Sil-Sti: Silliman through Stillwell

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

SILLIMAN, Benjamin Douglas, 1779-1864, Connecticut, educator, scientist, opponent of slavery. Member and active supporter of the Connecticut Society of the American Colonization Society. Whig political leader. Supported Kansas Free State movement.

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 528-529; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p 160.; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 126)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 529-530:

SILLIMAN, Benjamin Douglas, lawyer, born in Newport, Rhode Island, 14 September, 1805, was graduated at Yale in 1824, and then studied law with James Kent and his son, William Kent, until 1829, when he was admitted to the bar. He opened an office in New York during that year, and has since been steadily engaged in the practice of his profession in that city, with his residence in Brooklyn. He has often served as a delegate from Kings County to National and state conventions of the Whig and Republican Parties, including the one at Harrisburg in 1839, at which William Henry Harrison was nominated for the presidency. He was elected to the legislature in 1838, and was nominated by the Whigs for Congress in 1843, but failed of election, although he led the ticket of his party at the polls. In 1852 he received, but declined, the Whig nomination for the state senate. During the Civil War he was an earnest, supporter of the government, and in March, 1865, he was appointed by President Lincoln U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He held this office until September, 1866, and during that time argued in behalf of the government important questions that grew out of the Civil War. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 529-530.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p 160:

SILLIMAN, Benjamin, scientist, born in North Stratford (now Trumbull), Connecticut, 8 August, 1779; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 24 November, 1864, was graduated at Yale in 1796, and, after spending a year at home, taught at Wethersfield, Connecticut. In 1798 be returned to New Haven, where he began the study of law with Simeon Baldwin, and in 1799 was appointed tutor at Yale, which place he held until he was admitted to the bar in 1802. Natural science was at that time beginning to attract the attention of educators, and, at the solicitation of President Dwight, he abandoned the profession of law and devoted himself to science. In September, 1802, he was chosen professor of chemistry and natural history at Yale, with permission to qualify himself for teaching these branches. Procuring a list of books from Prof. John MacLean (q. v.), of Princeton, he proceeded to Philadelphia, where, during two winters, he studied chemistry under Prof. James Woodhouse, then professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. In 1804 he delivered a partial course of lectures on chemistry, and during the following year he gave a complete course. He went abroad in March, 1805, to procure scientific books and apparatus, and spent about a year in study in Edinburgh and London, also visiting the continent and making the acquaintance of distinguished men of science. On his return he devoted himself to the duties of his chair, which included chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, until 1853, when he was made professor emeritus, but, at the special request of his colleagues, continued his lectures on geology until 1855, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, James D. Dana. While in Edinburgh he became interested in the discussions, then at their height, between the Wernerians and Huttonians, and attended lectures on geology; and on his return he began a study of the mineral structure of the vicinity of New Haven. About 1808 he persuaded the corporation of Yale to purchase the cabinet of minerals of Benjamin D. Perkins, and a few years later he secured the loan of the magnificent collection of George Gibbs (q. v.), which in 1825 became the property of the college. His scientific work, which was extensive, began with the examination in 1807 of the meteor that fell near Weston, Connecticut. He procured fragments, of which he made a chemical analysis, and he wrote the earliest and best authenticated account of the fall of a meteor in America. In 1811 he began an extended course of experiments with the oxy-hydric or compound blow-pipe that was invented by Robert Hare, and he succeeded in melting many of the most refractory minerals, notably those containing alkalies and alkaline earths, the greater part of which had never been reduced before. After Sir Humphry Davy's discovery of the metallic bases of the alkalies, Prof. Silliman repeated the experiments and obtained for the first time in this country the metals sodium and potassium. In 1822, while engaged in a series of observations on the action of a powerful voltaic battery that he had made, similar to Dr. Hare's “deflagrator,” he noticed that the charcoal points of the negative pole increased in size toward the positive pole, and, on further examination, he found that there was a corresponding cavity on the point of the latter. He inferred, therefore, that an actual transfer of the matter of the charcoal points from one to another took place, and, on careful examination, he found that the charcoal had been fused. This fact of the fusion of the carbon in the voltaic arc was long disputed in Europe, but is now universally accepted. In 1830 he explored Wyoming valley and its coal-formations, examining about one hundred mines and localities of mines; in 1832-'3 he was engaged under a commission from the secretary of the treasury in a scientific examination on the subject of the culture and manufacture of sugar, and in 1836 he made a tour of investigation among the gold-mines of Virginia, His popular lectures began in 1808 in New Haven, where he delivered a course in chemistry. He delivered his first course in Hartford in 1834, and in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the autumn of that year. During the years that followed he lectured in Salem, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis, New Orleans, and elsewhere in the United States. In 1838 he opened the Lowell institute in Boston with a course of lectures on geology, and in the three following years he lectured there on chemistry. This series was without doubt the most brilliant of the kind was ever delivered in this country, and its influence in developing an interest in the growing science was very great. Many of the present leaders in science trace their first inspiration to these popular expositions of Prof. Silliman. Through his influence in 1830 the historical paintings of Colonel John Trumbull, and the building in which they were formerly deposited (now the college treasury), were procured for Yale. He opposed slavery in all its forms. Among the various colonies sent out from the eastern states during the Kansas troubles was one that was organized in New Haven, and, at a meeting held prior to its departure in April, 1856, the discovery was made that the party was unprovided with rifles. A subscription was proposed at once, and Prof. Silliman spoke in favor of it. This insignificant action was soon noised abroad, and, owing to the strong feeling between the partisans of slavery and those opposed to it, the matter was discussed in the U. S. senate. During the civil war he was a firm supporter of President Lincoln, and exerted his influence toward the abolition of slavery. The degree of M. D. was conferred on him by Bowdoin in 1818, and that of LL. D. by Middlebury in 1826. Prof. Silliman was chosen first president in 1840 of the American association of geologists and naturalists, which has since grown into the American association for the advancement of science, and he was one of the corporate members the named by congress in the formation of the National academy of sciences in 1863. Besides his connection with other societies in this country and abroad, he was corresponding member of the Geological societies of Great Britain and France. In 1818 he founded the “American Journal of Science,” which he conducted as sole editor until 1838, and as senior editor until 1846, when he transferred the journal to his son and to James D. Dana. This journal is now the oldest scientific paper in the United States. Prof. Silliman edited three editions of William Henry's “Elements of Chemistry” (Boston, 1808-'14), also three editions of Robert Bakewell's “Introduction to Geology” (New Haven, 1829, 1833, and 1839), and was the author of “Journals of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland” (New York, 1810); “A Short Tour between Hartford and Quebec in the Autumn of 1819” (1820); “Elements of Chemistry in the Order of Lectures given in Yale College” (2 vols., New Haven, 1830-'1); “Consistency of Discoveries of Modern Geology with the Sacred History of the Creation and Deluge” (London, 1837); and “Narrative of a Visit to Europe in 1851” (2 vols., 1853). He was called by Edward Everett the “Nestor of American Science.” Prof. Silliman was married twice. His first wife was Harriet Trumbull, the daughter of the second Governor Jonathan Trumbull. One of his daughters married Prof. Oliver P. Hubbard, and another Prof. James D. Dana. A bronze statue of Prof. Silliman was erected on the Yale grounds in front of Farnam college in 1884. See “Life of Benjamin Silliman,” by George P. Fisher (2 vols., New York, 1866



SLADE, William, 1786-1859. Governor of Vermont. U.S. Congressman from Vermont (Whig party). Submitted numerous anti-slavery petitions to Congress, December, 1837. He distinguished himself as an uncompromising opponent of slavery, and with John Quincy Adams fought tenaciously against the gag rules. Submitted 430 anti-slavery petitions to Congress. Opposed slavery in the District of Columbia and introduced a bill in the House in December 1837 that called for its abolition. He supported gradual emancipation.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 243-245, 295; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 547; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 203-204).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 203-204:

SLADE, WILLIAM (May 9, 1786-January 16, 1859), statesman and educator, was born at Cornwall, Vermont, the son of Captain William Slade, a veteran of the Revolution, who had moved to Vermont from Washington, Connecticut, about 1783. He was a descendant of William Slade who was in Lebanon, Connecticut, as early as 1716. The youngest William's mother was Rebecca (Plumb). After preparatory work in the Addison County grammar school at Middlebury and four years at Middlebury College, where he was graduated in 1807, Slade studied law in the office of Judge Joel Doolittle of Middlebury. Admitted to the bar in the summer of 1810, he at once opened an office in the sa me village. Clients, however, were few, and the excitement of a bitter political contest in his state drew him into politics.

Like his father he was an ardent Democrat and he now devoted himself he art and soul to the interests of his party. Speeches and pamphlet s were puny weapons against the Federalist press of Middlebury; Slade, therefore, in 1813, helped to found the Columbian Patriot, a weekly newspaper, which two years later became the National Standard (Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s. volume XX X V, 1925, p. 125). Soon he was its proprietor and editor, conducting in connection with it a book printing and selling establishment. The Patriot was a decided political success and it was partly responsible for the Democratic triumph in Vermont in 1815; as a business venture, however, it was a failure and by 1817 Slade was ruined. Refusing bankruptcy, he was saddled with a heavy debt which he struggled the re st of his life to repay; hence, in part, his eager search for political office.

Fortunately, the Democratic triumph of 1815 carried him into the office of secretary of state, a post which he filled with credit until 1823. Meanwhile (1816-22), he was judge of the court of his county. Having relinquished his state offices, he served as a clerk in the Department of State, at Washington (1824-29), until discharged at the beginning of Jackson's administration. He had married Abigail Foote of Middlebury, February 5, 1810, by whom he had nine children, and he now sought to support his family by resuming his practice of law; but politics re, mained his prime interest and the main source of his livelihood. While serving as state's attorney for Addison County he was elected in 1830 to Congress, where he sat for twelve years, in the course of time joining the Whig party. He distinguished himself as an uncompromising opponent of slavery, and with John Quincy Adams fought tenaciously against the gag rules. Though not a great orator, he was a quick-witted and a ready debater with a command of searing phrases which enraged the Southern representatives. With an eye to the Vermont woolen industry he was a persistent champion of protective tariffs.

For one year (1843-44) after his retirement from Congress he was reporter of the state supreme court, resigning to become governor, in which office he served from 1844 to 1846. Under his leadership the legislature provided for a geological survey of the state and for a thorough reorganization of the public school system. He bitterly opposed the admission of Texas to the Union and the policy which led to war with Mexico. Before the end of his second term as governor he had lost the support of many influential Whig leaders, partly because of his bitter public controversy with Samuel S. Phelps, Whig senator from Vermont; whom, it was charged, Slade wished to supersede. His political career ended, he became corresponding secretary and general agent of the Board of National Popular Education. Indefatigable in this congenial work, which he continued until a few weeks before his death, he traveled through most of the Northern states, founding local societies and recruiting teachers in the East for service along the Western frontier. Besides many speeches in and out of Congress and his annual reports to the educational board, he published the Vermont State Papers (1823); a volume of documents on the early history of the state, and The Laws of Vermont of a Publick and Permanent Nature (1825). He died in Middlebury.

[T. B. Peck, William Slade of Windsor, Connecticut, and His Descendants (1910); Catalog of the Officers and St1tdcnts of Middlebury College (1928); Lyman Matthews, History of the Town of Cornwall, Vermont (1862); Samuel Swift. History of the Town of Middlebury (1859); M. D. Gilman, The Bibliog. of Vermont (1897); J. M. Comstock, A List of the Principal Civil Officers of Vermont (1918); J. G. Ullery, Men of Vermont (1894); W. H. Crockett, Vermont, volume III (1921); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, volumes VII, IX, X (1876).]

P.D.E.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 547:

SLADE, William, governor of Vermont, born in Cornwall, Vermont, 9 May, 1786; died in Middlebury, Vermont, 18 January, 1859. He was graduated at Middlebury college in 1807, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1810, and began practice at Middlebury. He was a presidential elector in 1812, and in 1814-' 15 published and edited the “Columbian Patriot” in connection with bookselling and job-printing, but was not successful. In 1815 he was elected secretary of state, which office he held eight years, and in 1816-'22 he was judge of the Addison county court. He was afterward state's attorney for the same county. Mr. Slade was clerk in the state department at Washington from 1823 till 1829, when he resumed the practice of law in Middlebury. He was a member of congress in 1831-'43, in 1844 was reporter of the supreme court of Vermont, and in 1844-'6 served as governor of that state. In 1846-'56 he was secretary of the National board of popular education. He published “Vermont State Papers” (Middlebury, 1823); “The Laws of Vermont to 1824” (Windsor, 1825); “Reports of the Supreme Court of Vermont, Volume XV.” (Burlington, 1844); and pamphlets and congressional speeches. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 547.



SMITH, Caleb Blood, (April 16, 1808- January 7, 1864), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer. As a U.S. congressman he participated in debates on the Oregon question, slavery in the Territories and the District of Columbia, the tariff, and the Dorr rebellion, but his principal efforts were directed against the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico. Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Interior.

Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, )

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 558:

SMITH, Caleb Blood, Secretary of the Interior, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 16 April, 1808; died in Indianapolis, Indiana, 7 January, 1864. He emigrated with his parents to Ohio in 1814, was educated at Cincinnati and Miami Colleges, studied law in Cincinnati and in Connersville, Indiana, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. He began practice at the latter place, established and edited the "Sentinel" in 1832, served several terms in the Indiana Legislature, and was in Congress in 1843-'9, having been elected as a Whig. During his congressional career he was one of the Mexican claims commissioners. He returned to the practice of law in 1850, residing in Cincinnati and subsequently in Indianapolis. He was influential in securing the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency at the Chicago Republican Convention in 1860, and was appointed by him Secretary of the Interior in 1861, which post he resigned in December, 1862, to become U. S. Circuit Judge for Indiana. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 558.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, :

SMITH, CALEB BLOOD (April 16, 1808- January 7, 1864), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but when six years old was taken by his parents to Cincinnati, Ohio. He was enrolled as a student at the College of Cincinnati, 1823-25, and at Miami University, 1825-26, but did not graduate. Commencing the study of law in Cincinnati, he soon removed to Connersville, Indiana, where he continued his law studies in the office of Oliver H. Smith [q. v .]. He was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in the fall of 1828. His eloquence before juries contributed no little to his advancement in his profession.

Entering politics, he was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1831, but the following year he purchased an interest in the Political Clarion, changed its name to the Indiana Sentinel, used it as a medium the publication of his Whig policies, and was elected. He was reelected each year until 1837 and was again elected in 1840. In the sessions of 1835-36 and 1836-37 he was speaker of the house and in 1840-41, chairman of the committee on canals. During his legislative career he was one of those who took the lead in procuring an order for the survey, by the federal government, of routes in Indiana for canals and railroads, and in otherwise promoting projects for internal improvements. When those projects were more or less wrecked by the panic of 1837, Smith was appointed a commissioner to collect assets and adjust debts. He accepted and served, but not without a temporary loss of popularity. In a triangular election in 1840 he was defeated as a candidate for a seat in Congress, but he won in a clear field in 1842, was reelected in 1844; and again in 1846. In the Twenty-ninth Congress (1845-47) he was a member of the committee on foreign affairs, and in the Thirtieth (1847-49), chairman of the Committee on the Territories. At a Whig caucus preceding the opening of the Thirtieth Congress he was proposed for nomination as speaker of the House, but failed of nomination by fifteen votes. His first speech in the House was made February 8, 1844, in favor of excluding from membership the men who, in four states, had been elected by general ticket. He participated in debates on the Oregon question, the independent treasury bill, slavery in the Territories and the District of Columbia, the tariff, and the Dorr rebellion, but his principal efforts were directed against the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico. He supported Taylor in the presidential campaign of 1848, and was proposed for the position, postmaster general in Taylor's cabinet, but was given, instead, a seat on the board of commissioners to adjust claims against Mexico, serving in that capacity until 1851, when he removed to Cincinnati and resumed the practice of law. Three years later he was made president of the Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad Company, which was soon in financial difficulties, and in 1859 he removed to Indianapolis, Indiana.

Smith was one of the leaders of the Indiana delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1860, and when, in behalf of that delegation, he had seconded the nomination of Lincoln, the convention broke into its greatest demonstration. In the campaign that followed, he was one of the most effective speakers, especially in Indiana, a doubtful state. In recognition of his services or in fulfillment of a promise, Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Interior, but when failing health would no longer permit his administration of that office, the President accepted his resignation, December 1862, and immediately appointed him judge of the United States district court for Indiana. A little more than a year later he was fatally stricken while in the court house in Indianapolis, and died the same day. On July 8, 1831, he married Elizabeth B. Walton, daughter of William Walton, a pioneer from Ohio; they had three children. [L. J. Bailey, "Caleb Blood Smith," in Ind. Magazine of History, September 1933; Charles Roll, "Indiana's Part in the Nomination of Abraham Lincoln for President" Ibid. March 1929; G. J. Clarke, "The Burnt District:" Ibid.' June 1931;

[Journal and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette. Union and franklin Counties, Ind. (1899), volume I; C. W. Taylor, Biographical Sketches and Review of the Bench and Bar of Ind. (1895); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); American Whig Review, December 1850; Indianapolis Daily Journal, January 9, 1864; Caleb Blood Smith Papers (8 - volumes), MSS. Div., Library of Congress]

N. D. M.



SMITH, Charles Perrin (January 5, 1819- January 27, 1883), New Jersey Republican politician, Whig newspaper editor, genealogist, supporter of the Union.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 250-251:

SMITH, CHARLES PERRIN (January 5, 1819- January 27, 1883), New Jersey politician, editor, genealogist, was born in Philadelphia. His father was George Wishart Smith, of distinguished Virginia ancestry, and his mother, Hannah Carpenter (Ellet) of Salem County, New Jersey. The former died shortly after Charles was born and the child was taken by his mother to her home in Salem. Here, in the common schools, he received a rudimentary education, richly supplemented later by his own efforts. At the age of fifteen he entered the printing office of the Freeman's Banner, where he learned the practical work of newspaper publishing. In 1840, having reached his majority and inherited some property, he bought the Banner and renamed it the National Standard. This paper he edited for eleven years in the interests of the Whig party. Later, he also edited the Harrisonian, a campaign periodical. In 1843 he married Hester A. Driver of Caroline County, Maryland. He held several local offices, was active in advocating the construction of a railway in West Jersey for the development of that section of the state, and was interested in improving the lifesaving stations on the Jersey coast, toward which end he was instrumental in securing action by Congress. In 1851 he retired permanently from regular newspaper work and thenceforth devoted his time to travel, political activities, and literary and antiquarian pursuits.

Elected to the state Senate from Salem County in 1855, he served two years, and then was appointed clerk of the supreme court of New Jersey, which office he held for three terms of five years each, meanwhile making his home in Trenton. His political activities during this period were strenuous and, according to his own estimate, important. In 1856 he was appointed a member of the National American state committee and also the same year was a delegate to the Fusion Convention and a member of the committee to select permanent officers. He nominated William L. Dayton [q.v.] as president of the convention and secured his election, thus bringing him into national prominence and so preparing the way for his subsequent nomination by the Republican party for the vice-presidency of the United States. In 1859 Smith was appointed a member of the "Opposition" state executive committee and was successively reappointed for ten years with the exception of one year, when he declined the position. For part of the time he was chairman, and he was active in securing the election as governor of Charles S. Olden [q.v.]. He was opposed to the candidacy of William H. Seward for the presidency in 1860 and through his efforts induced the state convention to indorse Dayton with a view to blocking Seward's nomination at the national convention, by withholding the New Jersey vote until it could be thrown to a more eligible candidate. During the Civil War period he was active in bringing New Jersey into line with the policies of the Federal government. He advocated the nomination of General Grant for president in 1867 and arranged for a great mass meeting in Trenton, at which Grant was enthusiastically indorsed.

Retiring from office in 1872, Smith continued to live in Trenton until his death eleven years later, devoting much of his time to travel and writing. He prepared "The Personal Reminiscences of Charles Perrin Smith, 1857-1875;'' a large folio volume in manuscript, which was given to the New Jersey state library after his death by his daughter, Elizabeth A. Smith. This work includes his autobiography, with full genealogical records of his ancestry, and comments on political events in the state and nation with which he was actively concerned or personally familiar. Based apparently upon a carefully kept diary, it is notable for its accuracy, urbanity, and fair-mindedness. Besides narratives of his travels, political writings, and speeches, his publications include Lineage of the Lloyd and Carpenter Family (1870, 1873), privately printed; and Memoranda of a Visit to the Site of Mathraval Castle, Powys Castle, Valle Crucis Abbey, Pilar of Elisig, with a Genealogical Chart of the Descent of Thomas Lloyd (1875). He died at Trenton, New Jersey, survived by his wife and two daughters.

[Report of the Proceedings of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia for ... 1883 (1884); Thomas Cushing and C. E. Sheppard, History of the Comities of Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland, New Jersey (1883); E. M. Woodward and J. F. Hageman, History of Burlington and Mercer Counties, New Jersey (1883); C. M. Knapp, New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction (1924); Hamilton Schuyler, A History of St. Michael's Church, Trenton 1703 to 1926 (1926); Daily True American, January 29, 1883.]

H. Sc-r.



SMITH, Oliver Hampton (October 23, 1794-March 19, 1859), lawyer, representative and senator, was of Quaker descent. In December 1836, the Indiana General Assembly elected him as a Whig to a seat in the United States Senate. His principal speeches in the Senate were on measures relative to the public lands, banking, bankruptcy, the Cumberland road, and the abolition of slavery in the Territories.

(W. W. Woollen, Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana (1883); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 330-331:

SMITH, OLIVER HAMPTON (October 23, 1794-March 19, 1859), lawyer, representative and senator, was of Quaker descent. His ancestors accompanied William Penn to America; his grandparents occupied Smith's Island in the Delaware River about twelve miles above Trenton; and here, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Oliver, the son of Thomas and Letitia Smith, was born. He had six brothers and two sisters. He obtained an elementary education at a neighboring country school. When he was in his nineteenth year his father died, and Oliver soon lost the small fortune which he had inherited. In 1816 he set out for the West, and at Pittsburgh engaged to take two coal boats to Louisville. He struck a snag and lost one of them, but succeeded, in the spring of 1817, in reaching Rising Sun, Ind., where he engaged in a small business with seventy-five dollars as his capital. A year later he was in Lawrenceburg, studying law, and in March 1820 he was admitted to the bar.

He commenced practice at Versailles, but soon removed to Connersville, where he rapidly rose to prominence. In August 1822 he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. He was made chairman of the judiciary committee and served until 1824, when the governor appointed him prosecuting attorney for the third judicial district. During two years of service in this capacity he successfully prosecuted four notorious frontiersmen charged with the murder of Indians. In 1826 he was elected to Congress as a Jackson Democrat. He rode to Washington on horseback and took his seat at the opening of the Twentieth Congress, December 3, 1827. He was a member of the committee on Indian affairs, and on February 19, 1828, made a vigorous plea for an Indian policy " marked with justice, humanity, and a magnanimity of purpose, that will atone, as far as possible, for the great injustice which we have done them." In another address, January 28, 1829, he presented cogent arguments in favor of appropriations for the construction of the Cumberland road. Defeated for reelection to Congress, he was engaged in the practice of law and in farming when, in December 1836, the General Assembly elected him as a Whig to a seat in the United States Senate. He was a member of the committee on the militia in 1837, and of the committee on the judiciary in 1839, and was made chairman of the important committee on public lands in 1841. His principal speeches in the Senate were on measures relative to the public lands, banking, bankruptcy, the Cumberland road, and the abolition of slavery in the Territories. He rose to leadership in evolving a federal land policy in the interest of the actual settlers (Congressional Globe, 27 Congress, I Session, App., p. 456), and supported the Whig plan for the federal assumption of state debts to the extent of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands within the states.

Failing of reelection to the Senate, Smith retired to private life in Indianapolis, projected the Indianapolis & Bellefontaine Railroad, became its first president, and subsequently participated in a project for a line from Indianapolis to Evansville. In July 1857 he commenced writing for the Indianapolis Daily Journal a series of sketches and reminiscences of frontier life in Indiana which in the following year was published in book form under the title, Early Indiana Trials and Sketches (1858). Although crude in style, the volume is a vivid presentation of various phases of early Indiana history.

Smith was a rough-hewn frontiersman, five feet ten inches in height, with standing black hair, shaggy eyebrows and a strong voice; he was diffuse but convincing in speech, and one of the most respected of Indiana pioneers. He married Mary Bramfield, a Quaker, in 1821, and they had three children. He died in Indianapolis and was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.

[W. W. Woollen, Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana (1883); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); A Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men of the State of Indiana (1880), volume II; Indianapolis Daily Journal, March 21, 1859; Lafayette Daily Journal, March 22, 1859.]

N.D.M.



SMITH, Truman, senator, a nephew of Nathaniel and Nathan Smith, born in Woodbury, Connecticut., 27 November, 1791; died in Stamford, Connecticut, 3 May, 1884. He conducted that presidential campaign as chairman of the Whig National Committee. He strenuously combated the views of Stephen A. Douglas in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 582:

SMITH, Truman, senator, a nephew of Nathaniel and Nathan Smith, born in Woodbury, Connecticut., 27 November, 1791; died in Stamford, Connecticut, 3 May, 1884, was graduated at Yale in 1815, studied law, and was a member of the legislature in 1831–4, of Congress in 1839-'49, and U.S. Senator from Connecticut in 1849-'54, when he suddenly resigned from weariness of public life. He was remarkable for his wide, though silent, influence in national politics, having taken a decisive part in the nomination of General Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. He conducted that presidential campaign as chairman of the Whig National Committee, and was offered a post in President Taylor's cabinet, which he declined. He was, in conjunction with Daniel Webster, the foremost opponent of the “spoils system” in Congress. He strenuously combated the views of Stephen A. Douglas in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. After resigning from the Senate, Mr. Smith practised law in New York until he was appointed by President Lincoln in 1862 judge of the court of arbitration, and afterward of the court of claims. He was also legal adviser to the government in many questions arising out of the Civil War. He wrote one book, “An Examination of the Question of Anaesthesia” (Boston, 1859), published as “An Inquiry into the Origin of Modern Anaesthesia” (Hartford, 1867), and published many separate speeches. Mr. Smith was a man of giant frame, and lived to be nearly ninety-three ears old. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 582.



SOUTHARD, Samuel Lewis, 1787-1842, Trenton, New Jersey, attorney. Whig U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, 1823-1829. American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1834-1841.

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 613; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 411; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 613:

SOUTHARD, Samuel Lewis, senator, born in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 9 June, 1787; died in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 26 June, 1842, was graduated at Princeton in 1804, taught in his native state, and then went to Virginia as tutor in the family of John Taliaferro. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in that state, he returned to New Jersey and settled at Remington. He was appointed law-reporter by the legislature in 1814, became associate justice of the state supreme court in 1815, was a presidential elector in 1820, and was chosen to the U. S. senate as a Whig in place of James J. Wilson, who had resigned, serving from 16 February, 1821, till 3 March, 1823. In 1821 he met his father on a joint committee, and they voted together on the Missouri compromise. In September, 1823, he became secretary of the navy, and he served till 3 March, 1829, acting also as secretary of the treasury from 7 March till 1 July, 1825, and taking charge of the portfolio of war for a time. When he was dining with Chief-Justice Kirkpatrick, of New Jersey, soon after his appointment to the navy, the judge, aware of his ignorance of nautical affairs, said: “Now, Mr. Southard, can you honestly assert that you know the bow from the stern of a frigate?” On his retirement from the secretaryship of the navy in 1829 he became attorney-general of New Jersey, and in 1832 he was elected governor of the state. He was c hosen U. S. senator again in 1833, and served till his resignation on 3 May, 1842. In 1841, on the death of President Harrison and the consequent accession of John Tyler, he became president of the senate. He was made a trustee of Princeton in 1822, and in 1833 the University of Pennsylvania gave him the degree of LL. D. Mr. Southard published “Reports of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1816-'20” (2 vols., Trenton, 1819-'20), and numerous addresses, including a “Centennial Address” (1832), and “Discourse on William Wirt” (Washington, 1834).—Samuel Lewis's son, SAMUEL LEWIS, clergyman (1819-'59), was graduated at Princeton in 1836, and took orders in the Protestant Episcopal church. He published “The Mystery of Godliness,” a series of sermons (New York, 1848), and single discourses. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.



SPENCER, John Canfield (January 8, 1788-May 17, 1855), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer. Joining the Whig party, he became secretary of state of New York in 1839, and was opposed to the annexation of Texas.

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

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 449-450:

SPENCER, JOHN CANFIELD (January 8, 1788-May 17, 1855), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer, was born in Hudson, New York, the eldest son of Ambrose Spencer [q.v.] and Laura (Canfield) Spencer. His father soon afterward became established in Albany; and subsequently held many important public offices-a fact of considerable significance in relation to the public career of the son. John C. Spencer entered college at Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he remained about a year; then transferred to Union College, Schenectady, New York. He graduated with high honors in 1806, and during the following year became the private secretary of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins [q.v.]. He also began the study of law in Albany, and in 1809 was admitted to the bar. On May 20 of that year he married Elizabeth Scott Smith, daughter of J. Scott Smith of New York City, and soon thereafter moved to Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, where, with very limited funds, he began to practise law.

His rise was rapid. Within two years he became a master in chancery, and in 1813 was appointed brigade judge-advocate in active service along the frontier. He was appointed postmaster at Canandaigua in 1814, and in 1815 became assistant attorney-general and district attorney for the five western counties of the state. While holding the last-named office, he was elected to Congress by the Clintonian faction. During his term in the House (1817-19), he served on a committee which investigated and reported unfavorably on the affairs of the Bank of the United States (House Document 92, 15 Congress, 2 Session). While still in Congress, he was nominated for United States senator by the Clintonian members of the legislature, but was defeated in the ensuing election. He was next elected to the General Assembly, serving three terms, 1820, 1821, 1822, in the first as speaker. He was a member of the state Senate during four sessions, 1825-28. In 1827 Governor DeWitt Clinton [q.v.] appointed him with John Duer and B. F. Butler [qq.v.] on a committee to revise the statutes of the state. Spencer's abilities, including an amazing grasp of detail, eminently qualified him for this task and contributed greatly to the successful revision (The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, 3 volumes, 1829).

Having in the meantime joined the Anti-Masonic party, Spencer, in 1829, became special prosecuting officer to investigate the abduction of William Morgan [q.v.], and, despite attempts to assassinate him, pursued the investigation until lack of funds necessitated his resignation in 1830. His pamphlet, A Portrait of Free Masonry (1832), was reprinted in John Quincy Adams' Letters Addressed to Wm. L. Stone ..upon the Subject of Masonry (1833). In 1831 and 1833 he was again a member of the state Assembly. In 1837 he moved to Albany, where he spent the greater portion of his remaining years. In 1838 he edited Democracy in America, translated by Henry Reeves from the French of De Tocqueville. Joining the Whig party, he became secretary of state of New York in 1839, and upon the reorganization of the cabinet following the death of President Harrison in 1841, he was appointed by President Tyler as secretary of war. His adherence to Tyler cost him the friendship of the Clay Whigs, and when in January 1844 Tyler nominated him to the United States Supreme Court, the Senate rejected him. He remained in the War Department from October 12, 1841, until March 3, 1843; then became secretary of the treasury, but resigned, May 2, 1844, because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas. After retiring from public life, his last important legal case was the successful defense of Dr. Eliphalet Nott [q.v.], president of Union College, against the charge of misappropriating college funds (Argument in Defense of the Reverend Eliphalet Nott, 1853).

In personal appearance Spencer has been described as tall and slender; with eyes "fierce and quick-rolling," and a face bearing "the line of thought and an unpleasant character of sternness." He was considered one of the ablest lawyers of his day, but his devotion to detail often prevented his taking a broad view of public problems. He was notoriously short-tempered, and his inability to yield to or work with others kept him from acquiring the political power he desired. He died in Albany, survived by his wife and three children. One son, Philip, serving as acting midshipman under Alexander Slidell Mackenzie [q.v.], was executed for attempted mutiny on the brig Somers, in 1842, while his father was secretary of war.

[L.B. Proctor, The Bench and Bar of New York (1870); Joel Munsell, The Annals of Albany, volumes III (1852), VI (1855); W. A. Butler, The Revision of the Statutes of the State of New York and the Revisers (1889); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volumes I, II (1906); E. A. Werner, Civil List ... of New York (1889); Evening Post (New York), May 21, 1855; New York Daily Times, May 19, 1855; Albany Evening Atlas, May 18, 19, 1855; Albany Argus, May 19, 1855.]

R. W. I.



SPERRY, Nehemiah Day (July 10, 1827-November 13, 1911), congressman and postmaster of New Haven. Originally a Whig. In 1856 he was a member of the platform committee of the national convention of the American party that nominated Fillmore and was one of those who bolted the convention because of its refusal to take a strong anti-slavery stand. From then on his affiliations were with the Republican party, and for many years, as chairman of the state Republican committee, he dominated Republican politics in Connecticut.

(Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Representative Men of Connecticut (1894); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Hartford Courant, Hartford Times, New Haven Register and Springfield Republican, November 14, 1911).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 456:

SPERRY, NEHEMIAH DAY (July 10, 1827-November 13, 1911), congressman and postmaster of New Haven, was born in Woodbridge, Connecticut, the third son of Enoch and Mary Atlanta (Sperry) Sperry and the descendant of Richard Sperry, an original settler in Woodbridge and one of those who aided the regicides in 1661. Nehemiah obtained a scanty education at the district school and later at a private school in New Haven, and while scarcely more than a boy taught successfully in various district schools. As a youth he learned the trade of mason and builder. In 1847 he was married to Eliza H. Sperry of Woodbridge who died in 1873 leaving two children. In 1847 also he began business as a building contractor in partnership with his brother-in-law. The firm, later known as Smith, Sperry & Treat, was successful from the start, and for more than a half century was a leading firm of contractors in New Haven. Early financial success led him into other lines of business, and he became prominent in many New Haven enterprises. He was particularly interested in transportation and among other projects organized the Fair Haven and Westville horse railroad, said to be the first street railroad in the state, obtained for it a charter from the state, and served as its president for ten years. He was also one of the promoters and incorporators of the New Haven and Derby railroad. Although an able and successful business man, his primary interest was politics, and it is doubtful if, in length of years, his political career has been equaled in Connecticut. In 1853 he was a member of the New Haven common council, and an alderman in 1854. Originally a Whig, he threw himself into the new American or "Know-Nothing" party and was an important leader in Connecticut. As a candidate of that party he was elected secretary of state for 1855 and 1856, and only his lack of the requisite age prevented his nomination for governor in 1855. In 1856 he was a member of the platform committee of the national convention of the American party that nominated Fillmore and was one of those who bolted the convention because of its refusal to take a strong anti-slavery stand. From then on his affiliations were with the Republican party, and for many years, as chairman of the state Republican committee, he dominated Republican politics in Connecticut. He was a member and secretary of the Republican National Committee during the Lincoln administration, and one of the executive committee in charge of his reelection. Throughout most of his life Sperry's great influence in politics was as a committeeman behind the scenes rather than as an elected officeholder. In his later life, however, he consented to run for the federal House of Representatives and was elected to eight successive congresses, 1895-1911, when he retired. In Congress his chief interests were the tariff and the postal service. He was an ardent believer in hi g h protection, which he frequently defended on the platform, and in an efficient postal service. His particular hobby was the rural free delivery. For a quarter of a century he advocated this system in season and out. As postmaster of New Haven, 1861-86 and 1890-94, he maintained the office at such high efficiency that it was long considered a model post-office. He was offered membership on a commission to study the postal systems of Europe but declined. He died at New Haven. His second wife, Minnie B. (Newton) Sperry, to whom he was married on December 3, 1874, survived him.

[E. E. Atwater, History of the City of New Haven (1887); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Representative Men of Connecticut (1894); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Hartford Courant, Hartford Times, New Haven Register and Springfield Republican, November 14, 1911; dates of service as postmaster from Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, volumes XXV, XXVII (1901), XXIX (1909).]

H.H.E.



SPINNER, Francis Elias (January 21, 1802-December 31, 1890), treasurer of the United States. Identifying himself with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress from the Herkimer district in 1854. In the protracted speakership contest of 1855-56 he refused to caucus with the House Democrats and was the only representative elected as a Democrat whose vote was cast for Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.]. For the rest of that Congress he was affiliated with the Whig-Republican majority. He served on the committee that dealt with the Brooks-Sumner assault. To the two succeeding Congresses he was elected as a Republican.

(Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); N. S. Benton, A History of Herkimer County (1856); A. L. Howell, "The Life and Public Services of General Francis E. Spinner," Papers Read Before the Herkimer County Historical Society, volume II (1902).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 460:

SPINNER, FRANCIS ELIAS (January 21, 1802-December 31, 1890), treasurer of the United States, was born in that part of the town of German Flats, Herkimer County, New York, which afterwards became the village of Mohawk. He was the eldest son of the Reverend John Peter and Mary Magdalene Fidelis (Brument) Spinner. His father, a native of Werbach, Baden, had been a Roman Catholic priest in Germany, but in 1801 had renounced that faith and emigrated to America; at the time of Francis' birth he was pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at German Flats. Francis was a pupil in four Mohawk Valley district schools and in his old age stated that he learned nothing in any of them (letter to F. G. Barry, in College and School, Utica, New York, April 1890; Hartley, post, pp. 192-95). His father apprenticed him to a confectioner at Albany and later to a saddler at Amsterdam, New York; during his spare time he devoted himself to reading and formed an acquisitiveness of mind that persisted throughout his life.

As time went on he became a merchant in Herkimer, major-general of artillery in the state militia, cashier, director, and president of the Mohawk Valley Bank. In politics he was long known as an aggressive Democrat. He was appointed to supervise the building of the state insane hospital at Utica, and during the Polk administration was auditor of the Port of New York. Identifying himself with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress from the Herkimer district in 1854. In the protracted speakership contest of 1855-56 he refused to caucus with the House Democrats and was the only representative elected as a Democrat whose vote was cast for Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.]. For the rest of that Congress he was affiliated with the Whig-Republican majority. He served on the committee that dealt with the Brooks-Sumner assault, and was a member of the conference committee in charge of the long disputed army appropriation bill in the summer of 1856. To the two succeeding Congresses he was elected as a Republican by large pluralities. He became known as an outspoken and inflexibly honest representative who never left his colleagues long in doubt as to his stand on any public question.

A vigorous supporter of Lincoln, he was appointed treasurer of the United States in March 1861. In that capacity he served fourteen years, under three presidents. When he took office, the Treasury was paying out $8,000,000 a month; within sixty days the expenditure amounted to $2,000,000 a day. It was Spinner's task to guard the government's money chest in a time of perils and difficulties for which there was no precedent. In connection with the issue of Treasury notes during the Civil War years, Spinner's autograph signature--the despair of would-be forgers came to be a kind of national symbol, known to all. In the expansion of his bureau and its personnel at a time when men were needed for military service he employed a few young women, at first to count currency bills and later to take over various clerical duties, so that by the end of the war women had a definite status in the civil service. For this innovation he has always been give n the chief credit.

Following his resignation in 1875, caused by friction with the department head over responsibility for appointments, Spinner went to Jacksonville, Florida, where he lived much in the open for fifteen years. At eighty he took up the study of Greek as a mental recreation. He died in his eighty-ninth year of cancer of the face, after prolonged suffering. On June 22, 1826, he had married Caroline Caswell of Herkimer; one of three daughters survived him.

[Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); N. S. Benton, A History of Herkimer County (1856); A. L. Howell, "The Life and Public Services of General Francis E. Spinner," Papers Read Before the Herkimer County Historical Society, volume II (1902); W. R. Hooper, in Hours at Home, September 1870; reports of Treasurer of U. S., 1861-75; I. S. Hartley, Magazine of American History, March 1891, pp. 185-200; Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century (1882); J. C. Derby, Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Publishers (1884), pp. 644-46; M. C. Ames, Ten Years in Washington (1873); L. E. Chittenden, Personal Reminiscences (1893); S. P. Brown, The Book of Jacksonville (1895); New York Times, January 1, 1891; Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), January 1, 1891.]

W.B.S.



SPRAGUE, Peleg (April 27, 1793-October 13, 1880), jurist, regarded slavery as a great political and moral evil.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 473-474:

SPRAGUE, PELEG (April 27, 1793-October 13, 1880), jurist, son of Seth and Deborah (Sampson) Sprague, was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, one of a large family of children. His father, a merchant of Duxbury and for many years a member of the Massachusetts legislature, was descended from William Sprague, who came from England to Salem in 1628 and finally settled at Hingham, Massachusetts. Peleg Sprague graduated from Harvard College in 1812, and, after studying law at Litchfield, Connecticut, was admitted to the bar in 1815 and practised first in Augusta and then in Hallowell, Maine. In August 1818 he married Sarah, daughter of Moses Deming of Whitesboro, New York. They had three sons and one daughter.

Sprague was elected to the first legislature of Maine after its separation from Massachusetts and served in 1820-22. He represented Maine in the federal House of Representatives from 1825 to 1829, and in the United States Senate, 1829-35. He then entered the practice of law in Boston, was chosen a presidential elector as a Whig in 1840, and in the following year was appointed United States district judge for the district of Massachusetts. In this position he found his real vocation until his retirement in 1865.

From his college days, because of a nervous affection of the eyes, Sprague was unable to read much of the time. His trouble grew worse soon after he was appointed to the bench so that during most of his judicial career he was obliged to darken the courtroom and even to sit with eyes closed while listening to those addressing him. Nevertheless, he became a really great judge. His opinions, delivered orally, disclosed the full background of an exceptional mind trained in those powers of concentration which are sometimes characteristic of the blind. Upon his retirement a committee of the bar, headed by Benjamin R. Curtis and including Sidney Bartlett and Richard H. Dana, Jr. [qq.v.], paid merited tribute to his thorough legal knowledge, to his extraordinary "power of analysis ... united with sound judgment to weigh its results," and to his possession of "that absolute judicial impartiality which can exist only when a tender and vigilant conscience is joined to an instructed and self-reliant intellect and a firm will" (2 Sprague's Decisions, 352).

In March 1851 he delivered a notable charge to the grand jury after a mob had broken into the federal courtrooms, and rescued a negro named Shadrach who had been arrested as a fugitive slave. Though himself regarding slavery as a great political and moral evil, he reminded the grand jury that the fact that human institutions are not perfect is no justification of forcible resistance to government and the introduction of anarchy and violence. In 1854 he delivered what has been described as an epoch-making opinion in maritime law, holding that "when a sailing vessel, going free, meets a steamer, the rule ... requires the former to keep her course, and the latter to keep out of the way" (The Osprey, I Sprague's Decisions, at p. 256). This rule has survived all attacks as the guiding rule of the sea in American courts. During the Civil War (March 1863) he delivered a charge to the grand jury on the doctrine of treason and the powers of the federal government in which he "allowed of no line beyond which the government could not follow a treasonable rebellion" (Dana, post, p. 10). This address, printed and circulated by the Union League, "did more to settle the minds of professional men in this part of the country ... than anything that appeared, from whatever source, in the early stages of the controversy" (Ibid.).

Before his appointment as a judge, Harvard College had offered Sprague the chair of ethics and moral philosophy, which he declined. The law school repeatedly sought his services as a professor, without avail. He retired from the bench in 1865 because of failing health, and was entirely blind for the last sixteen years of his life. He died in Boston at the age of eighty-seven. His Speeches and Addresses (1858) contains, among others, his speeches in Congress and his charge to the grand jury in the Shadrach case; selections from his decisions were published as Decisions of Hon. Peleg Sprague, in Admiralty and Maritime Cases (cited as Sprague's Decisions), Volume I appearing in 1861, Volume II in 1868.

[Justin Winsor, A History of the Town of Duxbury (1849), p. 319; Richard Soule, Jr., Memorial of the Sprague Family (1847); W. V. Sprague, Sprague Families in America (1913); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); R.H. Dana, Jr., A Tribute to Judge Sprague (1864); New England Magazine, June 1835; Chicago Legal News, November 15, 1879; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April 1881; Boston Daily Advertiser, October 14, 1880; judicial traditions of Judge Sprague among his successors on the bench.]

F. W. G.



STANBERY, Henry (February 20, 1803-June 26, 1881), lawyer, attorney-general of the United States. He identified himself with the Whig and later the Anti-slavery wing of the Republican party and was an ardent supporter of the Lincoln administration during the Civil War.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 498-499:

STANBERY, HENRY (February 20, 1803-June 26, 1881), lawyer, attorney-general of the United States, was born in New York City, the son of Dr. Jonas and Ann Lucy (Seaman) Stanbery. In 1814 his parents removed to Ohio and settled in Zanesville. Henry showed unusual gifts as a student and was graduated from Washington College (later, Washington and Jefferson) in Pennsylvania at the age of sixteen. He then read law with Ebenezer Granger and Charles B. Goddard and upon reaching his majority was admitted to the bar. That same year he was invited into partnership with Thomas Ewing [q.v.] of Lancaster, Ohio, one of the ablest attorneys in the state, and continued in association with him until Ewing entered the United States Senate in 1831. Stanbery early developed into a thoroughly well-rounded lawyer, learned in both the technicalities and the general principles of the law, and won for himself a place at the front rank of the Ohio bar, then renowned for its distinguished practitioners. His election to the newly created office of attorney-general of Ohio in 1846 necessitated his removal from Lancaster to Columbus, and for the next few years he was engaged in organizing the new department of justice and in expanding his practice in the United States courts and in the Ohio supreme court. He was among the most influential members of the constitutional convention of 1850 and ably contributed out of his broad learning and experience to the improvement of the organic laws of the state. In 1853 he transferred his law office to Cincinnati and continued his practice there until appointed attorney-general of the United States in 1866.

A handsome man of imposing presence, kindly manner, and unsullied character, Stanbery was universally respected. His clear and forceful reasoning, persuasiveness, and finished eloquence combined to make him effective on the stump as well as in the court room, but he was not an office-seeker and seldom took a conspicuous part in political campaigns. He identified himself with the Whig and later the Republican party and was an ardent supporter of the Lincoln administration. The moderate policy of reconstruction begun by Lincoln and carried forward by Johnson appealed to him strongly, and after entering the cabinet of the latter, July 23, 1866, he interpreted the reconstruction legislation as liberally as the language of the acts permitted. Gideon Welles thought him too much a man of precedents and too timid when action seemed appropriate (Diary, post, III, 221, 308-09), but Johnson placed a high estimate upon his judgment and wisdom and apparently relied much upon him in the preparation of his veto messages. When the impeachment proceedings against the President were begun, Stanbery resigned as attorney-general (March 12, 1868) to serve as Johnson's chief counsel. After the opening days, in which he bore the main burden of the defense, illness forced him to withdraw, but he returned to make the final argument. His summation glowed with loyalty and praise for the harassed executive. At the close of the trial Johnson renominated him as attorney-general, () but the Senate, as in the case of his nomination to the United States Supreme Court in April 1866, refused to confirm his appointment. In both instances the Senate's action was undoubtedly dictated by hostility to the President rather than by any question as to the nominee's fitness. After his rejection in 1868 Stanbery resumed his practice in Cincinnati with distinguished success, but failing sight obliged him to retire about 1878. He died in New York City. He was married twice: first, in 1829, to Frances E. Beecher of Lancaster, Ohio, who died in 1840 after having borne him five children; subsequently, he married Cecelia Bond, who survived him.

[G. I. Reed, Bench and Bar of Ohio (1897), volume I; Biographical and Historical Catalog of Washington and Jefferson College (1902); Trial of Andrew Johnson (3 volumes, 1868); Diary of Gideon Welles (1911), volumes II, III; Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (1928), volume II; E. P. Oberholtzer, A History of the U. S. Since the Civil War, volume II (1922); W. H. Safford, in Ohio State Bar Association Reports, volume IV (1884); New York Times, June 27, 1881; Cincinnati Commercial, June 27, 1881; information from grandson.]

A.H.M.



STEARNS, George Luther, 1809-1867, Medford, Massachusetts, merchant, industrialist, Free-Soil supporter, abolitionist. In 1848, as a Conscience Whig, he liberally supported the Free-soil campaign with his money Chief supporter of the Emigrant Aid Company which financed anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. Founded the Nation, Commonwealth, and Right of Way newspapers. Member of the “Secret Six” who secretly financially supported radical abolitionist John Brown, and his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, on October 16, 1859. Recruited African Americans for the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, U.S. Army.

(Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, p. 268; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 207, 327, 338; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 655; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 543).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 655:

STEARNS, George Luther, merchant, born in Medford, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1809; died in New York, 9 April, 1867. His father, Luther, was a teacher of reputation. In early life his son engaged in the business of ship-chandlery, and after a prosperous career undertook the manufacture of sheet and pipe-lead, doing business in Boston and residing in Medford. He identified himself with the anti-slavery cause, became a Free-Soiler in 1848, aided John Brown in Kansas, and supported him till his death. Soon after the opening of the Civil War Mr. Stearns advocated the enlistment of Negroes in the National Army. The 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments, and the 5th Cavalry (colored), were largely recruited through his instrumentality. He was commissioned major through the recommendation of Secretary of War Stanton, and was of great service to the National cause by enlisting Negroes for the volunteer service in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. He was the founder of the “Commonwealth” and “Right of Way” newspapers for the dissemination of his ideas. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 655.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 543:

STEARNS, GEORGE LUTHER (January 8, 1809-April 9, 1867),. Free-Soiler, was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Luther and Mary (Hall) Stearns and the descendant of Charles Stearns who became a freeman of Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1646. Such formal education as the boy received was in a preparatory school for boys established by his father, a physician. At the age of fifteen he began his business career in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1827 entered a ship chandlery firm in Boston. and in 1835 returned to Medford to manufacture linseed oil and to marry, on January 31, 1836, Mary Ann Train. He became a Unitarian and was prominent in church activities. After the death of his wife in 1840, he reentered business in Boston, at first with a ship-chandlery company but later, very successfully, as a manufacturer of lead pipe. By 1840 he felt strongly enough on the subject of slavery to support James G. Birney and the Liberty party. His marriage, on October 12, 1843, to Mary Elizabeth Preston probably furthered his interest in the anti-slavery cause for his wife was a niece of Lydia Maria Child [q.v.]. In 1848, as a Conscience Whig, he liberally supported the Free-soil campaign with his money. He was greatly disturbed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and is known to have aided at least one slave to escape. He was among the leaders in the movement that put Charles Sumner in the federal Senate, and later, as a member of the famous Bird Club, he played a considerable part in the rise of the Republican party in Massachusetts, becoming particularly interested in the political fortunes of his friend John A. Andrew.

He was in the group that, in 1856, raised a subscription to equip the free state forces in Kansas with Sharpe's rifles. The subsequently successful operations of the Kansas committee of Massachusetts, of which he became chairman, were largely due to the willingness with which he contributed his time and money. In 1857 he met John Brown and made him the committee's agent to receive the arms and ammunition for the defense of Kansas and also aided in purchasing a farm for the Brown family at North Elba, New York Indeed, from this time on Stearns practically put his purse at Brown's disposal. That he ever appreciated Brown's responsibility for the murders on the Potawatomi is doubtful, but in March 1858 Brown confided to him the general outline of his proposed raid into Virginia, an enterprise that Stearns approved, as did S. G. Howe, Theodore Parker, T. W. Higginson and Franklin B. Sanborn [qq.v.]. These five men constituted an informal committee in Massachusetts to aid Brown in whatever attack he might make on slavery. Stearns acted as treasurer for the enterprise in New England. Gerrit Smith of New York and Martin F. Conway of Kansas were also in the secret. Stearns, however, does not appear to have known just when and where Brown proposed to strike, and the blow at Harpers Ferry took him by surprise. On learning of Brown's capture he authorized two prominent Kansas jayhawkers to go to Brown's relief if they thought they could effect his rescue. Stearns himself, becoming somewhat apprehensive of the attitude of the Federal government, fled with Howe to Canada. He soon returned, however, and appeared before the Mason committee of the Senate that was investigating the Brown conspiracy. No further action was taken by the government respecting Stearns.

During the Civil War, upon Governor Andrew's authorization he recruited many negro soldiers for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments, especially from the middle and western states. So satisfactory were his efforts that in the summer of 1863 Secretary Stanton commissioned him as major with headquarters in Philadelphia and directed him to recruit colored regiments for the Federal government. A few months later he was sent to Nashville, where he successfully continued his work until a misunderstanding with Stanton led him to resign from the army early in 1864. In 1865 he established the Right Way, a paper that supported radical Republican policies, particularly negro suffrage, and attained a circulation of 60,000, largely at his expense. He died of pneumonia while on a business trip to New York.

[F. P. Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns (1907) and Cambridge Sketches (1905); O. G Villard, John Brown (1910); J. F. Rhodes, History of the U.S., volume II (1892); Sen. Report, No. 278, 36 Congress, 1 Session (1860); A. S. Van Wagenen, Genealogy and Memoirs of Charles and Nathaniel Stearns, and Their Descendants (1901).]

W.R.W.



STEVENS, Thaddeus, 1792-1868, statesman, lawyer, abolitionist leader. Anti-slavery leader in U.S. House of Representatives. As member of Whig Party and leader of the radical Republican Party, urged Lincoln to issue Emancipation Proclamation. Led fight to pass Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery and establishing citizenship, due process and equal protections for African Americans. He is depicted in the 2012 film “Lincoln”.

(Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 677-678; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 620; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 764-767; Congressional Globe; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 711)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

STEVENS, Thaddeus, statesman, born in Danville, Caledonia County, Vermont, 4 April, 1792; died in Washington, D. C., 11 August, 1868. He was the child of poor parents, and was sickly and lame, but ambitious, and his mother toiled to secure for him an education. He entered Vermont University in 1810, and after it was closed in 1812 on account of the war he went to Dartmouth, and was graduated in 1814. He began the study of law in Peacham, Vermont, continued it while teaching an academy in York, Pennsylvania, was admitted to the bar at Bel Air, Maryland., established himself in 1816 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and soon gained a high reputation, and was employed in many important suits. He devoted himself exclusively to his profession till the contest between the strict constructionists, who nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency in 1828, and the national Republicans, who afterward became the Whigs, drew him into politics as an ardent supporter of John Quincy Adams. He was elected to the legislature in 1833 and the two succeeding years. By a brilliant speech in 1835, he defeated a bill to abolish the recently established common-school system of Pennsylvania. In 1836 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and took an active part in its debates, but his anti-slavery principles would not permit him to sign the report recommending an instrument that restricted the franchise to white citizens. He was a member of the legislature again in 1837, and in 1838, when the election dispute between the Democratic and anti-Masonic parties led to the organization of rival legislatures, he was the most prominent member of the Whig and anti-Masonic house. In 1838 he was appointed a canal commissioner. He was returned to the legislature in 1841. He gave a farm to Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson, who had written poetry in defence of the common schools, and thus aided him in saving them. Having incurred losses in the iron business, he moved in 1842 to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and for several years devoted himself to legal practice, occupying the foremost position at the bar. In 1848 and 1850 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and ardently opposed the Clay compromise measures of 1850, including the Fugitive-Slave Law. On retiring from Congress, March, 1853, he confined himself to his profession till 1858, when he was returned to Congress as a Republican. From that time till his death he was one of the Republican leaders in that body, the chief advocate of emancipation, and the representative of the radical section of his party. His great oratorical powers and force of character earned for him the title, applied to William Pitt, of the “great commoner.” He urged on President Lincoln the justice and expediency of the emancipation proclamation, took the lead in all measures for arming and for enfranchising the Negro, and initiated and pressed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. During the war he introduced and carried Acts of Confiscation, and after its close he advocated rigorous measures in reorganizing the southern states on the basis of universal freedom. He was chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means for three sessions. Subsequently, as chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, he reported the bill which divided the southern states into five military districts, and placed them under the rule of army officers until they should adopt constitutions that conceded suffrage and equal rights to the blacks. In a speech that he made in Congress on 24 February, 1868, he proposed the impeachment of President Johnson. He was appointed one of the committee of seven to prepare articles of impeachment, and was chairman of the Board of Managers that was appointed on the part of the house to conduct the trial. He was exceedingly positive in his convictions, and attacked his adversaries with bitter denunciations and sarcastic taunts, yet he was genial and witty among his friends, and was noted for his uniform, though at times impulsive, acts of charity. While skeptical in his religious opinions, he resented slighting remarks regarding the Christian faith as an insult to the memory of his devout mother, whom he venerated. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by the University of Vermont in 1867. He chose to be buried in a private cemetery, explaining in the epitaph that he prepared for his tomb that the public cemeteries were limited by their charter-rules to the white race, and that he preferred to illustrate in his death the principle that he had advocated through his life of “equality of man before his Creator.” The tomb is in a large lot in Lancaster, which he left as a burial-place for those who cannot afford to pay for their graves. He left a part of his estate to found an orphan asylum in Lancaster, to be open to both white and colored children. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 677-678.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 620-:

STEVENS, THADDEUS (April 4, 1792-August 11, 1868), lawyer, congressman, political leader, was born in Danville, Vermont, of a family which had migrated from Massachusetts a few years earlier. His father, Joshua Stevens, an unthrifty shoemaker, died or disappeared at an undetermined date, leaving the mother, Sally (Morrill) Stevens, and four small sons in dire poverty. She was fortunately a woman of fine ideals and great industry, and made many sacrifices to educate Thaddeus, who as the youngest child, and lame and sickly from birth, required special care. The family soon removed to Peacham, Vermont, to gain the advantages of the academy which had been established there in 1795. This village, just above the junction of the Connecticut and Passumpsic rivers in north central Vermont, was still part of a semi-frontier community, and the boy grew up in a ruggedly democratic society. He was early trained to hard work and an independent outlook, and though a chance visit to Boston at the age of twelve gave him an ambition some day "to become rich" (McCall, post, p. 7), he imbibed a strong feeling for the poor and an intense dislike of aristocracy and of caste lines.

Completing his course at Peacham Academy, Stevens entered Dartmouth College as a sophomore in 18II, and graduated in 1814. However, he spent one term and part of another at the University of Vermont, There are early evidences of his headstrong nature: at Peacham Academy he joined other students in presenting a tragedy in the evening, both the dramatic entertainment and the hour being infractions of the rule, and at the University of Vermont he is said to have killed a cow. At the latter institution he also wrote a drama on "The Fall of Helvetic Liberty" and helped enact it. The instruction at Dartmouth and Vermont was limited and thorough, emphasizing Greek, Latin, higher mathematics, and ethics. From his classical training Stevens undoubtedly drew much of the clarity, exactness, and force which later characterized his public speaking, and which led Blaine to say that he rarely uttered a sentence that would not meet the severest tests of grammar and rhetoric (J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, I, 1884, p. 325). He had determined to practise law, and began reading it in Vermont. On taking his degree he obtained a post as instructor in an academy at York, Pennsylvania, and continued his law studies under David Casset, leader of the local bar. Apparently to evade a time requirement in Pennsylvania, he took his bar examinations at Bel Air, Maryland, passing with ease when he proved that in addition to a little law he knew how to order Madeira for his examiners and to lose money at cards to them. He then removed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1816 to practise.

For several years a struggling lawyer of narrow income, Stevens used his leisure to do much profitable reading in history and belles-lettres. But an important case in which he defended a man accused of murder on the then unusual plea of insanity gave him a large fee, said to have been $1500 (Hensel, post, p. 5), and a reputation. Thereafter from 1821 to 1830 he appeared in almost every important case at the county bar and won almost all of his numerous appeals to the state supreme court (Woodburn, post, p. 12). Since his county adjoined Maryland, Stevens saw much of the slavery system and of runaway negroes, and his instinctive New England dislike of slavery grew into a fierce hatred. It is said that he once spent $300 which he had saved to make additions to his law library in purchasing the freedom of a negro hotel-servant who was about to be sold away from his family (Hensel, pp. 7, 8). He defended numerous fugitive slaves without fee, and displayed great skill in gaining their freedom.

After practising law for ten years in Gettysburg, Stevens also entered the iron business by becoming in 1826 a partner in James D. Paxton & Company, which at once built Maria Furnace in Hamilton-ban Township, Adams County. The company, which became Stevens & Paxton in 1828, first tried to manufacture stoves and other light castings, but the metal was "cold-short" and the product frequently too brittle to have a value. Stevens and Paxton therefore bought property near Chambersburg, where they built Caledonia Forge (probably named after Stevens' native county in Vermont), and mixed pig iron from Maria Furnace with other ores. In 1837 they also built Caledonia Furnace, and finding ample supplies of superior ore near it, the next year gave up their first furnace entirely. They confined themselves chiefly to the sale of blooms. The Caledonia establishment was never very profitable even in the earlier years. When it met the competition of more effective and economical iron works, Stevens kept it up primarily because he did not wish to deprive the surrounding community of its principal means of livelihood. From his manufacturing enterprise sprang Stevens' interest in protective tariff.

It was natural for a man who felt with his burning intensity on public questions to push into politics. In 1830 he was described as "a firm and undeviating Federalist" and "a violent opponent of General Jackson" (quoted, Woodburn, p. 13). But already the Anti-Masonic movement had attracted him, and he emerged into political prominence in 1831 at the Anti-Masonic Convention in Baltimore which nominated William Wirt for president, and at which he delivered a notable arraignment of secret orders. Two years later he was elected to the Pennsylvania House on the Anti-Masonic ticket, taking his seat in the last weeks of 1833. As a member of the legislature Stevens quickly became known as one of the most fiery, most aggressive, and most uncompromising leaders in Pennsylvania affairs. He served until 1841. For some years he introduced or supported much legislation striking at Masonic influences, and in 1835 was chairman of a committee which made abortive attempts to investigate the evils of Free-Masonry. But his range of interests was wide. He was a warm advocate of the act of 1834 extending the free school system of Philadelphia over the whole state. The next year, when in a reaction against the taxes that were required an effort was made to repeal this law, he sprang into statewide fame by a brilliant defense of free education,-a defense "which produced an effect second to no speech ever uttered in an American legislative assembly" (McCall, p. 38). His denunciation of class-hostility toward free public schools, his excoriation of the repeal as "an act for branding and marking the poor" (Woodburn, p. 45), and his panegyric of a democratic system of instruction, completely won the hostile House. What was more, it caused the Senate to reverse its position. Stevens also labored for larger appropriations for colleges, including Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) at Gettysburg. He argued in behalf of the right of petition, appealed for a constitutional limit on the state debt, and defended the protective tariff and the United States Bank. In 1838 a disputed election in Philadelphia County brought on at Harrisburg the "Buckshot War," with the Whig and Anti-Masonic members of the House endeavoring to organize in opposition to the Democrats. Stevens was the chief leader in this attempt, showing the fierce fighting spirit and uncompromising disposition which marked him through life. At one time he escaped from a mob in the state capitol by leaping from a window. His faction was defeated, and the Democrats declared his seat vacated, but he was at once reelected. In 1836-37 he offered a resolution in favor of abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. In the state constitutional convention of 1837 he displayed great bitterness in debate, opposing everything that smacked of privilege or class distinctions, and refusing to sign the constitution finally adopted because it limited suffrage to white citizens (McCall, p. 48). At his retirement from the legislature the Harrisburg Pennsylvania Telegraph pronounced him "a giant among pigmy opponents" (E. B. Callender, Thaddeus Stevens, Commoner, 1882, p. 51), and every one recognized him as one of the strongest men in the state.

His decision to quit politics was only temporary, for as the contest over slavery grew heated he was irresistibly drawn toward the arena. Pique over his failure to gain a place in the cabinet of Harrison, whom he had supported in 1836 and 1840, may have played a part in his retirement. His business had not prospered, and he had debts variously estimated at from $90,000 to $217,000 to pay off (Woodburn, p. 66). Removing in 1842 to Lancaster, he at once gained a place at its bar worth from $12,000 to $15,000 a year. As he repaired his fortunes he turned toward public life and in 1848 was elected on the Whig ticket to the Thirty-first Congress. Here he immediately took a leading place among the little band of free-soilers, surpassing such men as Joshua R. Giddings and G. W. Julian [qq.v.] in fieriness of temper as in general parliamentary versatility. He was willing to make no compromise whatever with slavery in the territories, and predicted that if ringed about by "a cordon of freemen," all slave states would within twenty-five years pass laws "for the gradual and final extinction of slavery" (February 20, 1850, Congressional Globe, 31 Congress, I Session, Appendix, p. 142). He denounced slavery as "a curse, a shame, and a crime"; he compared it to the horrors of Dante's Inferno (June 10, 1850, Ibid., Appendix, p. 767). He taunted men of the lower South as slave-drivers, and Virginians for devoting their lives "to selecting and grooming the most lusty sires and the most fruitful wenches to supply the slave barracoons" (February 20, 1850, Ibid., Appendix, p. 142). His invective was bestowed as harshly upon Northerners who condoned slavery as upon Southerners who practised it. He assailed the compromise measures of 1850, and did his utmost to defeat the Fugitive Slave Act. Southern members expressed horror at his gross language, which they declared too indecent for print, and at his reckless and incendiary sentiments. Reelected in 1850, he renewed his assaults upon slavery and his warnings to the South against secession. He also spoke for increased tariffs. In March 1853, disgusted with the moderation of most Whigs, he quit Congress but not politics. For within a year Douglas had prepared his Kansas-Nebraska scheme, and the moment was ripe for a leader of Stevens'. unsurpassed powers of agitation and denunciation.

In the formation of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, Stevens played a vigorous part. He helped organize Lancaster County in 1855, and in 1856 attended the National Convention at Philadelphia as a supporter of Justice McLean. His impassioned appeals at this gathering led Elihu B. Washburne to say that he had "never heard a man speak with more feeling or in more persuasive accents" (E. B. Washburne, ed., The Edwards Papers, 1884, p. 246, note). In 1858 he was reelected to Congress and, with fire unabated at the age of sixty-eight, entered the last debates before the Civil War. His harshness of speech was as great as ever. An early colloquy with Crawford of Georgia almost provoked a riot on the floor (Woodburn, pp. 135-36). He also renewed his pleas for a protective tariff. In 1860 he again was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and though he was constrained to support Cameron and preferred McLean, finally voted for Lincoln. Returning to Congress, he opposed any concessions to the Southerners as "the coward breath of servility and meanness"; he warned the South to secede at its peril, saying that if it tried to break up the Union "our next United States will contain no foot of ground on which a slave can tread, no breath of air which a slave can breathe" (January 29, 1861, Congressional Globe, 36 Congress, 2 Session, p. 624). He called upon Buchanan to exert the Federal authority sternly against those who were flouting the national government. In one memorable debate he denounced the plotters of "treason" so violently that the excitement, according to Henry L. Dawes, "beggared all description," and his friends formed a hollow square to protect him from the menaces of hostile members (McCall, pp. 127-28).

Stevens was again mentioned for a cabinet post, and when Lincoln chose Simon Cameron instead he criticized the cabinet as representing political expediency rather than efficiency. But he soon found himself in a position of greater power than if he had taken Cameron's place. He was made chairman of the ways and means committee, which gave him wide authority over all revenue bills and most other congressional measures dealing with the prosecution of the war; while as Blaine states, in everything he was "the natural leader, who assumed his place by common consent" (Blaine, ante, I, 325). Upon nearly all aspects of the war he had stern and positive views, and his ideas of policy diverged sharply from Lincoln's. In the field of finance he fortunately gave the administration loyal support. He was prompt in carrying through the House all necessary legislation authorizing Secretary Chase to float loans. He and his committee acted with expedition and nerve in devising new taxes and making them effective. He pressed the income tax against urban objection, the direct tax on real estate against rural objection. The internal revenue act of 1862 showed especial ingenuity in reaching almost every source of revenue, and for this he as well as Justin S. Morrill, chairman of the sub-committee on taxation, deserves credit. On the legal-tender legislation that became a matter of hard necessity following the suspension of specie payments he held doctrines possibly derived in large part from Eleazar Lord (McCall, p. 259; W. C. Mitchell, A History of the Greenbacks, 1903, pp. 47 ff.). He favored a uniform nation-wide paper currency issued directly by the United States without mediation of the banks, legal tender for all purposes, and interchangeable with six per cent. United States bonds (Woodburn, pp. 257-58). The act finally passed with numerous compromises, and the amendment which required the interest on government bonds to be paid in coin and not greenbacks was highly repugnant to Stevens. In his opinion it changed a "beneficent" measure into one "positively mischievous" by establishing one currency for the rich bondholder and another for the plow holder and fighter (February 20, 1862, Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 900).

On the conduct of the war Stevens took a harsh and aggressive position. He was one of the two House members who in 1861 voted against the Crittenden resolution declaring that the war was not fought for conquest or subjugation, or to interfere with the established institutions of the South. From the early months he urged confiscation of all property used for insurrectionary purposes and the arming of slaves (August 2, 1861, Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 1 Sess., pp. 414-15). He bitterly criticized Lincoln for overruling Fremont and Hunter on military emancipation, and termed the President's proposal for compensated emancipation "diluted milk and water gruel" (Ibid., 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. II 54). In language often acrid and abusive he called upon Lincoln to turn out Seward, shake loose from the Blairs and other border-state politicians, and- use every possible method of attack against the South. "Oh, for six months of stern old Jackson !" was one of his exclamations (Woodburn, p. 220). He helped make the committee on the conduct of the war, formed after Ball's Bluff, a thorn in the side of the administration. As the conflict progressed he asked ever--sterner measures. Believing the Constitution no longer applicable to the South, he had no difficulty in justifying demands for wholesale arrests, confiscations, and capital punishments. Early in 1862 he told the House that the war would not end till one party or the other had been reduced to "hopeless feebleness" and its power of further effort had been "utterly annihilated" (January 22, 1862, Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 440). He went so far by 1864 a s to speak of the necessity of seeing the "rebels" exterminated, and more than once spoke of desolating the section, erasing state lines, and colonizing it anew. It was charged that his shrill demands for vengeance after 1863 were prompted in part by the destruction of his iron works near Chambersburg in Lee's invasion of that year (Rhodes, post, V, 544). Confederate troops spent several days at the Caledonia iron works, where they removed all stores and supplies, then burning most of the settlement. In a letter Stevens describes the destruction in indignant terms. They "took all my horses, mules, and harness, even the crippled horses"; they seized two tons of his bacon, with molasses, other contents of the store, and $2,000 worth of grain; they burnt the furnace, rolling-mill, sawmill, two forges, bellows-houses, and other parts of the works; they "even hauled off my bar-iron, being as they said convenient for shoeing horses, and wagons about $4,000 worth"; and they destroyed fences and about eighty tons of hay (Stevens Papers, Library of Congress, volume II). Stevens was forced to provide for the indigent families of the vicinity.

But his chief quarrel with Lincoln was upon reconstruction. He earnestly opposed Lincoln's ten per cent. plan, objected to the seating of congressmen from Louisiana under it, and in a notable speech on reconstruction laid down the rule that the South was outside the Constitution and that the law of nations alone would limit the victorious North in determining the conditions of restoration (January 22, 1864, Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, l Session, pp. 317-19). The Wade-Davis bill, embodying a rigorous scheme of reconstruction, did not go far enough for him, but when Lincoln gave this bill a pocket veto with an explanatory proclamation Stevens called the action "infamous" (Woodburn, p. 321). Though he supported Lincoln for reelection in 1864 it was probably with secret hostility (G. W. Julian, Political Recollections, 1884, p. 243; Woodley, post, p. 405), and his sorrow over the President's assassination was not keen. Temporarily he hoped that Johnson would take the radical road. But within a month he saw that the new President was following Lincoln, and wrote Sumner in angry horror: "I fear before Congress meets he will have so be-devilled matters as to render them incurable" (Beale, post, p. 63). With Sumner, he at once prepared to give battle to Johnson for the purpose of reducing the South to a "territorial condition," making it choose between negro suffrage and reduced representation, imposing other harsh conditions, and fixing Republican supremacy-for which he appreciated economic as well as political arguments (Beale, pp. 73, 152, 206, 403-05). Like Sumner, he also set about promoting schism in Johnson's cabinet (Oberholtzer, post, I, 164).

As soon as Congress met, the two houses, on motion of Stevens, appointed a joint committee on reconstruction (December 4, 1865, Congressional Globe, 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 6), of which he as chairman of the House group was the dominant member. A fortnight later (December 18, 1865) he again asserted that rebellion had obliterated the Southern states and that the section was a "conquered province" with which Congress could do as it pleased. He also frankly avowed that one aim of representation was "to divide the representation, and thus continue the Republican ascendency" (Ibid., pp. 73-74). The first open rupture with the President came in February 1866, on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill which Stevens belligerently pushed and Johnson vetoed. Beginning with Johnson's speech on Washington's birthday, the two men exchanged bitter attacks, and Stevens succeeded in passing both the Civil Rights Bill and a revised Freedmen's Bureau Bill over Johnson's veto. On April 30, 1866, the joint committee reported the Fourteenth Amendment, which with a few changes Congress adopted, and a bill declaring that when the amendment became part of the Constitution any state lately in insurrection which ratified it and adopted a constitution and laws in conformity with its terms should be admitted to representation in Congress. But this bill never passed. It did not go as far as Stevens wished and on the last day of the session he tried to amend it to require full negro suffrage. Johnson opposed the congressional plan, the South with his apparent approval refused to accept the Fourteenth Amendment, and the whole issue went before the people in the congressional election of 1866. Economic factors strengthened Stevens' hands, for large elements feared loss of tariff advantages, railway grants, free homesteads, and gold bond-redemptions, with all of which the Republican party was identified (Beale, pp. 225-99). A sweeping victory that fall gave Stevens the whip-hand over Johnson and the South.

The first use which he made of his success was to impose military reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment upon the South. He had expected it to reject the Fourteenth Amendment and thus give him an opening, and he was prepared to make the most of a defiance which he had deliberately inspired and encouraged (Woodburn, pp. 436-37). His new measure, introduced February 6, 1867, and passed in March, provided for temporary military rule while the states were remade in the South on the basis of negro suffrage and the exclusion of leading ex-Confederates. He pushed it through a reluctant House by invective, sarcasm, threats, taunts, and cracking of the party whip (Rhodes, VI, 17, 18). Having accomplished this, he turned to the chastisement of the President. He declared during the summer of 1867 that he would willingly help impeach Johnson but that he did not believe the measure would succeed (July 19, 1867, Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 745-46). In December he did vote for an impeachment resolution which failed by nearly two to one. When Johnson summarily removed Stanton as secretary of war Stevens saw his chance, and the very next day reported an impeachment resolution based on the President's supposed disregard of the Tenure of Office Act (February 22, 1868, Ibid., 40 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1336). He was made a member of the committee to draft articles of impeachment, and also one of the managers to conduct the case before the Senate. But his health had now hopelessly failed, and he took little part in the trial itself. Deeply disappointed by the President's acquittal, he sank so rapidly that when Congress recessed he could not be taken back to Lancaster, but died in Washington. He had never married, and only his nephew and colored housekeeper were at his bedside. By his own wish he was buried in a small graveyard in Lancaster. His tombstone bears an inscription prepared by himself: "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but, finding other cemeteries limited by charter rules as to race, I have chosen this, that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life-Equality of Man before his Creator" (Woodburn, p. 609; Callender, p. 163).

Stevens was an intense partisan, and his career was marred throughout by a harsh and vindictive temper which in his last years made him frankly vengeful toward the South. Within a brief time after his death it was evident that he had fallen short of the measure of a statesman. His radical and bitter policy, offered as a means of obtaining equality and justice for the negro, aroused fierce resentment, accentuated racial antagonism, cemented the Solid South, and postponed for many decades any true solution of the race problem. He h ad rare parliamentary talents. Well-read, with a quick and lucid mind, of indomitable courage, a master of language and past master of invective, gifted with a sardonic humor and nimble wit, he was almost invincible on the floor. His private life was far from saintly, for gambling was but one of several habitual vices. But his leonine spirit, his terrible earnestness, his gay resourcefulness, and his fine intellectual equipment always inspired respect. Had tolerance and magnanimity been added to his character, he might have been a brilliant instead of sinister figure in American history.



STILWELL, Silas Moore (June 6, 1800-May 16, 1881), lawyer and writer on financial topics, member of the Whig Party in New York. Supporter of the Union during the Civil War.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. :

STILWELL, SILAS MOORE (June 6, 1800-May 16, 1881), lawyer and writer on financial topics, was born in New York City, the fifth of six children of Stephen and Nancy (Moore) Stilwell. He was descended from Nicholas Stillwell [sic], who was in Manhattan as early as 1645 and may have been in Virginia previously. Stephen Stilwell, a merchant and veteran of the Revolution, moved his family in 1804 to Glasco, Ulster County, New York, where he bought a glass factory and iron foundry. After investing heavily in Western lands, he went bankrupt in 1810. Silas entered Woodstock Free Academy, but left at the age of twelve to become a clerk in a New York hardware store. Two years later he went West to work with land surveyors. At twenty-two he was a member of the Tennessee legislature, soon afterward moved to Virginia, and in 1824 was admitted to the bar. He practised successfully for several years and served as member of the House of Burgesses. In 1828 he returned to New York where he continued his political activities. Elected in 1829 to the Assembly on the National Republican ticket, he served three terms, 1830-33. The demands of the new Workingman's Party enlisted his sympathy, particularly the abolition of imprisonment for debt. On this issue, says Thurlow Weed (post), Stilwell staked his political future, and as a result of his efforts the Stilwell Act, abolishing the penalty, was passed in 1831. In 1834 he ran, unsuccessfully, for lieutenant-governor on the ticket headed by William H. Seward [q.v.]. Two years later, as candidate for alderman in New York City he was successful and as chairman of an evenly divided board he exercised great authority in appointments.

Banking reform next attracted him. Disapproval of Jackson's withdrawal of government deposits from the Bank of the United States caused Stilwell to break with his party and join the Whigs. On his interest in the revision of banking laws in New York State has been based the claim that he was the author of the Free Banking Law of 1838. A pamphlet which he published at this time, however, A System of Credit for a Republic, and the Plan of a Bank for the State of New-York (1838), shows that what he had in mind was radically different from the plan adopted. The election of Harrison to the presidency brought Stilwell into touch with national politics. He is said to have refused a cabinet post because of his large losses in the panic of 1837, but President Tyler appointed him United States marshal for the southern district of New York in 1841 and sent him on a special mission to The Hague.

Stilwell's claim to authorship of the National Banking Act is not recognized by historians of American banking. During 1861 and 1862 he was in Washington, where he was in close contact with Secretary Salmon P. Chase [q.v.] and with Edward Jordan, solicitor of the treasury. He prepared a pamphlet, published by the government, A System of National Finance: Notes Explanatory of Mr. Chase's Plan of National Finance (1861), and worked with Jordan on a preliminary draft of the banking bill, but his contribution to the Act as it finally emerged seems to have been less important than that of Elbridge Gerry Spaulding [q.v.] and Samuel Hooper (Helderman, post, pp. 136-42). From 1861 to 1872 he wrote articles on financial topics for the New York Herald under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldbuck. He published in 1866 a lecture, National Finances: A Philosophical Examination of Credit, and in 1879, Private History of the Origin and Purpose of the National Banking Law. In later life he changed parties a second time, becoming again a stanch Democrat. A romantic episode in his career was his courtship of Caroline Norsworthy, the daughter of a rich New York merchant and landowner, whom he married in defiance of parental wishes. She brought him a considerable fortune and with what he had himself acquired he was regarded at one time as a rich man. He had four children, three of whom survived him. After his wife's death he became deeply interested in Spiritualism and prepared the manuscript of a book in its defense, He died in New York City.

[Dewitt and Lamont Stilwell, Historical and Genealogical Record of One Branch of the Stilwell Family (1914); J. E. Stillwell, The History of Lieut. Nicholas Stillwell (1929) and The History of Captain Nicholas Stillwell and His Descendants (1930); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volume I (1906); F. W. Seward, Autobiography of Wm. H. Seward ... with a Memoir of His Life (1877); Autobiography of Thurlow Weed (1883), ed. by H. A. Weed; A Report of Two Interviews with the Hon. Silas M. Stilwell (1874); A. M. Davis, "The Origin of the National Banking System," in Reports of the National Monetary Commission, volume XXXV (1910), being Senate Document 582, 61 Congress, 2 Session; L. C. Helderman, National and State Banks (1931); New York Herald, May 17, 1881.]

P. W. B.

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.