court. In more than six hundred cases he was its spokesman. Of 478 cases which required a construction of the federal Constitution, he was the organ of the Court in almost twice the normal quota for one justice.

[See C. N. Gregory, Samuel Freeman Miller (1907); Horace Stern. "Samuel Freeman Miller, 1816-1890," in W. D. Lewis, Great American Lawyers, volume VI (1909); Henry Strong, "Justice Samuel Freeman Miller," in Annals of Iowa, January 1894; Proceedings of the Bench and Bar of the Supreme Court of the U. S. in Memoriam-Samuel F. Miller (1891); Mississippi Valley Historical Review, March 1931; Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (1922), volume III; the Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), October 14, 1890. Information as to certain facts was supplied for this sketch by members of Miller's family. In 1891 a series of Lectures on the Constitution by Miller was posthumously published.]

C. F.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 328-329:

MILLER, Samuel Freeman, jurist, born in Richmond, Kentucky, 5 April, 1816. He was graduated at the medical department of Transylvania university, Kentucky, in 1838, practised for a short time, and afterward became a lawyer. He was strongly in favor of emancipation, and did much to further that cause, and, although he took no part in politics, the course of public affairs induced him to remove in 1850 from Kentucky to Iowa, where he became a leader of the Republican party. He was offered and declined numerous offices, and devoted himself to his profession, in which he took high rank. In 1862 he was appointed by President Lincoln associate justice of the U. S. supreme court, which office he still (1888) occupies. He was the orator at the constitutional centennial celebration at Philadelphia. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 328-329.



MILLER, Stephen, soldier, born in Perry County, Pennsylvania. 7 January, 1816; died in Worthington, Minnesota, 18 August, 1881. In 1853-'5 edited the "Telegraph," a Whig journal at Harrisburg. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860, and a presidential elector on the Lincoln ticket.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 329:

MILLER, Stephen, soldier, born in Perry County, Pennsylvania. 7 January, 1816; died in Worthington, Minnesota, 18 August, 1881. His grandfather, Melchior Miller, came from Germany about 1785. Stephen received a common-school education, became a forwarding and commission merchant in Harrisburg in 1837, was elected prothonotary of Dauphin County in 1849 and 1852, and in 1853-'5 edited the "Telegraph," a Whig journal at Harrisburg. In 1855-'8 he was flour-inspector of Philadelphia, and in the latter year he moved to Minnesota for his health, and engaged in business in St. Cloud. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860, and a presidential elector on the Lincoln ticket in that year. He enlisted as a private soldier in 1861, was made lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, and served with the Army of the Potomac till September, 1862, when he became colonel of the 7th Minnesota, and assisted, with his regiment, in quelling the Indian outbreak of that year in his adopted state. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers, 26 October, 1863, and shortly afterward elected governor of Minnesota, so that he resigned from the army on 18 January, 1864. He served as governor in 1864-'5, and from 1871 till his death was field-agent of the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad. He was also in the legislature in 1873, and a presidential elector on the Hayes ticket in 1876. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. IV, p. 329.



MINTURN, Robert Bowne (November 16, 1805-January 9, 1866), merchant. Minturn was whig and later a Republican and was first president of the Union League Club.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 32-33:

MINTURN, ROBERT BOWNE (November 16, 1805-January 9, 1866), merchant, was born to the purple in New York social and commercial circles and went even farther in both fields, winning general respect for his philanthropic as well as his business success. His grandfather, the elder "William Minturn, had moved a profitable business from Newport to New York. His father, William Minturn, Jr., who married Sarah Bowne, was a partner in the firm of Minturn, Champlin & Company, which was prominent until its failure at the close of the War of 1812. Robert was forced to go into business at thirteen upon the death of his father. In 1825 he became the partner of Charles Green, whom he had served as clerk, and in 1829 he entered the counting- house of Fish, Grinnell & Company, a connection probably traceable to the marriage of his sister Sarah to Henry Grinnell in 1822. This firm had been established about 1815 by Preserved Fish and Joseph Grinnell [qq.v.] from New Bedford. Starting as commission merchants for whale oil, the firm expanded into the management of transatlantic packets, ship owning, and general commerce. By 1832 the two original partners retired and the firm was reorganized as Grinnell, Minturn & Company, Minturn joining with Joseph Grinnell's younger brothers, Moses Hicks and Henry [qq.v.].

Under its new name the firm attained a secure position as one of the greatest of the New York commercial houses, ranking with the Griswolds, Rowlands, and Lows. "All is fish that gets into their nets," wrote Scoville about 1860 (post, I, I p. 100). In Latin America they were behind the Howlands, though their Cuban business was so extensive that Minturn sent his son to Spain to learn the language. In China they competed successfully with the houses of Griswold and Low which virtually specialized in that trade. They did a great deal of business with England and extended their influence into almost all parts of the world. They seem to have shared with the Welds of Boston the honor of being the greatest American ship-owners of the day. Their blue and white or red and white swallowtail house flags flew over more than fifty vessels, including regular packet lines to Liverpool and London as well as some of the finest dippers of the day. They owned the North Wind and Sea Serpent and above all, the greatest of the clippers, Donald McKay's Flying Cloud.

Minturn's fortune was estimated at $200,000 as early as 1846. He and his partners were more public spirited than many of the other New York merchants of the day. He himself served as commissioner of emigration to improve the condition of the incoming foreigners and was instrumental in founding the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and St. Luke's Hospital. His wife was Anna Mary Wendell, the daughter of John Lansing Wendell of Albany, whom he married on June 2, 1835. She has been credited with the idea of establishing Central Park and he supported her in the project. At first a Whig, Minturn was later a Republican and was first president of the Union League Club. He has been described, like others of his family, as dark, tall, and handsome. George William Curtis pictured him as "gentle, just and generous; modest, humane and sagacious; his sense of responsibility growing with his increasing fortune, until his devoted life was that of a humble almoner of the Divine bounty" (Harper's Weekly, January 27, 1866). He died suddenly of paralysis at his New York home.

[The sources for Minturn's biography are fragmentary. See R. B. Minturn, Jr., Memoir of Robert Bowne Minturn (1871); J. A. Scoville, The Old Merchants of New York City (4 volumes, 1863-66); The Diary of Philip Hone (2 volumes, 1927), ed. by Allan Nevins; Henry Hall, America's Successful Men of Affairs, volume I (1895); L. H. Weeks, Prominent Families of New York, volume I (1897); F. G. Griswold, The House Flags of the Merchants of New York, I800-I800 (1926); 0. T. Howe and F. C. Matthews, American Clipper Ships (2 volumes, 1927); M. Y. Beach, Wealth and Pedigree of the Wealthy Citizens of New York (1846); New York Times, New York Tribune, January 10, 1866.]

R. G. A.



MORGAN, Edwin Dennison, 1811-1883, merchant, soldier, statesman. Member of the Whig Party, Anti-Slavery Faction. Republican U.S. Senator from New York. Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1856-1864. Governor of New York, 1858-1862. Commissioned Major General of Volunteers, he raised 223,000 troops for the Union Army. U.S. Senator, 1863-1869. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 398; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 168-169; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 825; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 168-169:

MORGAN, EDWIN DENISON (February 8, 1811-February 14) 1883), governor of New York, United States senator, was a descendant of James Morgan, a Welshman, who came to Massachusetts about 1636 and about 1650 settled in New London, where he married Margery Hill. Edwin, the son of Jasper and Catherine (Copp) Avery Morgan and a first cousin of Edwin Barber Morgan [q.v.], was born in Washington, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, but in 1822 removed with his parents to Windsor, Connecticut. During his boyhood he worked on his father's farm in summer and attended the village school in winter. In 1826 he entered Bacon Academy, Colchester, Connecticut, but two years later became a clerk in his uncle's grocery store at Hartford, Connecticut. At twenty, he became his uncle's partner. In 1832 he was elected a member of the Hartford city council. Desiring a wider sphere of activity, he removed to New York in 1836, and here, in partnership with Morris Earle and A. D. Pomeroy, established the wholesale grocery firm of Morgan & Earle. Upon its dissolution at the end of 1837, he began business on his own account. His enterprise and sagacity placed him in a few years among New York's leading merchants. On January 1, 1842, he associated with himself his cousin, George D. Morgan, and the latter's partner, Frederick Avery, who retired one year later, his place being taken by one of Morgan's clerks, J. T. Terry. In 1854 Solon Humphreys joined the firm, and banking and brokerage were added to the wholesale grocery business. Largely. through Humphreys, who had spent several years in Missouri, E. D. Morgan & Company in the two years 1855-60 handled over $30,000,000 in securities issued by that state and by the city of St. Louis.

Meanwhile, in 1849 Morgan had been elected a member of the New York City Board of Assistant Aldermen, which acknowledged his ability by electing him its president. His valiant service during a cholera epidemic which swept over the city that year strengthened him in the public eye, and upon the expiration of his term as assistant alderman he was sent to the state Senate. Two years later he was reelected after a severe contest with the Democratic Locofoco candidate. During both his terms he was president pro tempore of the Senate and chairman of, its finance committee. He introduced and carried through the legislature the bill establishing Central Park in New York City. When in 1855 he declined to run for a third term he was appointed one of the state commissioners of emigration, a much coveted position which he held until 1858. Although up to 1855 he had been an assiduous Whig, and was an earnest opponent of slavery, he had not identified himself with the abolitionists because he did not believe in the wisdom of their methods. He was vice-president of the conference which made plans for the first Republican National Convention and was chairman of the Republican National Committee which conducted the Fremont campaign. This chairmanship he continued to hold until 1864.

In 1858 he was chosen by Thurlow Weed as Republican candidate for governor of New York. The odds were against him, but his fine personal character, his spotless record, and his reputation as a successful business man, coupled with the energy with which he conducted his campaign, carried him into office in a four-cornered contest by a plurality of over 17,000 votes. Far from being a mere satellite of Weed, he displayed independence and statesmanlike qualities, both in his messages to the legislature and in his use of the veto power. In 1860 he was reelected by the largest majority which up to that time had ever been given to a gubernatorial candidate in the state. He succeeded during his first administration in improving the state's credit, strengthening its canal system, and making prisons, insurance companies, and charitable organizations more effective. His second administration was devoted to the success of the Union cause in the Civil War. Commissioned major-general of volunteers by Lincoln and placed in command of the military department of New York, he enrolled and equipped 223,000 soldiers. In 1862 he declined renomination for the governorship and upon the expiration of his term was commissioned under a legislative act to put New York harbor in a state of defense. He expended only $6,000 of the $1,000,000 appropriated for this purpose, returning the rest to the state treasury. In 1863 he was chosen United States senator to succeed Preston King. His career in the Senate was not characterized by oratorical display but by hard work both in the committee room and on the floor. In 1865 he declined appointment as secretary of the treasury. He voted with the minority on President Johnson's veto of the Freedman's Bureau Bill and for Johnson's conviction. In 1869 he was defeated for reelection after a bitter contest with Ex-Governor R. E. Fenton [q.v.]. From 1872 to 1876 he was again induced to head the Republican Committee, and in the latter year his name was mentioned in connection with the presidency. He stood for sound currency and civil service reform. In 1876 he was again nominated for governor, but the machine element of his party headed by Senator Conkling was dissatisfied with him, and he was defeated by Lucius Robinson. When Chester A. Arthur [q.v.], his old and ardent friend, succeeded to the presidency, he nominated Morgan for secretary of the treasury, but although the appointment was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Morgan for a second time declined. During his last years he retired from all active participation in politics.

Morgan's fortune at the time of his death was estimated to be between eight and ten million dollars. His gifts during his lifetime totaled over a million dollars. Williams College, Union Theological Seminary, and the Women's, Presbyterian, and Eye and Ear hospitals in New York City especially benefited from his generosity. He was a patron of art well known both in America and on the continent of Europe, and a director of many business concerns. He was tall, well-proportioned, dignified, rather aristocratic in bearing. In 1833 he married his first cousin, Eliza Matilda Waterman, daughter of Captain Henry and Lydia (Morgan) Waterman, of Hartford, Connecticut. Of their five children only one reached maturity, and he died in 1881, before his parents. The elder Morgan died at his home in New York City and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut.

[Journals of the Senate and the Assembly of . . . New York, 1883; N. H. Morgan, Morgan Genealogy (1869); J. A. Morgan, A History of the Family of Morgan (1902); George Wilson, Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York (1890); C. Z. Lincoln, State of New York, Messages from the Governors (1909), volume V; Thurlow Weed Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow Weed (1884); D. S. Alexander, A Pol. History of the State of New York, volumes II, III (1906-09); S. D. Brummer, Political History of New York State during ... the Civil War (1911); Frederick Phisterer, New York in the War of the Rebellion (1912), volumes I, V; J. G. Wilson, The Memorial History of New York (1893), volumes III, IV; New York Daily Tribune, February 14, 1883; New York Times, February 15, 1883.]

H.J.C.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 398:

MORGAN, Edwin Dennison, governor of New York, born in Washington, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, 8 February, 1811; died in New York city, 14 February, 1883. At the age of seventeen he removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he entered the store of his uncle, Nathan Morgan, and became a partner in 1831. He was a member of the city council there in 1832. Removing to New York in 1836, he established himself in business and became a successful merchant. During the cholera epidemic he remained in the city to assist the poor. From 1850 till 1863 he was a member of the state senate, serving at one time as president pro tempore. He was vice-president of the National Republican convention that met in Pittsburg, 22 February, 1856, and from 1856 till 1864 was chairman of the Republican national committee. In 1858 he was elected governor of New York, which office he held until 1862. During his term the state debt was reduced, an increase in canal revenue was made, 223,000 troops were sent from New York to the army, and New York harbor was put in a state of defence. On 28 September, 1861, he was made a major-general of volunteers, the state of New York being created a military department under his command, and for his services under this commission he declined compensation. On the expiration of his term he was elected to the U. S. senate as a Republican, serving from 4 M arch, 1863, till 3 March, 1869. He opened the proceedings of the Baltimore convention of 1864, and was a delegate to the Philadelphia loyalists' convention of 1866, but took no part in its action. In 1865 he declined the office of secretary of the U. S. treasury, which was offered him by President Lincoln. In 1872 he was chairman of the National Republican committee, and conducted the successful campaign that resulted in the second election of General Grant. He was a Republican candidate for U. S. senator in 1875, and in 1876 for governor of New York. In 1881 President Arthur offered him the portfolio of secretary of the treasury, which he declined, owing to his advanced age. Governor Morgan gave more than $200,000 to the New York union theological seminary and to Williams college library buildings, and $100,000 for a dormitory. His bequests for charitable and religious purposes amounted to $795,000. In 1867 he received the degree of LL. D. from Williams. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 398.



MORRILL, Justin Smith, 1810-1898, abolitionist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont. Served as Congressman December 1855-March 1867. U.S. Senator 1873-1891. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. In 1854 he was elected as an Anti-Slavery Whig to the House of Representatives, commencing an unbroken service of twelve years in the House and almost thirty-two years in the Senate, to which he was elected in 1866.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 409; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 198-199; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 882; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 198-199:

MORRILL, JUSTIN SMITH (April 14, 1810- December 28, 1898), representative and senator from Vermont, was the eldest of the ten children of Nathaniel and Mary (Hunt) Morrill. Of humble, sturdy, English stock, he was the descendant of Abraham Morrill who landed in Boston in 1632 and settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. The Morrills settled in Strafford, Vermont, in 1795, where the boy was born and where his grandfather and father combined farming with the blacksmith's trade. He attended the village school and neighboring academies until the age of fifteen, when he became a clerk in the village store. He was in Portland, Maine, from 1828 to 1831 learning merchandising and then returned to Strafford and became a partner of his friend, Jedediah H. Harris, in the village store, which as a center of news and a forum of discussion was an excellent training-school for politicians. As a merchant he prospered, and in 1848 he was able to retire to a quiet life of reading and farming. On September 17, 1851, he was married to Ruth Barrell Swan of Easton, Massachusetts. They had two sons. As an amateur politician he had served on county and state committees, and in 1852 he was chosen to represent the Whigs at their national convention. The dissension of the Whig party at this convention influenced him throughout his life to labor to preserve harmony in the Republican party, in the Vermont organization of which he had played a prominent part in 1855.

In 1854 he was elected as an Anti-Slavery Whig to the House of Representatives, commencing an unbroken service of twelve years in the House and almost thirty-two years in the Senate, to which he was elected in 1866 and was returned at each election with virtual unanimity. This service in the House and Senate constituted the longest period of continuous service in the United States Congress so far recorded. In the House he became an important member of the committee on ways and means, of which he was chairman from 1865 to 1867; and in the Senate he served effectively as a member of the committee on finance, of which he was chairman from 1877 to 1879, 1881 to 1893, and 1895 to 1898. After an experimental period in the House, in which though a stanch abolitionist he sounded a temperate and conciliatory note on the great question of slavery, he found his real work in problems of tariff and finance. As a member of the committee on ways and means he wrote a bill providing for the payment of outstanding treasury notes, authorizing a loan, and revising the tariff. This act, known as the Morrill Tariff Act, was intended to be a revenue as well as a protective measure, but amendments made it more strongly protectionist than he had desired. Although causing bitter resentment in the South, the bill was passed early in 1861. His tariff views were somewhat colored by a traditional distrust of Great Britain, and he never thoroughly mastered the principles of international trade, but as a conscientious and not uncompromising protectionist he remained throughout his career influential in tariff legislation, especially in the bill of 1883. In the field of finance lay his greatest talents. With an attack upon the legal tender bill, which, however, was passed in 1862, he began a long fight against inconvertible money and financial inflation. During the Civil War he prepared a series of internal revenue bills and became the champion of economy in the House. After the war he was a leader in the financial reconstruction and an inflexible advocate of a speedy return to specie payments. He was offered a position in the cabinet of President Hayes as secretary of the treasury but declined. In the Cleveland administration he attacked the free-silver heresy.

Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was his Land-Grant College Act, which led to the development of the important system of state educational institutions aided by the federal government. In 1857 he introduced a bill "donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts" (, 35 Congress I Session, p. 32). This was vetoed by Buchanan in 1859, but a similar bill was signed by Lincoln in 1862. In 1890 he introduced in the Senate the so-called Second Morrill Act, under which $25,000 is given annually by the federal government to each of the land-grant colleges. As chairman of the Senate committee on building and grounds he rendered valuable service. He was largely responsible for the plan and execution of the terraces, fountains, and gardens of the Capitol and the completion of the Washington Monument. To his original proposal and persevering legislation is also chiefly due the Library of Congress. His artistic and literary interests found further outlet in his numerous contributions to current periodicals, among them being his book, Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons (1882), his Forum series of "Notable Letters from my Political Friends" (October-December 1897), and other articles in the Forum from time to time (August 1896, January, July 1889, October 1898).

As a politician he was noted for sound reasoning, clear apprehension and statement, faithful labor, and temperate, courteous attitude. He was an exceptionally skilful legislator. In appearance he was imposing, being tall and angular and having stern Roman features and side whiskers. As a man he was characterized by urbanity and charm of manner, modesty, culture, and great love of country. He was a genial host at his home on Thomas Circle in Washington, and his birthday parties were among the important social events of the Capitol. In his later days in the Senate his prestige was great, and he was often referred to as "The Nestor of the Senate," "The grand old man of the Republican Party," and "The Gladstone of America." He died in Washington, survived by one of his two sons.

[Papers and letters are in Library of Congress; published material includes W. B. Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill (1924); G. W. Atherton, The Legislative Career of Justin Smith Morrill (1900 ?); I. M. Tarbell, "The Tariff in Our Times," American Magazine, December 1906, pp. II6-32; Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Justin Smith Morrill; (1879); Justin Smith Morrill: Centenary Exercises (1910); A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred in America, volume II (1931); Evening Star (Washington), December 27, 28, 1898. A discussion of the credit due to Jonathan Baldwin Turner [q. v.] for the Land-Grant College Act is in Parker, ante, pp. 278-84; the claim is set forth in some detail in E. J. James, "The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862," University of Illinois Studies, volume IV, no. 1 (1910); a brief consideration and decision against the Turner claim in I. L. Kandel, "Federal Aid for Vocational Education," The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Bulletin, no. 10 (1917), p. 79.]

C. M. F.
A.R.B.

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

MORRILL, Justin Smith, senator, born in Strafford, Orange county, Vermont, 14 April, 1810. He received a common-school education, and engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1848, when he turned his attention to agriculture. He was elected to congress as a Republican, and five times re-elected, serving from 3 December, 1855, until 3 March, 1867. He was the author of the “Morrill” tariff of 1861, and acted as chairman of the committee of ways and means in 1864-'5. He was elected U.S. senator from Vermont in 1867, and re-elected in 1873, 1879, and 1886. His present term will expire in 1891. He is the author of a Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons” (Boston, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 409.



MORRIS, Edward Joy (July 16, 1815- December 31, 1881), legislator, diplomat, and author. He took a leading part in the movement for the organization of the Republican party and was elected to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to June 8, 1861, when he resigned.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 206:

MORRIS, EDWARD JOY (July 16, 1815- December 31, 1881), legislator, diplomat, and author, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania in the class of 1835, left in his freshman year, and was graduated from Harvard College in 1836. He studied law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in 1842, meanwhile being elected to the state Assembly in which he served during the years 1841-43. He was then elected as a Whig representative to the Twenty-eighth Congress for one term, 1843-45. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection. On January 10, 1850, he was appointed charge d'affaires to the Two Sicilies and was stationed at Naples until August 26, 1853. On his return from Naples he became a member of the board of directors of Girard College, Philadelphia, and was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1856. He took a leading part in the movement for the organization of the Republican party and was elected to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to June 8, 1861, when he resigned. On the latter date President Lincoln appointed him minister to Turkey, where he served with zeal and fidelity until October 25, 1870. While at Constantinople he negotiated a commercial treaty which was approved by the United States Senate in 1862.

Morris was a fine linguist, speaking French, Italian, and German fluently, was able to converse in Greek, and knew Turkish and Arabic. In manner he was said to be most agreeable and conciliating. He was a frequent contributor to American magazines and newspapers for many years and was also the author of several works. His Notes of a Tour through Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Arabia Petrea to the Holy Land (2 volumes, 1842) is sometimes referred to as "Morris' Travels." He published in 1854 The Turkish Empire: Its Historical, Statistical and Religious Condition, translated from the German of Alfred de Besse, giving an idea of the "past and present condition of the Ottoman people and empire." In it Morris incorporated excerpts from French writers and a "considerable amount of original matter suggested by his own travels." In 1854 he also published from the original of Theodor Mugge, Afraja, a Norwegian and Lapland Tale, or Life and Love in Norway, which Bayard Taylor called "one of the most remarkable romances of the generation." Another translation was his Corsica, Picturesque, Historical and Social (1855), from the German of Ferdinand Gregorovius, which contained a sketch of the early life of Napoleon.

Morris left Turkey in 1870 and returned to the United States. He had married, July 15, 1847, Elizabeth Gatliff Ella, daughter of John Ella, of Philadelphia. His wife having died sometime prior to 1870, he married Susan Leighton, in Philadelphia, in October 1876. By his first marriage he had two daughters, one of whom survived him. He died in Philadelphia and was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery.

[Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); S. A. Allibone, A Critical Directory of English Literature and British and American Authors, volume II (1870); Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 2, 1882; Probate Court records, Philadelphia; records of the U. S. Department of State. ]

A. E. I. K.

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.