T: Tallmadge through Tyson

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

TALLMADGE, James, Jr., 1778-1853, New York, lawyer, soldier, opponent of slavery. U.S. Congressman. Lieutenant Governor of New York. Introduced legislation in House of Representatives to prohibit slavery in new state of Missouri in 1819. It was called the Tallmadge Amendment. Challenged Illinois right to statehood with state constitution permitting existence of slavery in the new state. The Tallmadge Amendment to the Congressional Bill for Missouri Statehood read: “And approved, that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes…” The House of Representatives adopted the amendment; the U.S. Senate did not. Tallmadge declared: “The interest, honor, and faith of the nation required it scrupulously to guard against slavery’s passing into a territory where they [Congress] have power to prevent its entrance.” (16 Con., 1 Sess., 1819-1820, II, p. 1201) Tallmadge further said: “If the western country cannot be settled without slaves, gladly would I prevent its settlement till time shall be no more.”

(Basker, 2005, pp. 318-321, 327, 349; Dumond, 1961, pp. 101-103, 106; Hammond, 2011, pp. 138, 150-151, 272; Mason, 2006, pp. 155, 177, 181, 184, 185, 191, 209; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 35, 129, 386, 471-472; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 26; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 285; Tallmadge Amendment, pp. 177-212; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 281)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 26:

TALLMADGE, James, lawyer, born in Stanford, Dutchess County, New York, 28 January, 1778; died in New York City, 29 September, 1853. His father, Colonel James (1744 to 1821), led a company of volunteers at the capture of General John Burgoyne. After graduation at Brown in 1798 the son studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised several years in Poughkeepsie and New York, and also gave attention to agriculture, owning a farm in Dutchess County. For some time he was private secretary to Governor George Clinton, and during the war of 1812-'15 he commanded a company of home-guards in the defence of New York. He was elected a representative to Congress as a Democrat, and served from 1 December, 1817, till 3 March, 1819, but declined a re-election. In that body he defended General Andrew Jackson's course in the Seminole war, and introduced, as an amendment to the bill authorizing the people of Missouri to form a state organization, a proposition to exclude slavery from that state when admitted to the Union. In support of this amendment General Tallmadge delivered a powerful speech, 15 February, 1819, in opposition to the extension of slavery. This was widely circulated, and was translated into German. He was a delegate to the New York constitutional conventions of 1821 and 1846, a member of the state assembly in 1824, and delivered a speech on 5 August, 1824, on the bill to provide for the choice by the people of presidential electors. In 1825-'6 he was lieutenant-governor of New York, and while holding this office he delivered a speech at the reception of Lafayette in New York on 4 July, 1825. In 1836 he visited Russia, and aided in introducing into that country several American mechanical inventions, especially cotton-spinning machinery. From 1831 till 1850 he was president of the American institute, of which he was a founder. He also aided in establishing the University of the City of New York, which gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1838, and he was president of its council for many years. General Tallmadge was a leading exponent of the Whig doctrine of protection to American industry, and published numerous speeches and addresses which were directed to the encouragement of domestic production. He also delivered a eulogium at the memorial ceremonies of Lafayette by the corporation and citizens of New York, 26 June, 1834. General Tallmadge was an eloquent orator and vigorous writer. His only daughter was one of the most beautiful women in the country, and after her return from Russia, to which court she accompanied her father, married Philip S, Van Rensselaer, of Albany, third son of the patroon. Their only surviving son, James Tallmadge Van Rensselaer, is a well-known lawyer of New York City. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 26.



Tappan, Mason Weare, 1817-1886, lawyer, soldier. U.S. Congressman, Free Soil Party, 1855-1861.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 33-34; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

TAPPAN, Mason Weare, lawyer, born in Newport, New Hampshire, 20 October, 1817; died in Bradford, New Hampshire, 24 October, 1886. His father, a well-known lawyer, settled in Bradford in 1818, and was a pioneer in the anti-slavery movement. The son was educated at Kimball Union Academy, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and acquired a large practice. He was early identified with the Whig party, and afterward was a Free-Soiler and served in the legislature in 1853-'5. He was elected to Congress as a Free-Soiler, by a combination of the Whigs, Free-Soilers, Independent Democrats, and Americans, at the time of the breaking up of the two great parties, Whigs and Democrats. He served from 3 December, 1855, till 3 March, 1861, and was a member of the special committee of thirty-three on the rebellious states. On 5 February, 1861, when a report was submitted recommending that the provisions of the constitution should be obeyed rather than amended, he made a patriotic speech in support of the government. Mr. Tappan was one of the earliest to enlist in the volunteer army, and was colonel of the 1st New Hampshire Regiment from May till August, 1861. Afterward he resumed the practice of law, and held the office of attorney-general of the state for ten years preceding his death. He was a delegate to the Philadelphia Loyalists' convention of 1866, and presided over the New Hampshire Republican convention on 14 September, 1886. In the presidential election of 1872 he supported his life-long friend, Horace Greeley. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 33-34.



TAYLOR, John W., 1784-1854, abolitionist. Nine term Democratic U.S. Congressman from New York, 1813-1833. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Proposed legislation in 1819 to prohibit slavery in Arkansas Territory. Later organized the Whig and National Republican Parties. Taylor said during a debate on slavery: “Our votes this day will determine whether the high destinies of this region, of these generations, shall be fulfilled, or whether we shall defeat them by permitting slavery, with all its baleful consequences, to inherit the wind.” (15 Cong., 2 Sess., 1818-1819, p. 1170).

(Basker, 2005, pp. 318, 319, 321, 324, 327, 349; Dumond, 1961, p. 104; Mabee, 1970, pp. 86, 191, 193, 199, 202, 204; Mason, 2006, pp. 146, 148, 181, 186; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 35, 36, 298; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 46; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 235)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 46:

TAYLOR, John W., speaker of the House of Representatives, born in Charlton, Saratoga County, New York, 20 March; 1784; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 8 September, 1854. He was graduated at Union in 1803, organized the Ballston Centre Academy in that year, studied law in Albany, was admitted to the bar in 1807, and practised in Ballston, becoming a justice of the peace in 1808, then state commissioner of loans, and in 1811-'12 a member of the legislature. He was elected to Congress as a Democrat and a supporter of the war with Great Britain, and was re-elected nine times in succession, serving altogether from 24 May, 1813, till 2 March, 1833. On 20 November, 1820; owing to the absence of Henry Clay, Taylor was chosen in his place as speaker, and served till the end of the second session, during which the Missouri compromise was passed. On the question of the admission of Missouri to the Union he delivered the first speech in Congress that plainly opposed the extension of slavery. He was again elected speaker on the organization of the 19th Congress, serving from 5 December, 1825, till 3 March, 1827. He was one of the organizers of the National Republican, and afterward of the Whig Party. After retiring from Congress he practised law at Ballston, and was a member of the state senate in 1840-'1 , but resigned in consequence of a paralytic stroke, and from 1843 till his death lived with a daughter in Cleveland. He was the orator of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard in 1827, and frequently spoke in public on literary as well as on national topics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 46.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 335-336:

TAYLOR, JOHN W. (March 26, 1784-September 18, 1854), anti-slavery leader, was born at Charlton, New York, the son of Judge John Taylor and Chloe (Cox) Taylor, and a descendant of Edward Taylor who settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey, in 1692. After graduating from Union College, Schenectady, he began the study of law with Samuel Cook. Admitted to the bar in 1807, he formed a partnership with Cook and began to practise at Ballston Spa. On July 10, 1806, he married Jane Hodge, who died in 1838, having borne him three daughters and five sons. After two years in the New York Assembly (18u-12), he represented Saratoga County for twenty consecutive years in the federal House of Representatives (March 4, 1813-March 3, 1833). He favored a national bank and a protective tariff, although he regarded federal appropriations for roads and canals as unconstitutional. During the presidency of the second Adams he was a leader of administration policies and later a member of the Whig party.

The slavery question brought him into national prominence. He seconded the amendment of James Tallmadge [q.v.] to the Missouri bill, prohibiting the further introduction of slavery in the proposed state and liberating at the age of twenty-five all children born of slave parents. To the bill organizing Arkansas Territory, he moved a similar amendment. When his motion was lost he submitted a proposal prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the territories north of 36° 30', in support of his restrictive policy delivering some of the first anti-slavery speeches heard in Congress (Annals of Congress, 15 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 1170--93; 16, I Session, pp. 958-66). He argued that the power of Congress to admit new states implied a power to refuse to admit, and hence a power to prescribe conditions on which it would admit. As precedents he pointed to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had been compelled to frame constitutions excluding slavery, and to Louisiana, where Congress had insisted on English as the official language and the guarantee of habeas corpus, jury tri al, and religious liberty. He also held that the provision vesting in Congress power to prohibit the "importation or migration" of slaves after 1808 was applicable in this connection, since the word "migration" meant the passage £rem one commonwealth to another. As to the expediency of restriction, he contended that slavery was ruinous to the economy of the country. He declared, also, that Congress was obligated to restrict slavery since slavery was incompatible with the "republican form of government" which it was the constitutional duty of the United States to guarantee to every state.

Taylor served two terms as speaker of the House of Representatives (November 15, 1820-March 3, 1821, December 5, 1825-March 3, 1827), in each case being defeated for reelection. In a letter to his son, he said: "I lost my third election as Speaker through my direct opposition to slavery" (MS., in the possession of Taylor's granddaughter, Mrs. Clarissa Taylor Bass, Freeport, Illinois). While the South never forgave the part he played in the Missouri controversy, the chief opposition came from his own state. The anti-Clintonian faction in New York encompassed his defeat in 1821, and the Van Buren Democrats were largely responsible for it in 1827. In November 1832 they thwarted his reelection to Congress. From 1840 to 1842 he was a member of the Nevi York Senate, from which ill health compelled his retirement. In 1843 he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he spent the remainder of his life at his daughter's home.

[Elisha Taylor, Genealogy of J1tdge John Taylor and His Descendants (1886); Biographical Directory American Co ng. (1928); Memoirs of John Q1tincy Adams, volumes IV-VII (1875); S. B. Dixon, The History of the Missouri Compromise and Its Repeal (1899); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volumes I, II (1906); E. F. Grose, Centennial History of the Village of Ballston Spa (1907); New York Tribune, September 22, 1854.]

J. G. V-D.



TEMPLE, Oliver Perry (January 27, 1820- November 2, 1907), lawyer and author. He took a leading part in the Southern Commercial Convention held in Knoxville in 1856, as proponent and advocate of resolutions against the reestablishment of the slave trade.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 363-364:

TEMPLE, OLIVER PERRY (January 27, 1820- November 2, 1907), lawyer and author, was born near Greeneville, Greene County, Tennessee, the son of James and Mary (Craig) Temple, and a descendant of William Temple, a native of England who was living in Goshen, Pennsylvania, in 1721. While a student at Greeneville College in 1838 Oliver volunteered as a soldier to aid regulars under General Winfield Scott [q.v.] in his work of pacifying the Cherokee Indians then being moved beyond the Mississippi. In 1841 he entered Washington College, Washington County, Tennessee, and was graduated with the cl ass of 1844. He at once entered the field of politics, delivering speeches throughout his congressional district in behalf of Henry Clay [q.v.], candidate for the presidency. Subsequently he read Jaw in Greeneville under Robert J. McKinney, and in 1846 was admitted to the bar. In July of the following year he was the Whig candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson [q.v.], and in a campaign of three weeks, by dexterous attacks on his opponent's record he cut Johnson's usual majority of about 1500 to 314 votes.

In 1848 Temple removed to Knoxville, where he practised law in partnership with leaders of the East Tennessee bar. He was appointed in 1850 one of the commissioners to negotiate with the Indian tribes of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. On September 9, 1851, shortly after his return to Knoxville, he was married to Scotia C. Humes, of that city. He took a leading part in the Southern Commercial Convention held in Knoxville in 1856, as proponent and advocate of resolutions against the reestablishment of the slave trade. In 1860 he was a delegate to the National Union Convention, held at Baltimore, and aided in the nomination of John Bell [q.v.] as candidate for the presidency; subsequently, a s a Bell and Everett elector, he canvassed his congressional district. In November of the same year he made the first speech in Tennessee, after Lincoln's election, in behalf of the Union, and in December he planned a meeting of East Tennessee Unionists at Knoxville to consolidate the sentiment of that section against secession. The following year he stumped East Tennessee for the Union cause, and took a leading part in the Greeneville Convention of June 17, 1861, which declared for a separation of East Tennessee from the state of Tennessee. In July 1866, he was appointed one of the chancellors of Tennessee by Governor W. G. Brownlow [q.v.], and continued as such until September 1878. He then returned to the bar but after 1881 devoted his attention to his large estate.

When more than seventy-five years old he 'turned to authorship. His first production was The Covenanter, the Cavalier and the Puritan (1897). This was followed by East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899), and Notable Men of Tennessee, published in 1912, after his death. He wrote in a vigorous and interesting,. though not graceful style, and drew copiously from his own rich store of reminiscences. His contribution to the progress of transportation and agriculture in East Tennessee was considerable. He was one of the originators of the Knoxville & Ohio Railroad; a director of the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad Company, and president of the first macadam turnpike company in his section of the state. Before the Civil War he was a member of the state board of agriculture, and in 1872 he was the prime mover in the organization of the East Tennessee Farmers' Convention. For many years he was active as a trustee of the University of Tennessee, and for a period served as chairman of the board. His work for the institution was directed principally toward the development of the agricultural department. After his death the Farmers' Convention built Temple Hall on the experimental farm of the University, in his honor.

[W. S. Speer, Sketches of Prominent Tennesseans (1888); biographical sketch by Temple's daughter, Mary B. Temple, in his Notable Men of Tennessee (1912); William Rule, Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee (1900); T. W. Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (188 8); W. T. Hale and D. L. Merritt, A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans (1913), volumes II, III, VII; Who's Who in America, 1906-07; Nashville Banner, January 30, 1904; Journal and Tribune (Knoxville), November 3, 1907.]

S. C. W.



TEN EYCK, John Conover, 1814-1879, lawyer. Republican U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Was a Whig until 1856. Joined Republican Party in 1856. Chosen senator in 1859. Served until March 1865. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 62; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 62:

TEN EYCK, John Conover, senator, born in Freehold, New Jersey, 12 March, 1814; died in Mount Holly, New Jersey, 24 August, 1879. He received his education from private tutors, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1835, and practised in Mount Holly, New Jersey. He served as prosecuting attorney for Burlington County in 1839-49,and was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1844. Mr. Ten Eyck was a Whig till 1856, when he joined the Republican party, and he was afterward chosen to the U. S. Senate, where he held his seat from 5 December, 1859, till 3 March, 1865. In the Senate Mr. Ten Eyck took part in various debates, including that on the electoral vote of Louisiana in 1865, but his principal services were performed on the judiciary and other committees. On 24 April, 1875, he was appointed a member of a commission to revise the New Jersey constitution, and on the death of Abram 0. Zabriskie he became its president. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 62.



THOMPSON, Richard Wigginton, (June 9, 1809-February 9, 1900), lawyer, politician, author. He was a presidential elector, first on the Whig and later on the Republican ticket. Presidents Taylor, Fillmore, and Lincoln made him offers of offices, but he declined. He was active in the secession controversies and during the Civil War served as provost marshal for the Terre Haute district.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 94:

THOMPSON, Richard Wigginton, Secretary of the Navy, born in Culpeper County, Virginia, 9 June, 1809. He received a good education, and moved in 1831 to Kentucky, whence, after serving as a store-keeper's clerk in Louisville, he went to Lawrence County, Indiana. There he taught for a few months, and then returned to mercantile business, at the same time studying law at night. He was admitted to the bar in 1834, began to practise in Bedford, Indiana, and served in the lower house of the legislature in 1834-'6, and in the upper house in 1830-'8. He was for a short time president, pro tempore, of the state senate, and acting lieutenant-governor. He was a presidential elector on the Harrison ticket in 1840, zealously supporting General Harrison in public speeches and by his pen, served in Congress in 1841-'3, having been chosen as a Whig, and was a defeated candidate for elector on the Clay ticket in 1844. He served again in Congress in 1847-'9, declining a renomination, and also refused the Austrian mission, which was offered him by President Taylor, the recordership of the land-office, which Fillmore tendered him. He was offered a seat on the bench of the court of claims, which President Lincoln urged him to accept. He was again a presidential elector, on the Republican ticket, in 1864, and delegate to the National conventions of that party in 1868 and 1876. In the latter he nominated Oliver P. Morton for the presidency. In 1867-'9 he was judge of the 18th circuit of the state. On 12 March, 1877. Mr. Thompson entered President Hayes's cabinet as Secretary of the Navy, and he served nearly through the administration, resigning in 1881 to become chairman of the American Committee of the Panama Canal Company. He is also a director of the Panama Railroad. He has written many political platforms, and obtained a reputation for his ability in formulating party-principles. He has published "The Papacy and the Civil Power" (New York, 1876), and a " History of the Tariff" (Chicago, 1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 94.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 468-469:

THOMPSON, RICHARD WIGGINTON (June 9, 1809-February 9, 1900), lawyer, politician, author, was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, the son of William Mills Thompson, a merchant and lawyer, and Catherine Wigginton (Broadus) Thompson. His great-grandfather, the Reverend John Thompson, born near Belfast, Ireland, emigrated to Virginia in 1739. His mother was the daughter of Major William Broadus, an officer of the Revolution. Thompson received a "good English and classical education." When twenty-two years old he left Virginia and after a short residence in Louisville, Kentucky, settled in Lawrence County, Indiana, where he taught school, worked in a store, and studied law at night. Coincident with his migration he sloughed off most of the political and cultural viewpoints that had been the heritage of his Virginia birth and took on those predominant in his adopted community. In 1834 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law at Bedford. For four terms, 1834 to 1838, he was a member of the Indiana legislature; and in 1840 and again in 1846 he was elected to the Senate. In 1843 he moved to Terre Haute. On May 5, 1836, he married Harriet Eliza Gardiner (d. March 25, 1888), who bore him eight children. On several occasions Thompson was a presidential elector, first on the Whig and later on the Republican ticket. Presidents Taylor, Fillmore, and Lincoln made him proffers of offices, but he declined. He was active in the secession controversies and during the Civil War served as provost marshal for the Terre Haute district. He was a delegate to Republican National Conventions in 1868, 1876, and 1892, and in the last named nominated Benjamin Harrison for the presidency. In 1877 he was appointed secretary of the navy in the Hayes administration (appointment confirmed, March 10, 1877). It has been affirmed that this was the only major appointment made by Hayes that was "dictated entirely by political considerations and it was the only bad one" (Eckenrode, post, p. 242). While holding this post he took the chairmanship of the American Committee of the Panama Canal Company at a salary of $25,000 yearly, thinking this no bar to his retaining his post in the cabinet, whereupon Hayes notified him "that his resignation (unoffered) had been accepted" (Ibid., p. 303). Extremely partisan in politics, intolerant in religion, a lobbyist for railroads, Thompson was throughout his active life a figure about whom angry controversy swirled. Few of his contemporaries among public men were so frequently attacked on ethical grounds. Apart from politics and law the major interests of Thompson's life were speechmaking and writing, and to these he devoted himself tirelessly whenever opportunity offered. His published writings include two volumes. of historical essays, Recollections of Sixteen Presidents (1894), of considerable literary and historical merit; The History of Protective Tariff Laws (1888), a work of special pleading; and two volumes of polemics against the Catholic Church, The Papacy and the Civil Power (1876) and The Footprints of the Jesuits (1894), written, it has been said, while Thompson was "manifestly inspired by an undue fear of the Pope's protruding his official sway into American political life" (Bowers, post, p. 273).

In his personal relations Thompson was "a man of benevolence and unassuming manners," and throughout his life had hosts of friends, among them many who were at times his outspoken critics. In his old age the people of his state applied to him the affectionate designation of "the Grand Old Man." He loved children and never let pass an opportunity to be in their company. In his habits he was temperate, except in respect to smoking; for fifty years prior to his death he smoked an average of twenty cigars a day. He died in Terre Haute, Indiana.

[See Who's Who in America, 1899-1900; Richard W. Thompson Memorial (copyright 1906); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Charles Lanman, Directory of the U. S. Congress (1869); A Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men ... of Indiana (2 volumes, 1880); G. W. Taylor, ed., Biographical Sketches ... of the Bench and Bar of Indiana (1895), which contains a rather florid eulogy; Logan Esarey, A History of Indiana, volume II (1918); Charles Roll, Indiana, One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Development (1931), volume V, pp. 461-62; Francis Curtis, The Republican Party . .. 1854-1904 (2 volumes, 1904); H.J. Eckenrode, Rutherford B. Hayes (1930); C. G. Bowers, in Green Bag, June 1900; obituaries in Sun (New York), February 10, and Sunday Sentinel (Indianapolis), February 11, 1900. Other sources include family information supplied by Thompson's daughter, Mrs. D. W. Henry, of Terre Haute, Indiana correspondence with Indiana Historical Society; and a letter written by Thompson in 1894, published in the Culpeper Exponent, January 5, 1922, which deals with his ancestry and his early life in Virginia]

W.E.S-a.



TRACY, Benjamin Franklin (April 26, 1830-August 6, 1915), lawyer, soldier, secretary of the navy. In 1854 he organized the Republican party in the county. He was reelected district attorney in 1856. As an assemblyman, in 1862, he urged full support of the national government in the Civil War.

Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 622-623:

TRACY, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (April 26, 1830-August 6, 1915), lawyer, soldier, secretary of the navy, was born near Owego, New York, of Irish descent. His grandfather, Thomas Tracy, after living in Vermont and Massachusetts, became one of the first settlers in the southern tier of counties of New York. Benjamin was r eared on a farm and was educated at Owego Academy, where Thomas C. Platt [q.v.] was a fellow student. After studying in the office of N. W. Davis of Owego, Tracy was admitted to the bar in 1851. Two years later he was elected district attorney of Tioga County as a Whig. In 1854 he organized the Republican party in the county. He was reelected district attorney in 1856. As an assemblyman, in 1862, he urged full support of the national government in the Civil War.

In the summer of 1862 he recruited two regiments and became colonel of the 109th New York Volunteers. In the Wilderness campaign, though ordered to the rear on account of physical exhaustion, he continued to lead his regiment until the condition of his health forced him to relinquish his command. His gallantry earned for him the brevet rank of brigadier-general and years afterward the Congressional Medal of Honor. During the last months of the war he was colonel of the 127th Regiment (colored troops) and commander of the military prison and recruiting camp at Elmira, New York.

In 1866 President Johnson appointed him district attorney for the eastern district of New York, whereby a series of able prosecutions he broke up illicit distilling. He drafted the safeguarding provisions of the internal revenue act of 1868, under which federal collections were increased fourfold. In 1873 he resumed his private practice in Brooklyn; he defended Henry Ward Beecher [q.v. J in the suit brought against him by Theodore Tilton [q.v.] and was unusually successful in cases involving the law of public officers. As a judge of the court of appeals, 1881- 82, he rendered decisions on the validity of marriages contracted in other states (90 New York Reports, 603) and on the liability of elevated railroad companies for damages for the stoppage of light and air (90 New York Reports, 122) which still (1936) stand.

In 1889 he received from President Harris on the appointment as secretary of the navy, which has usually been interpreted a s a sop to Thomas C. Platt, though Tracy ha d the indorsement of both the principal factions of the Republican party of New York. He entered at once on a program for the building of a powerful navy, and during his administration the Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Brooklyn were completed or authorized. He organized the naval militia, created the board of construction to correlate the work of various bureaus, and did much to abolish political corruption in appointments and the purchase of supplies at the navy yards. In the cabinet he was responsible for several official interpretations of international law, including the right of asylum in the Barrundia case (see J.B. Moore, A Digest of International Law, 1906, II, 851), neutral rights and duties in the Chilean revolution (Ibid., II, no. 7-08), and the right of property in seals which became the basis of one of the questions put up for arbitration by the United States in the Bering Sea controversy (see Tracy, in North American Review, May 1893).

After his retirement he was counsel for Venezuela in the boundary arbitration with Great Britain. He was chairman of the commission of 1896 which formulated the charter of Greater New York. At Flatt's insistence, he became the regular Republican nominee for mayor in 1897, but was defeated by a large majority. His principal avocation was the breeding of trotting horses on his Tioga County farm. In person he was unusually handsome. He had keen powers of analysis, good judgment, and great executive ability. In 1851 he married Delinda E. Catlin; she and their younger daughter lost their lives in the burning of their Washington home in February 1890; a son and a daughter survived him.

[Who's Who in America, 1914-15; The New International Yearbook, I9I5 (1916); W. B. Gay, Historical Gazetteer of Tioga County, New York (n.d.); L. W. Kingman, Our Country and Its People (n.d.): H. R. Stiles, The Civil . . . Historical and ... Industrial Record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn (copyright 1884); G. O. Seilhamer, History of the Republican Party (n.d.); New York Times and New York Tribune, August 7, 1915; J. D. Long, The New American Navy (1903); D. S. Alexander, Four Famous New Yorkers (1923); The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (1910); H.F. Gosnell, Boss Platt and His New York Machine (copyright 1924); History of the Bench and Bar of New York, volume II (1897); Bench and Bar, January 1915.]

E. C. S.



TUCK, Amos, 1810-1879, Parsonfield, Maine, lawyer, politician, abolitionist. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Free-Soil and Whig anti-slavery member of the U.S. Congress. Opposed the Democratic Party and its position supporting the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery to the new territories. Elected to Congress in 1847 and served until 1853. Prominent anti-slavery congressman, allied with Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio and John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts.

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 10, Pt. 1, p. 27; Autobiography Memoir of A. Tuck (privately printed, 1902); C.R. Corning, Ames Tuck (1902); J. W. Dearborn, Sketch of the Life and Character of Hon. Amos Tuck (n.d.,) 1889 Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe.)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 27-28:

TUCK, AMOS (August 2, 1810-December n, 1879), congressman, was born at Parsonsfield, Maine, fourth of six children of John and Betsey (Towle) Tuck, and a descendant of Robert Tuck who settled on the New Hampshire coast in 1638. His parents were people of strong character, intelligent, industrious, ambitious for their children, but handicapped by the grinding struggle for a livelihood on a New England farm. The boy farmed at home Until he was seventeen, then, with intermittent attendance at various schools, worked as a common laborer, taught district school, and in time accumulated resources financial and scholastic for admission to Dartmouth College.

After his graduation in 1835 he taught school, studying law in the meantime, and upon his admission to the bar in 1838 began practice in Exeter where within a few months he was admitted to partnership with James Bell, his former preceptor. In 1842, as a Democrat, he served a term in the New Hampshire legislature, but in 1844 definitely broke with the Democratic party On the Texas question and three years later, after an exciting and embittered contest, was elected to the Thirtieth Congress by a fusion of independent Democrats and Whigs. The contest conducted in New Hampshire by Amos Tuck and John P. Hale [q.v.], who was elected to the Senate as a result of the same campaign, was in many respects a forerunner of the great party upheavals of the next decade and attracted national attention. Tuck served three terms in Congress (1847-53). His independent position in the House, where with Joshua R. Giddings [q.v.] of Ohio and John G. Palfrey [q.v.] of Massachusetts he constituted a nucleus of antislavery sentiment, was prominent rather than influential. His views, however, well expressed in his speech of January 19, 1848, against the Mexican War and extension of slavery, were eventually to become predominant in the Northern states.

Defeated for a fourth term because of a temporary waning of anti-slavery fervor in his state together with an effective gerrymander by the legislature, he continued active in the movement against slavery, but his essential sanity and political acumen kept him out of its more extravagant manifestations and his activity was therefore vastly more effective-so effective, indeed, that his admirers have often claimed that the Republican party was really a New Hampshire creation. At all events, he was instrumental in 1853 and 1854 in bringing about a merger of the dissatisfied into a new party alignment. At the Republican convention of 1856 he was a vice-president and in 1860 he was a member of the platform committee; in 1861 he attended the unsuccessful conference at Washington which endeavored to avert the final break between North and South. He was a loyal adherent of President Lincoln, with whom he had formed a personal friendship in Congress and from whom in 1861 he accepted the post of naval officer for the district of Boston and Charlestown. He served in this capacity until removed by President Johnson in 1865.

From the professional standpoint the most successful period of Tuck's career followed the Civil War. Although he retained his residence at Exeter, his clients were now of national importance and their affairs took him into courtrooms and business offices in the financial centers of the country. He was interested in the Western railroad development and his shrewd sense of investment values enabled him to accumulate a large estate. He was a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy from 1853 to 1879, and from 1857 to 1866 of Dartmouth College, where in 1900 his son Edward Tuck established the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance. Tuck's fine appearance, personal charm, and public spirit gave him a prominent place in that group of lawyers and party leaders which made Exeter one of the influential centers of New England life of the nineteenth century. He was twice married, first to Sarah Ann Nudd, who bore him eight children, and after her death early in 1847, on October 10 of the same year to Mrs. Catharine (Townsend) Shepard, daughter of John Townsend of Salisbury. Three of his children survived him.

[Autobiography Memoir of A. Tuck (privately printed, 1902); C.R. Corning, Ames Tuck (1902); J. W. Dearborn, Sketch of the Life and Character of Hon. Amos Tuck (n.d., 1889); Joseph Dow, Tuck Genealogy: Robert Tuck of Hampton, New Hampshire and His Descendants (1877); C.H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894) and History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire (1888); L. M. Crosbie, The Phillips Exeter Acad. (1923); J. K. Lord, A History of Dartmouth College (1913); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); J. O. Lyford, Life of Edward H. Rollins (copyright 1906); Concord Daily Monitor, December 12, 1879; MSS. in Dartmouth College archives.]

W. A. R.



TYSON, Job Roberts (February 8, 1803-June 27, 1858), lawyer, congressman, historical writer. Participating actively in the reforms of the thirties, he was a friend of temperance and against lotteries. He hoped to solve the slavery problem by colonization, served in the ranks of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, and drafted a report on the impropriety of capital punishment. Whig congressman for one term, 1855-57.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 103-104;

TYSON, JOB ROBERTS (February 8, 1803-June 27, 1858), lawyer, congressman, historical writer, was born in or near Philadelphia, the son of Joseph and Ann (Trump) Tyson and a descendant of Reynier Tyson who settled in what is now Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1683. Joseph Tyson, a Philadelphia merchant, started his son on a business career, but the youth turned to school teaching and the study of law, and in 1827 was admitted to the bar. On October 4, 1832, he married Eleanor, daughter of Thomas P. Cope [q.v. ], a prominent Philadelphia merchant and philanthropist. He was vice-provost of the Philadelphia Law Academy, 1833-58; a solicitor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1847-55; an early director of the Philadelphia public schools; a member of the Select Council of Philadelphia, 1846--49; and a Whig congressman for one inconspicuous term, 1855-57. He was an effective writer and an excellent speaker; a score or more of his speeches were printed. Participating actively in the reforms of the thirties, he was a friend of temperance and a foe of lotteries. He hoped to solve the slavery problem by colonization, served in the ranks of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, and drafted a report on the impropriety of capital punishment. He was a manager of the Apprentices' Library in Philadelphia, and a trustee of Girard College and of the Pennsylvania Female College. On January 15, 1836, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.

His greatest interest was history. One of the early members of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and an officer from 1829 to 1848, he was among the first to grasp the importance of intensive study of Pennsylvania history. The Indians, the Revolution, the social and intellectual state of Penn's colony, the life of William Penn, the history of art in America, were objects of his study. In his Discourse ... on the Colonial History of the Eastern and Some of the Southern States (1842), also published in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (volume IV, pt. 2, 1850), he attacked New England historians for their claims, denying that enlarged social freedom owed its existence to the Puritans and maintaining rather that it triumphed in spite of their hostility, and that Penn's contribution to liberty was more significant. This paper marks him as a pioneer in readjusting the balance of historical interpretation. The most tangible results of his historical interest are the first volumes of the printed archives of Pennsylvania. As a member of a joint committee of the Philosophical and Historical societies he was instrumental in petitioning the legislature (1836) to provide for the printing of the archives, and his brother, J. Washington Tyson, as chairman of a committee of the legislature, reported favorably upon the project. Thus a beginning was made with three volumes (1838-40) containing the minutes of the Provincial Council, and the series has been continued intermittently ever since. Tyson planned to write a history of the state, but died before he could make systematic use of his collected material.

[F. W. Leach, "Old Philadelphia Families-The Tyson Family," North American (Philadelphia), July 21, 1912; H. L. Carson, "A History of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania" (MSS. in Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Free Library of Philadelphia); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Dollar Newspaper (Philadelphia), June 30, 1858; North American and United States Gazette (Philadelphia), June 28, 1858.]

R.F.N.

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.