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AARON, b. 1811, African American, former Virginia slave, anti-slavery orator.  Wrote Light and Truth of Slavery: Aaron’s History, 1845.  (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 1.)

AARON, Samuel, 1800-1865, Morristown, NJ, educator, clergyman, temperance activist, abolitionist.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1840-1842.  Vice President, 1839-1840, Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 1.  Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936)

AARON, Samuel, educator, b. in New Britain, Bucks co., Pa., in 1800; d. in Mount Holly, N. J., 11 April, 1865. He was left an orphan at six years of age, and became the ward of an uncle, upon whose farm he worked for several years, attending school only in winter. A small legacy inherited from his father enabled him at the age of sixteen to enter the Doylestown, Pa., academy, where he fitted himself to become a teacher, and at the age of twenty was engaged as an assistant instructor in the classical and mathematical school in Burlington, N. J. Here he studied and taught, and soon opened an independent day school at Bridge Point, but was presently invited to become principal of Doylestown academy. In 1829 he was ordained, and became pastor of a Baptist church in New Britain. In 1833 he took charge of the Burlington high school, serving at the same time as pastor of the Baptist church in that city. Accepting in 1841 an invitation from a church in Norristown, Pa., he remained there three years, when he opened the Treemount seminary near Norristown, which under his management soon became prosperous, and won a high reputation for the thoroughness of its training and discipline. The financial disasters of 1857 found Mr. Aaron with his name pledged as security for a friend, and he was obliged to sacrifice all his property to the creditors. He was soon offered the head-mastership of Mt. Holly, N. J., institute, a large, well-established school for boys, where, in company with his son as joint principal, he spent the remainder of his life. During these years he was pastor of a church in Mt. Holly. He prepared a valuable series of text-books introducing certain improvements in methods of instruction, which added greatly to his reputation as an educator. His only publication in book form, aside from his text-books, was entitled “Faithful Translation” (Philadelphia, 1842). He was among the early advocates of temperance, and was an earnest supporter of the anti-slavery cause from its beginning. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 1.

ABBEY, Cheney, New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

ABBOTT, Gorham D., Boston, Massachusetts.  Member of the American Colonization Society, Boston Auxiliary.  Active in leadership of Society.  Published The Colonizationist and Journal of Freedom, a monthly magazine.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 201, 204)

ACKLEY, John, abolitionist, officer of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Nash, 1991, p. 131)

Adair, William A., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40

ADAM, William, Cambridge, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-45

ADAMS, Arianna, African American, member, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Yellin, 1994, p. 58n40)

ADAMS, Charles Francis, 1807-1886, Vice President, Anti-Slavery Free Soil Party, newspaper publisher and editor.  Son of former President John Quincy Adams.  Grandson of President John Adams.  Opposed annexation of Texas, on opposition to expansion of slavery in new territories.  Formed “Texas Group” within Massachusetts Whig Party.  Formed and edited newspaper, Boston Whig, in 1846. (Adams, 1900; Duberman, 1961; Goodell, 1852, p. 478; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 32-33; Pease, 1965, pp. 445-452; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 51, 298; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 12-13. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 40-48)

ADAMS, Charles Francis, diplomatist, son of John Quincy Adams, b. in Boston, 18 Aug., 1807; d. there, 21 Nov., 1886. When two years old he was taken by his father to St. Petersburg, where he learned German, French, and Russian. Early in 1815 he travelled all the way from St. Petersburg to Paris with his mother in a private carriage, a difficult journey at that time, and not unattended with danger. His father was soon afterward appointed minister to England, and the little boy was placed at an English boarding-school. The feelings between British and Americans was then more hostile than ever before or since, and young Adams was frequently called upon to defend with his fists the good name of his country. When he returned after two years to America, his father placed him in the Boston Latin school, and he was graduated at Harvard college in 1825, shortly after his father's inauguration as president of the United States. He spent two years in Washington, and then returned to Boston, where he studied law in the office of Daniel Webster, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1828. The next year he married the youngest daughter of Peter Chardon Brooks, whose elder daughters were married to Edward Everett and Rev. Nathaniel Frothingham. From 1831 to 1836 Mr. Adams served in the Massachusetts legislature. He was a member of the whig party, but, like all the rest of his vigorous and free-thinking family, he was extremely independent in politics and inclined to strike out into new paths in advance of the public sentiment. After 1836 he came to differ more and more widely with the leaders of the whig party with whom he had hitherto acted. In 1848 the newly organized free-soil party, consisting largely of democrats, held its convention at Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren for president and Charles Francis Adams for vice-president. There was no hope of electing these candidates, but this little party grew, six years later, into the great republican party. In 1858 he was elected to congress by the republicans of the 3d district of Massachusetts, and in 1860 he was reelected. In the spring of 1861 President Lincoln appointed him minister to England, a place which both his father and his grandfather had filled before him. Mr. Adams had now to fight with tongue and pen for his country as in school-boy days he had fought with fists. It was an exceedingly difficult time for an American minister in England. Though there was much sympathy for the U. S. government on the part of the workmen in the manufacturing districts and of many of the liberal constituencies, especially in Scotland, on the other hand the feeling of the governing classes and of polite society in London was either actively hostile to us or coldly indifferent. Even those students of history and politics who were most friendly to us failed utterly to comprehend the true character of the sublime struggle in which we were engaged— as may be seen in reading the introduction to Mr. E. A. Freeman's elaborate "History of Federal Government, from the Formation of the Achaean League to the Disruption of the United States" (London, 1862). Difficult and embarrassing questions arose in connection with the capture of the confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell, the negligence of Lord Palmerston's government in allowing the "Alabama" and other confederate cruisers to sail from British ports to prey upon American commerce, and the ever manifest desire of Napoleon III. to persuade Great Britain to join him in an acknowledgment of the independence of the confederacy. The duties of this difficult diplomatic mission were discharged by Mr. Adams with such consummate ability as to win universal admiration. No more than his father or grandfather did he belong to the school of suave and crafty, intriguing diplomats. He pursued his ends with dogged determination and little or no attempt at concealment, while his demeanor was haughty and often defiant. His unflinching firmness bore clown all opposition, and his perfect self-control made it difficult for an antagonist to gain any advantage over him. His career in England from 1861 to 1868 must be cited among the foremost triumphs of American diplomacy. In 1872 it was attempted to nominate him for the presidency of the United States, as the candidate of the liberal republicans, but Horace Greeley secured the nomination. He was elected in 1869 a member of the board of overseers of Harvard college, and was for several years president of the board. He has edited the works and memoirs of his father and grandfather, in 22 octavo volumes, and published many of his own addresses and orations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 12-13.

ADAMS, E. M., New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-37

ADAMS, George, Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1841-42

ADAMS, John, 1735-1826, statesman, founding father, second President of the United States, opponent of slavery, father of John Quincy Adams.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 17-23; Encyclopaedia Americana, 1829, Vol. I, pp. 44-52; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 72-82)

Biography from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, John, second-president of the United States, b. in that part of the town of Braintree, Mass., which has since been set off as the town of Quincy, 31 Oct., 1785; d. there, 4 July, 1826. His great-grandfather, Henry Adams, received a grant of about 40 acres of land in Braintree in 1636, and soon afterward emigrated from Devonshire, England, with his eight sons. John Adams, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest son of John Adams and Susanna Boylston, daughter of Peter Boylston, of Brookline. His father, one of the selectmen of Braintree and a deacon of the church, was a thrifty farmer, and at his death in 1760 his estate was appraised at £1,330 9s. 6d., which in those days might have been regarded as a moderate competence. It was the custom of the family to send the eldest son to college, and accordingly John was graduated at Harvard in 1755. Previous to 1773 the graduates of Harvard were arranged in lists, not alphabetically or in order of merit, but according to the social standing of their parents. In a class of twenty-four members John thus stood fourteenth. One of his classmates was John Wentworth, afterward royal governor of New Hampshire, and then of Nova Scotia. After taking his degree and while waiting to make his choice of a profession, Adams took charge of the grammar school at Worcester. It was the year of Braddock's defeat, when the smouldering fires of a century of rivalry between France and England broke out in a blaze of war which was forever to settle the question of the primacy of the English race in the modern world. Adams took an intense interest in the struggle, and predicted that if we could only drive out “these turbulent Gallics,” our numbers would in another century exceed those of the British, and all Europe would be unable to subdue us. In sending him to college his family seem to have hoped that he would become a clergyman; but he soon found himself too much of a free thinker to feel at home in the pulpit of that day. When accused of Arminianism, he cheerfully admitted the charge. Later in life he was sometimes called a Unitarian, but of dogmatic Christianity he seems to have had as little as Franklin or Jefferson. “Where do we find,” he asks, “a precept in the gospel requiring ecclesiastical synods, convocations, councils, decrees, creeds, confessions, oaths, subscriptions, and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?” In this mood he turned from the ministry and began the study of law at Worcester. There was then a strong prejudice against lawyers in New England, but the profession throve lustily nevertheless, so litigious were the people. In 1758 Adams began the practice of his profession in Suffolk co., having his residence in Braintree. In 1764 he was married to Abigail Smith, of Weymouth, a lady of social position higher than his own and endowed with most rare and admirable qualities of head and heart. In this same year the agitation over the proposed stamp act was begun, and on the burning questions raised by this ill-considered measure Adams had already taken sides. When James Otis in 1761 delivered his memorable argument against writs of assistance, John Adams was present in the court-room, and the fiery eloquence of Otis wrought a wonderful effect upon him. As his son afterward said, “it was like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal.” In his old age John Adams wrote, with reference to this scene, “Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born.” When the stamp act was passed, in 1765, Adams took a prominent part in a town-meeting at Braintree where he presented resolutions which were adopted word for word by more than forty towns in Massachusetts. The people refused to make use of stamps, and the business of the inferior courts was carried on without them, judges and lawyers agreeing to connive at the absence of the stamps. In the supreme court, however, where Thomas Hutchinson was chief justice, the judges refused to transact any business without stamps. This threatened serious interruption to business, and the town of Boston addressed a memorial to the governor and council, praying that the supreme court might overlook the absence of stamps. John Adams was unexpectedly chosen, along with Jeremiah Gridley and James Otis, as counsel for the town, to argue the case in favor of the memorial. Adams delivered the opening argument, and took the decisive ground that the stamp act was ipso facto null and void, since it was a measure of taxation which the people of the colony had taken no share in passing. No such measure, he declared, could be held as binding in America, and parliament had no right to tax the colonies. The governor and council refused to act in the matter, put presently the repeal of the stamp act put an end to the disturbance for a while. About this time Mr. Adams began writing articles for the Boston “Gazette.” Four of these articles, dealing with the constitutional rights of the people of New England, were afterward republished under the somewhat curious title of “An Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law.” After ten years of practice, Mr. Adams's business had become quite extensive, and in 1768 he moved into Boston. The attorney-general of Massachusetts, Jonathan Sewall, now offered him the lucrative office of advocate-general in the court of admiralty. This was intended to operate as an indirect bribe by putting Mr. Adams into a position in which he could not feel free to oppose the policy of the crown; such insidious methods were systematically pursued by Gov. Bernard, and after him by Hutchinson. But Mr. Adams was too wary to swallow the bait, and he stubbornly refused the pressing offer.  In 1770 came the first in the series of great acts that made Mr. Adams's career illustrious. In the midst of the terrible excitement aroused by the “Boston Massacre” he served as counsel for Capt. Preston and his seven soldiers when they were tried for murder. His friend and kinsman, Josiah Quincy, assisted him in this invidious task. The trial was judiciously postponed for seven months until the popular fury had abated. Preston and five soldiers were acquitted; the other two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, and were barbarously branded on the hand with a hot iron. The verdict seems to have been strictly just according to the evidence presented. For his services to his eight clients Mr. Adams received a fee of nineteen guineas, but never got so much as a word of thanks from the churlish Preston. An ordinary American politician would have shrunk from the task of defending these men, for fear of losing favor with the people. The course pursued by Mr. Adams showed great moral courage; and the people of Boston proved themselves able to appreciate true manliness by electing him as representative to the legislature. This was in June, 1770, after he had undertaken the case of the soldiers, but before the trial. Mr. Adams now speedily became the principal legal adviser of the patriot party, and among its foremost leaders was only less conspicuous than Samuel Adams, Hancock, and Warren. In all matters of legal controversy between these leaders and Gov. Hutchinson his advice proved invaluable. During the next two years there was something of a lull in the political excitement; Mr. Adams resigned his place in the legislature and moved his residence to Braintree, still keeping his office in Boston. In the summer of 1772 the British government ventured upon an act that went further than anything which had yet occurred toward driving the colonies into rebellion. It was ordered that all the Massachusetts judges holding their places during the king's pleasure should henceforth have their salaries paid by the crown and not by the colony. This act, which aimed directly at the independence of the judiciary, aroused intense indignation, not only in Massachusetts, but in the other colonies, which felt their liberties threatened by such a measure. It called forth from Mr. Adams a series of powerful articles, which have been republished in the 3d volume of his collected works. About this time he was chosen a member of the council, but the choice was negatived by Gov. Hutchinson. The five acts of parliament in April, 1774, including the regulating act and the Boston port bill, led to the calling of the first continental congress, to which Mr. Adams was chosen as one of the five delegates from Massachusetts. The resolutions passed by this congress on the subject of colonial rights were drafted by him, and his diary and letters contain a vivid account of some of the proceedings. On his return to Braintree he was chosen a member of the revolutionary provincial congress of Massachusetts, then assembled at Concord. This revolutionary body had already seized the revenues of the colony, appointed a committee of safety, and begun to organize an army and collect arms and ammunition. During the following winter the views of the loyalist party were set forth with great ability and eloquence in a series of newspaper articles by Daniel Leonard, under the signature of “Massachusettensis.” He was answered most effectively by Mr. Adams, whose articles, signed “Novanglus,” appeared weekly in the Boston “Gazette” until the battle of Lexington. The last of these articles, which was actually in type in that wild week, was not published. The series, which has been reprinted in the 4th volume of Mr. Adams's works, contains a valuable review of the policy of Bernard and Hutchinson, and a powerful statement of the rights of the colonies.  In the second continental congress, which assembled on May 10, Mr. Adams played a very important part. Of all the delegates present he was probably the only one, except his cousin, Samuel Adams, who was convinced that matters had gone too far for any reconciliation with the mother country, and that there was no use in sending any more petitions to the king. As there was a strong prejudice against Massachusetts on the part of the middle and southern colonies, it was desirable that her delegates should avoid all appearance of undue haste in precipitating an armed conflict. Nevertheless, the circumstances under which an army of 16,000 New England men had been gathered to besiege the British in Boston were such as to make it seem advisable for the congress to adopt it as a continental army; and here John Adams did the second notable deed of his career. He proposed Washington for the chief command of this army, and thus, by putting Virginia in the foreground, succeeded in committing that great colony to a course of action calculated to end in independence. This move not only put the army in charge of the only commander capable of winning independence for the American people in the field, but its political importance was great and obvious. Afterward in some dark moments of the revolutionary war, Mr. Adams seems almost to have regretted his part in this selection of a commander. He understood little or nothing of military affairs, and was incapable of appreciating Washington's transcendent ability. The results of the war, however, justified in every respect his action in the second continental congress.  During the summer recess taken by congress Mr. Adams sat as a member of the Massachusetts council, which declared the office of governor vacant and assumed executive authority. Under the new provisional government of Massachusetts, Mr. Adams was made chief justice, but never took his seat, as continental affairs more pressingly demanded his attention. He was always loquacious, often too ready to express his opinions, whether with tongue or pen, and this trait got him more than once into trouble, especially as he was inclined to be sharp and censorious. For John Dickinson, the leader of the moderate and temporizing party in congress, who had just prevailed upon that body to send another petition to the king, he seems to have entertained at this time no very high regard, and he gave vent to some contemptuous expressions in a confidential letter, which was captured by the British and published. This led to a quarrel with Dickinson, and made Mr. Adams very unpopular in Philadelphia. When congress reassembled in the autumn, Mr. Adams, as member of a committee for fitting out cruisers, drew up a body of regulations, which came to form the basis of the American naval code. The royal governor, Sir John Wentworth, fled from New Hampshire about this time, and the people sought the advice of congress as to the form of government which it should seem most advisable to adopt. Similar applications presently came from South Carolina and Virginia. Mr. Adams prevailed upon congress to recommend to these colonies to form for themselves new governments based entirely upon popular suffrage; and about the same time he published a pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on Government, Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies.” By the spring of 1776 the popular feeling had become so strongly inclined toward independence that, on the 15th of May, Mr. Adams was able to carry through congress a resolution that all the colonies should be invited to form independent governments. In the preamble to this resolution it was declared that the American people could no longer conscientiously take oath to support any government deriving its authority from the crown; all such governments must now be suppressed, since the king had withdrawn his protection from the inhabitants of the united colonies. Like the famous preamble to Townshend's act of 1767, this Adams preamble contained within itself the gist of the whole matter. To adopt it was to cross the Rubicon, and it gave rise to a hot debate in congress. Against the opposition of most of the delegates from the middle states the resolution was finally carried; “and now,” exclaimed Mr. Adams, “the Gordian knot is cut.” Events came quickly to maturity. On the 7th of June the declaration of independence was moved by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, and seconded by John Adams. The motion was allowed to lie on the table for three weeks, in order to hear from the colonies of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York, which had not yet declared their position with regard to independence. Meanwhile three committees were appointed, one on a declaration of independence, a second on confederation, and a third on foreign relations; and Mr. Adams was a member of the first and third of these committees. On the 1st of July Mr. Lee's motion was taken up by congress sitting as a committee of the whole; and as Mr. Lee was absent, the task of defending it devolved upon Mr. Adams, who, as usual, was opposed by Dickinson. Adams's speech on that occasion was probably the finest he ever delivered. Jefferson called him “the colossus of that debate”; and indeed his labors in bringing about the declaration of independence must be considered as the third signal event of his career.  On the 12th of June congress established a board of war and ordnance, with Mr. Adams for its chairman, and he discharged the arduous duties of this office until after the surrender of Burgoyne. After the battle of Long Island, Lord Howe sent the captured Gen. Sullivan to Philadelphia, soliciting a conference with some of the members of the congress. Adams opposed the conference, and with characteristic petulance alluded to the unfortunate Sullivan as a decoy duck who had much better have been shot in the battle than sent on such a business. Congress, however, consented to the conference, and Adams was chosen as a commissioner, along with Franklin and Rutledge. Toward the end of the year 1777 Mr. Adams was appointed to supersede Silas Deane as commissioner to France. He sailed 12 Feb., 1778, in the frigate “Boston,” and after a stormy passage, in which he ran no little risk of capture by British cruisers, he landed at Bordeaux, and reached Paris on the 8th of April. Long before his arrival the alliance with France had been consummated. He found a wretched state of things in Paris, our three commissioners there at loggerheads, one of them dabbling in the British funds and making a fortune by privateering, while the public accounts were kept in the laxest manner. All sorts of agents were drawing bills upon the United States, and commanders of war vessels were setting up their claims for expenses and supplies that had never been ordered. Mr. Adams, whose habits of business were extremely strict and methodical, was shocked at this confusion, and he took hold of the matter with such vigor as to put an end to it. He also recommended that the representation of the United States at the French court should be intrusted to a single minister instead of three commissioners. As a result of this advice, Franklin was retained at Paris, Arthur Lee was sent to Madrid, and Adams, being left without any instructions, returned to America, reaching Boston 2 Aug., 1779. He came home with a curious theory of the decadence of Great Britain, which he had learned in France, and which serves well to illustrate the mood in which France had undertaken to assist the United States. England, he said, “loses every day her consideration, and runs toward her ruin. Her riches, in which her power consisted, she has lost with us and never can regain. She resembles the melancholy spectacle of a great, wide-spreading tree that has been girdled at the root.” Such absurd notions were quite commonly entertained at that time on the continent of Europe, and such calamities were seriously dreaded by many Englishman in the event of the success of the Americans.   Immediately on reaching home Mr. Adams chosen delegate from Braintree to the convention for framing a new constitution for Massachusetts; but before the work of the convention was finished he was appointed commissioner to treat for peace with Great Britain, and sailed for France in the same French frigate in which he had come home. But Lord North's government was not ready to make peace, and, moreover, Count Vergennes contrived to prevent Adams from making any official communication to Great Britain of the extent of his powers. During Adams's stay in Paris a mutual dislike and distrust grew up between himself and Vergennes. The latter feared that if negotiations were to begin between the British government and the United States, they might lead to a reconciliation and reunion of the two branches of the English race, and thus ward off that decadence of England for which France was so eagerly  hoping. On the other hand, Adams quite correctly believed that it was the intention of Vergennes to  sacrifice the interests of the Americans, especially as concerned with the Newfoundland fisheries and  the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, in favor of Spain, with which country France was then in close alliance. Americans must always owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Adams for the clear-sightedness with which he thus read the designs of Vergennes and estimated at its true value the purely selfish intervention of France in behalf of the United States. This clearness of insight was soon to bear good fruit in the management of the treaty of 1783. For the present, Adams found himself uncomfortable in Paris, as his too ready tongue wrought unpleasantness both with Vergennes and with Franklin, who was too much under the French minister's influence. On his first arrival in Paris, society there had been greatly excited about him, as it was supposed that he was “the famous Mr. Adams” who had ordered the British troops out of Boston in March, 1770, and had thrown down the glove of defiance to George III. on the great day of the Boston tea-party. When he explained that he was only a cousin of that grand and picturesque personage he found that fashionable society thenceforth took less interest in him.  In the summer of 1780 Mr. Adams was charge by congress with the business of negotiating Dutch loan. In order to give the good people of Holland some correct ideas as to American affairs he published a number of articles in the Leyden “Gazette” and in a magazine entitled “La politique hollandaise”; also “Twenty-six Letters upon Interesting Subjects respecting the Revolution in America,” now reprinted in the 7th volume of his works. Soon after Adams's arrival in Holland, England declared war against the Dutch, ostensibly because of a proposed treaty of commerce with the United States in which the burgomaster of Amsterdam was implicated with Henry Laurens, but really because Holland had joined the league headed by the empress Catharine of Russia, designed to protect the commerce of neutral nations and known as the armed neutrality. Laurens had been sent out by congress as minister to Holland but, as he had been captured by a British cruise and taken to the tower of London, Mr. Adams was appointed minister in his place. His first duty was to sign, as representing the United States, the articles of the armed neutrality. Before he had got any further, indeed before he had been recognized as minister by the Dutch government, he was called back to Paris, in July, 1781, in order to be ready to enter upon negotiations for peace with the British government. Russia and Austria had volunteered their services as mediators between George III. and the Americans; but Lord North's government rejected the offer, so that Mr. Adams had his journey for nothing, and presently went back to Holland. His first and most arduous task was to persuade the Dutch government to recognize him as minister from the independent United States. In this he was covertly opposed by Vergennes, who wished the Americans to feel exclusively dependent upon France, and to have no other friendships or alliances. From first to last the aid extended by France to the Americans in the revolutionary war was purely selfish. That despotic government wished no good to a people struggling to preserve the immemorial principles of English liberty, and the policy of Vergennes was to extend just enough aid to us to enable us to prolong the war, so that colonies and mother country might alike be weakened. When he pretended to be the disinterested friend of the Americans, he professed to be under the influence of sentiments that he did not really feel; and he thus succeeded in winning from congress a confidence to which he was in no wise entitled. But he could not hood-wink John Adams, who wrote home that the duke de la Vauguyon, the French ambassador at the Hague, was doing everything in his power to obstruct the progress of the negotiations; and in this, Adams correctly inferred, he was acting under secret instructions from Vergennes. As a diplomatist Adams was in a certain sense Napoleonic; he introduced new and strange methods of warfare, which disconcerted the perfidious intriguers of the old school, of which Vergennes and Talleyrand were typical examples. Instead of beating about the bush and seeking to foil trickery by trickery (a business in which the wily Frenchman would doubtless have proved more than his match), he went straight to the duke de la Vauguyon and bluntly told him that he saw plainly what he was up to, and that it was of no use, since “no advice of his or of the count de Vergennes, nor even a requisition from the king, should restrain me.” The duke saw that Adams meant exactly what he said, and, finding that it was useless to oppose the negotiations, “fell in with me, in order to give the air of French influence” to them.  Events worked steadily and rapidly in Adams's favor. The plunder of St. Eustatius early in 1781 bad raised the wrath of the Dutch against Great Britain to fever heat. In November came tidings of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. By this time Adams had published so many articles as to have given the Dutch some idea as to what sort of people the Americans were. He had some months before presented a petition to the states general, asking them to recognize him as minister from independent nation. With his wonted boldness he now demanded a plain and unambiguous answer to this petition, and followed up the demand by visiting the representatives of the several cities in person and arguing his case. As the reward of this persistent energy, Mr. Adams had the pleasure of seeing the independence of the United States formally recognized by Holland on the 19th of April, 1782. This success was vigorously followed up. A Dutch loan of $2,000,000 was soon negotiated, and on the 7th of October a treaty of amity and commerce, the second which was ratified with the United States as an independent nation, was signed at the Hague. This work in Holland was the fourth signal event in John Adams's career, and, in view of the many obstacles overcome, he was himself in the habit of referring to it as the greatest triumph of his life. “One thing, thank God! is certain,” he wrote; “I have planted the American standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall look down upon the flag-staff with pleasure from the other world.”   Mr. Adams had hardly time to finish this work when his presence was required in Paris. Negotiations for peace with Great Britain had begun some time before in conversations between Franklin and Richard Oswald, a gentleman whom Lord Shelburne had sent to Paris for the purpose. One British ministry had already been wrecked through these negotiations, and affairs had dragged along slowly amid endless difficulties. The situation was one of the most complicated in the history of diplomacy. France was in alliance at once with Spain and with the United States, and her treaty obligations to the one were in some respects inconsistent with her treaty obligations to the other. The feeling of Spain toward the United States was intensely hostile, and the French government was much more in sympathy with the former than with the latter. On the other hand, the new British government was not ill-disposed toward the Americans, and was extremely ready to make liberal concessions to them for the sake of thwarting the schemes of France. In the background stood George III., surly and irreconcilable, hoping that the negotiations would fail; and amid these difficulties they doubtless would have failed had not all the parties by this time had a surfeit of bloodshed. The designs of the French government were first suspected by John Jay, soon after his arrival in Paris.  He found that Vergennes was sending a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got hold of a despatch from Marbois, the French secretary of legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts he proceeded, without the knowledge of Franklin, to take steps toward a separate negotiation between Great Britain and the United States. When Adams arrived in Paris, Oct. 26, he coincided with Jay's views, and the two together overruled Franklin. Mr. Adams's behavior at this time was quite characteristic. It is said that he left Vergennes to learn of his arrival through the newspapers. It was certainly some time before he called upon him, and he took occasion, besides, to express his opinions about republics and monarchies in terms that courtly Frenchman thought very rude. Adams agreed with Jay that Vergennes should be kept as far as possible in the dark until everything was completed, and so the negotiation with Great Britain went on separately. The annals of modern diplomacy have afforded few stranger spectacles. With the indispensable aid of France we had just got the better of England in fight, and now we proceeded amicably to divide territory and commercial privileges with the enemy, and to make arrangements in which our not too friendly ally was virtually ignored. In this way the United States secured the Mississippi valley, and a share in the Newfoundland fisheries, not as a privilege but as a right, the latter result being mainly due to the persistence of Mr. Adams. The point upon which the British commissioners most strongly insisted was the compensation of the American loyalists for the hardships they had suffered during the war; but this the American commissioners resolutely refused. The most they could be prevailed upon to allow was the insertion in the treaty of a clause to the effect that congress should recommend to the several state governments to reconsider their laws against the tories and to give these unfortunate persons a chance to recover their property. In the treaty, as finally arranged, all the disputed points were settled in favor of the Americans; and, the United States being thus virtually detached from the alliance, the British government was enabled to turn a deaf ear to the demands of France and Spain for the surrender of Gibraltar. Vergennes was outgeneralled at every turn. On the part of the Americans the treaty of 1783 deserves to be ranked as one of the most brilliant triumphs of modern diplomacy. Its success was about equally due to Adams and to Jay, whose courage in the affair was equal to their skill, for they took it upon themselves to disregard the explicit instructions of congress. Ever since March, 1781, Vergennes had been intriguing with congress through his minister at Philadelphia, the chevalier de la Luzerne. First he had tried to get Mr. Adams recalled to America. Failing in this, he had played his part with such dexterous persistence as to prevail upon congress to send most pusillanimous instructions to its peace commissioners. They were instructed to undertake nothing whatever in the negotiations without the knowledge and concurrence of “the ministers of our generous ally, the king of France,” that is to say, of the count de Vergennes; and they were to govern themselves entirely by his advice and opinion. Franklin would have followed these instructions; Adams and Jay deliberately disobeyed them, and earned the gratitude of their countrymen for all coming time. For Adams's share in this grand achievement it must certainly be cited as the fifth signal event in his career.  By this time he had become excessively home sick, and as soon as the treaty was arranged he asked leave to resign his commissions and return to America. He declared he would rather be “carting street-dust and marsh-mud” than waiting where he was. But business would not let him go. In September, 1783, he was commissioned, along with Franklin and Jay, to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain. A sudden and violent fever prostrated him for several weeks, after which he visited London and Bath. Before he had fully recovered his health he learned that his presence was required in Holland. In those days, when we lived under the articles of confederation, and congress found it impossible to raise money enough to meet its current expenses, it was by no means unusual for the superintendent of finance to draw upon our foreign ministers and then sell the drafts for cash. This was done again and again, when there was not the smallest ground for supposing that the minister upon whom the draft was made would have any funds wherewith to meet it. It was part of his duty as envoy to go and beg the money. Early in the winter Mr. Adams learned that drafts upon him had been presented to his bankers in Amsterdam to the amount of more than a million florins. Less than half a million florins were on hand to meet these demands, and, unless something were done at once, the greater part of this paper would go back to America protested. Mr. Adams lost not a moment in starting for Holland, but he was delayed by a succession of terrible storms on the German ocean, and it was only after fifty-four days of difficulty and danger that he reached Amsterdam. The bankers had contrived to keep the drafts from going to protest, but news of the bickerings between the thirteen states had reached Holland. It was believed that the new nation was going to pieces, and the regency of Amsterdam had no money to lend it. The promise of the American government was not regarded as valid security for a sum equivalent to about $300,000. Adams was obliged to apply to professional usurers, from whom, after more humiliating perplexity, he succeeded in obtaining a loan at exorbitant interest. In the meantime he had been appointed commissioner, along with Franklin and Jefferson, for the general purpose of negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. As his return to America was thus indefinitely postponed, he sent for his wife, with their only daughter and youngest son, to come and join him in France, where the two elder sons were already with him. In the summer of 1784 the family was thus re-united, and began house-keeping at Auteuil, near Paris. A treaty was successfully negotiated with Prussia, but, before it was ready to be signed, Mr. Adams was appointed minister to the court of St. James, and arrived in London in May, 1785. He was at first politely received by George III., upon whom his bluff and fearless dignity of manner made a considerable impression. His stay in England was, however, far from pleasant. The king came to treat him with coldness, sometimes with rudeness, and the royal example was followed by fashionable society. The American government was losing credit at home and abroad. It was unable to fulfil its treaty engagements as to the payment of private debts due to British creditors, and as to the protection of the loyalists. The British government, in retaliation, refused to surrender the western posts of Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and Mackinaw, which by the treaty were to be promptly given up to the United States. Still more, it refused to make any treaty of commerce with the United States, and neglected to send any minister to represent Great Britain in this country. It was generally supposed in Europe that the American government would presently come to an end in general anarchy and bloodshed; and it was believed by George III. and the narrow-minded politicians, such as Lord Sheffield, upon whose cooperation he relied, that, if sufficient obstacles could be thrown in the way of American commerce to cause serious distress in this country, the United States would repent of their independence and come straggling back, one after another, to their old allegiance. Under such circumstances it was impossible for Mr. Adams to accomplish much as minister in England. During his stay there he wrote his “Defence of the American Constitutions,” a work which afterward subjected him at home to ridiculous charges of monarchical and anti-republican sympathies. The object of the book was to set forth the advantages of a division of the powers of government, and especially of the legislative body, as opposed to the scheme of a single legislative chamber, which was advocated by many writers on the continent of Europe. The argument is encumbered by needlessly long and sometimes hardly relevant discussions on the history of the Italian republics.  Finding the British government utterly stubborn and impracticable, Mr. Adams asked to be recalled, and his request was granted in February, 1788. For the “patriotism, perseverance, integrity, and diligence” displayed in his ten years of service abroad he received the public thanks of congress. He had no sooner reached home than he was elected a delegate from Massachusetts to the moribund continental congress, but that body expired before he had taken his seat in it. During the summer the ratification of the new constitution was so far completed that it could be put into operation, and public attention was absorbed in the work of organizing the new government. As Washington was unanimously selected for the office of president, it was natural that the vice-president should be taken from Massachusetts. The candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency were voted for without any separate specification, the second office falling to the candidate who obtained the second highest number of votes in the electoral college. Of the 69 electoral votes, all were registered for Washington, 34 for John Adams, who stood second on the list; the other 35 votes were scattered among a number of candidates. Adams was somewhat chagrined at this marked preference shown for Washington. His chief foible was enormous personal vanity, besides which he was much better fitted by temperament and training to appreciate the kind of work that he had himself done than the military work by which Washington had won independence for the United States. He never could quite understand how or why the services rendered by Washington were so much more important than his own. The office of vice-president was then more highly esteemed than it afterward came to be, but it was hardly suited to a man of Mr. Adams's vigorous and aggressive temper. In one respect, however, he performed a more important part while holding that office than any of his successors. In the earlier sessions of the senate there was hot debate over the vigorous measures by which Washington's administration was seeking to reëtablish American credit and enlist the conservative interests of the wealthier citizens in behalf of the stability of the government. These measures were for the most part opposed by the persons who were rapidly becoming organized under Jefferson's leadership into the republican party, the opposition being mainly due to dread of the possible evil consequences that might flow from too great an increase of power in the federal government. In these debates the senate was very evenly divided, and Mr. Adams, as presiding officer of that body, was often enabled to decide the question by his casting vote. In the first congress he gave as many as twenty casting votes upon questions of most vital importance to the whole subsequent history of the American people, and on all these occasions he supported Washington's policy. During Washington's administration grew up the division into the two great parties which have remained to this day in American politics—the one known as federalist, afterward as whig, then as republican; the other known at first as republican and afterward as democratic. John Adams was by his mental and moral constitution a federalist. He believed in strong government. To the opposite party he seemed much less a democrat than an aristocrat. In one of his essays he provoked great popular wrath by using the phrase “the well-born.” He knew very well that in point of hereditary capacity and advantages men are not equal and never will be. His notion of democratic equality meant that all men should have equal rights in the eye of the law. There was nothing of the communist or leveller about him. He believed in the rightful existence of a governing class, which ought to be kept at the head of affairs; and he was supposed, probably with some truth, to have a predilection for etiquette, titles, gentlemen-in- waiting, and such things. Such views did not make him an aristocrat in the true sense of the word, for in nowise did he believe that the right to a place in the governing class should be heritable; it was something to be won by personal merit, and should not be withheld by any artificial enactments from the lowliest of men, to whom the chance of an illustrious career ought to be just as much open as to “the well-born.” At the same time John Adams differed from Jefferson and from his cousin, Samuel Adams, in distrusting the masses. All the federalist leaders shared this feeling more or less, and it presently became the chief source of weakness to the party. The disagreement between John Adams and Jefferson was first brought into prominence by the breaking out of the French revolution. Mr. Adams expected little or no good from this movement, which was like the American movement in no respect whatever except in being called a revolution. He set forth his views on this subject in his “Discourses on Davila,” which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper. Taking as his text Davila's history of the civil wars in France in the 16th century, he argued powerfully that a pure democracy was not the best form of government, but that a certain mixture of the aristocratic and monarchical elements was necessary to the permanent maintenance of free government. Such a mixture really exists in the constitution of the United States, and, in the opinion of many able thinkers, constitutes its peculiar excellence and the best guarantee of its stability. These views gave great umbrage to the extreme democrats, and in the election of 1792 they set up George Clinton, of New York, as a rival candidate for the vice-presidency; but when the votes were counted Adams had 77, Clinton 50, Jefferson 4, and Aaron Burr 1. During this administration Adams, by his casting vote, defeated the attempt of the republicans to balk Jay's mission to England in advance by a resolution entirely prohibiting trade with that country. For a time Adams quite forgot his jealousy of Washington in admiration for the heroic strength of purpose with which he pursued his policy of neutrality amid the furious efforts of political partisans to drag the United States into a rash and desperate armed struggle in support either of France or of England.  In 1796, as Washington refused to serve for a third term, John Adams seemed clearly marked out as federalist candidate for the succession. Hamilton and Jay were in a certain sense his rivals; but Jay was for the moment unpopular because of the famous treaty that he had lately negotiated with England, and Hamilton, although the ablest man in the federalist party, was still not so conspicuous in the eyes of the masses of voters as Adams, who besides was surer than any one else of the indispensable New England vote. Having decided upon Adams as first candidate, it seemed desirable to take the other from a southern state, and the choice fell upon Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, a younger brother of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Hamilton now began to scheme against Mr. Adams in a manner not at all to his credit. He had always been jealous of Adams because of his stubborn and independent character, which made it impossible for him to be subservient to a leader. There was not room enough in one political party for two such positive and aggressive characters. Already in the election of 1788 Hamilton had contrived to diminish Adams's vote by persuading some electors of the possible danger of a unanimous and therefore equal vote for him and Washington. Such advice could not have been candid, for there was never the smallest possibility of a unanimous vote for Mr. Adams. Now in 1796 he resorted to a similar stratagem. The federalists were likely to win the election, but had not many votes to spare; the contest was evidently going to be close. Hamilton accordingly urged the federalist electors, especially in New England, to cast all their votes alike for Adams and Pinckney, lest the loss of a single vote by either one should give the victory to Jefferson, upon whom the opposite party was clearly united. Should Adams and Pinckney receive an exactly equal number of votes, it would remain for a federalist congress to decide which should be president. The result of the election showed 71 votes for John Adams, 68 for Jefferson, 59 for Pinckney, 30 for Burr, 15 for Samuel Adams, and the rest scattering. Two electors obstinately persisted in voting for Washington. When it appeared that Adams had only three more votes than Jefferson, who secured the second place instead of Pinckney, it seemed on the surface as if Hamilton's advice had been sound. But from the outset it had been clear (and no one knew it better than Hamilton) that several southern federalists would withhold their votes from Adams in order to give the presidency to Pinckney, always supposing that the New England electors could be depended upon to vote equally for both. The purpose of Hamilton's advice was to make Pinckney president and Adams vice-president, in opposition to the wishes of their party. This purpose was suspected in New England, and while some of the southern federalists voted for Pinckney and Jefferson, eighteen New Englanders, in voting for Adams, withheld their votes from Pinckney. The result was the election of a federalist president with a republican vice-president. In case of the death, disability, or removal of the president, the administration would fall into the hands of the opposite party. Clearly a mode of election that presented such temptations to intrigue, and left so much to accident, was vicious and could not last long. These proceedings gave rise to a violent feud between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, which ended in breaking up the federalist party, and has left a legacy of bitter feelings to the descendants of those illustrious men.  The presidency of John Adams was stormy. We were entering upon that period when our party strife was determined rather by foreign than by American political issues, when England and France, engaged in a warfare of Titans, took every occasion to browbeat and insult us because we were supposed to be too feeble to resent such treatment. The revolutionary government of France had claimed that, in accordance with our treaty with that country, we were bound to support her against Great Britain, at least so far as concerned the defence of the French West Indies. The republican party went almost far enough in their sympathy with the French to concede these claims, which, if admitted by our government, would immediately have got us into war with England. On the other hand, the hatred felt toward France by the extreme federalists was so bitter that any insult from that power was enough to incline them to advocate war against her and in behalf of England. Washington, in defiance of all popular clamor, adhered to a policy of strict neutrality, and in this he was resolutely followed by Adams. The American government was thus obliged carefully and with infinite difficulty to steer between Scylla and Charybdis until the overthrow of Napoleon and our naval victories over England in 1812-'14 put an end to this humiliating state of things. Under Washington's administration Gouverneur Morris had been for some time minister to France, but he was greatly disliked by the anarchical group that then misruled that country. To avoid giving offence to the French republic, Washington had recalled Morris and sent James Monroe in his place, with instructions to try to reconcile the French to Jay's mission to England. Instead of doing this, Monroe encouraged the French to hope that Jay's treaty would not be ratified, and Washington accordingly recalled him and sent Cotesworth Pinckney in his place. Enraged at the ratification of Jay's treaty, the French government not only gave a brilliant ovation to Monroe, but refused to receive Pinckney, and would not even allow him to stay in Paris. At the same time, decrees were passed discriminating against American commerce. Mr. Adams was no sooner inaugurated as president than he called an extra session of congress, to consider how war with France should be avoided. It was decided to send a special commission to France, consisting of Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry. The directory would not acknowledge these commissioners and treat with them openly; but Talleyrand, who was then secretary for foreign affairs, sent some of his creatures to intrigue with them behind the scenes. It was proposed that the envoys should pay large sums of money to Talleyrand and two or three of the directors, as bribes, for dealing politely with the United States and refraining from locking up American ships and stealing American goods. When the envoys scornfully rejected this proposal, a new decree was forthwith issued against American commerce. The envoys drew up an indignant remonstrance, which Gerry hesitated to sign. Wearied with their fruitless efforts, Marshall and Pinckney left Paris. But, as Gerry was a republican, Talleyrand thought it worth while to persuade him to stay, hoping that he might prove more compliant than his colleagues. In March, 1798, Mr. Adams announced to congress the failure of the mission, and advised that the preparations already begun should be kept up in view of the war that now seemed almost inevitable. A furious debate ensued, which was interrupted by a motion from the federalist side, calling on the president for full copies of the despatches. Nothing could have suited Mr. Adams better. He immediately sent in copies complete in everything except that the letters X., Y., and Z. were substituted for the names of Talleyrand's emissaries. Hence these papers have ever since been known as the “X. Y. Z. despatches.” On the 8th of April the senate voted to publish these despatches, and they aroused great excitement both in Europe and in America. The British government scattered them broadcast over Europe, to stir up indignation against France. In America a great storm of wrath seemed for the moment to have wrecked the republican party. Those who were not converted to federalism were for the moment silenced. From all quarters came up the war-cry, “Millions for defence; not one cent for tribute.” A few excellent frigates were built, the nucleus of the gallant little navy that was by and by to win such triumphs over England. An army was raised, and Washington was placed in command, with the rank of lieutenant-general. Gerry was recalled from France, and the press roundly berated him for showing less firmness than his colleagues, though indeed he had not done anything dishonorable. During this excitement the song of “Hail, Columbia” was published and became popular. On the 4th of July the effigy of Talleyrand, who had once been bishop of Autun, was arrayed in a surplice and burned at the stake. The president was authorized to issue letters of marque and reprisal, and for a time war with France actually existed, though it was never declared. In February, 1799, Capt. Truxtun, in the frigate “Constellation,” defeated and captured the French frigate “L’Insurgente” near the island of St. Christopher. In February, 1800, the same gallant officer in a desperate battle destroyed the frigate “La Vengeance,” which was much his superior in strength of armament. When the directory found that their silly and infamous policy was likely to drive the United States into alliance with Great Britain, they began to change their tactics. Talleyrand tried to crawl out by disavowing his emissaries X. Y. Z., and pretending that the American envoys had been imposed upon by irresponsible adventurers. He made overtures to Vans Murray, the American minister at the Hague, tending toward reconciliation. Mr. Adams, while sharing the federalist indignation at the behavior of France, was too clear-headed not to see that the only safe policy for the United States was one of strict neutrality. He was resolutely determined to avoid war if possible, and to meet France half-way the moment she should show symptoms of a return to reason. His cabinet were so far under Hamilton's influence that he could not rely upon them; indeed, he had good reason to suspect them of working against him. Accordingly, without consulting his cabinet, on 18 Feb., 1799, he sent to the senate the nomination of Vans Murray as minister to France. This bold step precipitated the quarrel between Mr. Adams and his party, and during the year it grew fiercer and fiercer. He joined Ellsworth, of Connecticut, and Davie, of North Carolina, to Vans Murray as commissioners, and awaited the assurance of Talleyrand that they would be properly received at Paris. On receiving this assurance, though it was couched in rather insolent language by the baffled Frenchman, the commissioners sailed Nov. 5. On reaching Paris, they found the directory overturned by Napoleon, with whom as first consul they succeeded in adjusting the difficulties. This French mission completed the split in the federalist party, and made Mr. Adams's reëlection impossible. The quarrel with the Hamiltonians had been further embittered by Adams's foolish attempt to prevent Hamilton's obtaining the rank of senior major-general, for which Washington had designated him, and it rose to fever-heat in the spring of 1800, when Mr. Adams dismissed his cabinet and selected a new one. Another affair contributed largely to the downfall of the federalist party. In 1798, during the height of the popular fury against France, the federalists in congress presumed too much upon their strength, and passed the famous alien and sedition acts. By the first of these acts, aliens were rendered foible to summary banishment from the United States at the sole discretion of the president; and any alien who should venture to return from such banishment was liable to imprisonment at hard labor for life. By the sedition act any scandalous or malicious writing against the president or either house of congress was liable to be dealt with in the United States courts and punished by fine and imprisonment. This act contravened the constitutional amendment that forbids all infringement of freedom of speech and of the press, and both acts aroused more widespread indignation than any others that have ever passed in congress. They called forth from the southern republicans the famous Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798-'99, which assert, though in language open to some latitude of interpretation, the right of a state to “nullify” or impede the execution of a law deemed unconstitutional.

In the election of 1800 the federalist votes were given to John Adams and Cotesworth Pinckney, and the republican votes to Jefferson and Burr. The count showed 65 votes for Adams, 64 for Pinckney, and 1 for Jay, while Jefferson and Burr had each 73, and the election was thus thrown into the house of representatives. Mr. Adams took np part in the intrigues that followed. His last considerable public act, in appointing John Marshall to the chief justiceship of the United States, turned out to be of inestimable value to the country, and was a worthy end to a great public career. Very different, and quite unworthy of such a man as John Adams, was the silly and puerile fit of rage in which he got up before daybreak of the 4th of March and started in his coach for Massachusetts, instead of waiting to see the inauguration of his successful rival. On several occasions John Adams's career shows us striking examples of the demoralizing effects of stupendous personal vanity, but on no occasion more strikingly than this. He went home with a feeling that he had been disgraced by his failure to secure a reëlection. Yet in estimating his character we must not forget that in his resolute insistence upon the French mission of 1799 he did not stop for a moment to weigh the probable effect of his action upon his chances for reelection. He acted as a true patriot, ready to sacrifice himself for the welfare of his country, never regretted the act, and always maintained that it was the most meritorious of his life. “I desire,” he said, “no other inscription over my grave-stone than this: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800.” He was entirely right, as all disinterested writers now agree.

After so long and brilliant a career, he now passed a quarter of a century in his home at Quincy (as that part of Braintree was now called) in peaceful and happy seclusion, devoting himself to literary work relating to the history of his times. In 1820 the aged statesman was chosen delegate to the convention for revising the constitution of Massachusetts, and labored unsuccessfully to obtain an acknowledgment of the equal rights, political and religious, of others than so-called Christians. His friendship with Jefferson, which had been broken off by their political differences, was resumed in his old age, and an interesting correspondence was kept up between the two. As a writer of English, John Adams in many respects surpassed all his American contemporaries; his style was crisp, pungent, and vivacious. In person he was of middle height, vigorous, florid, and somewhat corpulent, quite like the typical John Bull. He was always truthful and outspoken, often vehement and brusque. Vanity and loquacity, as he freely admitted, were his chief foibles. Without being quarrelsome, he had little or none of the tact that avoids quarrels; but he harbored no malice, and his anger, though violent, was short-lived. Among American public men there has been none more upright and honorable. He lived to see his son president of the United States, and died on the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence and in the ninety-first year of his age. His last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” But by a remarkable coincidence, Jefferson had died a few hours earlier the same day. See “Life and Works of John Adams,” by C. F. Adams (10 vols., Boston, 1850-'56); “Life of John Adams,” by J. Q. and C. F. A dams (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1871); and “John Adams,” by J. T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1885).

The portrait that forms the frontispiece of this volume is from a painting by Gilbert Stuart, which was executed while Mr. Adams was president and is now in the possession of his grandson. The one on page 16 was taken when he was a youth. The houses represented on page 15 are those in which President John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams were born. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

AMONG the earliest settlers of the English colonies in New England was a family by the name of Adams. One of the grantees of the charter of Charles the First to the London Company was named Thomas Adams, though it does not appear that he was of those who emigrated with Governor Winthrop, in 1630.

It appears by the Governor’s journal, that in 1634 there came a considerable number of colonists, under the pastoral superintendence of the Rev. Thomas Parker, in a vessel from Ipswich, in the county of Essex, in the neighborhood of which is the small town of Braintree.

There was, it seems, after their arrival, some difficulty in deciding where they should be located. It was finally determined that Mount Wollaston, situated within the harbor, and distant about nine miles from the three mountains, and whence the intrusive merry mountaineer Morton had been expelled, should, with an enlarged boundary, be annexed to Boston; and the lands within that boundary were granted in various proportions to individuals, chiefly, if not entirely, of the new company from Ipswich.

The settlement soon increased; and feeling, like all the original settlements in New England, the want of religious instruction and social worship, found it a great inconvenience to travel nine or ten miles every Sunday to reach the place of their devotions. In 1636 they began to hold meetings, and to hear occasional preachers, at Mount Wollaston itself. Three years afterwards they associated themselves under a covenant as a Christian Church; and in 1640 were incorporated as a separate town, by the name of Braintree.

Of this town Henry Adams, junior, was the first town-clerk; and the first pages of the original town records, still extant, are in his handwriting. He was the oldest of eight sons, with whom his father, Henry Adams, had emigrated, probably from Braintree in England, and who had arrived in the vessel from Ipswich 1634. Henry Adams the elder, died in 1646, leaving a widow, and a daughter named Ursula, besides the eight sons above-mentioned. He had been a brewer in England, and had set up a brewery in his new habitation. This establishment was continued by the youngest but one of his sons, named Joseph. The other sons sought their fortunes in other towns, and chiefly among their first settlers. Henry, who had been the first town clerk of Braintree; removed, at the time of the incorporation of Medfield in 1652, to that place, and was again the first town-clerk there.

Joseph, the son who remained at Braintree, was born in 1626; was at the time of the emigration of the family from England, a boy of eight years old, and died at the age of sixty-eight in 1694, leaving ten children,—five sons and five daughters.

One of these sons, named John, settled in Boston, and was father of Samuel Adams, and grandfather of the revolutionary patriot of that name.

Another son, named also Joseph, was born in 1654; married Hannah Bass, a daughter of Ruth Alden, and grand-daughter of John Alden of the May Flower, and died in 1736 at the age of eighty-two.

His second son named John, born in 1689, was the father of JOHN ADAMS, the subject of the present memoir. His mother was Susanna, daughter of Peter Boylston, and niece of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, renowned as the first introducer of inoculation for the small-pox in the British dominions.

This JOHN ADAMS was born on the 30th October, 1735, at Braintree. His father’s elder brother, Joseph, had been educated at Harvard College; and was for upwards of sixty years minister of a Congregational church at Newington, New Hampshire. 

John Adams, the father, was a farmer of small estate and a common school education. He lived and died, as his father and grandfather had done before him, in that mediocrity of condition between affluence, and poverty, most propitious to the exercise of the ordinary duties of life, and to the enjoyment of individual happiness. He was for many years a deacon of the church, and a select man of the town, without enjoying or aspiring to any higher dignity. He was in his religious opinions, like most of the inhabitants of New England at that time, a rigid Calvinist, and was desirous of bestowing upon his eldest son the benefit of a classical education, to prepare him for the same profession with that of his elder brother, the minister of the gospel at Newington.

JOHN ADAMS, the son, had at that early age no vocation for the Church, nor even for a college education. Upon his father’s asking him to what occupation in life he would prefer to be raised, he answered that he wished to be a farmer. His father, without attempting directly to control his inclination, replied that it should be as he desired. He accordingly took him out with himself the next day upon the farm, and gave him practical experience of the labors of the plough, the spade, and the scythe. At the close of the day the young farmer told his father that he would go to school. He retained, however, his fondness for farming to the last years of his life.

He was accordingly placed under the tuition of Mr. Marsh, the keeper of a school then residing at Braintree, and who, ten years afterwards, was also the instructor of Josiah Quincy, the celebrated patriot, who lived but to share the first trials and to face the impending terrors of the revolution.

In 1751, at the age of sixteen, JOHN ADAMS was admitted as a student at Harvard College, and in 1755 was graduated as Bachelor of Arts. The class to which he belonged stands eminent on the College catalogue, for the unusual number of men distinguished in after-life. Among them were Samuel Locke, some time President of the College; Moses Hemmenway, subsequently a divine of high reputation; Sir John Wentworth, Governor of the province of New Hampshire; William Browne, a judge of the Superior Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and afterwards Governor of the island of Bermuda; David Sewall, many years judge of the District Court of the United States in the district, and afterwards State of Maine; and Tristram Dalton, a Senator of the United States. Three of these had so far distinguished themselves while under-graduates, that, in the traditions of the College, it was for many years afterwards known by the sons of Harvard as the class of Adams, Hemmenway, and Locke.

John Adams, the father, had thus given to his eldest son a liberal education to fit him for the gospel ministry. He had two other sons, Peter Boylston and Elihu, whom he was educating to the profession which JOHN had at first preferred, of farmers. In this profession Peter Boylston continued to the end of a long life, holding for many years a commission as a justice of the peace, and serving for some time the town of Quincy as their representative in the legislature of the Commonwealth. He died in 1822 at the age of eighty-four leaving numerous descendants among the respectable inhabitants of Quincy and of Boston. Elihu, at the commencement of the Revolution entered the army as a captain, and with multitudes of others fell a victim to the epidemic dysentery of 1775. He left two sons and one daughter, whose posterity reside in the towns of Randolph, (originally a part of Braintree,) Abington, and Bridgewater. The daughter was the mother of Aaron Hobart, several years a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, and afterwards of the Council of the Commonwealth.

Among the usages of the primitive inhabitants of the villages of New England, a liberal, that is, a college education, was considered as an outfit for life, and equivalent to the double portion of an eldest son. Upon being graduated at the College in 1755, JOHN ADAM’S, at the age of twenty, had received this double portion, and was thenceforth to provide for himself.

“The world was all before him, and Providence his guide.”

At the commencement, when he was graduated, there were present one or more of the select-men of the town of Worcester, which was then in want of a teacher for the town school. They proposed to Mr. Adams to undertake this service, and he accepted the invitation. He repaired immediately to Worcester, and took upon him the arduous duties of his office; pursuing at the same time the studies which were to prepare him for the ministry.

His entrance thus upon the theatre of active life was at a period of great political excitement. Precisely at the time when he went to reside at Worcester, occurred the first incidents of the seven years’ war, waged between France and Britain for the mastery of the North American continent. The disaster of Braddock’s defeat and death happened precisely at that time, like the shock of an earthquake throughout the British colonies. Politics were the speculation of every mind—the prevailing topic of every conversation. It was then that he wrote to his kinsman, Nathaniel Webb, that prophetic letter which has been justly called a literary phenomenon, and which shadowed forth the future revolution of Independence, and the naval glories of this Union.

His father had fondly cherished the hope that he was raising, by the education of his son, a monumental pillar of the Calvinistic church; and he himself, reluctant at the thought of disappointing the hopes of his father, and unwilling to embrace a profession laboring then under strong prejudices unfavorable to it among the people of New England, had acquiesced in the purpose which had devoted him to the gospel ministry. But the progress of his theological studies soon gave him an irresistible distaste for the Calvinistic doctrines. The writings of Archbishop Tillotson, then at the summit of their reputation; the profound analysis of Bishop Butler, with his sermons upon human nature and upon the character of Balaam, took such hold upon his memory, his imagination, and his judgment, that they extirpated from his mind every root of Calvinism that had been implanted in it; and the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then a dazzling novelty in the literary world, although wholly successless in their tendency to shake his faith in the sublime and eternal truths of the gospel, contributed effectively to wean him from the creed of the Genevan Reformer.

About one year after his first arrival at Worcester, after much anxious deliberation and consultation with confidential friends, he resolved to relinquish the study of divinity, and to undertake that of the law. He accordingly entered the office of Col. James Putnam, then a lawyer of reputation at Worcester, and became at the same time an inmate of his house. With him he lived in perfect harmony for the space of two years, pursuing, with indefatigable diligence, the study of the law, and keeping at the same time the town school. In 1758 he completed his preparatory professional studies; relinquished his school, and returned to his paternal mansion at Braintree. He applied, though a total stranger, to Jeremy Gridley, then the most eminent lawyer in New England, and Attorney-general of the Province, to present him to the judges of the Superior Court for admission to the Bar. Mr. Gridley examined him with regard to him proficiency in the studies appropriate to his profession, and warmly recommended him to the Court, securing thereby his admission.

He opened an office, and commenced the practice in his native town. Two years after, in 1760, he lost his father; but continued to reside with his mother and brother till 1764. His attendance upon the Courts in the counties of Suffolk, and of the old colony, was assiduous; but an accidental engagement in a private cause, before the Court at Plymouth, gave him the opportunity to display talents, which brought him immediately into large and profitable practice. In 1762 the seven years’ war was concluded by the cession to Great Britain and Spain of all the possessions of France on the continent of North America; and at the same time commenced in England the system of policy, which terminated in the Revolution of Independence. It commenced by an increased rigor of exaction and of restriction in the execution of the laws of trade. For this purpose the officers of the customs were instructed by an order of the royal council, to apply, in cases when they suspected articles of merchandize upon which the duties had not been paid, were concealed, to the justices of the Superior Courts, for writs of assistance, such as were sometimes issued from the Court of Exchequer in England, authorizing them to enter the houses and warehouses of the merchants, to detect the unlawfully imported goods. This was a new and odious process, to which the merchants in the colonies had never before been subjected; and its legality was immediately contested before the Superior Court. It was substantially the same case as that of the general search warrants, which some years after kindled so fierce and inextinguishable a flame upon the prosecution of John Wilkes in London. The spirit of English liberty was as sensitive and as intractable in the colonies, as it ever had been in the mother country. The remark of Junius, that the dogs and horses of England lost their metal by removing to another hemisphere, but that patriotism was improved by transportation, meant by him for a sarcasm, was a truth too serious for the derision of a British statesman. The trial of John Peter Zenger, at New York, had vindicated the freedom of the press, and the rights of juries, twenty years before they issued victorious from the re-considered opinions of Camden, and the prevaricating wisdom of Mansfield. And in the trial of the writs of assistance, at Boston, James Otis had

—————“taught the age to quit their clogs

“By the known rules of ancient Liberty;”

while the search warrants for the Essay on Woman, and the 45th number of the North Briton, and the Letter of Junius to the King, were slumbering in the womb of futurity.

JOHN ADAMS, at the age of twenty-seven, attended as a member of the bar, the trial upon the writs of assistance, and witnessed the splendid exhibitions of genius and learning exerted in the cause of freedom by the pioneer of American Independence, James Otis. Small is the portion of mankind to whom it is given to discern the great events which control the destinies of nations in their seminal principles. The origin of the American Revolution has been usually ascribed to the Stamp Act; JOHN ADAMS had seen it in the first campaign of the seven years’ war in 1755. He saw and marked its progress on the argument of James Otis upon writs of assistance in 1762; a cause which, although it produced great excitement at the time, would scarcely have been noticed among the historical incidents of the term, but for the minutes, which his curiosity induced him to take of the trial as it proceeded, and from an imperfect copy of which, taken afterwards by one of the law students in his office, the account of it in the subsequent histories of that period has been published.

On the 25th of October, 1764, he was married to Abigail Smith, second daughter of William Smith, minister of a congregational church at Weymouth, then in her twentieth year.

This was the memorable year of the Stamp Act, and from this year may be dated his first entrance upon political life. His friend and patron, Gridley, had just before that formed, with some other members of the bar and men of literary taste, a small social circle, who met once a week at each other’s houses for the discussion of topics of literature and law, oral or in writing. Before this society MR. ADAMS one evening read a short paper of Observations on the Feudal and Canon Law, which he afterwards published in the Patriotic newspaper. The sensation which it produced on the public mind was so great, that in the following year it was re-published, in London, and there attributed to the pen of Gridley. It has been frequently since re-published, and even now may be considered as a worthy precursor to the declaration of Independence.

Popular commotions prevented the landing of the Stamp Act papers, which had been sent from England to be used in all processes before the judicial courts.

Thomas Hutchinson, at once the Lieut. Governor and Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the Province, had closed the sessions of the Court, on the pretence that they could not be lawfully held but by using the stamps.

The suspension of the Courts was severely felt throughout the Province; but especially in the town of Boston, where, after some time, a town meeting was held, at which it was determined to present a petition to the Governor and Council, that the Courts of justice might be forthwith re-opened; and they prayed to be heard by counsel in support of the petition. This was accorded, and the counsel appointed by the town were Jeremy Gridley, then Attorney-general, James Otis, and JOHN ADAMS, then a young man of thirty, and not even an inhabitant of the town. The Governor and Council had not ventured to refuse hearing counsel in support of the town petition; but, perhaps, from the same timid policy, would hear them only with closed doors, and without admitting any supernumerary hearers. They suggested to the three gentlemen, who represented the town, the expediency of deciding between themselves the points upon which they proposed to support the petition. Mr. Gridley, the officer of the crown, without entering upon the question of right, represented only the general and severe distress suffered by all classes of the people, not only of the town, but of the whole province, by the suspension of all proceedings in the Judicial Courts. Mr. Otis argued, that from this unforeseen and unexampled state of things, the nature of the case gave a right of necessity, authorizing the Governor and Council to command the re-opening of the Court until the pleasure of the authority beyond the sea could be known. MR. ADAMS assumed, as the basis of his argument, that the British Parliament had no right of taxation over the colonies. That the Stamp Act was an Assumption of power, unwarranted by, and inconsistent with, the principles of the English constitution, and with the charter of the Province. That it was null and void; binding neither upon the people, nor upon the courts of justice in the colony; and that it was the duty of the Governor and Council to require of the judges of the courts, that they should resume their judicial Courts, and proceed without exacting from suitors, or applying to their own records, the use of any stamps whatever. This, and a cotemporaneous resolution of the same import, introduced into the House of Representatives of the Province by Samuel Adams, are believed to have been the first direct denial of the unlimited right of legislation of Parliament over the colonies in the progress of that controversy. In the argument before the Governor and Council, it could be assumed, only by MR. ADAMS. Mr. Gridley being at that time the king’s Attorney-general and Mr. Otis having, in a celebrated pamphlet on the rights of the colonies, shortly before published, admitted the right of taxation to be among the lawful authorities of Parliament.

The Governor and Council deferred their decision upon the petition of the town, and before the period arrived for the next regular session of the Superior Court, the intelligence came of the repeal of the Stamp Act, and relieved them from the necessity of any decision upon it.

The selection of MR. ADAMS as one of the law council of the town of Boston upon this memorable occasion, was at once an introduction to a career of political eminence, and a signal advancement of his professional reputation as a lawyer. He had already, as chairman of a committee of the town of Braintree, draughted instructions, on the subject of the Stamp Act, to the Representative of the town in the general court, which had been published, and attracted much notice; and he was shortly after elected one of the select-men of the town.

He had formed an intimate acquaintance and warm friendship with Jonathan Sewall, who had married a Miss Quincy, a relation of MR. ADAMS. Sewall, a man of fine talents, distinguished as an orator and a writer, had commenced his career as a patriot; but had been drawn over by the artifices of Bernard and Hutchinson, and by lucrative and honorable offices, to the royal cause. Through him the office of advocate-general was offered to MR. ADAMS, which he declined, though tendered with an assurance that no sacrifice of his political sentiments would be expected from him by his acceptance of the office. He was already known in that Court by the defence of Ansell Nickerson, an American seaman, who, in self-defence against a press-gang from a king’s ship in the harbor of Boston, had killed, with the stroke of a harpoon, their commander, Lieut. Panton. MR. ADAMS’S defence was, that the usage of impressment had never extended to the colonies; that the attempt to impress Nickerson was, on the part of Lieutenant Panton, unlawful; and that the act of Nickerson in killing him was justifiable homicide. Although the commander of the naval force on the American station, Captain Hood, afterwards Lord Hood, a name illustrious in the naval annals of Britain, was a member of the Court which decided the fate of Nickerson, he was acquitted and discharged; and thus, even before the question of Parliamentary taxation had been brought to its issue in blood, it was solemnly settled that the royal prerogative of impressment did not extend to the colonies. That prerogative, so utterly irreconcileable with the fundamental principle of the great charter, “nullus homo capietur,” that dark spot on the snow-white standard of English freedom, that brand of servitude which Foster, from the judicial bench, stamped on the forehead of the British seaman; that shame to the legislation of the mother country, was, by the exertions of JOHN ADAMS, banished from the code of colonial law.

In the inimitable portrait of the just man drawn by the great Roman Lyric Poet, he is said to be equally immovable from his purpose by the flashing eye of the tyrant, and by the burning fury of a multitude commanding him to do wrong. Of all revolutions, ancient or modern, that of American Independence was pre-eminently popular. It was emphatically the revolution of the people. Not one noble name of the parent realm is found recorded upon its annals, as armed in the defence of the cause of freedom, or assisting in the councils of the confederacy; a few foreign nobles, La Fayette, De Kalb, Pulaski, Steuben, Du Portail, Du Coudray, and a single claimant of a British peerage, Lord Stirling, warmed by the spirit of freedom, and stimulated by the electric spark of military adventure, joined the standard of our country; and more than one, of them laid down their lives in her cause. Of the natives of the land, not one—not Washington himself—

could be justly styled the founder of Independence. The title of Liberator, since applied to an immeasurably inferior man in another continent of this hemisphere, could not be, and never was, applied to Washington. Of the nation, formed after the revolution was accomplished, he was by the one people placed at the head; of the revolution itself, he was but the arm.

North American Independence was achieved by a new phenomenon in the history of mankind,—by a self-formed, self-constituted, and self-governed democracy. There were leaders of the people in the several colonies; there were representatives of the colonies, and afterwards of the States in the continental Congress; there was a continental army, a continental navy, and a continental currency; agents, factors, and soldiers; but the living soul, the vivifying spirit of the whole, was a steady, firm, resolute, inflexible will of the people, marching through fire and sword, and pestilence and famine, and bent to march, were it through the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds—to INDEPENDENCE.

The objections urged from time-immemorial against the democracies of former ages were, the instability of the popular will—the impetuosity of their passions—the fluctuation of their counsels, and the impossibility of resisting their occasional and transitory animosities and resentments. Little of al this was seen in the course of the North American revolution. Even before its outset the people were trained to a spirit of self-control, well suited to prepare them for the trials that awaited them, and to carry them triumphantly through the fiery ordeal. No event contributed more to the formation of this spirit than the tragedy of the 5th of March, 1770, and its consequences. To suppress the popular commotions which the system of Parliamentary taxation had excited and could not fail to provoke, two regiments of soldiers were stationed at Boston; and becoming daily more odious to the inhabitants, were exposed to continual insults from the unguarded and indiscreet among them. On the 5th of March, a small party of the soldiers, under command of Lieut. Preston, were thus assailed and insulted by a crowd of people gathering round them, until they fired upon them, and killed and wounded several persons. The passions of the people were roused to the highest pitch of indignation, but manifested themselves by no violence or excess. Lieutenant Preston and six of the soldiers were arrested by the civil authority, and tried before the Superior Court for murder. They were so well advised as to apply to JOHN ADAMS and Josiah Quincy, known as among the most ardent among the patriots, to defend them; and they hesitated not to undertaker the task. The momentary passions of the people identified the sufferings of the victims of that night with the cause of the country, and JOHN ADAMS and Josiah Quincy were signalized as deserters from the standard of freedom. How great was the load of public obloquy under which they labored, lives yet in the memory of surviving witnesses; and is recorded in the memoir of the life of Josiah Quincy, which the filial veneration of a son, worthy of such a father, has given to the world. Among the most affecting incidents related in that volume, and the most deeply interesting documents appended to it, are the recital of this event, and the correspondence between Josiah Quincy the defender of the soldiers and his father on that occasion. The fortitude of JOHN ADAMS was brought to a test equally severe; as the elder council for the prisoners on trial, it was his duty to close the argument in their defence. The writer of this article has often heard from individuals, who had been present among the crowd of spectators at the trial, the electrical effect produced upon the jury, and upon the immense and excited auditory, by the first sentence with which he opened his defence; which was the following citation from the then recently published work of Beccaria.

“May it please your Honors, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury.

“I am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria. ‘If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessing and tears of transport shall be a sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind.’”

“Captain Preston and the soldiers were acquitted, excepting two, who were found guilty of manslaughter, an offence which, being at that time entitled to the benefit of clergy, was subject to no sharper penalty than the gentle application of a cold iron to the hand, and, except as a warning for the future, was equivalent to an acquittal.

The town of Boston instituted an annual commemoration of the massacre of the 5th of March, by the delivery of an oration to the inhabitants assembled in town meeting. This anniversary was thus celebrated for a succession of thirteen years, until the close of the Revolutionary War, when that of the 4th of July, the day of national Independence was substituted in its place. The Boston massacre is, however, memorable as the first example of those annual commemorations by public discourses ever since so acceptable to the people.

Within two months after the trial of the soldiers, MR. ADAMS received a new testimonial of the favor and confidence of his townsmen, by their election of him as one of their Representatives in the General Court or Colonial Legislature. In this body the conflict of principles between metropolitan authority and British colonial liberty was pertinaciously maintained. Sir Francis Bernard had just before closed his inglorious career, by seeking refuge in his own country from the indignation of the people over whom he had been sent to rule. He was succeeded by Thomas Hutchinson, a native of the province, a man of considerable talent, great industry, and of grasping ambition; who, in evil hour for himself, preferred the path of royal favor to that of patriotism for the ascent to power and fortune.

In times of civil commotion, the immediate subject of contention between the parties scarcely ever discloses to the superficial observer the great questions at issue between them. The first collision between Hutchinson and the two branches of the General Court was about the place where they were to hold their sessions.

Hutchinson, by instructions, secretly suggested by himself, convened the General Court at Cambridge, instead of Boston. They claimed it as a chartered right to meet at the town-house in Boston; and hence a long controversy between the Governor and the two, houses, which, after three years of obstinate discussion, terminated by the restoration of the Legislature to their accustomed place of meeting.

By the charter of the colony, the members of the House of Representatives were annually elected by the people of the towns, and twenty-eight counsellors by the House of Representatives and council, with the approbation of the Governor. The judges of the Superior Court were appointed by the Governor and Council; and the Governor, Lieutenant-governor, and Judges were paid by annual-grants from the General Court. In ordinary times the Council had always been more friendly to the Executive administration, and less disposed to resist the transatlantic authority than the House; but as the contest with the mother country grew warmer, and the country party in the House stronger, they dropped in their elections to the Council all the partizans of the Court, and elected none but the most determined patriots to the council board. The only resource of the Governor was to disapprove the most obnoxious of the persons elected, and thus to exclude a few of the most prominent leaders; but in their places the House always elected others of the same principles.

Among the devices to which, at the instigation of Hutchinson himself, the British Government resorted to remedy these disorders, was that of vacating the charter of the colony; of reserving to the King in council the appointment of the councillors, and of paying by Parliamentary authority the Governor and Judges, himself. The drift of these changes could not be mistaken. Hutchinson, who affected the character of a profound constitutiona1 lawyer, entered into long and elaborate discussion of the rights and authority of Parliament in messages to the General Court, which were answered separately by reports of committees in both Houses. In the composition of these papers MR. ADAMS was frequently employed, together with his distinguished relative, Samuel Adams. For the discussion of profound constitutional questions, the education of JOHN ADAMS as a lawyer, had pre-eminently qualified him to cope with Hutchinson in his black letter messages; and for the arguments on chartered rights and statutory law, he was relied upon beyond all others.

In 1772, having removed to his primitive residence at Braintree, he ceased to represent the town of Boston in the Legislature; but he was soon after elected to the council, and negatived by the Governor. In 1774 he was elected one of the members from the colony of Massachusetts Bay to the Continental Congress; and on the first meeting of that body, on the 5th of September of that year, took his seat among the founders of the North American Union. His service in Congress continued until November, 1777, when he was chosen by that body, in the place of Silas Deane, a joint commissioner at the Court of France, with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee.

He embarked for France on the 13th of February, 1778, in the Boston frigate, commanded by Samuel Tucker; and, after a most tempestuous passage of forty-five days, landed at Bordeaux in France. The recognition by France of the Independence of the United States, and the conclusion of the treaties of commerce and of alliance between the two nations, had taken place between the appointment of MR. ADAMS and his arrival at Paris.

After the ratification of those treaties, Congress thought proper to substitute a single minister plenipotentiary at the court of France.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the minister. Arthur Lee had previously received a separate commission as minister to the Court of Spain. MR. ADAMS, without waiting for a letter of recall, returned in the summer of 1779, in the French frigate La Sensible, to the United States. The French minister to the United States, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, together with his secretary of legation, since highly distinguished through all the scenes of the French Revolution, Barbe de Marbois, were passengers in the same frigate. They arrived at Boston on the 2d of August, 1779. Precisely at that time the convention which formed the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was about to assemble, and MR. ADAMS was returned to it as a member from the town of Braintree.

The convention assembled at Cambridge on the 1st of September, 1779, and, after appointing a committee of thirty-one members to prepare a declaration of rights, and a constitution for the Commonwealth, adjourned over, on the 7th of that month, to the 28th of October ensuing, to receive the report of the committee. MR. ADAMS was a member of this committee, and made the first draught of the declaration of rights and of the constitution reported to the convention.

But, in the interval of the adjournment, MR. ADAMS had received from Congress a new commission for the negotiation of peace with Great Britain; in pursuance of which he embarked on the 14th of November, at Boston, in the same French frigate in which he had returned to the United States. Her destination was Brest; but having sprung a leak on her passage, and being in, danger of foundering, she was obliged to make the first European port, which was that of Ferrol in Spain. There she arrived on the 7th of December, and thence MR. ADAMS travelled, in mid-winter, by land to Paris.

The events of the Revolutionary war were not yet sufficiently matured for the negotiation of peace. Soon after the appointment of MR. ADAMS to this service, Henry-Laurens of South Carolina, then President of Congress, was appointed Minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with the United Netherlands, with a separate commission to negotiate a loan of money in that country. On his passage to Europe, Mr. Laurens was captured by a British cruizer, and was lodged in the tower of London as a prisoner of state. MR. ADAMS then received a commission for the same service, and a new appointment was made of five commissioners for the negotiation of peace. These were JOHN ADAMS, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Thomas Jefferson; the last of whom was, however, prevented by the circumstances of his family from proceeding to Europe until after the conclusion of the peace. In July, 1780, MR. ADAMS left Paris and went to Holland, where, as a preliminary to the negotiation of a treaty of amity and commerce, it was necessary to procure the recognition of the United States as an Independent power. The negotiation for a loan was a separate power to contract with individuals. In both these negotiations MR. ADAMS was eminently successful. The condition of the United Netherlands at that time require a different mode of negotiation from that which was suitable with the other nations of Continental Europe. They constituted a free, confederated republic; with a prince allied to many of the European sovereigns, and especially to the Kings of Great Britain and of Prussia, at their head. The politics of the country were discussed in the Legislative Assemblies of the several provinces, and the freedom of the press opened avenues to the hearts of the people. In point of form, MR. ADAMS, as the representative of the United States claiming to be a sovereign and independent power, was to address the President of the States General, which he did in a memorial claiming to be received as a public minister; but setting forth all the arguments suited to produce an impression upon the minds of the people favorable to the objects of his mission. The President of the States General received the memorial and laid it before the Assembly, who referred it to the Legislative Assemblies of the several provinces for consideration; MR. ADAMS caused it forthwith to be published in the English, French, and Dutch languages in pamphlets; and it was re-published in many of the newspapers and other periodical journals of the country. No public document of the revolution was ever so widely circulated; for, as an extraordinary state paper, it was re-published in every country and every language of Europe. Its success was not less remarkable than the extent of its circulation. It set in motion the whole population of the Netherlands. Popular petitions, numerously signed, poured in upon the States of the provinces, praying for the recognition of the Independence of the United States, and the reception of MR. ADAMS as their minister. The similarity of the condition of the United States to that of the Netherlands in their struggle for Independence against Spain, strongly urged in the memorial, became a favorite topic for popular feeling in all the provincial Assemblies. The Leyden Gazette, edited by John Luzac, one of the most accomplished scholars of the age, and one of the purest republican spirits of any age or clime, was engaged with deep and fervid interest in the cause of America, stimulated, even to enthusiasm, by the personal friendship formed with the kindred spirit of JOHN ADAMS. Another Frenchman of great ability, and highly distinguished as the author of the best history extant, in the French language, of the United Provinces, A. M. Cerisier, at the instance of MR. ADAMS, commenced a weekly journal under the title, of the Politique Hollandais,” devoted exclusively to the communication of correct intelligence from America, and to set forth the community of principles and of interests between the new and the old republic. Having formed, an intimate acquaintance with an eminent lawyer at Amsterdam, named Calkoen, that gentleman, who was a member of a political and literary society which held private weekly meetings, addressed sundry queries to MR. ADAMS respecting the state of the war, the condition, of the people in the United States, and their dispositions with regard to the cause of Independence; which he answered in twenty-six letters, since frequently published. They were read and discussed at the in meetings of the society, and furnished facts and argument for the friends of America and of freedom to counteract the influence States at the Court of the British king. They still remained jointly charged with the commission for negotiating treaties of commerce, under which was concluded a treaty with the Emperor of Morocco, and a commercial treaty with Portugal; the ratification of which by the Portuguese Government was withheld, under the controling influence of Great Britain at that Court.

In May, 1785, MR. ADAMS proceeded to London, where he was received by George the Third as the minister of the Independent States of North America. He was authorized to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain of the most liberal character; but a proud and mortified spirit had succeeded in the breast of the monarch, and a resentful and jealous rivalry in the temper of the nation, to the cruel and desolating war, which for seven years had been waged to subdue the North American people. In that people, too, an irritated and resentful temper still rankled long after the conflict for independence had closed. Mutual charges of bad faith in failing to execute the articles of the treaty of peace, but two well founded on both sides, continued the alienation of heart between the nations, which the contest and the separation had caused. The British Government had, indeed, more than plausible reasons for declining to conclude a commercial treaty with a Congress, which had not even authority to carry into execution the stipulations of the treaty of peace. After a residence in England of three years, in June, 1778, MR. ADAMS returned to the United States, precisely at the moment when the ratification, by nine States, of the constitution, had established the form of government for the Union, under which we yet live.

During his residence in England he had composed and published, in three volumes, his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States,—a treatise upon Government, afterwards called the History of the principal Republics of the World; a work which has contributed more than any other ever written, to settle the opinions of mankind upon the great question, whether the legislative power of a free state should be vested in a single assembly, or in two separate co-ordinate branches; incidental to which is the question, not less important, of a single or a plural executive. Upon these points there is now scarcely any diversity of opinion among the enlightened theorists of Government.

Just before his return to the United States, MR. ADAMS had been elected, by the Legislature of Massachusetts, a member of Congress, under the articles of Confederation; but that body was in a virtual state of dissolution. The constitution of the United States had received the sanction of the people. The times and places for holding the elections to organize the new government, had been fixed and the semblance of authority, which was all that the Confederation Congress had ever possessed, was vanishing even before the fabric of its more efficient substitute was completed.

In December, 1788, the first elections were held for carrying into execution the Constitution of the United States; at which George Washington was unanimously chosen President, and JOHN ADAMS was elected Vice-President of the Union; and four years afterwards they were both, in like manner, re-elected to the same offices. At the close of the second term, Washington declined a second re-election, and MR. ADAMS was chosen President of the United States.

During the eight years of Washington’s administration, MR. ADAMS presided in the Senate. Throughout the whole of both those terms he gave to the administration a firm and efficient support.

Wherever there is Government there must be councils of administration and collisions of opinion, concerning its mode and its measures. In all governments, therefore, there are parties which necessarily become braided, and, too often, entangled with the personal characters, principles, passions, and fortunes of individual men. No sooner had the founder of the Christian faith laid the corner-stone, for the establishment of the purest and most self-sacrificing of all religions, by the selection of the twelve apostles, than ambition and avarice, the thirst of place and treachery, were disclosed among them.

The Constitution of the United States was the result of a compromise between parties, which had existed from the first formation of the American Union. It drew together, by closer ties, the inhabitants of an extensive country, chiefly descended from one common stock, but greatly diversified by the varieties of climates, and of soils on which they had settled, and the oppositions of religious and political opinions in which they had originated. It made them permanently, and by political organization, what the enthusiasm of a common struggle for freedom, common sufferings and common dangers had made them for a time, in the war of Independence, but which the imbecility of the Articles of Confederation had failed to sustain, it made them One People. This stupendous monument of wisdom and virtue was accomplished by a party—then known by the denomination of Federalists; a name which, from various causes, has since become a term of reproach, but which, at that time, Washington and Madison were alike proud of bearing. In the disjointed condition of the confederacy, there was but one man whose talents and services had rivetted him in the gratitude and affections of all his countrymen, and that was, the leader of the armies of the Revolution. He presided in the convention which formed the Constitution; and no one can analyse that instrument without perceiving that much of its character, and expecially the construction of its executive power, was adapted to him, and fashioned upon the preconception that the office would be occupied by him.

Nor was this anticipation disappointed. He was twice elected by the unanimous suffrages of the electoral colleges President of the United States. But he was scarcely installed in office, and the wheels of the new machine of government had scarcely began to move, when the spirit of party, transferred from the confederacy to the constitution, sought, in the principal subordinate officers of the government, leaders for the succession, to be thereafter seated in the chair of Washington. These leaders immediately presented themselves in the persons of Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury. In the diversity of the principles of these two men, conflict immediately sprung up, as to those which should govern the administration. Those of Hamilton were more congenial to the mind of Washington, and became the ruling principles of the administration; upon which Jefferson retired from public office, and was thenceforward looked up to as the head of the opposition to Washington’s administration. Before the close of Washington’s second term, Hamilton had also retired, but continued to support his administration.

At the time when MR. ADAMS was chosen President of the United States, he was supported by the party which had sustained the administration. Jefferson was his competitor, as the leader of the opposition. The contest was close. MR. ADAMS was elected by a bare majority of the electoral votes; and by the provision of the constitution then existing, that both candidates should be voted for as President, and that the person having the highest number of votes short of a majority should be Vice-President, Mr. Jefferson was elected to that office; and thus the head of the opposition became the presiding officer in the Senate of the United States, and at the next election, in December, 1800, was chosen President of the United States.

On the 3d of March, 1801, the official term of MR. ADAMS expired, and he retired to his residence at Quincy, where he passed the remainder of his days.

The administration of MR. ADAMS was but a continuation of that of his predecessor. It was the practical execution of the constitution, by the party which had formed and fashioned it, and had succeeded against a determined and persevering opposition in procuring its acceptance by the people. Mr. Jefferson had availed himself of the passions and prejudices of the people to obtain the possession of power, constantly modifying his opposition according to the fluctuations of public opinion, and taking advantage of every error, in the policy of the federal party, to which an odious imputation could be applied. In the course of their common service in Congress during the War of Independence, and in that of the joint commission in Europe after the peace, the most cordial harmony had subsisted between him and MR. ADAMS. Their views of the French Revolution first divided them; and upon a re-publication in this country of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets, Mr. Jefferson, in a note to the printer, recommended it as a corrective to the political heresies then in circulation. The allusion was universally understood as intended to apply to the publication of certain essays, under the title of Discourses on Davila, and known to be written by MR. ADAMS. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to MR. ADAMS, disclaimed all such intention; but his subsequent deportment, and the essential diversity of their opinions, gradually alienated them from each other, and dissolved the personal friendship which had subsisted between them. During the administration of Mr. Jefferson there was no personal intercourse between them; but when the great questions of the rights of neutral commerce, and the outrageous impressment of American seamen by the naval officers of Great Britain, brought the Government of the United States into imminent danger, MR. ADAMS, though remaining in private life, sacrificed all his resentments and by numerous writings in the public journals, gave the most efficient support to the administration of his successor.

In 1809 Mr. Jefferson himself was succeeded by his friend and most faithful counsellor, James Madison. During his administration, the controversies with Great Britain, in the midst of which Mr. Jefferson had retired, rankled into a war, precisely at the time when the tide of victory and of triumph was turning in favor of Britain against Napoleon, at the closing stage of that revolution by which France had passed from an absolute monarchy, through a brutal and sanguinary mock-democracy, to a military despotism, and thence to the transient resurrection of the dry bones of the Bourbons.

In the contests with Great Britain concerning neutral rights and impressment, which had preceded and led to the war, the interests of the commercial portion of the community were most immediately and deeply involved. But Mr. Jefferson’s system of defence consisted in commercial restrictions, non-intercourse and embargoes, destructive to the very interest which it was the duty of the Government to maintain. The Cæsarian ambition of Napoleon, and his unparalleled succession of military triumphs, had alarmed the American politicians of the federal school, till they had frightened themselves into the belief that Napoleon Bonaparte was affecting universal empire, and about to become master of the world. They believed also, that Great Britain presented the only obstacle to the accomplishment of this design; and in this panic-terror, they lost all sense of the injustice and insolence of Great Britain exercised upon themselves. The restrictive system bore most impressively upon New England, to whose people, commerce, navigation, and the fisheries, were necessaries of life; and they felt the restrictive system as aggravation rather than relief. When the war came, it was a total annihilation of all their modes of industry, and of their principal resources of subsistence. They transferred their resentments from the foreign aggressor to their own Government, and became disaffected to the Union itself. The party in opposition to Mr. Madison’s Administration prevailed throughout all the New England States; and had the war continued one year longer, there is little doubt that the floating projects of a separation, and of a northern confederacy, would have ripened into decisive action. Throughout the whole of this ordeal, MR. ADAMS constantly supported the Administration of Mr. Madison, till the conclusion of the peace at Ghent, in December, 1814, scattered the projects of the northern confederacy to the winds, and restored, for a short and happy interval, the era of good feelings.

In December, 1820, MR. ADAMS was chosen one of the electors of President and Vice-President of the United States; and, together with all his colleagues of the electoral College of Massachusetts, voted for the re-election of James Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins to those offices.

The last public service in which MR. ADAMS was engaged, was as a member of the convention to revise the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of which body he was unanimously chosen President. Then in the 86th year of his age, he declined to assume the arduous duties of that station, but gave his attendance as a member throughout the sessions of the convention, and occasionally took part in their debates.

This election was communicated to MR. ADAMS by a Committee of the Convention, with the following resolutions;—

 “In Convention, November 15, 1820.

 “Whereas, the Honorable JOHN ADAMS, a member of this Convention, and elected the President thereof, has, for more than half a century, devoted the great powers of his mind, and his profound wisdom and learning, to the service of his country and mankind:

In fearlessly vindicating the rights of the North American provinces against the usurpations and encroachments of the superintendant government:

In diffusing a knowledge of the principles of civil liberty among his fellow subjects, and exciting them to a firm and resolute defence of the privileges of freemen:

In early conceiving, asserting, and maintaining the justice and practicability of establishing the independence of the United States of America:

In giving the powerful aid of his political knowledge in the formation of the Constitution of his native State, which constitution became in a great measure the model of those which were subsequently formed:

In conciliating the favor of foreign powers, and obtaining their countenance and support in the arduous struggle for independence:

In negotiating the treaty of peace, which secured forever the sovereignty of the United States, and in defeating all attempts to prevent it; and especially in preserving in that treaty the vital interest of the New England States:

In demonstrating to the world, in his defence of the Constitutions of the several united States, the contested principle, since admitted as an axiom, that checks and balances in legislative power, are essential to true liberty: 

In devoting his time and talents to the service of the nation, in the high and important trusts of Vice-President and President of the United States:

And lastly, in passing an honorable old age in dignified retirement, in the practice of all the domestic virtues, thus exhibiting to his countrymen and to posterity, an example of true greatness of mind and of genuine patriotism:—

Therefore, Resolved, That the members of this convention, representing the people of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, do joyfully avail themselves of this opportunity to testify their respect and gratitude to this eminent patriot and statesman, for the great services rendered by him to his country, and their high gratification that, at this late period of life, he is permitted by Divine Providence to assist them with his counsel in revising the constitution which, forty years ago, his wisdom and prudence assisted to form.

Resolved, That a committee of twelve be appointed by the chair, to communicate this proceeding to the honorable JOHN ADAMS, to inform him of his election to preside in this body, and to introduce him to the chair of this convention.

In this resolution, honorable alike to the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to their representatives by whom it was adopted, and to him whom it intended to honor, is contained a concentrated summary of the life, character, and services of JOHN ADAMS. It closes with appropriate dignity his career as a public man.

Nor was he less exemplary in all the relations of private and domestic life. As a son, a husband, a brother, a father, and a friend, his affections were ardent, disinterested and faithful. His filial piety not exclusively confined to his immediate parents, carefully preserved the memorials of their ancestors, for three preceding generations, to the patriarch, first settler of Braintree, Henry Adams, and he caused to be erected in the cemetery, where

 “Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

  The rude fore-fathers of the hamlet sleep,”

monuments of the solid and simple granite from the soil on which they had settled, recording their names and years, spelt by no unlettered muse, but embracing in the inscription of little more than those dates, all that remains of their short and simple annals.

In the common experience of mankind, friendship, the pleasures of which are among the choicest enjoyments of life, is yet a sentiment of so delicate a texture, that it almost invariably sinks under the collision of adverse interests and conflicting opinions. With contests of opinion untainted with opposing interests, friendship may indeed subsist unimpaired; but in the discussion of religious or political opinions, which divide the minds of men, interest and opinion act and re-act upon each other, till the tender bloom of friendship withers and dies under their chilling frost. So fared it with the friendship formed by MR. ADAMS in early life with Jonathan Sewall. So fared it with the friendship formed in a common service, in the trying scenes of the war of Independence, with Thomas Jefferson. An affecting passage in his diary in 1774, records the pang with which he had parted from the friend of his youth, and an intercourse of mutual respect, and good-will was restored between them after the close of the revolutionary war. A reconciliation with Mr. Jefferson was, by the interposition of a common friend, effected, after all collisions of interests had subsided; and for the last ten years of their lives a friendly and frequent correspondence was maintained, with mutual satisfaction, between them. Many of those letters have been published, equally creditable to both; and that of Mr. Jefferson upon the decease of Mrs. Adams, in October, 1818, as an effusion of sympathy with the severest of earthly afflictions, in the administration of tender and delicate condolence, has never been surpassed.

They died on one and the same day, the jubilee of the day of Independence—a coincidence so remarkable, that men of a religious turn of mind, in days of more devoted faith, would have regarded it as a special interposition of Providence, to stamp on the hearts of their country, and of unnumbered future ages, a more indelible remembrance of that memorable event, and of the share which they had jointly taken in its imperishable deed.

The death of JOHN ADAMS occurred on the 4th of July, 1826, at the moment when his fellow-citizens, of his native town of Quincy, were celebrating in a social banquet, to which he had been invited, the anniversary of the Nation’s Independence. His physical faculties had gradually declined in the lapse of years, leaving his intellect clear and bright to the last hour of his life.

Some years before his decease he had, by two several deeds of gift, conveyed to the inhabitants of the town of Quincy, his library and several valuable lots of land, the proceeds of the income of which were to be devoted to the erection of a stone temple for the worship of God, and of a school-house for a classical school.

Shortly after his death, the worshippers at the first Congregational church in Quincy, of which he had been a member, determined, with the aid of his donation to erect the temple, which was done in the year 1828; and after it was completed, his mortal remains with those of the partner of his life, were deposited side by side in a vault beneath its walls.

Within the same house, a plain, white marble slab, on the right hand of the pulpit, surmounted by his bust, (the work of Horatio Greenough,) bears the following inscription, written by his eldest son.

Libertatem, Amicitiam, Fidem, Retinebis.

 D. O. M.

Beneath these walls

Are deposited the mortal remains of

JOHN ADAMS,

Son of John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams,

Second President of the United States.

Born October, 1735. 

On the fourth of July, 1776,

He pledged his Life, Fortune, and sacred Honour

To the INDEPENDENCE OF HIS COUNTRY.

On the third of September, 1783,

He affixed his seal to the definitive treaty with Great Britain,

Which acknowledged that independence,

And consummated the redemption of his pledge.

On the fourth of July, 1826,

He was summoned

To the Independence of Immortality

And to the JUDGMENT OF HIS GOD.

This House will bear witness to his piety;

This Town, his birth-place, to his munificence;

History to his patriotism;

Posterity to the depth and compass of his mind.

At his side

Sleeps, till the trump shall sound,

ABIGAIL,

His beloved and only wife,

Daughter of William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith.

In every relation of life a pattern

Of filial, conjugal, maternal, and social virtue.

Born November, 1744,

Deceased 28 October, 1818,

Aged 74.

———

Married 25 October, 1764.

During an union of more than half a century

They survived, in harmony of sentiment, principle and affection,

The tempests of civil commotion:

Meeting undaunted and surmounting

The terrors and trials of that revolution,

Which secured the freedom of their country;

Improved the condition of their times;

And brightened the prospects of futurity

To the race of man upon earth.

PILGRIM,

From lives thus spent thy earthly duties learn;

From fancy’s dreams to active virtue turn:

Let freedom, friendship, faith, thy soul engage,

And serve, like them, thy country and thy age.

J. Q. A.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Vol. 4.

ADAMS, John Huy, 1822-1881, politician, businessman, abolitionist, Illinois State Senator, 1854-1870.  Helped in founding of the Republican party.  Friend of Abraham Lincoln.  Father of famous social reformer and activist, Jane Adams.  (Adams, 1910; Berson, 2004; Elshtain, 2002; Knight, 2005; Linn, 2000)

ADAMS, John Quincy, 1767-1848, Massachusetts, sixth U.S. President (1825-1829), U.S. Congressman (1831-1848), U.S. Secretary of State, lawyer, anti-slavery leader, activist, abolitionist, son of second U.S. President John Adams.  Opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1819, which allowed the expansion of slavery in southern states.  Fought against the “Gag Rule” in Congress, which prevented discussion of the issue of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The Gag Rule was revoked in 1844.  (Adams, 1874; Bemis, 1956; Cable, 1971; Dumond, 1961, pp. 238, 243-244, 367-370; Filler, 1960, p. 57, 80, 82, 96, 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 164, 168, 208; Goodell, 1852; Hammond, 2011, pp. 25, 175, 176, 240, 248, 272, 273, 276, 380; Mason, 2006, pp. 3., 90, 93, 98, 165, 185, 187, 190, 200, 205, 214-222, 263n31, 383n32, 289n47; Miller, 1996; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 3, 6, 8, 10, 18-19, 24, 33, 39, 45, 137, 197, 248; Pease, 1965, pp. 260-267; Remini, 2002; Richards, 1986; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 40-41, 49, 45, 132, 153-154, 305; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 24-28. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 84-92.)

Biography from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, John Quincy, sixth president of the United States, b. in Braintree, Mass., 11 July, 1767; d. in Washington, D. C., 23 Feb., 1848. He was named for his mother's grandfather, John Quincy. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father to France, and was sent to school near Paris, where his proficiency in the French language and other studies soon became conspicuous. In the following year he returned to America, and back again to France with his father, whom, in August, 1780, he accompanied to Holland. After a few months at school in Amsterdam, he entered the university of Leyden. Two years afterward John Adams's secretary of legation, Francis Dana, was appointed minister to Russia, and the boy accompanied him as private secretary. After a stay of fourteen months, as Catharine's government refused to recognize Mr. Dana as minister, young Adams left St. Petersburg and travelled alone through Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany to France, spending six months in the journey. Arriving in Paris, he found his father busy with the negotiation of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and was immediately set to work as secretary, and aided in drafting the papers that “dispersed all possible doubt of the independence of his country.” In 1785, when his father was appointed minister to England, he decided not to stay with him in London, but to return at once to Massachusetts in order to complete his education at Harvard college. For an American career he believed an American education to be best fitted. Considering the immediate sacrifice of pleasure involved, it was a remarkably wise decision in a lad of eighteen. But Adams's character was already fully formed; he was what he remained throughout his life, a Puritan of the sternest and most uncompromising sort, who seemed to take a grim enjoyment in the performance of duty, especially when disagreeable. Returning home, he was graduated at Harvard college in 1788, and then studied law in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterward chief justice of Massachusetts. In 1791 he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and began the practice of law, the tedium of which he relieved by writing occasional articles for the papers. Under the signature of “Publicola” he criticised some positions taken by Thomas Paine in his “Rights of Man”; and these articles, when republished in England, were generally attributed to his father. In a further series of papers, signed “Marcellus,” he defended Washington's policy of neutrality; and in a third series, signed “Columbus,” he discussed the extraordinary behavior of Citizen Genet, whom the Jacobins had sent over to browbeat the Americans into joining France in hurling defiance at the world. These writings made him so conspicuous that in 1794 Washington appointed him minister to Holland, and two years later made an appointment transferring him to Portugal. Before he had started for the latter country his father became president of the United States and asked Washington's advice as to the propriety of promoting his own son by sending him to Berlin. Washington in strong terms recommended the promotion, declaring that in his opinion the young man would prove to be the ablest diplomat in the American service. In the fall of 1797 Mr. Adams accordingly took up his residence at the capital of Prussia. Shortly before this he had married Miss Louisa Johnson, a niece of Thomas Johnson, of Maryland. During his residence at Berlin Mr. Adams translated Wieland's “Oberon” into English. In 1798 he was commissioned to make a commercial treaty with Sweden. In 1800 he made a journey through Silesia, and wrote an account of it, which was published in London and afterward translated into German and French. When Jefferson became president, Mr. Adams's mission terminated. He resumed the practice of law in Boston, but in 1802 was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and next year was chosen to the senate of the United States instead of Timothy Pickering. The federalist party was then rent in twain by the feud between the partisans of John Adams and those of Hamilton, and the reception of the younger Adams in the senate was far from flattering. Affairs grew worse when, at the next vacancy, Pickering was chosen to be his uncongenial colleague. Mr. Adams was grossly and repeatedly insulted. Any motion he might make was sure to be rejected by the combined votes of republicans and Hamiltonians, though frequently the same motion, made soon afterward by somebody else, would be carried by a large majority. A committee of which he was a member would make and send in its report without even notifying him of its time and place of meeting. At first Mr. Adams was subjected to such treatment merely because he was the son of his father; but presently he rendered himself more and more amenable to it by manifesting the same independence of party ties that had made his father so unpopular. Independence in politics has always been characteristic of the Adams family, and in none has this been more strongly marked than in John Quincy Adams. His first serious difference with the federalist party was occasioned by his qualified approval of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana, a measure that was bitterly opposed and fiercely censured by nearly all the federalists, because it was feared it would add too much strength to the south. A much more serious difference arose somewhat later, on the question of the embargo. Questions of foreign rather than of domestic policy then furnished the burning subjects of contention in the United States. Our neutral commerce on the high seas, which had risen to very considerable proportions, was plundered in turn by England and by France, until its very existence was threatened. In May, 1806, the British government declared the northern coast of Europe, from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe, to be blockaded. By the Russian proclamation of 1780, which was then accepted by all civilized nations except Great Britain, such paper blockades were illegal; but British ships none the less seized and confiscated American vessels bound to any port on that coast. In November Napoleon issued his Berlin decree making a paper blockade of the whole British coast, whereupon French cruisers began seizing and confiscating American vessels on their way from British to French ports. Two months later England issued an order in council, forbidding neutrals to trade between any of her enemy's ports; and this was followed by orders decreeing fines or confiscation to all neutral ships daring to violate the edict. In December, 1807, Napoleon replied with the Milan decree, threatening to confiscate all ships bound to England, or which should have paid a fine to the British government or submitted to search at the hands of a British commander. All these decrees and orders were in flagrant violation of international law, and for a time they made the ocean a pandemonium of robbery and murder. Their effect upon American commerce was about the same as if both England and France had declared war against the United States. Their natural and proper effect upon the American people would have been seen in an immediate declaration of war against both England and France, save that our military weakness was then too manifest to make such a course anything but ridiculous. Between the animus of the two bullies by whom we were thus tormented there was little to choose; but in two respects England's capacity for injuring us was the greater. In the first place, she had more ships engaged in this highway robbery than France, and stronger ones; in the second place, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing between Americans and Englishmen, she was able to add the crowning wickedness of kidnapping American seamen. The wrath of the Americans was thus turned more against England than against France; and never perhaps in the revolutionary war had it waxed stronger than in the summer of 1807, when, in full sight of the American coast, the “Leopard” fired upon the “Chesapeake,” killed and wounded several of her crew, and violently carried away four of them. For this outrage the commander of the “Leopard” was promoted in the British service. In spite of all these things, the hatred of the federalists for France was so great that they were ready to put up with insult added to injury rather than attack the power that was warring against Napoleon. So far did these feelings carry them that Mr. John Lowell, a prominent federalist of Boston, was actually heard to defend the action of the “Leopard.” Such pusillanimity incensed Mr. Adams. “This was the cause,” he afterward said, “which alienated me from that day and forever from the councils of the federal party.” He tried to persuade the federalists of Boston to hold a meeting and pledge their support to the government in any measures, however serious, that it might see fit to adopt in order to curb the insolence of Great Britain. But these gentlemen were too far blinded by party feeling to respond to the call; whereupon Mr. Adams attended a republican meeting, at which he was put upon a committee to draft and report such resolutions. Presently the federalists bowed to the storm of popular feeling and held their meeting, at which Mr. Adams was also present and drafted resolutions. For his share in the proceedings of the republicans it was threatened that he should “have his head taken off for apostasy.” It was never of much use to threaten Mr. Adams. An extra session of congress was called in October to consider what was to be done. Mr. Jefferson's government was averse to war, for which the country was ill prepared, and it was thought that somewhat milder measures might harass England until she would submit to reason. For a year and a half a non-importation act had been in force; but it had proved no more effective than the non-importation agreements of 1768 and 1774. Now an embargo was laid upon all the shipping in American ports. The advantage of such a measure was very doubtful; it was damaging ourselves in the hope of damaging the enemy. The greatest damage fell upon the maritime states of New England, and there the vials of federalist wrath were poured forth with terrible fury upon Mr. Jefferson and the embargo. But the full measure of their ferocity was reserved for Mr. Adams, who had actually been a member of the committee that reported the bill, and had given it his most earnest support. All the choicest epithets of abuse were showered upon him; few men in our history have been more fiercely berated and reviled. His term of service in the senate was to expire on 3 March, 1809. In the preceding June the Massachusetts legislature chose Mr. Lloyd to succeed him, a proceeding that was intended and accepted as an insult. Mr. Adams instantly resigned, and Mr. Lloyd was chosen to fill the remainder of his term. In the course of the next month the republicans of his congressional district wished to elect him to the house of representatives, but he refused. In 1806 Mr. Adams had been appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard college, and in the intervals of his public duties had delivered lectures there, which were published in 1810, and for a time were held in esteem. 

One of Mr. Madison's first acts on succeeding to the presidency in 1809 was to nominate Mr. Adams minister to Russia. Since Mr. Dana's failure to secure recognition in 1782, the United States had had no minister in that country, and the new mission was now to be created. The senate at first declined to concur in creating the mission, but a few months later the objectors yielded, and Mr. Adams's nomination was confirmed. He was very courteously received by Alexander I., and his four years and a half in Russia passed very pleasantly. His diary gives us a vivid account of the Napoleonic invasion and its disastrous ending. In the autumn of 1812 the czar offered his services as mediator between the United States and Great Britain. War had only been declared between these powers three months before, but the American government promptly accepted the proposal, and, in the height of the popular enthusiasm over the naval victories of Hull and Decatur, sent Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to St. Petersburg to act as commissioners with Mr. Adams. The British government refused to accept the mediation of Russia, but proposed instead an independent negotiation, to which the United States agreed, and the commissioners were directed to meet at Ghent. Much time was consumed in these arrangements, while we were defeating England again and again on the sea, and suffering in return some humiliating reverses on land, until at last the commissioners met at Ghent, in August, 1814. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added to the American commission, while England was represented by Lord Gambier, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Goulburn. After four months of bitter wrangling, from which no good result could have been expected, terms of peace were suddenly agreed upon in December. In warding off the British attempts to limit our rights in the fisheries Mr. Adams played an important part, as his father had done in 1782. The war had been a drawn game, neither side was decisively victorious, and the treaty apparently left things much as before. Nothing was explicitly done to end the pretensions of England to the right of search and the impressment of seamen, yet the naval victories of the United States had taught the British a lesson, and these pretensions were never renewed. The treaty was a great disappointment to the British people, who had hoped to obtain some advantages, and Mr. Adams, for his share in it, was reviled by the London press in a tone which could not but be regarded as a compliment to his powers. After the conclusion of the treaty he visited Paris and witnessed the return of Napoleon from Elba and the exciting events that followed up to the eve of Waterloo. Here his wife and children joined him, after a tedious journey from St. Petersburg, not without distress and peril by the way. By this time Mr. Adams had been appointed commissioner, with Clay and Gallatin, to negotiate a new commercial treaty with England. This treaty was completed on 13 July, 1815; but already, on 26 May, when Mr. Adams arrived in London, he had received the news of his appointment as minister to England. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family between missions to England and treaties with that power is curious. First John Adams is minister, just after his share in the treaty that concluded the revolutionary war, then his son, just after the treaty that concluded the war of 1812-'15, and then the grandson is minister during the civil war and afterward takes part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question. 

After an absence of eight years, John Quincy Adams was called back to his native land to serve as secretary of state under President Monroe. A new era in American politics was dawning. The war which had just been concluded has sometimes been called our second war of independence; certainly the year 1815, which saw the end of the long strife between France and England, marks an important era in American history. Our politics ceased to be concerned mainly with foreign affairs. So suddenly were men's bones of political contention taken away from them that Monroe's presidency is traditionally remembered as the “era of good feeling.” So far as political parties were concerned, such an epithet is well applied; but as between prominent individuals struggling covertly to supplant one another, it was anything rather than an era of good feeling. Mr. Adams's principal achievement as secretary of state was the treaty with Spain, whereby Florida was ceded to the United States in consideration of $5,000,000, to be applied to the liquidation of outstanding claims of American merchants against Spain. By the same treaty the boundary between Louisiana and Mexico was established as running along the Sabine and Red rivers, the upper Arkansas, the crest of the Rocky mountains, and the 42d parallel. Mr. Adams defended the conduct of Gen. Jackson in invading Spanish Florida and hanging Arbuthnot and Ambrister. He supported the policy of recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies of Spanish America, and he was the principal author of what is known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” that the American continent is no longer open to colonization by European powers. His official report on weights and measures showed remarkable scientific knowledge. Toward the close of Monroe's first term came up the first great political question growing out of the purchase of Louisiana: Should Missouri be admitted to the union as a slave-state, and should slavery be allowed or prohibited in the vast territory beyond? After the Missouri compromise had passed through congress, and been submitted to President Monroe for his signature, two questions were laid before the cabinet. First, had congress the constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory? and, secondly, in prohibiting slavery “forever” in the territory north of Mason and Dixon's line, as prolonged beyond the Mississippi river, did the Missouri bill refer to this district only so long as it should remain under territorial government, or did it apply to such states as might in future be formed from it? To the first question the cabinet replied unanimously in the affirmative. To the second question Mr. Adams replied that the term “forever” really meant forever; but all his colleagues replied that it only meant so long as the district in question should remain under territorial government. Here for the first time we see Mr. Adams taking that firm stand in opposition to slavery which hereafter was to make him so famous. 

Mr. Monroe's second term of office had scarcely begun when the question of the succession came into the foreground. The candidates were John Quincy Adams, secretary of state; William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury; John C. Calhoun, secretary of war; and Henry Clay, speaker of the house of representatives. Shortly before the election Gen. Jackson's strength began to loom up as more formidable than the other competitors had supposed. Jackson was then at the height of his popularity as a military hero, Crawford was the most dexterous political manager in the country. Clay was perhaps the most persuasive orator. Far superior to these three in intelligence and character, Mr. Adams was in no sense a popular favorite. His manners were stiff and disagreeable; he told the truth bluntly, whether it hurt or not; and he never took pains to conciliate any one. The best of men in his domestic circle, outside of it he had few warm friends, but he seemed to have a talent for making enemies. When Edward Everett asked him if he was “determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe,” he replied that he “should do absolutely nothing,” and from this resolution he never swerved. He desired the presidency as much as any one who was ever chosen to that high office; but his nature was such that unless it should come to him without scheming of his own, and as the unsolicited expression of popular trust in him, all its value would be lost. Under the Circumstances, it was a remarkable evidence of the respect felt for his lofty character and distinguished services that he should have obtained the presidency at all. The result of the election showed 99 votes for Jackson. 84 for Adams, 41 for Crawford, 37 for Clay. Mr. Calhoun, who had withdrawn from the contest for the presidency, received 182 votes for the vice-presidency, and was elected. The choice of the president was thrown into the house of representatives, and Mr. Clay now used his great influence in favor of Mr. Adams, who was forthwith elected. When Adams afterward made Clay his secretary of state, the disappointed partisans of Jackson pretended that there had been a bargain between the two, that Adams had secured Clay's assistance by promising him the first place in the cabinet, and thus, according to a usage that seemed to be establishing itself, placing him in the line of succession for the next presidency. The peppery John Randolph characterized this supposed bargain as “a coalition between Blifil and Black George, the Furitan and the blackleg.” There never was a particle of foundation for this reckless charge, and it has long since been disproved. 

During Monroe's administration the Federalist party had become extinct. In the course of John Quincy Adams's administration the new division of parties into Whigs and Democrats began to grow up, the Whigs favoring internal improvements, the national bank, and a high tariff on importations, while the Democrats opposed all such measures on the ground that they were incompatible with a strict construction of the constitution. In its relation to such questions Mr. Adams's administration was Whig, and thus arrayed against itself not only all the southern planters, but also the ship-owners of New England and the importers of New York. But a new and powerful tendency now came in to overwhelm such an administration as that of Adams. The so-called “spoils system” was already germinating, and the time had come when it could be put into operation. Mr. Adams would have nothing to say to such a system. He would not reward the men who worked for him, and he would not remove from office the men who most vigorously opposed him. He stood on his merits, asked no favors and granted none; and was, on the whole, the most independent president we have had since Washington. Jackson and his friends promised their supporters a share in the government offices, in which a “clean sweep” was to be made by turning out the present incumbents. The result of the election of 1828 showed that for the time Jackson's method was altogether the more potent; since he obtained 178 electoral votes, against 83 for Adams. 

The close of his career as president was marked by an incident that increased the odium in which Mr. Adams was held by so many of the old federalist families of Boston. In the excitement of the election the newspapers devoted to Jackson swarmed with mischievous paragraphs designed to injure Adams's reputation. Among other things it was said that, in 1808, he had suspected some of the federalist leaders of entertaining a scheme for carrying New England out of the union, and, fearing that such a scheme would be promoted by hatred of the embargo, and that in case of its success the seceded states would almost inevitably be driven into alliance with Great Britain, he communicated his suspicions to President Jefferson and other leading republicans. These tales, published by unscrupulous newspapers twenty years after the event, grossly distorted what Mr. Adams had actually said and done; and thirteen eminent Massachusetts federalists addressed to him an open letter, demanding that he should bring in a bill of particulars supported by evidence. Adams replied by stating the substance of what he had really said, but declining to mention names or to point out the circumstances upon which his suspicion had been based. In preserving this reticence he was actuated mainly by unwillingness to stir up a furious controversy under circumstances in which it could do no good. But his adversaries made the mistake of attributing his forbearance to dread of ill consequences to himself, a motive by which, it is safe to say, Mr. Adams was never influenced on any occasion whatever. So the thirteen gentlemen returned to the attack. Mr. Adams then wrote out a full statement of the case, completely vindicating himself, and bringing forward more than enough evidence to justify any such suspicions as he had entertained and guardedly stated. After finishing this pamphlet he concluded not to publish it, but left it among his papers. It has lately been published by Prof. Henry Adams, in his “Documents relating to New England Federalism,” and is not only of great historical importance, but is one of the finest specimens of political writing to be found in the English language. 

Although now an ex-president, Mr. Adams did not long remain in private life. The greatest part of his career still lay before him. Owing to the mysterious disappearance of William Morgan, who had betrayed some of the secrets of the Masonic order, there was in some of the northern states a sudden and violent prejudice against the Freemasons and secret societies in general. An “anti-mason party” was formed, and by its votes Mr. Adams was, in 1831, elected to congress, where he remained, representing the same district of Massachusetts, until his death in 1848. He was shortly afterward nominated by the anti-masons for the governorship of Massachusetts, but was defeated in the legislature, there being no choice by the people. In congress he occupied a perfectly independent attitude. He was one of those who opposed President Jackson's high-handed treatment of the bank, but he supported the president in his firm attitude toward the South Carolina nullifiers and toward France. In 1835, as the French government delayed in paying over the indemnity of $5,000,000 which had been agreed upon by the treaty of 1831 for plunder of American shipping in the Napoleonic wars, Jackson threatened, in case payment should be any longer deferred, to issue letters of marque and reprisal against French commerce. This bold policy, which was successful in obtaining the money, enlisted Mr. Adams's hearty support. He defended Jackson as he had defended Jefferson on the occasion of the embargo; and this time, as before, his course was disapproved in Massachusetts, and he lost a seat in the U. S. senate. He had been chosen to that office by the state senate, but the lower house did not concur, and before the question was decided the news of his speech in favor of reprisals turned his supporters against him. He was thus left in the house of representatives more independent of party ties than ever, and was accordingly enabled to devote his energies to the aid of the abolitionists, who were now beginning to appear conspicuously upon the scene. At that time it was impossible for the opponents of slavery to effect much. The only way in which they could get their case before congress was by presenting petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Unwilling to receive such petitions, or to allow any discussion on the dreaded question, congress in 1836 enacted the cowardly “gag-rule,” that “all petitions, memorials, resolutions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table; and that no further, action whatever shall be had thereon.” After the yeas and nays had been ordered on this, when Mr. Adams's name was called he rose and said: “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the constitution of the United States, the rules of this house, and the rights of my constituents.” The house sought to drown his words with loud shrieks and yells of “Order!” “Order!” but he raised his voice to a shout and defiantly finished his sentence. The rule was adopted by a vote of 117 to 68, but it did more harm than good to the pro-slavery party. They had put themselves in an untenable position, and furnished Mr. Adams with a powerful weapon which he used against them without mercy. As a parliamentary debater he has had few if any superiors; in knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the house who could be compared with him; he was always master of himself, even at the white heat of anger to which he often rose; he was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible to fear. A single-handed fight against all the slave-holders in the house was something upon which he was always ready to enter, and he usually came off with the last word. Though the vituperative vocabulary of the English language seemed inadequate to express the hatred and loathing with which the pro-slavery party regarded him, though he was more than once threatened with assassination, nevertheless his dauntless bearing and boundless resources compelled the respect of his bitterest opponents, and members from the south, with true chivalry, sometimes confessed it. Every session he returned to the assault upon the gag-rule, until the disgraceful measure was rescinded in 1845. This part of Mr. Adams's career consisted of a vast number of small incidents, which make a very interesting and instructive chapter in American history, but can not well be epitomized. He came to serve as the rallying-point in congress for the ever-growing anti-slavery sentiment, and may be regarded, in a certain sense, as the first founder of the new republican party. He seems to have been the first to enunciate the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln afterward rested his great proclamation of emancipation. In a speech in congress in 1836 he said: “From the instant that your slave-holding states become the theatre of war—civil, servile, or foreign—from that instant the war powers of the constitution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with.” As this principle was attacked by the southern members, Mr. Adams from time to time reiterated it, especially in his speech of 14 April, 1842, on the question of war with England and Mexico, when he said: " Whether the war be civil, servile, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations: I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the states where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves.”  

After the rescinding of the gag-rule Mr. Adams spoke less frequently. In November, 1846, he had a shock of paralysis, which kept him at home four months. On 21 Feb., 1848, while he was sitting in the house of representatives, came the second shock. He was carried into the speaker's room, where he lay two days, and died on the 23d. His last words were: “This is the last of earth; I am content.” See “Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams,” by William H. Seward (Auburn, 1849); “Life of John Quincy Adams,” by Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1858); “Diary of John Quincy Adams,” edited by Charles F. Adams, 12 vols., 8vo (Philadelphia, 1874-'7); and “John Quincy Adams,” by John T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1882). 

The steel portrait of Mr. Adams, facing page 24, is from a picture by Marchant, in the possession of the New York Historical Society. The mansion represented on page 26 is the Adams homestead at Quincy, in which the presidents lived, now the summer residence of Charles Francis Adams. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 17-23.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

IN giving a sketch of the career of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, the limits of this work require us to confine the narrative to a bare recital of the successive leading events of his life. It is difficult to contemplate his history, without yielding to the impulses of the feelings and the imagination, and expatiating on the interesting reflections and meditations which, at every stage of his course, crowd into the mind, and demand expression. So protracted, however, has been his public life, so full is it of important services, and so various are the stations in which his great talents have been displayed, that the concisest narration of them will be kept, with difficulty, from overrunning our pages. His illustrious parents have been duly commemorated in this work; and it will therefore be unnecessary to dwell upon their merits, or even to mention their names. He was born in Braintree, in Massachusetts, in that part of the town since incorporated by the name of Quincy, on Saturday, July 11, 1767, and was baptised the next day, in the congregational church of the first Parish of Braintree. He was named John Quincy, in consequence of the interesting circumstance that his maternal great-grandfather of that name, who was the owner of Mount Wollaston, and a leading civil and military character of his times, in honor of whom the town of Quincy received its name, was actually dying at the time of his birth.

In the eleventh year of his age he accompanied his father to France, who was sent by Congress, as joint commissioner, with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, to the court of Versailles. They sailed from Boston in February, 1778, and arrived at Bourdeaux early in April. While in France, he was, of course, put to school, and instructed in the language of the country as well as in the Latin. After about eighteen months, they returned to America in the French frigate La Sensible, in company with the Chevalier de la Luzerne, who came out as the minister of France to the United States. They arrived in Boston on the first of August, 1779. In November of the same year his father was again despatched to Europe, for the discharge of the diplomatic services, which he rendered to the cause of America with such signal and memorable ability and success. He took his son out with him. It seemed to be the determination of that great patriot, not only to do and to dare every thing himself for his struggling country, but to keep his son continually at his side; so that, by sharing his perils and witnessing his toils, he might become imbued with his own exalted enthusiasm in the cause of liberty, and be prepared to promote and vindicate it with all the energies of his genius and all the sensibility of his soul. It is easy to imagine the exciting influences which must have operated upon the character of a youth at that susceptible and impressible age, accompanying such a father through the scenes in which he acted while in Europe, and the dangers he encountered in his voyages across the Atlantic. In one of these voyages, the ship in which they were embarked was under the command of the famous naval hero Commodore Tucker, and the whole passage was a succession of hazardous exposures and hair-breadth escapes from hostile squadrons and tempestuous gales.

While the younger Adams was receiving the impressions made upon him by a participation in the patriotic adventures and exertions of his father, and imbibing the wisdom and intrepid energy of spirit for which he was so distinguished, the same effect was still more heightened and deepened by the influence exerted upon him by the inculcations and exhortations to every public and private virtue contained in the letters of his mother. When he was thirteen years of age, while in France with his father, she addressed him in the following noble strains:—“It is your lot, my son, to owe your existence among a people who have made a glorious defence of their invaded liberties, and who, aided by a generous and powerful ally, with the blessing of heaven, will transmit this inheritance to ages yet unborn: nor ought it to be one of the least of your excitements towards exerting every power and faculty of your mind, that you have a parent who has taken so large a share in this contest, and discharged the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction as to be honored with the important embassy that at present calls him abroad. The strict and inviolate regard you have ever paid to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from her dictates; but add justice, fortitude, and every manly virtue which can adorn a good citizen, do honor to your country, and render your parents supremely happy, particularly your ever affectionate mother.”

The opportunities and privileges of an education, under such auspices, were not thrown away upon him, as the incidents of his subsequent career most amply prove.

In going to Europe this second time, he embarked with his father at Boston, in the same French frigate, La Sensible, bound to Brest; but as the ship sprung a leak in a gale of wind, it was necessary to make the first port they could, which was Ferrol in Spain. They travelled from that place to Paris by land, and arrived there in January, 1780. The son, of course, was immediately put to school. In July of that year, Mr. Adams removed to Holland. There his son was first placed in the public city school at Amsterdam, and afterwards at the University at Leyden. In July, 1781, Mr. Francis Dane, who had accompanied John Adams as Secretary of the embassy with which he was charged, received the commission of minister plenipotentiary to the Empress of Russia, and took JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, then fourteen years of age, with him as his private Secretary. Here the younger Adams remained until October 1782, when he left Mr. Dane at St. Petersburg, and returned through Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, and Bremen, to Holland. Upon this journey he employed the whole winter, spending considerable time by the way, in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Hamburg. He reached the Hague in April, 1783, and continued several months in Holland, until his father took him to Paris, where he was at the signing of the treaty of peace, which took place in September of that year, and from that time to May, 1785, he was, for the most part, with his father in England, Holland, and France.

At his own solicitations, his father permitted him, when eighteen years of age, to return to his native country. Soon after reaching America, he entered Harvard University, at an advanced standing, and was graduated with distinguished honor, as Bachelor of Arts, in 1787. He then entered the office of the celebrated Theophilus Parsons, at Newbury Port, afterwards chief justice of Massachusetts; and after the usual period of three years spent in the study of the law, he entered the profession, and established himself in Boston.

He remained in that situation four years, occupying himself industriously in his office, extending his acquaintance with the great principles of law, and also taking part in the public questions which then occupied the attention of his countrymen. In the summer of 1791 he published a series of papers in the Boston Centinel, under the signature of Publicola, containing remarks upon the first part of Paine's Rights of Man. They suggested doubts in reference to the favorable issue of the French Revolution, at a time when most other men saw nothing but good in that awakening event. The issue proved the sagacity of Publicola. These pieces were at first ascribed to his father. They were reprinted in England.

In April, 1793, on the first information of war between Great Britain and France, and before Washington had published his proclamation of neutrality, or it was known that such a step was contemplated by him, Mr. ADAMS published in the Boston Centinel three articles signed Marcellus, the object of which was to prove that the duty and interest of the United States required them to remain neutral in that war. In these papers he developed the two principles, which have ever been the basis of his creed as a statesman; the one is UNION at home, the other INDEPENDENCE of all entangling alliances with any foreign states whatever.

In the winter of 1793-4 he published another series of political essays, confirming, and more fully developing these views, and vindicating the course of President Washington in reference to the proceedings of the French minister, Genet.

In May, 1794, he was appointed by Washington, without any intimation of such a design, made either to him or to his father, minister resident to the United Netherlands. It was supposed at the time that he was selected in consequence of his having been commended to the favorable notice of Washington, as a suitable person for such an employment, by Mr. Jefferson.

From 1794 to 1801 he was in Europe, employed in diplomatic business, and as a public minister, in Holland, England, and Prussia. Just as President Washington was retiring from office, he appointed him minister plenipotentiary to the court of Portugal. While on his way to Lisbon, he received a new commission, changing his destination to Berlin. He resided in Berlin from November 1797 to April 1801, and while there concluded a highly important treaty of commerce with Prussia, thus accomplishing the object of his mission. He was then recalled, just before the close of his father's administration, and arrived in Philadelphia in September, 1801.

In 1802 he was elected, from the Boston district, a member of the Massachusetts Senate, and was soon after appointed, by the legislature of that state, a senator in the Congress of the United States for six years, from the 4th of March, 1803. As his views of public duty led him to adopt a course which he had reason to believe was disagreeable to the legislature of the State he represented, he resigned his seat in March, 1808. In March, 1809, President Madison nominated him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Russia.

Some time previous to this, however, in 1806, he had been appointed Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard University, at Cambridge in Massachusetts. So extraordinary were his powers of elocution, so fervid his imaginative faculties, and so rich his resources of literature and language, that his lectures, which were afterwards published in two octavo volumes, were thronged not only by the students of the university, but by large numbers of the admirers of eloquence and genius, who came from Boston and the neighboring towns to listen to them. During his whole life Mr. ADAMS has cultivated the graces of elocution, and, in addition to his profound and varied knowledge of the sciences, of the ancient and modern languages, and of the literature and history of all nations, is an eminent Orator as well as Poet.

While in Russia, he furnished to the Port Folio, printed in Philadelphia, and to which, from the beginning to the end, he was an industrious anonymous contributor, a series of letters, entitled a “Journal of a Tour through Silesia.” These letters were republished in London, without the permission of the proprietor of the Port Folio, in one volume octavo. They were reviewed in the journals of the day, and translated into French and German.

Mr. ADAMS signalized himself while in Russia by an energetic, faithful, and wise discharge of the trust committed to him. He succeeded in making such an impression upon that government, by his reasonings and influence, that it has ever since been actuated by a feeling of kindness towards the United States, which has been of incalculable benefit to this country. It was through his instrumentality that the Russian Court was induced to take active measures to promote a pacification between England and the United States during the last war. When the proper time came, he was named at the head of the five commissioners who were appointed by President Madison to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. This celebrated diplomatic transaction took place at Ghent, in December, 1814. Mr. Adams then proceeded, in conjunction with Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin, who had also been associated with him in concluding the treaty of peace, to negotiate a convention of commerce with Great Britain; and he was forthwith appointed by President Madison minister plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James.

It is a most remarkable coincidence that, as his father took the leading part in negotiating the treaty that terminated the Revolutionary war with Great Britain, and first discharged the office of American ambassador to London, so he was at the head of the commission that negotiated the treaty that brought the second war with Great Britain to a close, and sustained the first mission to that country upon the return of peace. After having occupied that post until the close of President Madison’s administration, he was at length called home, in 1817, to the head of the department of State, at the formation of the cabinet of President Monroe.

Mr. ADAMS’S career as a foreign minister terminated at this point. It has never been paralleled, or at all approached, either in the length of time it covered, the number of courts at which he represented his country, or the variety and importance of the services he rendered. His first appointment to the office of a minister plenipotentiary was received at the hands of George Washington, who, in nominating him, acted in accordance with the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson. James Madison employed him in the weightiest and most responsible trusts during his whole administration, selected him to represent the United States at the two most powerful courts in the world, St. Petersburg and London, and committed to his leading agency the momentous duty of arranging a treaty of peace with Great Britain. It is enough to say, that throughout this long and brilliant career of foreign public service, he deserved, and received from his country, the encomium which Washington pronounced upon him, when, in 1797, he declared him “the most valuable public character we have abroad, and the ablest of all our diplomatic corps.”

The public approbation of Mr. Monroe’s act in placing him at the head of his cabinet, was well expressed by General Jackson, at the time, when he said that he was “the fittest person for the office; a man who would stand by the country in the hour of danger.” While Secretary of State, an office which he held during the eight years of President Monroe’s administration, he discharged his duties in such a manner as to increase the confidence of his countrymen in his ability and patriotism. Under his influence, the claims on Spain were adjusted, Florida ceded to the Union, and the republics of South America recognised. It will be the more appropriate duty of his future biographer to present a full view of the vast amount of labor which he expended, in the public service, while managing the department of state.

In the Presidential election, which took place in the fall of 1824, Mr. ADAMS was one of the candidates. No candidate received a majority of electoral votes. When, on the 9th of February, 1825, the two houses of Congress met in convention, in the hall of the House of Representatives, to open, and count, and declare the electoral votes, it was found that Andrew Jackson had 99 votes, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 84 votes, William H. Crawford, 41 votes, and Henry Clay 37 votes. According to the requirements of the constitution, the Senate then withdrew, and the House remained to ballot for a President until a choice should be effected. They were to vote by States; the election was limited to the three candidates who had the highest electoral votes, and the ballotting was to continue without adjournment until some one of the three had received the votes of a majority of the States. As Mr. ADAMS had received as many popular votes as General Jackson, the circumstance that the latter had obtained a large electoral vote had not so much weight as it otherwise might have had; and when the ballotting was about to begin, it was wholly uncertain which would be the successful candidate. The whole number of States was twenty-four. The votes of thirteen States were necessary for a choice. At the first ballot, it was found that Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Louisiana, thirteen states, had voted for “JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, OF MASSACHUSETTS;” and he was accordingly elected PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES for four years from the 4th of March, 1825. A committee was appointed forthwith to inform him of his election, who, the next day, reported the following letter in reply to the communication:

“GENTLEMEN,

“In receiving this testimonial from the Representatives of the people and states of this Union, I am deeply sensible to the circumstances under which it has been given. All my predecessors in the high station, to which the favor of the House now calls me, have been honored with majorities of the electoral voices in their primary colleges. It has been my fortune to be placed, by the divisions of sentiment prevailing among our countrymen on this occasion, in competition, friendly and honorable, with three of my fellow-citizens, all justly enjoying, in eminent degrees, the public favor: and of whose worth, talents, and services, no one entertains a higher and more respectful sense than myself. The names of two of them were, in the fulfilment of the provisions of the constitution, presented to the selection of the House in concurrence with my own; names closely associated with the glory of the nation, and one of them further recommended by a larger minority of the primary electoral suffrages than mine. In this state of things, could my refusal to accept the trust, thus delegated to me, give an immediate opportunity to the people to form and to express, with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object of their preference, I should not hesitate to decline the acceptance of this eminent charge, and to submit the decision of this momentous question again to their determination. But the constitution itself has not so disposed of the contingency which would arise in the event of my refusal; I shall therefore repair to the post assigned me by the call of my country, signified through her constitutional organs; oppressed with the magnitude of the task before me, but cheered with the hope of that generous support from my fellow-citizens, which, in the vicissitudes of a life devoted to their service, has never failed to sustain me—confident in the trust, that the wisdom of the Legislative Councils will guide and, direct me in the path of my official duty, and relying, above all, upon the superintending Providence of that Being ‘in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways.’

“Gentlemen: I pray you to make acceptable to the House, the assurance of my profound gratitude for their confidence, and to accept yourselves my thanks for the friendly terms in which you have communicated their decision.

“JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.”

“Washington, 10th Feb. 1825.”

The time is approaching when justice will be done to the administration of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. The passions of that day are already fast subsiding, and the parties and combinations that arose under the exciting influences of the times, have long since been dissolved and scattered. The clear verdict of posterity may almost be heard, even now, in the general acknowledgment of its merits by the people of the country, in all its various sections. In the relations he sustained to the members of his cabinet, in his communications to the two houses, and in all his proceedings, there is a uniform manifestation of wisdom, industry, moderation, and devoted patriotism. Of course we do not speak of party questions, or refer to the operations or bearings of the parties of that period; but say only what we conscientiously believe will be assented to heartily by candid and honorable men of all parties. The great effort of his administration was to mature, into a permanent system, the application of all the superfluous revenue of the Union to internal improvement. This policy was first suggested in a resolution introduced by him, and adopted by the Senate of the United States in 1806; and was fully unfolded in his first message to Congress in 1825. It will be the duty of the philosophical historian of the country, a half century hence, to contrast the probable effects upon the general prosperity, which would have been produced by such a system of administration, regularly and comprehensively carried out, during the intermediate time, by the government of the Union, with what will then be seen to be the results of the policy which has prevailed over it.

In retiring from the Presidency in 1829, Mr. ADAMS returned to his family mansion in Quincy, where he remained, in quiet retirement, until he was called into public life, once more, by the people of the congressional district to which he belonged. He took his seat in the House of Representatives of the United States in 1831, where he continues to this day in the most indefatigable discharge of the duties of his station. Mr. Adams is now in his seventy first year. However much some of his opinions may be disliked by large numbers of his countrymen; however strenuous the collision into which he is, from time to time, brought with those whose policy or views he may oppose; there is but one sentiment of admiration, throughout the entire Union, of the vigor, the activity, the intrepidity, the patience and perseverance of labor, the talent, the learning, and the eloquence which he continually exhibits. He knows neither fear nor fatigue; prompt, full, and fervid in debate, he is ever at his post; no subject arises upon which he does not throw light, and few discussions occur which are not enlivened by the flashings of his genius and invigorated by the energy of his spirit. While he belongs to no party, all parties in turn feel the power of his talents; and all, it is probable, recognize him as an extremely useful as well as interesting member of the great legislative assembly of the nation.

He has now reached the period of life when most men begin, if not to lose their power to engage in the arduous struggles of life, at least to lose their interest in them. But it is not so with him. Neither his natural force nor his natural fervor has abated. His speeches and writings are still as full of fancy and of feeling as they were in his early manhood. As a scholar, his attainments are various, we might almost say universal, and profound. As a political controversial writer, he never yet has found his equal; and his services as a public orator are still called for on great occasions, when he comes forward in all the strength of his intellectual energy, and with the imperishable richness and inexhaustible abundance of his rhetorical stores. When Congress were apprized of the death of General Lafayette, the unanimous voice of both Houses summoned him to the high and memorable duty of pronouncing their grateful eulogium upon that friend of America and champion of mankind. And at the call of the municipal authorities of the city of Boston, he has pronounced funeral orations in commemoration of the departed worth of Presidents Monroe and Madison. All his other attainments and merits are crowned by a Christian faith and profession.

In addition to his services in her legislative halls, his country still expects other invaluable benefactions from the genius and learning of this remarkable man; and is strong in the hope that, in obedience to that profound and reverential regard which he has ever shown to the calls of patriotic, philanthropic, and filial duty, he will not close his long line of illustrious services, without making a noble contribution to the History of United America, and of the great men who achieved her independence.                                                                         C. W. U.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Vol. 4.

ADAMS, William, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, 1840-42

ALCOTT, Amos Bronson, 1799-1888, abolitionist, educator, writer, philosopher, reformer.  Opposed the Mexican American War and the extension of slavery into Texas.  His home was a station on the Underground Railroad.  His second daughter was noted author Louisa May Alcott, who was also opposed to slavery.  Friend of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips.  (Baker, 1996; Bedell, 1980; Dahlstrand, 1982; Matteson, 2007; Schreiner, 2006; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 40-41; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 139-141)

ALCOTT, Amos Bronson, educator, b. in Wolcott, Conn., 29 Nov., 1799. His father was a farmer. While yet a boy he was provided with a trunk of various merchandise, and set out to make his way in the south. He landed at Norfolk, Va., and went among the plantations, talking with the people and reading their books. They liked him as a companion, and were glad to hold discussions with him on intellectual subjects. They would keep him under their roofs for weeks, reading and conversing, while he forgot all about his commercial duties. But when he returned to the north his employer discovered he had not sold five dollars' worth of his stock. He relinquished his trade in 1823, and established an infant school, which immediately attracted attention. His method of teaching was by conversation, not by books. In 1828 he went to Boston and established another school, showing singular skill and sympathy in his methods of teaching· young children. His success caused him to be widely known, and a sketch of him and his methods, under the title of “A Record of Mr. Alcott's School,” by E. P. Peabody, was published in Boston in 1834 (3d ed., revised, 1874). This was followed in 1836 by a transcript of the colloquies of the children with their teacher, in “Conversations with Children on the Gospel.” His school was so far in advance of the thought of the day that it was denounced by the press, and as a result he gave it up and removed to Concord, Mass., where he devoted himself to the study of natural theology, reform in education, diet, and civil and social institutions. In order to disseminate his reformatory views more thoroughly, he went upon the lecture platform, where he was an attractive speaker, and his personal worth and originality of thought always secured him a respectful hearing. In 1842 he went to England, on the invitation of James P. Greaves, of London, the friend and fellow-laborer of Pestalozzi in Switzerland. Before his arrival Mr. Greaves died, but Mr. Alcott was cordially received by Mr. Greaves's friends, who had given the name of “Alcott House” to their school at Ham, near London. On his return to America, he brought with him two English friends, Charles Lane and H. G. Wright. Mr. Lane bought an estate near Harvard, in Worcester co., Mass., which he named “Fruitlands,” and there all went for the purpose of founding a community, but the enterprise was a failure. Messrs. Lane and Wright soon returned to England, and the property was sold. Mr. Alcott removed to Boston, and afterward returned to Concord. He has since then led the life of a peripatetic philosopher, conversing in cities and villages, wherever invited, on divinity, human nature, ethics, dietetics, and a wide range of practical questions. These conversations, which were at first casual, gradually assumed a more formal character. The topics were often printed on cards, and the company met at a fixed time and place. Of late years they have attracted much attention. Mr. Alcott has all through his life attached great importance to diet and government of the body, and still more to race and complexion. He has been regarded as a leader in the transcendental style of thought, but in later years has been claimed as a convert to orthodox Christianity. He has published “Tablets” (1868); “Concord Days,” personal reminiscences of the town (1872); “Table Talk” (1877); and “Sonnets and Canzonets” (1877), besides numerous contributions to periodical literature, including papers entitled “Orphic Sayings” in “The Dial” (Boston, 1839-'42). After taking up his residence in Concord, he allowed the peculiarities of his mind to find expression in quaint and curious arrangement of his grounds. The fence enclosing them, built entirely by himself, is made wholly of pine boughs, knotted, gnarled, and twisted in every conceivable shape, no two pieces being alike. They seem to be the result of many years of fragmentary collection in his walks. The engraving presented on the previous page is a view of Mr. Alcott's home in Concord, Mass. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

ALCOTT, Louisa May, 1832-1888, writer, opponent of slavery, feminist.  Author of Little Women: Or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (1868).  Daughter of abolitionist Amos Bronson Alcott. Their home was a station on the Underground Railroad.  (Eisenlein, 2001; MacDonald, 1983; Saxton, 1977; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 41; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 141)

ALCOTT, Louisa May, author, b. in Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia, 29 Nov., 1832. She is a daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. When she was about two years of age her parents removed to Boston, and in her eighth year to Concord, Mass. At the age of eleven she was brought under the influence of the community that endeavored to establish itself near Harvard, in Worcester co. Thoreau was for a time her teacher; but she was instructed mainly by her father. She began to write for publication at the age of sixteen, but with no marked success for fifteen years. During that time she devoted ten years to teaching. In 1862 she went to Washington as a volunteer nurse, and for many months labored in the military hospitals. At this time she wrote to her mother and sisters letters containing sketches of hospital life and experience, which on her return were revised and published in book form (Boston, 1863), and attracted much attention. In 1866 she went to Europe to recuperate her health, which had been seriously impaired by her hospital work, and on her return in 1867 she wrote “Little Women,” which was published the following year, and made her famous. The sales in less than three years amounted to 87,000 copies. Her characters are drawn from life, and are full of the buoyant, free, hopeful New England spirit which marks her own enthusiastic love for nature, freedom, and life. Her other stories are conceived in the same vein, and have been almost equally popular. They are: “Flower Fables or Fairy Tales” (Boston, 1855); '”Hospital Sketches,” her first book, now out of print, reissued with other stories (1869); “An Old-Fashioned Girl” (1869); “Little Men” (1871); a series called “Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag” (1871-'82), containing “My Boys,” “Shawl Straps,” “Cupid and Chow-Chow,” “My Girls,” “Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore,” and “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving”; “Work, A Story of Experience” (1873); “Eight Cousins” (1874); “Rose in Bloom” (1876); “Silver Pitchers” (1876); “Under the Lilacs” (1878); “Jack and Gill” (1880); “Moods” (1864), reissued in a revised edition (1881); “Proverb Stories” (1882); “Spinning- Wheel Stories” (1884); “Lulu's Library,” the first of a new series (1885). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

ALDEN, Joseph W., 1807-1885, educator, clergyman, writer (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 42. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 147-148.)

ALDEN, Joseph, educator, b. in Cairo, N.Y., 4 Jan., 1807; d. in New York, 30 Aug., 1885. At the age of fourteen he began teaching in a public school and showed great ability in this direction. He was graduated at Union college in 1829, and studied at Princeton theological seminary, where for two years he was tutor. In 1834 he was ordained pastor of the Congregational church in Williamstown, Mass., and subsequently (1835-'52) became professor of Latin, and then of rhetoric and political economy, in Williams college. Prom 1852 to 1857 he was professor of mental and moral philosophy at Lafayette college. In 1857 he became president of Jefferson college, and from 1867 to 1872 he was principal of the Albany, N. Y., normal school. He was a prolific writer, and prepared more than 70 volumes, mostly Sunday-school literature. Among his works are “The Example of Washington,” “Citizen's Manual,” “Christian Ethics,” “The Science of Government,” “Elements of Intellectual Philosophy,” and “First Steps in Political Economy.” He was also a constant contributor to periodical literature and for some time editor of the New York "Observer” and of the Philadelphia “Christian Library.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 42.

ALDIS, Asa, St. Albans, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-37

ALKINSON, Stanwood,   Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1855-1860

ALLAN, William T., Alabama, clergyman, abolitionist leader, Oberlin College, Illinois, anti-slavery agent.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 92-93, 160-164, 185-186; Filler, 1960, p. 68)

ALLEN, Abram, Clinton C., Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-52

ALLEN, Abram, Putnam County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39

ALLEN, Albert G, , Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Treasurer, 1835-36

ALLEN, Charles, Worcester, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1850

ALLEN, James, Bangor, Maine, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64

ALLEN, John, Seedoud, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice President, 1839-40

ALLEN, Moses, New York, New York, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1833-1841.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

ALLEN, Reverend George, 1808-1876, Worcester, Massachusetts, educator, theologian, anti-slavery agent.  Lectured extensively against slavery. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 187, 285, 393n20; Rice, 1883; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 99, 104, 153; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 52. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 190-191.)

ALLEN, George, educator, b. in Milton, Vt., 17 Dec., 1808; d. in Worcester, Mass., 28 May, 1876. He was graduated at the university of Vermont in 1827, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1831. Subsequently he studied theology, and from 1834 to 1837 was rector of an Episcopal church at St. Albans, Vt. In 1837 he became professor of ancient languages in Delaware college, Newark, Del., and in 1845 professor of ancient languages, and then of Greek alone, in the university of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Prof. Allen published a “Life of Philidor,” the chess-player (Philadelphia, 1863). In 1847 he became a Catholic. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 52.

ALLEN, Richard, 1760-1831, clergyman, free African American, former slave.  Founder, Free African Society, in 1787.  Founded Bethel African Methodist Church (AME) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1794.  (Allen, 1983; Conyers, 2000; Dumond, 1961, pp. 170, 328-329; George, 1973; Hammond, 2011, p. 75; Mabee, 1970, pp. 133, 187; Nash, 1991, pp. 127, 160, 171, 182, 193, 198-199; Payne, 1981; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 25, 26, 28, 156-160, 294-295, 559-560; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 54-55. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 204-205.)

ALLEN, William, Buffalo, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slaery Society (AASS).

ALLEN, William G., b. 1820, free African American abolitionist, publisher and editor. Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in December 1833.  Publisher with Henry Highland Garnet of The National Watchman, Troy, New York, founded 1842. (Filler, 1960, pp. 142, 249, 261; Mabee, 1970, pp. 107, 109; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 48; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 346; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 127)

ALLEN, William T., Huntsville, Alabama, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-37

ALLEY, John B., 1817-1896, Lynn, Massachusetts, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1876, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Alley was a member of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. (Congressional Globe)

ALLISON, William Boyd, 1829-1909, Republican, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1863-1871, U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 58; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 220-222; Congressional Globe)

ALLISON, William Boyd, senator, b. in Perry, Wayne co., 2 March, 1829. He spent his early years on a farm, and was educated at Alleghany college, Pennsylvania, and Western Reserve college, Ohio. He studied law, and practised in Ohio until 1857, when he went to Dubuque, Iowa. He was a delegate to the Chicago convention of 1860, a member of the governor's staff in 1861, and rendered valuable service in raising troops for the war. He was elected in 1862 to the 38th congress, as a republican, and returned for the three succeeding congresses, serving in the house of representatives from 7 Dec., 1863, till 3 March, 1871. In 1873 he was elected to the U. S. senate, as a republican, for the term ending in 1879, and he has been twice reelected.  (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 58. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936.)

ALVORD, John Watson, 1807-1880, abolitionist, anti-slavery agent, clergyman. Congregational minister.  Worked around Ohio area.  Secretary, Boston Tract Society.  Chaplain with General Sheridan’s Union Forces in Civil War.  Worked with former slaves.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 164, 185; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 399)

AMES, Harlow, New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

AMES, Oakes, 1804-1873, manufacturer, businessman, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2^nd Massachusetts District 1862-1873, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 65-66; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 251-253; Oakes, Ames, A Memoir, 1883; Congressional Globe)

AMES, Oakes, manufacturer, b. in Easton, Mass., 10 Jan., 1804; d. in North Easton, Mass., 8 May, 1873. He was the eldest son of Oliver Ames, a blacksmith, who had acquired considerable reputation in the making of shovels and picks. After obtaining a public-school education, he entered his father's workshops and made himself familiar with every step of the manufacture. He became a partner in the business, and with his brother, Oliver, Jr., established the firm of Oliver Ames & Sons. This house carried on an enormous trade during the gold excitement in California, and again a few years later in Australia. During the civil war they furnished extensive supplies of swords and shovels to the government. In the building of the Union Pacific railroad they were directly interested, and obtained large contracts, which were subsequently transferred to the Credit Mobilier of America, a corporation in which Oakes Ames was one of the largest stockholders. In 1861 he was called into the executive council of Massachusetts. He served continuously in congress from 1862 to 1873 as representative from the 2d Massachusetts district. His relations with the Credit Mobilier led to an investigation, which resulted in his being censured by a vote of the house of representatives. Subsequent to his withdrawal from political life he resided at North Easton, where he died of apoplexy. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 65-66.

ANDERSON, Isaac, 1780-1857, clergyman, educator.  Founder of the Southern and Western Theological Seminary in 1819 in Maryville, Tennessee.

ANDERSON, John, b. c. 1831, African American, fugitive slave, abolitionist.  (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 171)

ANDERSON, Lucien, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

ANDERSON, Osborne Perry, 1830-1872, African American abolitionist, member of African American Chatham Community in Ontario, Canada.  Wrote anti-slavery articles for Provincial Freedman for Black community.  Was part of John Brown’s raid at the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859; hanged with John Brown, 1859. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 327; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 181)

ANDERSON, Robert, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

ANDREW, James Osgood, 1794-1871, North Carolina, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1836-1841.  (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 277; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party.  Supported John Brown in legal defense.  (American National Biography, Vol. 1, 2002, p. 489; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 279; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 72-73)

ANDREW, John Albion, statesman, b. in Windham, Me., 31 May, 1818; d. in Boston, Mass., 30 Oct., 1867. His father, descended from an early settler of Boxford, Mass., was a prosperous merchant in Windham. John Albion was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837. He was a negligent student, though fond of reading, and in his professional life always felt the lack of training in the habit of close application. He immediately entered on the study of the law in the office of Henry H. Fuller, in Boston, where in 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Until the outbreak of the war he practised his profession in that city, attaining special distinction in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrach Burns and Sims, which arose under the fugitive-slave law of 1850. He became interested in the slavery question in early youth, and was attracted toward many of the reform movements of the day. After his admission to the bar he took an active interest in politics and frequently spoke on the stump on behalf of the whig party, of which he was an enthusiastic member. From the year 1848 he was closely identified with the anti-slavery party of Massachusetts, but held no office until 1858, when he was elected a member of the state legislature from Boston, and at once took a leading position in that body. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago republican convention, and, after voting for Mr. Seward on the early ballots, announced the change of the vote of part of the Massachusetts delegation to Mr. Lincoln. In the same year he was nominated for governor by a popular impulse. Many feared that the radicalism of his opinions would render him unsafe in action, and the political managers regarded him as an intruder and opposed his nomination; yet he was elected the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since the adoption of the constitution of 1780 by the largest popular vote ever cast for any candidate. He was energetic in placing the militia of Massachusetts on a war footing, in anticipation of the impending conflict between the government and the seceded states. He had announced this purpose in his inaugural address in 1861, and, upon being inducted into office, he sent a confidential message to the governors of Maine and New Hampshire, inviting their cooperation in preparing the militia for service and providing supplies of war material. This course of action was not regarded with favor at the time by a majority of the legislature, although his opponents refrained from a direct collision. On receiving the president's proclamation of 15 April, 1861, he despatched five regiments of infantry, a battalion of riflemen, and a battery of artillery to the defence of the capital. Of these, the Massachusetts 6th was the first to tread southern soil, passing through New York while the regiments of that state were mustering, and shedding the first blood of the war in the streets of Baltimore, where it was assailed by the mob. Gov. Andrew sent a telegram to Mayor Brown, praying him to have the bodies of the slain carefully sent forward to him at the expense of the common wealth of Massachusetts. He was equally active in raising the Massachusetts contingent of three years' volunteers, and was laborious in his efforts to aid every provision for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. He was four times reëlected governor, holding that office till January, 1866, and was only then released by his positive declination of another renomination, in order to attend to his private business, as the pecuniary sacrifice involved in holding the office was more than he was able to sustain, and his health was seriously affected by his arduous labors. In 1862 he was one of the most urgent of the northern governors in impressing upon the administration at Washington the necessity of adopting the emancipation policy, and of accepting the services of colored troops. In September, 1862, he took the most prominent part in the meeting of governors of the northern states, held at Altoona, Penn., to devise ways and means to encourage and strengthen the hands of the government. The address of the governors to the people of the north was prepared by him. Gov. Andrew interfered on various occasions to prevent the federal authorities from making arbitrary arrests among southern sympathizers in Massachusetts previous to the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In January, 1863, he obtained from the secretary of war the first authorization for raising colored troops, and the first colored regiment (54th Massachusetts infantry) was despatched from Boston in May of that year. Gov. Andrew was particular in selecting the best officers for the black troops and in providing them with the most complete equipment. Though famous as the war governor of Massachusetts, he also bestowed proper attention on the domestic affairs of the commonwealth. In his first message he recommended that the provision in the law preventing a person against whom a decree of divorce has been granted from marrying again, should be modified; but the proposition met with strong opposition in the legislature, especially from clergymen, and it was not till 1864 that an act was passed conferring power upon the supreme court to remove the penalty resting upon divorced persons. He also recommended a reform in the usury laws, such as was finally effected by an act passed in 1867. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and recommended its repeal. A law requiring representatives in congress to be residents of the districts from which they are elected was vetoed by him on the ground that it was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, but was passed over his veto. Of the twelve veto messages sent by Gov. Andrew during his incumbency, only one other, in the case of a resolve to grant additional pay to members, was followed by the passage of the act over the veto. His final term as governor expired 5 Jan., 1866. In a valedictory address to the legislature he advocated a generous and conciliatory policy toward the southern states, “demanding no attitude of humiliation; inflicting no acts of humiliation.” Gov. Andrew was modest and simple in his habits and manner of life, emotional and quick in sympathy for the wronged or the unfortunate, exceedingly joyous and mirthful in temperament, and companionable with all classes of persons. The distinguished ability that shone out in his administration as governor of Massachusetts, the many sterling qualities that were summed up in his character, his social address, and the charm of his conversational powers, together with his clear and forcible style as an orator, combined to render him conspicuous among the state governors of the war period, and one of the most influential persons in civil life not connected with the federal administration. Soon after the expiration of his last term as governor he was tendered, but declined, the presidency of Antioch college, Ohio. He presided over the first national Unitarian convention, held in 1865, and was a leader of the conservative wing of that denomination—those who believed with Channing and the early Unitarians in the supernaturalism of Christ's birth and mission, as opposed to Theodore Parker and his disciples. After retiring from public life Mr. Andrew entered upon a lucrative legal practice. In January, 1867, he represented before the general court about 30,000 petitioners for a license law, and delivered an argument against the principle of total prohibition. His death, which occurred suddenly from apoplexy, was noticed by public meetings in various cities. He married, 25 Dec., 1848, Miss Eliza Jane Hersey, of Hingham, Mass., who with their four children survived him. See “Memoir of Gov. Andrew, with Personal Reminiscences,” by Peleg W. Chandler (Boston, 1880), “Discourse on the Life and Character of Gov. Andrew,” by Rev. E. Nason (Boston, 1868), and “Men of Our Times,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A life of Gov. Andrew, by Edwin P. Whipple, was left unfinished at the time of Mr. Whipple’s death in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

ANDREWS, Josiah, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

ANDREWS, Samuel C., Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-39

ANDREWS, Stephan Pearl, 1812-1886, abolitionist, anarchist, philosopher, linguist, writer, labor advocate, lawyer, ardent opponent of slavery, lectured publicly on the evils of slavery (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 298-299; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 25-26; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. p. 76)

ANDREWS, Stephen Pearl, author, b. in Templeton, Mass., 22 March, 1812; d. in New York city, 21 May, 1886. He studied at Amherst college, and then, removing to New Orleans, became a lawyer. He was the first counsel of Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines in her celebrated suits. He was an ardent abolitionist, and in 1839 removed to Texas, where he converted many of the slave-owners, who were also large land-owners, by showing them that they would become rapidly rich from the sale of land if immigration were induced by throwing the country open to free labor. Here he acquired considerable wealth in the practice of his profession. His impetuous and logical eloquence gained him a wide repute and great personal popularity; but, on the other hand, his seemingly reckless and fanatical opposition to slavery aroused an intense feeling of opposition, and his life was seriously endangered. In 1843 he went to England in the hope that, with the aid of the British anti-slavery society, he might raise sufficient money there to pay for the slaves and make Texas a free state. He was well received, and the scheme was taken up and favorably considered by the British government; but, after some months of consultation, the project was abandoned through fear that it would lead to war with the United States, as the knowledge of it was already being used to strengthen the movement that ultimately led to the annexation of Texas and to the Mexican war. Mr. Andrews went to Boston and became a leader in the anti-slavery movement there. While in England he learned of phonography, and during seven years after his return he devoted his attention to its introduction, and was the founder of the present system of phonographic reporting. He removed to New York in 1847, and published a series of phonographic instruction-books and edited two journals in the interest of phonography and spelling reform, which were printed in phonetic type, the “Anglo-Saxon” and the “Propagandist.” He spoke several languages, and is said to have been familiar with thirty. Among his works are one on the Chinese language, and one entitled “New French Instructor,” embodying a new method. He was a tireless student and an incessant worker; but his mental labor was performed without effort or fatigue. While yet a young man he announced the discovery of the unity of law in the universe, and to the development of this theory he devoted the last thirty-five years of his life. The elements of this science are contained in his “Basic Outline of Universology” (New York, 1872). He asserted that there is a science of language, as exact as that of mathematics or of chemistry, forming a domain of universology; and by the application of this science he evolved a “scientific” language, destined, he believed, to become “the universal language.” This scientific universal language he called “Alwato” (ahl-wah'-to). It was so far elaborated that for some years before his death he conversed and corresponded in it with several of his pupils, and was preparing a dictionary of Alwato, a portion of which was in type at the time of his decease. The philosophy evolved from universology he called “Integralism.” In it he believed would be found the ultimate reconciliation of the great thinkers of all schools and the scientific adjustment of freedom and order, not by a superficial eclecticism, but by a radical adjustment of all the possible forms of thought, belief, and idea. In 1882 he instituted a series of conferences known as the “Colloquium,” for the interchange of ideas between men of the utmost diversity of religious, philosophical, and political views. Among those associated with him in this were Prof. Louis Elsberg, Rev. Dr. Rylance, Rev. Dr. Newman, Rabbi Gottheil, Rev. Dr. Sampson, Rev. Dr. Collyer, Prof. J. S. Sedgwick, T. B. Wakeman, and Rabbi Huebsch. Mr. Andrews was a prominent member of the Liberal club of New York, and for some time was its vice-president. His contributions to periodicals are numerous. He was a member of the American academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Ethnological Society. His works include “Comparison of the Common Law with the Roman, French, or Spanish Civil Law on Entails and other Limited Property in Real Estate” (New Orleans, 1839); “Cost the Limit of Price” (New York, 1851); “The Constitution of Government in the Sovereignty of the Individual” (1851); “Love, Marriage, and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual: a Discussion by Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews,” edited by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1853); “Discoveries in Chinese; or, The Symbolism of the Primitive Characters of the Chinese System of Writing as a Contribution to Philology and Ethnology and a Practical Aid in the Acquisition of the Chinese Language” (1854); “Constitution or Organic Basis of the New Catholic Church” (1860); “The Great American Crisis,” a series of papers published in the “Continental Monthly” (1863-'64); “A Universal Language” (“Continental Monthly,” 1864); “The Primary Synopsis of Universology and Alwato” (1871); “Primary Grammar of Alwato” (Boston, 1877); “The Labor Dollar” (1881); “Elements of Universology” (New York, 1881); “Ideological Etymology” (1881); “Transactions of the Colloquium, with Documents and Exhibits” (vols. i and ii, New York, 1882-'83); “The Church and Religion of the Future,” a series of tracts (1886); and text-books of phonography. His dictionary of Alwato was published posthumously by his sons. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

ANDRUS, Joseph R., Reverend, clergyman, agent of the American Colonization Society.  Went to Africa to establish a colony.  He died on the expedition.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 62)

ANDRUS, Sylvester (Gates, 2013, Vol. 6, p. 588)

ANTHONY, Daniel Read, 1824-1904, newspaper publisher, abolitionist, member Hicksite Quakers, opposed slavery, active in temperance and women’s rights movements, brother of Susan B. Anthony.  Publisher of the Leavenworth Times newspaper in Leavenworth, Kansas. Lieutenant Colonel, 7^th Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 1861-1862.  Mayor, Leavenworth, Kansas, 1863. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 169)

ANTHONY, Henry Bowen, 1815-1884, Republican, statesman, newspaper editor, Governor of Rhode Island, U.S. Senator 1859-1884, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 81-82; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 316-317; Anthony, Henry Bowen, A Memoir, 1885; Congressional Globe)

ANTHONY, Henry Bowen, statesman, b. of Quaker parents, in Coventry, R. I., 1 April, 1815; d. in Providence, 2 Sept., 1884. He was descended in a direct line from John Anthony, who came from England about 1640 and settled on the island of .Rhode Island. He was graduated at Brown University in 1833, and· devoted himself to literary pursuits. He became editor of the Providence "Journal" in 1838, and in 1840 was admitted into partnership, the paper being published under the name of Knowles, Vose & Anthony till the death of .Mr. Vose in 1848, when it was continued under the name of Knowles & .Anthony till 1 Jan., 1863, when it became Knowles, Anthony & Danielson.  Mr. .Anthony gave himself up to his newspaper with all the energy and enthusiasm of his nature. No amount of work staggered him; early and late he was in his office, and for many years he had around him a brilliant circle of young men. He early developed poetical taste, and there are several pieces of merit that bear his name. His mind was quick and accurate, and he had a wonderful memory; and his editorial labors contributed largely to the growth of the art of journalism in New England. He had many offers to go to other cities and take charge of newspapers, but declined them all. In 1837 he married Sally Rhodes (daughter of the late Christopher Rhodes, of Pawtuxet), who died in 1854. In 1849, and again in 1850, he was elected governor of Rhode Island. .As a whig at the first election he had a majority of 1,556; at the second, fewer than 1,000 votes were cast against him. He declined a third election, and gave himself once more entirely to his editorial work. This continued till 1859, when he was elected, as a republican, to the U. S. senate, where he remained by reelections till his death. During his service in the senate he still contributed largely to his paper. Three times he was elected president protem. of the senate—in March, 1863, in March, 1871, and in January, 1884; but the last time his failing health prevented him from accepting. He was exceedingly popular in Washington, and often spoken of as "the handsome senator." He served on many important committees, and was twice the chairman of the committee on printing, his practical knowledge of that subject enabling him to introduce many reforms in the government printing. He was at different times a member of the committees on claims, on naval affairs, on mines and mining, and on post-offices and post-roads. On the trial of President Johnson he voted for impeachment. He was not a frequent or brilliant speaker in the senate, but always talked to the point, and commanded attention. He shone more as a writer than as a speaker. His memorial and historical addresses were models of composition. .A volume of these addresses, printed privately in 1875, contains a tribute to Stephen .A. Douglas, delivered 9 July. 1861; one to John R. Thompson, 4 Dec., 1862; one to William P. Fessenden, 14 Dec., 1869; and three different addresses on Charles Sumner-the first on the announcement of his death in the senate; the second when Mr. Anthony, as one of the committee appointed by the senate, gave up the body of Mr. Sumner to the governor of Massachusetts; and the third when Mr. Boutwell presented in the senate resolutions of respect for Mr. Sumner's memory. Mr. Anthony also spoke in the senate on the death of William .A. Buckingham, and on 21 Jan., 1876, delivered a short address on the death of Henry Wilson, vice-president of the United States. When the statues of Gen. Greene and Roger Williams were presented to congress by the state of Rhode Island, Mr. Anthony made the addresses, and he also made a short address at the presentation of the statues of Trumbull and Sherman. One of his best efforts was .when he introduced the bill providing for repairing and protecting the monument erected in Newport, R. I., to the memory of the chevalier de Tiernay, commander of the French naval forces sent out in 1780 to aid the American revolution. Mr. Anthony had a warm and affectionate nature, genial manner, a commanding figure, and was a perfect specimen of a man. In his last days, with manly courage, he calmly waited for the end. As soon as his death was known, Gov. Bourn and Mayor Doyle issued proclamations to that effect, and called upon the people to attend the funeral, which took place from the first Congregational church in Providence on Saturday, 6 Sept. It was the largest funeral ever known in Rhode Island. Mr. Anthony bequeathed a portion of his library, known as the "Harris Collection of American Poetry," to Brown university. It consists of about 6,000 volumes, mostly small books, and many of them exceedingly rare. It was begun half a century ago by the late Albert G. Greene, continued by Caleb Fiske Harris, and, after his death, completed by his kinsman, the late senator. The Rev. Dr. J. C. Stockbridge, a member of the board of trustees of the university, is preparing an annotated catalogue of the collection. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 81-82)

ANTHONY, Susan Brownell, 1820-1906, American Anti-Slavery Society, reformer, abolitionist, orator, leader of the female suffrage movement, radical egalitarian, temperance movement leader, founded Women’s National Loyal League with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1863 to fight for cause of abolition, co-founded American Equal Rights Association (AERA) in 1866 to fight for universal suffrage.  (Anthony, 1954; Barry, 1988; Harper, 1899; Harper, 1998; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 169-170, 291, 465, 519; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 82; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 318-321; Harper, Ida Husted, 1899, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1885, Our Famous Women)

ANTHONY, Susan Brownell, reformer, b. in South Adams, Mass., 15 Feb., 1820. Daniel Anthony, her father, a cotton manufacturer, was a liberal Quaker, who educated his daughters with the idea of self-support, and employed skilful teachers in his own house. After completing her education at a Friends' boarding-school in Philadelphia, she taught in New York state from 1835 to 1850. Her father removed in 1826 to Washington co., N. Y., and in 1846 settled at Rochester. Miss Anthony first spoke in public in 1847, and from that time took part in the temperance movement, organizing societies and lecturing. In 1851 she called a temperance convention in Albany, after being refused admission to a previous convention on account of her sex. In 1852 the Woman's New York State Temperance Society was organized. Through her exertions, and those of Mrs. E. C. Stanton, women came to be admitted to educational and other conventions with the right to speak, vote, and serve on committees. About 1857 she became prominent among the agitators for the abolition of slavery. In 1858 she made a report, in a teachers' convention at Troy, in favor of the co-education of the sexes. Her energies have been chiefly directed to securing equal civil rights for women. In 1854-'55 she held conventions in each county of New York in the cause of female suffrage, and since then she has addressed annual appeals and petitions to the legislature. She was active in securing the passage of the act of the New York legislature of 1860, giving to married women the possession of their earnings, the guardianship of their children, etc. During the war she devoted herself to the women's loyal league, which petitioned congress in favor of the 13th amendment. In 1860 she started a petition in favor of leaving out the word “male” in the 14th amendment, and worked with the national woman suffrage association to induce congress to secure to her sex, the right of voting. In 1867 she went to Kansas with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone, and there obtained 9,000 votes in favor of woman suffrage. In 1868, with the cooperation of Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, and with the assistance of George F. Train, she began, in New York city, the publication of a weekly paper called “The Revolutionist,” devoted to the emancipation of women. In 1872 Miss Anthony cast ballots at the state and congressional election in Rochester, in order to test the application of the 14th and 15th amendments of the U. S. constitution. She was indicted for illegal voting, and was fined by Justice Hunt, but, in accordance with her defiant declaration, never paid the penalty. Between 1870 and 1880 she lectured in all the northern and several of the southern states more than one hundred times a year. In 1881 she wrote, with the assistance of her co-editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, “The History of Woman Suffrage” in two volumes. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 82.

APLIN, William, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1842

APPLETON, General James, 1786-1862, temperance reformer, abolitionist leader, soldier, clergyman.  Leader of the anti-slavery Liberty Party. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 301, 405n12; Wiley, 1886; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 82; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 327)

APPLETON, James, temperance reformer, b. in Ipswich, Mass., 14 Feb., 1786; d. there, 25 Aug., 1862. When a young man he was elected to the legislature of his native state, and during the war with Great Britain he served as a colonel of Massachusetts militia, and after the close of the war was made a brigadier-general. During his subsequent residence at Portland, Me., he was elected to the legislature in 1836-'37, but he returned finally to his native town, where he died. By his speeches and publications he exercised great influence upon public sentiment in favor of abolition and total abstinence. In his report to the Maine legislature in 1837 he was the first to expound the principle embodied in the Maine law. See his “Life,” by S. H. Gay. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 82.

ARCHER, Samuel, 1771-1839?, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, merchant, importer.  Philadelphia auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 39)

ARCHIBALD, James, Lawrence, Kansas, abolitionist.  Father of abolitionist Julia A. Holmes.  Active in the Underground Railroad.

ARMAT, Thomas (Armatt), abolitionist leader, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Guardians, founding member, Electing Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787  (Basker, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nash, 1991, p. 129; Nathan, 1991)

ARMSTRONG, General Samuel Chapman, 1839-1893, American Missionary Association (AMA). (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 73, 166, 506, 507)

ARNOLD, Isaac Newton, 1815-1884, lawyer, historian, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1860-1864, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Republican.  Introduced anti-slavery bill in Congress.  Served as an officer in the Union Army.  Active in Free Soil movement of 1848. Protested Fugitive Slave Law, October 1850. Outspoken opponent of slavery.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. p. 96; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 368-369; Congressional Globe)

ARNOLD, Isaac Newton, lawyer, b. in Hartwick, Otsego co., N. Y., 30 Nov., 1815; d. in Chicago, 24 April, 1884. His father, Dr. George W. Arnold, was a native of Rhode Island, whence he removed to western New York in 1800. After attending the district and select schools, Isaac Arnold was thrown on his own resources at the age of fifteen. For several years he taught school a part of each year, earning enough to study law, and at the age of twenty was admitted to the bar. In 1836 he removed to Chicago, where he spent the rest of his life, and was prominent as a lawyer and in politics. He was elected city clerk of Chicago in 1837, and, beginning in 1843, served several terms in the legislature. The state was then heavily in debt, and Mr. Arnold became the acknowledged champion of those who were opposed to repudiation. In 1844 he was a presidential elector, and in 1860 was elected to congress as a republican, serving two terms. At the battle of Bull Run he acted as volunteer aide to Col. Hunter, and did good service in caring for the wounded. While in congress he was chairman of the committee on the defences and fortifications of the great lakes and rivers, and afterward chairman of the committee on manufactures, serving also as member of the committee on roads and canals. He voted for the bill abolishing slavery in the district of Columbia, and in March, 1862, he introduced a bill prohibiting slavery in every place under national control. This bill was passed on 19 June, 1862, after much resistance, and on 15 Feb., 1864, Mr. Arnold introduced in the house of representatives a resolution, which was passed, declaring that the constitution of the United States should be so amended as to abolish slavery. His ablest speech in congress was on the confiscation bill, and was made 2 May, 1862. In 1865 President Johnson appointed him sixth auditor to the U. S. treasury. Mr. Arnold was an admirable public speaker, and delivered addresses before various literary societies, both at home and abroad. Ha had been intimate with Abraham Lincoln for many years before Mr. Lincoln's election to the presidency, and in 1866 he published a biography of him (new ed., rewritten and enlarged, Chicago, 1885). This was followed in 1879 by a “Life of Benedict Arnold,” which, while acknowledging the enormity of Arnold's treason, vindicates and praises him in other respects. The author claimed no relationship with the subject of his work. His life of Lincoln is valuable for the clearness with which it shows the historical relations of the president to the great events of his administration; and the author's death is said to have been caused, in part, by his persistent labor in completing his last revision of this work. Mr. Arnold was for many years president of the Chicago historical society, and Hon. E. B. Washburne delivered an address on his life before the society, 21 Oct., 1884 (Chicago, 1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 96.

ARTHUR, William, Hinesburgh, Vermont, abolitionist, manager, 1833-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

ASHBY, William, Newburyport, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1849-1850; 1852-1860

ASHLEY, James Mitchell, 1824-1896, Ohio, Underground Railroad activist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Adamant opponent of slavery.  Member, Free Soil Party, 1848.  Joined Republican Party in 1854. (Dumond, 1961, p. 339; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 110; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 389-390; Congressional Globe)

ASHLEY, James Monroe, congressman, b. near Pittsburg, Pa., 14 Nov., 1824. His education was acquired while a clerk on boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Later he worked in printing-offices, and became editor of the “Dispatch,” and afterward of the “Democrat,” at Portsmouth, Ohio. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Ohio in 1849, but never practised. Subsequently he settled in Toledo, where he became interested in the wholesale drug business. He was elected to congress as a republican in 1859, and was reelected four times, serving continuously from 5 Dec., 1859, till 3 March, 1869. He was for four terms chairman of the committee on territories, and it was under his supervision that the territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Montana were organized. He was nominated for the 41st congress, but was defeated, and in 1869 was appointed governor of Montana. In 1866 he was a delegate to the loyalist convention held in Philadelphia. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 110.

ASHMUN, George, 1870-1823, Massachusetts, statesman, lawyer, Congressman.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 111)

ASHMUN, George, statesman, b. in Blandford, Mass., 25 Dec., 1804; d. in Springfield, Mass., 17 July, 1870. He was graduated at Yale in 1823, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1828 at Springfield, Mass. In 1833, 1835, 1836, and 1841 he was elected a member of the lower branch of the Massachusetts legislature, and during the last term he was speaker of the house. He was a state senator in '38-'9. He was elected to congress in 1845, and served continuously until 1851, being a member of the committees on the judiciary, Indian affairs, and rules. He was a great admirer of Daniel Webster, and although he did not follow the latter in his abandonment of the Wilmot proviso, defended him in the ensuing quarrels; his replies to Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, and Charles Allen, of Massachusetts, when they assailed Webster with personal and political bitterness, were among the strongest efforts of his career in congress. Subsequent to his retirement from political life he devoted his attention to the practice of his profession. In 1860 he was president of the Chicago convention that nominated Lincoln for president. It is said to have been through his influence that in 1861 Senator Douglas, of Illinois, was won over to the support of the administration, and the results of a subsequent interview at the White house between Lincoln, Douglas, and Ashmun, were of great importance to the country. In 1866 he was chosen a delegate to the national union convention, held in Philadelphia, but he took no part in its deliberations. He was also for some time a director of the Union Pacific railroad. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I.

ASHMUN, Jehudi, 1794-1828, Washington, DC, educator, editor, missionary.  Published The African Intelligencer, a paper for the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 111; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 394; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 73-74, 94-95, 101, 150-162)

ASHMUN, Jehudi, missionary, b. in Champlain, N. Y., in April, 1794 ; d. in Boston, Mass., 25 Aug., 1828. He was graduated at the university of Vermont in 1816, taught for a short time in the Maine charity school, prepared for the Congregational ministry, and became a professor in the Bangor theological seminary. Removing to the District of Columbia, he united with the Protestant Episcopal church and became editor of the “Theological Repertory,” a monthly magazine published in the interest of that church. His true mission was inaugurated when he became agent of the colonization society, and took charge of a reënforcement for the colony at Liberia, on the western coast of Africa. He sailed 19 June, 1822, and found the colony in a wretched state of disorder and demoralization, and apparently on the point of extinction through incursions of the neighboring savages. With extraordinary energy and ability he undertook the task of reorganization. In November he was attacked by a force of savages, whose numbers he estimated at 800. With only 35 men and boys to help him, he repelled the attack, which was renewed by still greater numbers a few days later, with a like result. He displayed remarkable personal valor throughout these encounters, and when, six years later, his health compelled him to leave Africa, he had established a comparatively prosperous colony 1,200 strong. He died almost immediately after his arrival in the United States. He was author of “Memoirs of Samuel Bacon” (Washington, 1822), and of many contributions to the “African Repository.” His life was written by R. R. Gurley (New York, 1839). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

ASHTON, Henry, colonel, soldier.  Manager and Vice President of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 208)

ATKINSON, Edward, 1827-1905, industrial entrepreneur, economist, abolitionist, activist.  Opposed slavery as a supporter of the Free Soil Party.  Also a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which aided fugitive slaves.  Atkinson also supported John Brown’s efforts by supplying him rifles and ammunition for his raid on the US arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859.  Opposed Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt’s imperialist ambitions in the Philippines and in Cuba.  After 1898, became a full-time supporter of the American Anti-imperialist League.  (Pease & Pease, 1972; Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1900, Vol. I, p. 114; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 407)

ATKINSON, Edward, economist, b. in Brookline, Mass., 10 Feb., 1827. His education was obtained principally at private schools, and his reputation has been made by the numerous pamphlets and papers that he has contributed to current literature on economic topics. The subjects treated embrace such general topics as banking, competition, cotton, free trade, mechanical arts, and protection. The most important of his addresses are “Banking,” delivered at Saratoga in 1880 before the American Bankers' Association; “Insufficiency of Economic Legislation,” delivered before the American Social Science Association; “What makes the Rate of Wages,” before the British Association for the Advancement of Science; address to the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics at their convention in Boston in 1885; vice-presidential address on the “Application of Science to the Production and Consumption of Food,” before the American association for the advancement of science, in 1885; and “Prevention of Loss by Fire,” before the millers of the west, in 1885. His pamphlets and books include the following: “Cheap Cotton by Free Labor” (Boston, 1861); “The Collection of Revenue” (1866); “Argument for the Conditional Reform of the Legal-Tender Act” (1874); “Our National Domain” (1879); “Labor and Capital-Allies, not Enemies” (New York, 1880); “The Fire Engineer, the Architect, and the Underwriter” (Boston, 1880); “The Railroads of the United States” (1880); “Cotton Manufacturers of the United States” (1880); “Addresses at Atlanta, Ga., on the International Exposition” (New York, 1881); “What is a Bank” (1881); “Right Methods of Preventing Fires in Mills” (Boston, 1881); “The Railway and the Farmer” (New York, 1881); “The Influence of Boston Capital upon Manufactures,” in “Memorial History of Boston” (Boston, 1882); and “The Distribution of Products” (New York, 1885). In 1886 he began the preparation of a series of monographs on economic questions for periodical publication. Through his efforts was established the Boston manufacturers' mutual fire insurance company, an association consisting of a number of manufacturers who, for their mutual protection, adopted rules and regulations for the economical and judicious management of their plants. He has invented an improved cooking-stove, called the “Aladdin Cooker.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 114. 

ATKINSON, Elizabeth, abolitionist, Rochester Female Anti-Slavery Society (RFASS), Rochester, New York (Yellin, 1994, p. 26)

ATKINSON, George, Mullica Hills, New Jersey, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1848-52, Vice-President, 1850-54

ATKINSON, John, New Jersey, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1842-48

ATKINSON, William, Petersburg, Virginia, Resident Agent for the American Colonization Society.  Worked with Secretary Gurley.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 109-179)

ATLEE, Dr. Edwin A., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker. Vice president, 1833-1836,  and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Free Produce Society, Pennsylvania, abolitionist.  (Drake, 1950, pp. 118, 140; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

AVERY, Courtland, abolitionist, agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (Dumond, 1961, p. 185)

AYCRIGG, John B., Paramus, New Jersey, American Colonization Society, Director, 1839-1840.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

Ayres, Eli, Dr., Baltimore, Maryland.  Agent of the American Colonization Society.  Went to Africa on its second expedition to establish a colony there.  (Campbell, 1971, pp. 8, 11, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 51, 54; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 62-68 passim, 85, 86, 87, 90-91, 111)

AYERS, N. S., New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

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BABBIT, W. D., Minnesota, American Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1857-59

BACON, Benjamin C., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Recording Secretary, 1835-36

BACON, Joseph N., Newton, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64

BACON, Leonard, Reverend, 1802-1881, Detroit, Michigan, clergyman, newspaper editor, author, opponent of slavery.  Supporter of the American Colonization Society in New England.  Editor of the Christian Spectator, 1826-1838.  In 1843, helped establish The New Englander, where he wrote many anti-slavery articles.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 129-130; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 473, 479; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 77-79, 119-120, 126, 127, 130-131, 134, 161, 204, 205, 231)

BACON, Leonard, clergyman, b. in Detroit, Mich., 19 Feb., 1802; d. in New Haven, Conn., 24 Dec., 1881. He was graduated at Yale in 1820, and studied theology at Andover. In March, 1825, he was ordained pastor of the 1st church in New Haven, and continued in this office until his death—fifty-seven years. From 1866, being relieved of the main burden of pastoral work, he occupied the chair of didactic theology in Yale until 1871, and thereafter was lecturer on ecclesiastical polity and American church history. He was a representative of the liberal orthodoxy and historic polity of the ancient New England churches. His life was incessantly occupied in the discussion of questions bearing on the interests of humanity and religion. Probably no subject of serious importance that came into general notice during his long career escaped his earnest and active attention. A public question which absorbed much of his thought after 1823 was that of slavery. His constant position was that of resistance to slavery on the one hand, and of resistance to the extravagances of certain abolitionists on the other; and he thought himself well rewarded for forty years of debate, in which, as he was wont to say of himself, quoting the language of Baxter, that, “where others had had one enemy he had had two,” when he learned that Abraham Lincoln referred to his volume on slavery as the source of his own clear and sober convictions on that subject. He was a strong supporter of the union throughout the civil war, and took active part in the various constitutional, economical, and moral discussions to which it gave rise. He was influential in securing the repeal of the “omnibus clause” in the Connecticut divorce law. In March, 1874, he was moderator of the council that rebuked Henry Ward Beecher's society for irregularly expelling Theodore Tilton, and in February, 1876, of the advisory council called by the Plymouth society. During his later years he was, by general consent, regarded as the foremost man among American Congregationalists. He became known in oral debate, in which he excelled, by his books, and preeminently by his contributions to the periodical press. From 1826 till 1838 he was one of the editors of the “Christian Spectator.” In 1843 he aided in establishing “The New Englander” review, to which he continued to contribute copiously until his death. In that publication appeared many articles from his pen denouncing, on religious and political grounds, the policy of the government in respect to slavery. With Drs. Storrs and Thompson he founded the “Independent” in 1847, and continued with them in the editorship of it for sixteen years. He had great delight in historical studies, especially in the history of the Puritans, both in England and in America. Besides innumerable pamphlets and reviews, He published “Select Works of Richard Baxter,” with a biography (1830); “Manual for Young Church-Members” (1833); “Thirteen Historical Discourses” on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the 1st church in New Haven (1839); “Views and Reviews; an Appeal against. Division” (1840); “Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays” (1846); “Christian Self-Culture” (1862); “Four Commemorative Discourses” (1866); “Genesis of the New England Churches” (1874); “Sketch of Rev. David Bacon” (1876); and “Three Civic Orations for New Haven” (1879). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BACON, Samuel, 1782-1820, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, lawyer, clergyman, soldier, editor.  Agent for the American Colonization society.  He later became an employee of the U.S. government.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 132; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 56-63 passim)

BACON, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Sturbridge, Mass., 22 July, 1781; d. in Kent, Cape Shilling, Africa, 3 May, 1820. He was graduated at Harvard in 1808, and then studied law, which he subsequently practised in Pennsylvania. For a time he edited the “Worcester Ægis,” and later the Lancaster, Pa., “Hive,” and then was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal ministry. In 1819 he was appointed by the U. S. government one of three agents to colonize Africa with negroes, under the auspices of the American colonization society. The expedition sailed for Sierra Leone, reaching that port on 9 March, 1820, and a settlement was made at Campelar, on the Sherboro river. Here his two associates died, and he in declining health was removed to Kent, where his last days were spent. See “Memoirs of Rev. Samuel Bacon,” by Jehudi Ashmun (1822).  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BAER, Abraham, Stark County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1835-39

BAILEY, Francis, abolitionist, founding member, Electing Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787 (Basker, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nathan, 1991)

BAILEY, Gamaliel, 1807-1859, Maryland, abolitionist leader, journalist, newspaper publisher and editor.  Publisher and editor of National Era (founded 1847), of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  Co-founded Cincinnati Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.  Corresponding Secretary, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Assistant and Co-Editor, The Abolitionist newspaper.  Liberty Party.  Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1851-1852. (Blue, 2005, pp. 21, 25-26, 28, 30, 34, 52, 55, 67, 148-149, 166, 192, 202, 223, 248; Dumond, 1961, pp. 163, 223, 264, 301; Filler, 1960, pp. 78, 150, 194-195, 245, 252; Harrold, 1995; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 14, 23, 24, 26, 27, 44, 46, 54, 61, 63, 69, 88-89, 91, 103, 106; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 50, 185; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 136; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 496-497; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 881)

BAILEY, Gamaliel, journalist, b. in Mount Holly, N. J., 3 Dec., 1807; d. at sea, 5 June, 1859. He studied medicine in Philadelphia, and after obtaining his degree in 1828 sailed as a ship's doctor to China. He began his editorial career in the office of the “Methodist Protestant” in Baltimore, but in 1831 he removed to Cincinnati, where he served as hospital physician during the cholera epidemic. His sympathies being excited on the occasion of the expulsion of a number of students on account of anti-slavery views from Lane seminary, he became an active agitator against slavery, and in 1836 he associated himself with James G. Birney in the conduct of the “Cincinnati Philanthropist,” the earliest anti-slavery newspaper in the west, of which in 1837 he became sole editor. Twice in that year, and again in 1841, the printing-office was sacked by a mob. He issued the paper regularly until after the presidential election of 1844, when he was selected to direct the publication of a new abolitionist organ at Washington. The first number of the “National Era,” published under the auspices of the American and foreign anti-slavery society, appeared 1 Jan., 1847. In 1848 an angry mob laid siege to the office for three days, and finally separated under the influence of an eloquent harangue by the editor. The “Era,” in which “Uncle Tom's Cabin” originally appeared, ably presented the opinions of the anti-slavery party. Dr. Bailey died while on a voyage to Europe for his health.   Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 136.

BAILEY, John, New Bedford, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1849-50, 52-60-

BAILEY, Joseph, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888; Congressional Globe)

BAILEY, Kiah, Hardwich, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-39

BAILEY, Wesley, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

BAILEY, William S., newspaper editor of the Newport News in Newport, Kentucky.  In the 1850s, his newspaper office was wrecked and his home burned down by angry mobs.  Opposed slavery and said, “The system of slavery enslaves all who labor for an honest living.”

BAIRD, Absalom, 1824-1905, abolitionist leader, Washington Society (Basker, 2005, p. 225; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 504)

BAIRD, Robert, Reverend, 1798-1863, Princeton, New Jersey, clergyman.  Officer, New Jersey auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 142-143; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 511; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 55)

BAIRD, Robert, clergyman, b. in Fayette co., Pa., 6 Oct., 1798; d. in Yonkers, N. Y., 15 March, 1863. He was graduated at Jefferson college, Pa., in 1818, and taught a year at Bellefont, where he began his career as a newspaper writer. He studied theology at Princeton, 1819-'22, and taught an academy there for five years, preaching occasionally. In 1827 he became agent in New Jersey for the American Bible society, engaged in the distribution of Bibles among the poor, and also labored among the destitute churches of the Presbyterian denomination as an agent of the New Jersey missionary society. In 1829 he became agent for the American Sunday-school union, and travelled extensively for the society. In 1835 he went to Europe, where he remained eight years, devoting himself to the promotion of Protestant Christianity in southern Europe, and subsequently to the advocacy of temperance reform in northern Europe. On the formation of the foreign evangelical society, since merged in the American and foreign Christian union, he became its agent and corresponding secretary. In 1842 he published “A View of Religion in America” in Glasgow. In 1843 he returned home, and for three years engaged in promoting the spread of Protestantism in Europe. In 1846 he visited Europe to attend the world's temperance convention in Stockholm and the meeting of the evangelical alliance in London, and on his return he delivered a series of lectures on the “Continent of Europe.” In 1862 he vindicated in London before large audiences the cause of the union against secession with vigorous eloquence. Among his other published works are a “View of the Valley of the Mississippi” (1832); “History of the Temperance Societies” (1836); “Visit to Northern Europe” (1841); “Protestantism in Italy” (Boston, 1845); “Impressions and Experiences of the West Indies and North America in 1849 (Philadelphia, 1850), revised, with a supplement, in 1855; “History of the· Albigenses, Waldenses, and Vaudois.” French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian translations were made of the “History of the Temperance Societies,” and French, German, Dutch, and Swedish translations of the “View of Religion in America.” See “Life of the Rev. R. Baird,” by H.M. Baird (New York, 1865). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BAKER, Hilary, abolitionist, officer of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, reorganized April 23, 1787 (Nash, 1991, p. 124)

BAKER, Samuel, Dr., Maryland, professor.  Manager and charter member of the Maryland State Colonization Society.  (Campbell, 1971, p. 20)

BALCH, Hezekiah, 1741-1810, abolitionist, clergyman, educator.  Co-founder, Tusculum College, originally Greenville College.  Taught abolitionist Evangelicalism in Eastern Tennessee in the 1830s, which became part of the early abolitionist movement in the state.  (Balch, 1897; Balch, 1907; Sprague, 1857; Temple, 1912)

BALCH, Stephen B., Georgetown, DC, American Colonization Society, Founding officer and Board of Managers, 1816, Manager, 1833-1834.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 26, 28, 30)

BALDWIN, Augustus, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BALDWIN, Ebenezer, Reverend, anti-slavery writer (Zilversmit, 1967, p. 107)

BALDWIN, Jesse G., Middletown, Connecticut, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1840-41

BALDWIN, John Denison, 1809-1883, journalist, clergyman, Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Editor of the anti-slavery journal, Republican in Hartford, Connecticut.  Owner, editor of Free-Soil Charter Oak at Hartford, Connecticut.  In 1852 became editor of the Commonwealth in Boston.  Supported negro causes. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 148-149; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 537; Congressional Globe)

BALDWIN, John Denison, journalist, b. in North Stonington, Conn., 28 Sept., 1809; d. in Worcester, Mass., 8 July, 1883. He supported himself from the age of fourteen, pursued academical, legal, and theological studies in New Haven, and received the honorary degree of master of arts from Yale college. He was licensed to preach in 1833, was pastor of a church in North Branford, Conn., for several years, and made a special study of archaeology. He became editor of the “Republican,” an anti-slavery journal, published in Hartford, and subsequently of the “Commonwealth,” published in Boston. From 1859 he owned and edited the “Worcester Spy.” He was elected to congress in 1863, and reelected twice. He published “Raymond Hill,” a collection of poems (Boston, 184 7); “Prehistoric Nations” (New York, 1869, and “Ancient America” (1872). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 148-149.

BALDWIN, John, Pennsylvania, abolitionist leader, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS), founded 1775, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Basker, 2005, p. 80)

BALDWIN, Mathias William, 1795-1866, abolitionist, American inventor, machinery manufacturer, industrialist.  Founder, Baldwin Locomotive Works.  Founder, Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  Strong supporter of the abolition movement in the United States.  (Brown, 1995; Kelly, 1946; Westing, 1966; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. p. 149; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 542)

BALDWIN, Matthias William, manufacturer, b. in Elizabethtown, N. J., 10 Dec., 1795; d. in Philadelphia, 7 Sept., 1866. Having a natural inclination for mechanical contrivances, he was apprenticed at the age of sixteen to a firm of jewellers in Frankford, Pa. On the expiration of his service he became a journeyman, and in 1819 he established his own business. While thus occupied he devised and patented a process for plating with gold, which has since been universally adopted. He then undertook the manufacture of book-binders' tools and calico-printers' rolls, and his factory was the first to render this country independent of foreign supply. About 1828 his attention was directed to the manufacture of steam-engines, and at this time he constructed a five-horse-power engine, which was employed in his own works. The commendations that the new engine received induced him to enter into the manufacture of stationary engines, and his business became extensive and profitable. In the latter part of 1830 he was permitted to see a locomotive which had just been received from England, and after four months' labor he succeeded in producing a beautiful model, which was exhibited in Philadelphia. His first locomotive, called the “Ironsides,” was made for the Philadelphia and Germantown railway, and was placed on the road 23 Nov., 1832. It was a success, and “Paulson's American Advertiser” of that period contains the following notice: “The locomotive-engine, built by M. W. Baldwin, of this city, will depart daily, when the weather is fair, with a train of passenger-cars. On rainy days horses will be attached.” During the next three years he received orders for nine or ten locomotives, and in 1835 he moved to the corner of Broad and Hamilton streets. His inventions and improvements in the construction of locomotives are very numerous, and among these perhaps the most important was the flexible truck locomotive, patented in August, 1842. His works have acquired a world-wide reputation, and his locomotives have been sent to nearly every foreign country. It is estimated that over 1,500 locomotives left these works completed prior to his death. Mr. Baldwin was a member of the constitutional convention of 1837, and in 1853 of the state legislature. He was also for several years president of the Horticultural Society of Philadelphia. An extended sketch of his life, by the Rev. Wolcott Calkins, has been privately printed. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 149. 

BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, 1793-1863, New Haven, Connecticut, lawyer, jurist, statesman, U.S. Senator.  Lead counsel, with John Quincy Adams, for the slaves of the Amistad ship.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 149-150; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 542)

BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, jurist, b. in New Haven, Conn., 4 Jan., 1793; d. there, 19 Feb., 1863. He affords an admirable instance of all that is best in the intellectual and moral life of New England. By descent and education he was of genuine Puritan stock. His father, Simeon Baldwin, was descended from one of the original New Haven colonists, and his mother was the daughter of Roger Sherman, a signer of the declaration of independence, both families being from the earliest times identified with the cause of civil and religious liberty. Roger Sherman Baldwin entered Yale at the age of fourteen, and was graduated with high honors in 1811. Beginning his legal studies in his father's office, he finished them in the then famous law school of Judges Reeve and Gould, at Litchfield, Conn. By the time that he was ready for admission to the bar, In 1814, he had developed a mastery of the principles of law that was considered very remarkable in so young a man. His habits of concentration, his command of pure and elegant English, the precision and definiteness of his methods, soon brought him into prominence in his profession, and at a comparatively early age he attained distinction at the bar. His preference was for cases involving the great principles of jurisprudence rather than those that depended upon appeals to the feelings of jurymen. Nevertheless, he commanded rare success as a jury lawyer, being gifted with a certain dignified and lofty eloquence that carried conviction and sustained the current belief that he would not undertake the defence of a cause of whose justice he was not personally convinced. One of the most famous cases in which he was engaged was that of the “Amistad captives” (1839), now well-nigh forgotten, but which assumed international importance at the time. A shipload of slaves, bound to Cuba, had gained possession of the vessel. They were encountered adrift on the high seas by an American vessel and brought into New York, where they were cared for. The Spanish authorities, claimed them as the property of Spanish subjects, and the anti-slavery party at the north, then becoming a formidable element in national politics, interested itself in their behalf. The case was first tried in a Connecticut district court, decided against the Spanish claim, and carried to the supreme court of the United States. The venerable John Quincy Adams and Mr. Baldwin were associated as counsel, the latter practically conducting the case. His plea on this occasion showed such a grasp of the legal technicalities involved, that such men as Chancellor Kent rated him with the leading jurists of the time. After serving his own state in assembly and senate (1837-'41), he was elected governor in 1844, and reëlected for the following term. In 1847 he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Jabez W. Huntington as U. S. senator. He at once took a leading place among the statesmen of the period, was reëlected for a second term, and always advocated the cause of equal rights for all during the heated controversies preceding the outbreak of the civil war. In 1860 he was one of the two electors “at large” for the choice of Mr. Lincoln, and in 1860 was appointed by Gov. Buckingham a member of the “peace congress” of 1861, consisting of five delegates from each state, who, it was hoped, would devise a basis of amicable settlement of the differences between north and south. In his opening address, John Tyler, of Virginia, president of the congress, said: “Connecticut is here, and she comes, I doubt not, in the spirit of Roger Sherman, whose name, with our very children, has become a household word, and who was in life the embodiment of that sound, practical sense which befits the great law-giver and constructor of governments.” The labors of the congress came to naught, owing mainly to the precipitancy with which some of the southern states passed ordinances of secession. This was the last public service undertaken by Mr. Baldwin other than the personal assistance which every patriotic citizen lent to his country during the early years of civil war. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BALDWIN, Simeon, Judge, 1761-1851, New Haven, Connecticut.  Member of the American Colonization Society committee in New Haven.  Secretary of the Connecticut Society for the Promotion and Freedom and for the Relief of Persons Holden in Bondage.  (Dumond, 1961, p. 47; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 149; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 86)

BALL, Charles, b. 1780, escaped slave, wrote Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, 1837, a pre-Civil War slave narrative. (Mason, 2006, p. 169; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 185-186, 428, 574-575)

BALL, Lucy, Boston, Massachusetts, leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 45, 56-57, 56n, 57n, 60-61, 63-64n, 263, 280)

BALL, Martha Violet, leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 45, 56-57n, 60-61, 63-64n, 263, 280)

BALL, Mason, Amherst, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1836-38

BALLARD, Charles, Worcester, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Executive, Committee, 1859

BALLARD, James, Bennington, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35, Manager, 1835-37

BALLOU, Adin, 1803-1890, Universalist and Unitarian, clergyman, reformer, temperance proponent, advocate of pacifism, writer, founder of Hopedale Community, opposed slavery.  President of the New England Non-Resistance Society.  Supporter of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison.  Anti-slavery lecturer in Pennsylvania and New York, 1846-1848.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1838-1840, 1840-1860.  (Ballou, 1854; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 556-557; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 48-50; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 83)

BANCROFT, Eleazer, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

BANCROFT, George, b. 1800, Hampshire County, historian.  Member of the Hampshire County auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 154-156; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 196)

BANCROFT, George, historian, b. in Worcester, Mass., 3 Oct., 1800. He is a son of the Rev. Aaron Bancroft. He was prepared for college at Exeter, N. H., was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and went to Germany. At Göttingen, where he resided for two years, he studied German literature under Benecke; French and Italian literature under Artaud and Bunsen; Arabic, Hebrew, and Scripture interpretation under Eichhorn; history under Planck and Heeren; natural history under Blumenbach; and the antiquities and literature of Greece and Rome under Dissen, with whom he took a course of Greek philosophy. In writing from Leipsic, 28 Aug., 1819, to Mrs. Prescott, of Boston, Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell remarks: “It was sad parting, too, from little Bancroft. He is a most interesting youth, and is to make one of our great men.”

In 1820 Bancroft was given the degree of Ph. D. by the university of Göttingen. At this time he selected history as his special branch, having as one of his reasons the desire to see if the observation of masses of men in action would not lead by the inductive method to the establishment of the laws of morality as a science. Removing to Berlin, he became intimate with Schleiermacher, William von Humboldt, Savigny, Lappenberg, and Varnhagen von Ense, and at Jena he made the acquaintance of Goethe. He studied at Heidelberg with the historian Schlosser. In 1822 he returned to the United States and accepted for one year the office of tutor of Greek in Harvard. He delivered several sermons, which produced a favorable impression; but the love of literature proved the stronger attachment. His first publication was a volume of poems (Cambridge, 1823). In the same year, in conjunction with Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, he opened the Round Hill school at Northampton, Mass.; in 1824 published a translation of Heeren’s “Politics of Ancient Greece” (Boston), and in 1826 an oration, in which he advocated universal suffrage and the foundation of the state on the power of the whole people. In 1830, without his knowledge, he was elected to the legislature, but refused to take his seat, and the next year he declined a nomination, though certain to have been elected, for the state senate. In 1834 he published the first volume of his “History of the United States” (Boston). In 1835 he drafted an address to the people of Massachusetts at the request of the young men’s democratic convention, and in the same year he removed to Springfield, Mass., where he resided for three years, and completed the second volume of his history. In 1838 he was appointed by President Van Buren collector of the port of Boston. In 1844 he was nominated by the democratic party for governor of Massachusetts, and received a very large vote, though not sufficient for election. After the accession of President Polk, Mr. Bancroft became secretary of the navy, and signalized his administration by the establishment of the naval academy at Annapolis, and other reforms and improvements. This institution was devised and completely set at work by Mr. Bancroft alone, who received for the purpose all the appropriations for which he asked. Congress had never been willing to establish a naval academy. He studied the law to ascertain the powers of the secretary, and found that he could order the place where midshipmen should wait for orders; he could also direct the instructors to give lessons to them at sea, and by law had power to follow them to the place of their common residence on shore. With a close economy, the appropriation of the year for the naval service would meet the expense, and the secretary of war could cede an abandoned military post to the navy. So when congress came together they found the midshipmen that were not at sea comfortably housed at Annapolis, protected from the dangers of idleness and city life, and busy at a regular course of study. Seeing what had been done, they accepted the school, which was in full operation, and granted money for the repairs of the buildings. Mr. Bancroft was also influential in obtaining additional appropriations for the Washington observatory and in introducing some new professors of great merit into the corps of instructors, and he suggested a method by which promotion should depend, not on age alone, but also on experience and capacity; but this scheme was never fully developed or applied. While secretary of the navy Mr. Bancroft gave the order, in the event of war with Mexico, to take immediate possession of California, and constantly renewed the order, sending it by every possible channel to the commander of the American squadron in the Pacific; and it was fully carried into effect before he left the navy department. No order, so far as is known, was issued from any other department to take possession of California. See “Life of James Buchanan,” by G. T. Curtis, vol. i. During his term of office he also acted as secretary of war pro tem. for a month, and gave the order to march into Texas, which caused the first occupation of Texas by the United States. From 1846 to 1849 Mr. Bancroft was minister to Great Britain, where he successfully urged upon the British ministry the adoption of more liberal laws of navigation and allegiance. In May, 1867, he was appointed minister to Prussia; in 1868 he was accredited to the North German confederation, and 1871 to the German empire, from which he was recalled at his own request in 1874. While still minister at Berlin he rendered important services in the settlement with Great Britain of the northwestern boundary of the United States. In the reference to the king of Prussia, which was proposed by Mr. Bancroft, the argument of the United States, and the reply to the argument of Great Britain, were written, every word of them, by Mr. Bancroft. Great Britain had long refused to concede that her emigrants to the United States, whether from Great Britain or Ireland, might throw off allegiance to their mother country and become citizens of the United States. The principle involved in this question Mr. Bancroft discussed with the government of Prussia, and in a treaty obtained the formal recognition of the right of expatriation at the will of the individual emigrant, and negotiated with the several German states a corresponding treaty. England watched the course of negotiation, resolving to conform herself to the principles that Bismarck might adopt for Prussia, and followed him in abandoning the claims to perpetual allegiance. After the expiration of the English mission in 1849, Mr. Bancroft took up his residence in the city of New York and continued work on his history. The third volume had appeared in 1840, and volumes 4 to 10 at intervals from 1852 to 1874. In 1876 the work was revised and issued in a centenary edition (6 vols., 12mo, Boston). Volumes 11 and 12 were published first under the title “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” (New York, 1882). The last revised edition of the whole work appeared in six volumes (New York, 1884-'85).

Mr. Bancroft has been correspondent of the royal academy of Berlin, and also of the French institute; was made D. C. L. at Oxford in 1849, and Doctor Juris by the university of Bonn in 1868, and in September, 1870, celebrated at Berlin the fiftieth anniversary of receiving his first degree at Göttingen. His minor publications include “An Oration delivered on the 4th of July, 1826, at Northampton, Mass.” (Northampton, 1826); “History of the Political System of Europe,” translated from Heeren (1829); “An Oration delivered before the Democracy of Springfield and Neighboring Towns, July 4. 1836” (2d ed., with prefatory remarks, Springfield, 1836); “History of the Colonization of the United States” (Boston, 1841, 12mo, abridged); “An Oration delivered at the Commemoration, in Washington, of the Death of Andrew Jackson, June 27, 1845”; “The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race”; “An  Oration delivered before the New York Historical Society, November 20, 1854” (New York, 1854); “Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, 1619; Communicated, with an Introductory Note, by George Bancroft”; “Collections of the New York Historical Society,” second series, vol. iii., part i. (New York, 1857); “Literary and Historical Miscellanies” (New York, 1855); “Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of America, before them, in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 12th of February, 1866” (Washington, 1866); and “A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, Wounded in the House of its Guardians,” by George Bancroft, Veritati Unice Litarem (New York, 1886). Among his other speeches and addresses may be mentioned a lecture on “The Culture, the Support, and the Object of Art in a Republic,” in the course of the New York historical society in 1852; one on “The Office, Appropriate Culture, and Duty of the Mechanic”; and to the “American Cyclopædia” Mr. Bancroft contributed a biography of Jonathan Edwards. Among those the least satisfied with the historian have been some of the descendants of eminent patriots (Greene, Reed, Rush, and others), whose merits have not, in the opinions of his censors, been duly recognized by Mr. Bancroft. That there should be entire agreement as regards the accuracy and candor of the narrator of the events of so many years, and of those years full of the excitement of party faction, is not to be expected. The merits of the work are considered at length in a biography of Mr. Bancroft by the present writer (see Allibone’s “Dictionary of Authors”), where the following opinions of eminent critics are quoted: Edward Everett says: “A history of the United States by an American writer possesses a claim upon our attention of the strongest character. It would do so under any circumstances; but when we add that the work of Mr. Bancroft is one of the ablest of that class which has for years appeared in the English language; that it compares advantageously with the standard British historians; that as far as it goes it does such justice to its noble subject as to supersede the necessity of any future work of the same kind, and, if completed as commenced, will unquestionably forever be regarded both as an American and as an English classic, our readers would justly think us unpardonable if we failed to offer our humble tribute to its merit.” Prof. Heeren writes: “We know few modern historic works in which the author has reached so high an elevation at once as an historical inquirer and an historical writer. The great conscientiousness with which he refers to his authorities, and his careful criticism, give the most decisive proofs of his comprehensive studies. He has founded his narrative on contemporary documents, yet without neglecting works of later times and of other countries. His narrative is everywhere worthy of the subject. The reader is always instructed, often more deeply interested than by novels or romances. The love of country is the muse which inspires the author, but this inspiration is that of the severe historian which springs from the heart.” William H. Prescott says: “We must confess our satisfaction that the favorable notice we took of Mr. Bancroft’s labors on his first appearance has been fully ratified by his countrymen, and that his colonial history establishes his title to a place among the great historical writers of the age. The reader will find the pages of the present volume filled with matter not less interesting and important than the preceding. He will meet with the same brilliant and daring style, the same picturesque sketches of character and incident, the same acute reasoning and compass of erudition.” George Ripley writes: “Mr. Bancroft is eminently a philosophical historian. He brings the wealth of a most varied learning in systems of thought and in the political and moral history of mankind to illustrate the early experiences of his country. He catalogues events in a manner which shows the possession of ideas, and not only describes popular movements picturesquely, but also analyzes them and reveals their spiritual signification.” Baron Bunsen says: “I read last night Bancroft with increasing admiration. What a glorious and interesting history has he given to his nation of the centuries before the independence!” Von Raumer remarks: “Bancroft Prescott, and Sparks have effected so much in historical composition that no living European historian can take precedence of them, but rather might be proud and grateful to be admitted as a companion.” Mr. Bancroft’s last address was given at the opening of the third meeting of the American historical association, of which he was president, at Washington, 27 April, 1886. It was printed in the “Magazine of American History” for June. In a letter to the author of this article, dated Washington, D. C., 30 May, 1882, he wrote: “I was trained to look upon life here as a season for labor. Being more than fourscore years old, I know the time for my release will soon come. Conscious of being near the shore of eternity, I await without impatience and without dread the beckoning of the hand which will summon me to rest.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BANCROFT, William W., Granville, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-40

BANGS, Nathan, Dr., Reverend, 1778-1862, New York, New York, clergyman, missionary, editor, author.  Officer of the New York auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  President of Wesleyan University.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 157; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 574; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 135)

BANGS, Nathan, clergyman, b. in Stratford, Conn., 2 May, 1778; d. in New York city, 3 May, 1862. He received a limited education, taught school, and in 1799 went to Canada, where he spent three years as a teacher and land-surveyor. Uniting with the Methodist church, he labored for six years as an itinerant minister in the Canadian provinces, and, on returning to New York, took a prominent part in the councils of the denomination. In 1820 he was transferred from a pastorate in New York to the head of the Methodist book concern. Under his management debts were paid off and the business much extended. He was also editor of the “Methodist Magazine.” In 1828 he was appointed editor of the “Christian Advocate.” When the “Methodist Quarterly Review” replaced the “Methodist Magazine” in 1832, the general conference continued Dr. Bangs in the editorship. He was the principal founder and secretary of the Methodist missionary society. Besides his editorial labors he exercised the censorship over all the publications of the book concern. When appointed secretary of the missionary society in 1836, he devoted his chief energies to its service, until appointed president of the Wesleyan university, at Middletown, Conn., in 1841. In 1842 he resumed pastoral work in New York, and in 1852 retired and employed himself during his remaining years chiefly in literary labors. His most important work was a “History of the Methodist Episcopal Church from its Origin in 1776 to the General Conference of 1840” (4 vols., New York, 1839-'42). His other published works were a volume directed against “Christianism,” a new sect in New England (1809); “Errors of Hopkinsianism” (1815); “Predestination Examined” (1817); “Reformer Reformed” (1818); “Methodist Episcopacy” (1820); “Life of the Rev. Freeborn Garettson” (1832); ‘Authentic History of the Missions Under the Care of the Methodist Episcopal Church” (1832); “Letters to a Young Preacher” (1835); “The Original Church of Christ” (1836); “Essay on Emancipation” (1848); “State and Responsibilities of the Methodist Episcopal Church” (1850); “Letters on Sanctification” (1851); “Life of Arminius”; “Scriptural Vindication of the Orders and Powers of the Ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church”; and numerous occasional sermons. See “Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D. D.,” by Abel Stevens (New York,  Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BANKSON, Andrew, Tennessee, state senator in Illinois, 1808, anti-slavery activist in the senate (Dumond, 1961, p. 93)

BANNEKER, Benjamin, 1731-1806, free African American, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, author, humanitarian. (Allen, 1971; Bedini, 1972; Green, 1985; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 18, 27, 31, 186-187; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 159)

BANNEKER, Benjamin, mathematician, b. at Ellicott's Mills, Md., 9 Nov., 1731; d. in Baltimore, in October, 1806. He was of African descent, and learned to read from his grandmother, a white woman who had freed and married one of her slaves. He studied mathematics and astronomy while working in the field, when past middle life, and prepared and published almanacs for Maryland and the adjoining states in 1792 and subsequent years until his death. He assisted Ellicott in surveying the site of Washington and the boundaries of the District of Columbia. His biography, by J. H. B. Latrobe, was published in 1845, and another by J. S. Norris in 1854. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 159.

BAQUAQUA, Mahommah Gardo, b. c. 1824, African American abolitionist. Wrote slave narrative, An Interesting Narrative: Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua in 1854.  (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 355)

BARBADOES, C., African American, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 58n40)

BARBADOES, James G., 1796-1841, Boston, Massachusetts.  African American abolitionist, community activist.  Helped organize the Massachusetts General Colored Association (MGCA). Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  (Newman, 2002, pp. 100-102, 105, 114, 115, 126; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 161; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 127; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 362)

BARBER, Edward D., Middlebury, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-1840, 1840-1841

BARBOUR, Isaac R., New York, New York, American Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1855-59

BARBOUR, John N., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1853-55

BARD, David, U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania, opposed slavery, proposed a tax on slavery on February 14, 1804. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 82, 109)

BARKER, Joseph, 1806-1875, English clergyman, author, controversialist, lecturer, abolitionist.  Supporter of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison.  Vice President of the Anti-Slavery Party, 1852-1859.  Moved permanently to the United States in 1857.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in the House.  (Larsen, 2006; Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 150; Annals of Congress; Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1885-1900)

BARKLEY, Thomas, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

BARNABY, James, W. Harwich, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1833-40

BARNES, B.H., Chelsea, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Treasurer, 1839-, Executive Committee, 1842-, Auditor, 1843-

BARNES, Marcus, New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

BARNETT, James, 1810-1875, Oneida, Madison county, New York.  Political leader.  Member, Liberty party, Republican Party, 1856.  Friend of abolitionist Gerrit Smith. (New York Civil List)

BARNEY, Eliza, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 332)

BARROW, David, 1753-1819, Baptist clergyman, abolitionist, founded Portsmouth-Norfolk Church in 1795.  Had Black pastor assistant.  Had mixed race congregation.  President of the Kentucky Abolition Society.  Wrote: “Involuntary, Unlimited, Perpetual, Absolute, Hereditary Slavery Examined on the Principles of Nature, Reason, Justice, Policy, Scripture,” (1807), published Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Magazine.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 90, 95, 133-134; Goodell, 1852; Locke, 1901, pp. 44, 90; Mason, 2006, pp. 171, 176)

BARRY, C. C., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1835-37

BARSTOW, Amos C., Providence, Rhode Island, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64

BARTLETT, Luther, Hartford, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-1853

BASCOM, Henry Bidleman, Bishop, 1796-1850, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, clergyman. Methodist pastor educator, former President of Madison College in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.  Successful Agent for the American Colonization Society in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Kentucky and Tennessee.  Wrote Methodism and Slavery, 1847.  Chaplain of Congress.  President of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania.  Agent, Colonization Society, 1829-1831.  (Henkle, Life of Bascom, 1856; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 189-190; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 30-32; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 136, 141-142, 146)

BASCOM, Henry Bidleman, M. E. bishop, b. in Hancock, Delaware co., N. Y., 27 May, 1796; d. in Louisville, Ky., 8 Sept., 1850. He was descended from a Huguenot family. He had but little education, but before the age of eighteen he was licensed to preach, and admitted to the Ohio conference, where he did hard work on the frontier, preaching in one year 400 times, and receiving a salary of $12.10. His style being too florid to suit the taste of those to whom he preached, he was transferred, in 1816, to Tennessee; but, after filling appointments there and in Kentucky, he returned to Ohio in 1822, and in 1823 Henry Clay obtained for him the appointment of chaplain to congress. At the close of the session of that body he visited Baltimore, where his fervid oratory made a great sensation. He was first president of Madison college, Uniontown, Pa., in 1827-'8, and from 1829 till 1831 was agent of the colonization society. From that time until 1841 he was professor of moral science and belles-lettres at Augusta college, Ky. He became president of Transylvania university, Kentucky, in 1842, having previously declined the presidency of two other colleges. Dr. Bascom was a member of the general conference of 1844, which suspended Bishop Andrew because he refused to manumit his slaves; and the protest of the southern members against the action of the majority was drawn up by him. In 1845 he was a member of the Louisville convention, which organized the Methodist Church South, and was the author of its report; and he was chairman of the commission appointed to settle the differences between the two branches of the church. In 1846 he became editor of the “Southern Methodist Quarterly Review,” and in 1849 he was chosen bishop, being ordained in May, 1850, only a few months before his death. Dr. Bascom was a powerful speaker, but was fond of strong epithets and rather extravagant metaphors. He was the author of “Sermons from the Pulpit,” “Lectures on Infidelity,” “Lectures on Moral and Mental Science,” and “Methodism and Slavery.” A posthumous edition of his works was edited by Rev. T. N. Ralston (Nashville, Tenn., 1850 and 1856). See “Life of Bishop Bascom,” by Rev. Dr. M. M. Henkle (Nashville, 1854). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 189-190.

BASCOM, Elisha, Shoreham, Vermont, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BASCOM, Flavel, Chicago, Illinois, co-founder of the Chicago chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).

BASSET, William, Lynn, Massachusetts, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, president Requited Labor Convention.  Member and manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1840, 1843-1853; Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841, 1842-1846.  (Drake, 1950, pp. 157, 160, 178n, 159; Mabee, 1970, pp. 73, 120, 121, 209, 210)

BASSETT, Richard, 1745-1815, founding father, political leader, lawyer, jurist, Revolutionary War soldier.  Delegate to the Continental Convention of 1787.  Governor of Delaware and senior U.S. Senator from Delaware during First Congress.  Strong advocate of anti-slavery cause.  Freed his slaves.  (Conrad, 1908; Hoffecker, 2004; Martin, 1984; Martin, 1995; Munroe, 1954; Scharf, 1888; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 190-191; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 39)

BASSETT, Richard, governor of Delaware, b. in Delaware; d. in September, 1815. He was a lawyer, and a member of congress under the old confederation in 1787, and was also a member of the convention that framed the federal constitution. From 1789 to 1793 he was a U. S. senator, and was the first member that cast his vote in favor of locating the capital on the Potomac. Chosen presidential elector in 1797, he voted for John Adams; from 1798 till 1801 he was governor of his state. In 1801 and 1802 he was a U. S. circuit judge. His daughter became the wife of James A. Bayard, signer of the treaty of Ghent. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 190-191.

BASSETT, Thomas D., Barnestable, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-43

BASSETT, William, Boston, Massachusetts, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40, 1843-53

BASSETT, Zenas D., Barnstable, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1841-42

BATES, Abner, Syracuse, New York, American Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1858-59

BATES, Edward, 1793-1869, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Congressman.  U.S. Attorney General, Lincoln’s cabinet.  Member, Free Labor Party, Missouri.  Anti-slavery activist.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 193; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49)

BATES, Edward, statesman, b. in Belmont. Goochland co., Va., 4 Sept., 1793; d. in St. Louis, Mo., 25 March, 1869. He was of Quaker descent, and received most of his education at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, finishing under the care of a private tutor. In 1812 he received a midshipman's warrant, and was only prevented from going to sea by his mother's influence. From February till October, 1813, he served in the Virginia militia at Norfolk. His elder brother, Frederick Bates, having been appointed secretary of the new territory of Missouri, Edward emigrated thither in 1814, and soon entered upon the practice of law. As early as 1816 he was appointed prosecuting attorney for the St. Louis circuit, and in 1820 was elected a delegate to the state constitutional convention. Toward the close of the same year he was appointed attorney-general of the new state of Missouri, which office he held for two years. He was elected to the legislature in 1822, and in 1824 became state attorney for the Missouri district. About this time he became the political friend of Henry Clay. In 1826, while yet quite a young man, he was elected a representative in congress as an anti-democrat, serving but one term. For the next twenty-five years he devoted himself to his profession, but served in the legislature again in 1830 and 1834. In 1847 Mr. Bates was a delegate to the convention for internal improvement, held in Chicago, and here made a favorable impression upon the country at large. In 1850 President Fillmore offered him the portfolio of secretary of war, which he declined. Three years later he accepted the office of judge of the St. Louis land court. In 1836 he presided over the whig convention held in Baltimore. When the question of the repeal of the Missouri compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the “free-labor” party in Missouri, opposing with them the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. Mr. Bates became more and more prominent as an anti-slavery man, until in 1859 he was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. He was warmly supported by his own state, and for a time it seem that the opposition to Gov. Seward might concentrate upon him. In the National republican convention of 1860 he received 48 votes on the 1st ballot; but when it became apparent that Mr. Lincoln was the favorite, his name was withdrawn. When Mr. Lincoln, after his election, decided upon selecting for his cabinet the leading men of the republican party, including those who had been his principal competitors, Mr. Bates was appointed attorney-general. In the cabinet he played a dignified, safe, and faithful, but not conspicuous, part. In 1864 he resigned his office and returned to his home in St. Louis. From this time he never again entered into active politics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 193.

BATES, Elisha, Mount Pleasant, Ohio, newspaper publisher, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, aided fugitive slaves in Ohio.  (Drake, 1950, pp. 117, 128; Dumond, 1961, pp. 136-137)

BATES, Merrit, Swanton, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40

BAUMFREE, Isabella, see Truth, Sojourner

BAXTER, Porter, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BAYARD, James Ashton, 1767-1815, statesman, diplomat, leader of Federalists, member of U.S. Congress from Delaware, opposed slavery as a member of U.S. House of Representatives (Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, pp. 196-197; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 64-66; Goodell, 1852, p. 97; Locke, 1901, p. 93, 171; Annals of Congress, 1795-1815)

Biography from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

BAYARD, James Asheton, statesman, b. in Philadelphia, 28 July, 1767; d. in Wilmington, Del., 6 Aug., 1815. He was the son of Dr. James Asheton Bayard, and nephew of Col. John Bayard, into whose family he was adopted after his father's death, which occurred on 8 June, 1770. He was graduated at Princeton in 1784, studied law under Gen. Joseph Reed and Jared Ingersoll, was admitted to the bar in 1787, and settled in Wilmington, Del., where he acquired a high reputation. In 1796 he was elected a representative in congress as a federalist. He was distinguished as an orator and constitutional lawyer and became a leader of the party in the house. In 1797 he distinguished himself by his management of the impeachment of William Blount, of North Carolina, who was expelled from the senate for instigating the Creeks and Cherokees to assist the English in their aim of conquering the Spanish possessions in Louisiana. In 1801, when the choice between Burr and Jefferson in the undecided presidential election of 1800 devolved upon the house of representatives, Bayard stood at the head of the federalists, and his influence, combined with that of Alexander Hamilton, contributed chiefly to bring about the election of Jefferson. President Adams appointed him minister to France before the accession of the new administration in 1801, and the senate confirmed the nomination, but the appointment was declined. In the 8th congress, which met 7 Dec., 1801, he opposed, with great force, on constitutional grounds, the repeal of the judiciary, bill, enacted by federalist votes in the preceding session. He served in the house of representatives from 15 May, 1797, till 3 March, 1803. In 1804 he was chosen the successor of William Hill Wells when the latter resigned his seat as representative of Delaware in the U. S. senate. He sat in the senate from 15 Jan., 1805, to 3 March, 1813, and opposed the declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812. In 1813 he was selected by President Madison joint commissioner with Albert Gallatin (who was afterward rejected by the senate), and John Quincy Adams, to conclude a peace with Great Britain, through the mediation of Russia. He left Philadelphia 8 May, 1813, and met his fellow-commissioner, Mr. Adams, at that time envoy to Russia, at St. Petersburg in July of that year. After the refusal of Great Britain to treat at St. Petersburg, he was included in the new commission, constituted 18 Jan., consisting, besides himself and John Q. Adams, of Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell, Albert Gallatin being added in the following month. Going to Holland, he took a prominent part in the negotiations that resulted in the treaty of peace signed at Ghent, 24 Dec., 1814. He received the appointment of minister to the court of St. Petersburg, but declined the mission, declaring that he had no desire to serve the administration except where his services were necessary for the good of the country. When about to proceed to London to continue the work of the commission which included the negotiation of a treaty of commerce, he was taken alarmingly ill and returned home, only to die immediately after his arrival. His wife, daughter of Gov. Richard Bassett, of Delaware, died 10 Dec., 1854, aged seventy-six. Senator Bayard's speech on the foreign intercourse bill was published in 1798, and another on the repeal of the judiciary bill in a volume of the speeches of 1802. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 196-197.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

THE work of which the present article forms a part, being in its biographical portion merely auxiliary to the talent of the engraver, requires nothing beyond a mere sketch of the principal incidents of life, especially of such as connect the individual with public affairs; and, although in the present instance, the notice of those incidents would naturally lead to a discussion of many interesting points in the history of the country, and of its political parties, yet the limits and design of the work forbid in relation to them, any thing more than a passing notice.

JAMES A. BAYARD was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the 28th July, 1767. He was the second son of Doctor James A. Bayard, a physician of promising talents and increasing reputation, but who died on the 8th January, 1770, at an early period of life.

Doctor Bayard was the brother of Colonel John Bayard, who, during the revolutionary war, was a member of the council of safety and many years speaker of the legislature of Pennsylvania. Their father, whose name was James, married a Miss Ashton. The family were originally of French extraction, but being Huguenots, and dreading that spirit of religious persecution which belonged to the age, they abandoned their native country, and came to North America some time prior to the revocation of the edict of Nantes.

A part of the family settled in the then province of New York, and one of them afterwards selected Cecil county, in the province of Maryland, for his future residence, from whom James Bayard, the grandfather of the subject of our present notice, was descended.

Mr. BAYARD having been left an orphan at a very early age, was placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Colonel John Bayard, in whose family he lived for several years. His education was, in the first instance intrusted to the Rev. Mr. Smith, a respectable clergyman of Lancaster county, with whom he remained some time, but eventually he returned to his uncle’s family, and pursued his studies under the direction of a private tutor until his admission into Princeton college. At that place he spent the usual period allotted to collegiate life, and graduated on the 28th September, 1784, at little more than the age of seventeen years; but from the early development of those talents, and that industry which distinguished him in after life, he succeeded in obtaining the highest honor of the institution.

Upon leaving college, Mr. BAYARD returned to Philadelphia, and having selected the profession of the law for his future occupation, he commenced his studies under General Joseph Reed, the former president of Pennsylvania, and after his death, in 1785, resumed and concluded them under the direction of the late Jared Ingersoll, Esq.

Being now prepared to enter upon the busy scene of life, Mr. BAYARD resolved to pursue the practice of his profession in the adjoining state of Delaware, and with that view was admitted to the bar at the August term of the court of common pleas for the county of Newcastle, in the year 1787, when he was little more than twenty years of age.

The first years of his professional life he devoted to severe study, during which time he attained that familiar and exact knowledge of the principles of political science, and of general jurisprudence, which in after life were alike serviceable to him at the bar and in congress.

On the 11th February, 1795, he was married to Miss Bassett, the eldest daughter of Richard Bassett, Esq., who was subsequently governor of the state of Delaware.

Shortly after his marriage, Mr. BAYARD became actively connected with the dominant party in the state, and in October, 1796, was elected a member of congress, and took his seat in the house of representatives on the 22d of May, 1797, at the first session of the fifth congress, which had been convened by the proclamation of the president, in consequence of the existing difficulties with France.

Immediately upon his appearance in congress, Mr. BAYARD became prominent for his zeal, industry, ability, and knowledge; and was at the first session appointed one of the committee to prepare and report articles of impeachment against William Blount, a senator of the United States; being the first instance of a resort to that high constitutional proceeding. In the subsequent session of that congress, he was elected one of the committee to conduct the impeachment on the part of the house, and became chairman of the committee on the appointment of Mr. Sitgreaves, who had originally filled that station, as commissioner under the sixth article of the treaty with Great Britain.

On this occasion a plea to the jurisdiction of the senate, on the ground that a senator is not a civil officer within the meaning of the constitution, having been filed by the counsel of Mr. Blount, who were men of great learning and ability, an opportunity was presented, in the discussion to which it gave rise, for the display of those talents and that knowledge for which Mr. BAYARD was eminent. The senate, however, by a small majority sustained the plea.

The period to which we now refer was one of strong party excitement; and no event was suffered to pass unnoticed by those in the opposition, which it was supposed might bring the administration into disrepute with the people, The case of Thomas Nash alias Jonathan Robbins, was one therefore not to be neglected. Thomas Nash, who artfully represented himself to have been an impressed American seaman, had committed piracy and murder on board the British frigate Hermione while at sea, and having been arrested in Charleston on that charge, was demanded by the British minister, under the twenty-seventh article of the treaty with Great Britain, to be delivered up to his government for trial. The president of the United States had advised and requested the district judge of South Carolina, before whom the case was depending, to deliver him up on receiving the evidence of criminality stipulated by the treaty; this was accordingly done, and he was afterward tried by a court martial and executed.

The whole matter was communicated to congress by the president; and Mr. Livingston, on the 20t4 February, 1800, submitted to the house of representatives two resolutions, condemning the conduct of the president as a “dangerous interference of the executive with judicial decisions,” and the compliance of the judge as a “sacrifice of the constitutional independence of the judicial power, exposing it to suspicion and reproach.” The discussion which followed called into action the talents of the friends as well as of the opponents of the administration. The propriety of the course pursued by the president was sustained and successfully vindicated by Mr. BAYARD and Chief Justice Marshall, who was then a member of' the house from Virginia. Judge Marshall, who followed Mr. BAYARD in the debate, in one of those luminous and irresistible arguments which characterize the vigorous and logical mind of that eminently distinguished man, opened his speech with the following observations: “Believing as he did most seriously, that in a government constituted like that of the United States, much of the public happiness depended, not only on its being rightly administered, but on the measures of the administration being rightly understood; on rescuing public opinion from those numerous prejudices with which so many causes must combine to surround it; he could not but have been highly gratified with the very eloquent, and what was still more valuable, the very able and very correct argument which had been delivered by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. BAYARD) against the resolutions now under consideration. He had not expected that the effect of this argument would have been universal, but he had cherished the hope, and in this he had not been disappointed, that it would be very extensive. He did not flatter himself with being able to shed much new light on the subject, but as the argument in opposition to the resolutions had been assailed with considerable ability by gentlemen of great talent, he trusted the house would not think the time misapplied which would be devoted to the reëstablishment of the principles contained in that argument, and to the refutation of those advanced in opposition to it.” The resolutions were rejected by a vote of sixty-one to thirty-five.

Mr. BAYARD had been reëlected to congress in October, 1798, and was again elected in October, 1800, at a period when the highest party feeling prevailed. The event which we have now occasion to notice, was one which called for the exertion on his part of the greatest discretion, firmness, and magnanimity. At the presidential election which took place in November, 1800, the greatest number and majority of electoral votes which were in favor of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the democratic candidates, being equal, the election devolved upon the house of representatives. The mass of the federal party throughout the country, and most of the federal members of the house, deprecated the elevation of Mr. Jefferson to the presidential office, as an event that would be fatal to the federal government, and to the existing constitution. The greatest excitement prevailed, and the two parties viewed each other with feelings of mutual jealousy and distrust. The federalists seriously believed, that it was the design of their opponents, and particularly of Mr. Jefferson as their chief, to abase if not to destroy the federal government. With this belief, and the apprehensions and feelings resulting from it, the federal members of the house of representatives were called upon by that constitution to choose between the two candidates.

The one was known to be decidedly hostile to federal principles and federal men; the other, though belonging to the same party, and standing high in its estimation, as well as in that of his fellow candidate, was yet less distinctly marked by his principles, and believed to be less visionary in his politics. The federal members of the house had several meetings for the purpose of consulting on the subject of the election; among whom there existed many shades of opinion, both as to the possibility of electing Mr. Burr, and as to the expediency of attempting it: they formed the majority of the house, though not of the states. Mr. Huger, of South Carolina, absolutely refused to vote for him; and Mr. Dent, of Maryland, declared his determination to vote for Mr. Jefferson. Among those who acquiesced with most reluctance in the course ultimately adopted, were Mr. BAYARD and Messrs. Baer and Craik, of Maryland. Mr. BAYARD, though he believed Mr. Burr to be personally better qualified for president, thought it vain to make the attempt, but to use his own words, “was chiefly influenced by the current of public sentiment, which he thought it neither safe nor politic to counteract.” General Hamilton, than whom no man out of congress enjoyed a larger share of the confidence of the party, or exerted greater influence over its movements, was decidedly opposed to the step, and in a correspondence with Mr. BAYARD earnestly advocated the election of Mr. Jefferson. The majority of the federal members were, however, in favor of Mr. Burr; and many of them would have preferred to defeat the election altogether, rather than choose Mr. Jefferson. Mr. BAYARD, out of deference to the opinion of the majority, agreed to make an attempt to elect Mr. Burr; but with the fixed determination that there should be a president chosen, and that the election should not be protracted beyond a reasonable period.

Messrs. Baer and Craik, of Maryland, and General Morris, of Vermont, entertaining the same views and opinions, concurred with him in this resolution; and they entered into mutual engagements to support each other in that course. It was in the power of any one of these gentlemen to terminate the election at any moment. The balloting in the house commenced on the 11th February, 1801, and terminated on the 17th February, without any adjournment. On the first ballot, it was ascertained that Mr. Jefferson had eight states, Mr. Burr six states, and that two states, Maryland and Vermont, were divided. As there were sixteen states, Mr. Jefferson wanted the vote of one state, which might have been given, either by Mr. BAYARD, who held the vote of the state of Delaware, or by General Morris, who held the divided vote of Vermont, or by either Mr. Baer or Mr. Craik, who held the divided vote of Maryland. These gentlemen, possessing an absolute control over the election, so far as regarded the certainty of making a president and the duration of the contest, authorized Mr. BAYARD to exercise his own discretion as to the precise period it should terminate, and pledged themselves to abide by his decision. Mr. BAYARD then took pains to ascertain what were the probabilities of success; and becoming convinced that it was hopeless, and being resolved not to hazard the constitution and the safety of the union, he determined to put an end to the contest. Previously to this, however, he was induced to believe, from the representation of some of the intimate friends of Mr. Jefferson, that he would observe in his administration those great points of policy which, being intimately connected with the prosperity of the country, the federal party had most at heart.

On the 19th February, 1801, Mr. BAYARD was appointed minister to France by John Adams, whose presidential term did not expire until the 4th of March following. Nothing could under any other circumstances have been more gratifying to his feelings; but from the delicate situation in which he had been placed by the late presidential election, he instantly declined the appointment, and on the same day addressed to the president the following letter:—

WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 19TH, 1801.

SIR,—

I beg you to accept my thanks for the honor conferred on me by the nomination as minister to the French Republic. Under most circumstances, I should have been extremely gratified with such an opportunity of rendering myself serviceable to the country; but the delicate situation in which the late presidential election has placed me, forbids my exposing myself to the suspicion of having adopted from impure motives the line of conduct I pursued. Representing the smallest state in the union, without resources which could furnish the means of self-protection, I was compelled by the obligation of a sacred duty so to act, as not to hazard the constitution upon which the political existence of the state depends. The service I should have to render by accepting the appointment, would be under the administration of Mr. Jefferson; and having been in the number of those who withdrew themselves from the opposition to his election, it is impossible for me to take an office, the tenure of which would be at his pleasure. You will therefore pardon me, sir, for begging you to accept my resignation of the appointment.

I have the honor to be,

With perfect consideration,

Your very obedient servant,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.                           JAMES A. BAYARD.

In writing on the 22d February, 1801, three days subsequently, to one who was both a near relation and an intimate friend, Mr. BA YARD says—

“You are right in your conjecture as to the office offered me. I have since been nominated minister to France, concurred in nem. con., commissioned, and resigned. Under proper circumstances, the acceptance would have been complete gratification; but under the existing, I thought the resignation most honorable. To have taken eighteen thousand dollars out of the public treasury with a knowledge that no service could be rendered by me, as the French government would have waited for a man who represented the existing feelings and views of the government, would have been disgraceful. Another consideration of great weight arose from the part I took in the presidential election. As I had given the turn to the election, it was impossible for me to accept an office which would be held on the tenure of Mr. Jefferson’s pleasure. My ambition shall never be gratified at the expense of a suspicion. I shall never lose sight of the motto of the great original of our name.”

Among the first acts of those who now came into power, was the repeal of the act passed on the 13th February, 1801, “to provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the United States,” which had divided the United States into six circuits, and provided a system of circuit courts for the administration of justice. The organization of this system, and the appointment of the judges under it towards the close of Mr. Adams’ administration, gave particular umbrage to Mr. Jefferson; and as the, constitution would not permit the removal of the judges, who held their office during good behaviour, it was determined to cut the Gordian knot, and to get rid of the judges by destroying the system. This measure produced one of the most memorable struggles in the political history of the country. On this occasion, Mr. BAYARD, who on the part of the majority was called the Goliah of the adverse party, and sarcastically denominated the high priest of the constitution, made one of his most eloquent and powerful speeches; but party spirit demanded the sacrifice, and it was made.

In November, 1804, Mr. BAYARD was elected by the legislature of Delaware a senator of the United States, for the unexpired term of Mr. Wells, who had resigned that office; and in February, 1805, was again elected by the legislature a senator for the ensuing term of six years.

So hasty a sketch as the present will not permit more than a passing notice of prominent events; and we shall here, therefore, simply remark, that while he pursued with great success and reputation, his profession at home, he was alike distinguished in public life for the great ability and zeal with which he largely participated in the transactions of the day.

Certain resolutions introduced in the senate, in the year 1809, by Mr. Giles, gave occasion for the delivery on the part of Mr. BAYARD of a very able speech against the embargo system, which had commenced in December, 1807.

It was in June, 1812, that the president communicated to congress his message recommending a declaration of war against Great Britain. On this occasion, Mr. BAYARD, who had been reëlected by the legislature of Delaware, in the year 1811, a senator for another period of six years, did not deny that there were sufficient causes for war, but insisted that the measure was premature; that it should be postponed for a few months, to furnish time for the return of our ships and seamen, and of the immense amount of property which was either in the ports of Great Britain or afloat on the ocean, as well as for putting the country in a situation for offensive and defensive operations With this view, he moved, on the 16th June, to postpone the further consideration of the bill declaring war against Great Britain, to the 31st of October. In his speech in support of this motion, he observed that he was greatly influenced in making it, “by the combined considerations of the present defenceless condition of the country, and the protection which Providence has given us against a maritime power in the winter season. During the winter months, you will be protected by the elements. Postpone the war until November, and you will not have to dread an enemy on our coast till April. In the mean time go on with your recruiting, fill up, discipline, and train your army. Take the station, if you please, which will enable you to open an early campaign. Your trade will all have time to return before hostilities commence; and having all your ships and seamen at home, you may be prepared to put forth all your strength upon the ocean, on the opening of the ensuing spring. Shall we by an untimely precipitancy, yielding to a fretful impatience of delay, throw our wealth into the hands of the enemy, and feed that very rapacity which it is our object to subdue or to punish?”

War, however, was declared on the 18th June; and Mr. BAYARD, whose heart was truly American, and who never suffered any influence or inferior motive to interfere with his duty to his country, was prompt in advising the adoption of such measures and such line of conduct as its safety and honor demanded. He was the chairman of the committee of safety in the place of his residence, (Wilmington,) and, at the head of his fellow-citizens, was the first to assist with his own hands in the erection of the temporary defences of the town. His prevailing and uniform sentiment was that of devotion to the welfare and honor of his country, which demanded the sacrifice of all, minor considerations.

Shortly after the intelligence of this event reached St. Petersburg, the emperor of Russia offered his mediation to both nations, to promote the restoration of peace. The president of the United States determined to accept the offer, without waiting to know whether Great Britain would do so likewise, and, on the 17th April, 1813, appointed Mr. BAYARD, together with Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Adams, ministers plenipotentiary, for the purpose of negotiating a peace, with further power, in case of a successful issue, to make a treaty of commerce. This appointment was entirely unexpected on the part of Mr. BAYARD, and was accepted by him from an imperious sense of duty to his country, with the hope of rendering her some service, and with the confidence that his acceptance of it could be attended with no mischief. In a letter addressed to the secretary of state, (Mr. Monroe,) on 5th May, 1813, after stating his receipt of the instructions prepared for the mission, and that there was nothing in them of doubtful construction, or which he could not cordially promote, he intimates a doubt whether the chief point of difficulty (the impressment of seamen) was placed on a practicable footing; requiring as they did, a stipulation against impressment, as a sine quâ non. The event proved that he was right. On the 9th May, 1813, Mr. BAYARD and Mr. Gallatin departed from the United States, in the Neptune, on their mission to join Mr. Adams, who was then at St. Petersburg in the capacity of American minister. After a stormy and disagreeable passage, they arrived at St. Petersburg, on the 21st July following, having travelled by land from Revel, where they had disembarked. The emperor was then absent with his army at a distance of more than a thousand miles from his capitol. They were presented to the empress, and received by the chancellor Romanzoff in their official capacity; but they could obtain no satisfactory intelligence as to the intentions of the British government, in relation to the object of their mission. After remaining six months in St. Petersburg, and becoming satisfied that the British government did not mean to accept the mediation, although they could not obtain from count Romanzoff any official acknowledgment of that fact, Mr. BAYARD and Mr. Gallatin determined to leave Russia, and accordingly departed from St. Petersburg on the 25th January, 1814. They travelled by land through Berlin to Amsterdam, a distance of more than one thousand five hundred miles, and arrived in the latter place on the 4th March following. There they received despatches from the government, apprising them of the fact, that Great Britain had refused the mediation of the emperor of Russia, but had offered to negotiate directly, either at London or at Gottenburg; and that the president having acceded to this proposition, and selected the latter place, they were to repair to that point. On the 18th January, 1814, the president appointed Mr. BAYARD, in conjunction with Messrs. Adams, Clay, Russell, and Gallatin, ministers plenipotentiary, to negotiate directly with Great Britain. Messrs. Clay and Russell sailed from the United States on the 25th February, and arrived at Gottenburg on the 14th April. At that time, Mr. BAYARD and Mr. Gallatin were in London, whither they had gone on the 10th of that month.

On the 13th May, soon after the receipt of their despatches, they communicated the fact of their appointment to Lord Castlereagh. A few days afterward, they received a note from Lord Bathurst, suggesting the substitution of Ghent in preference to Gottenburg, as the seat of the negotiation, which was subsequently acceded to by the American ministers. Mr. BAYARD left London on the 23d May, and, arriving in Paris on the 28th, left it on the 15th June for Ghent, where he arrived on the 27th of the same month, and found Mr. Adams and Mr. Russell. In a few days, they were joined by Messrs. Clay and Gallatin; the members of the mission having been informed that they might expect the arrival of the British ministers about the 1st of July. The latter, however, did not arrive until the 6th August; and on the next day the negotiations commenced, which terminated in a treaty of peace, which was signed on the 24th December, 1814.

Mr. BAYARD left Ghent on the 7th January, 1815, and arrived in Paris on the 11th of the same month; here he designed to remain until it should be necessary to repair to London, to assist with the other members of the mission, in the negotiation of a treaty of commerce with Great Britain, with which they had also been charged. On the 4th March, however, he was attacked with the disease which was to prove fatal to his life. After severe suffering and a confinement for most of the period to his chamber, he left Paris in a state of great debility on the 10th of May, and embarking immediately on his arrival at Havre, the vessel sailed for Plymouth, where she arrived on the 14th of the same month. Here, in daily expectation of the arrival of Mr. Clay from London, who was to take passage in the same ship, he was detained for five weeks, during which time he was unable to leave his berth, but remained in a state of excessive suffering and alarming debility. The appointment of minister to Russia had been conferred on him by the president, and confirmed by the senate; but he promptly declined its acceptance. At length the ship was ordered to sail, and arriving in the Delaware on the 1st of August, Mr. BAYARD found himself once more, after an absence of more than two years, in the bosom of his family. But it was only to receive their welcome, and to mingle the tears of joy at his return with those of grief for their final separation. He expired on the 6th August, 1815, at the age of forty-eight years, and that Providence which saw fit to remove him from this life, in the maturity of his powers, and the highest capability of usefulness, indulged the fond wish of his heart, to embrace once more his wife and children, and draw his last breath in the land of his nativity.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Vol. 2.

BAYARD, Samuel, 1767-1840, Princeton, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jurist, Member of the New Jersey state legislature.  Vice-President, American Colonization Society, 1833-1841. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 199; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 69-70; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BAYARD, Samuel, jurist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 11 Jan., 1767; d. in Princeton, N. J., 12 May, 1840. He was the fourth son of Col. John Bayard, and was graduated at Princeton in 1784, delivering the valedictory oration. He studied law with William Bradford, whose law-partner he became, and practised for seven years in Philadelphia. In 1791 he was appointed clerk of the U. S. supreme court. After the ratification of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, signed 19 Nov., 1794, he was appointed by Washington agent of the United States to prosecute American claims before the British admiralty courts, and in that capacity he lived in London four years. After his return he resided several years at New Rochelle, N. Y., and while there was appointed by Gov. Jay presiding judge of Westchester co. In 1803 he removed to New York city, and resumed the practice of law. He was one of the founders of the New York historical society, organized in 1804. In 1806 he purchased an estate at Princeton, N. J. For several years he was a member of the New Jersey legislature, and for a long period presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Somerset co. He was interested in religious enterprises, was one of the founders of Princeton theological seminary, and joined with Elias Boudinot in establishing the American Bible society and the New Jersey Bible society. In 1814 he was nominated by the federalists for congress, but was defeated. He published a funeral oration on Gen. Washington (New Brunswick, 1800); “A Digest of American Cases on the Law of Evidence, intended as Notes to Peake's Compendium” (Philadelphia, 1810); “An Abstract of the Laws of the United States which relate to the Duties and Authority of Judges of Inferior State Courts and Justices of the Peace” (New York, 1834); and “Letters on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper” (Philadelphia, 1825; 2d ed., 1840). See “Samuel Bayard and his London Diary, 1791-'4,” by Gen. Jas. Grant Wilson (Newark, 1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 199.

BEAMAN, Charles C., Boston, Massachusetts.  Member of the Young Men’s Colonization Society.  Publicly defended the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 210)

BEAMAN, Fernando, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BEAMAN, Gamaliel, Pike County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39

BECK, John Brodhead, 1794-1851, New York, physician, Recording Secretary, New York Auxiliary, American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 213; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 115; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 40)

BECK, John Brodhead, physician, b. in Schenectady, N. Y., 18 Sept., 1794; d. in Rhinebeck, N. Y., 9 April, 1851. He was a nephew of the Rev. John B. Romeyn, in whose house he was educated. He was graduated at Columbia in 1813, and began the practice of medicine in 1817. From 1822 till 1829 he edited the “New York Medical and Physical Journal.” He became professor of materia medica and of botany in the college of physicians and surgeons in 1826, but exchanged the chair of botany subsequently for that of medical jurisprudence. He assisted T. Romeyn Beck in the preparation of his great work on medical jurisprudence (1823), and published “Medical Essays” (1843), “Infant Therapeutics” (1849), and “Historical Sketch of the State of Medicine in the Colonies” (1850). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BECKLEY, Guy, Northfield, Vermont.  Anti-slavery agent.  Lectured in New Hampshire and Michigan.  Co-edited antislavery newspaper, Signal of Liberty, with Theodore Foster, the newspaper of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society. (Dumond, 1961, p. 187)

BEEBE, Ward W., Knox County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39

BEECHER, Charles, 1815-1900, clergyman, anti-slavery activist, author.  Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Edward Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher.  (Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 220; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 126-129; Dumond, 1961, pp. 273, 310; Mabee, 1970, pp. 298)

BEECHER, Edward, 1803-1895, clergyman, abolitionist leader, writer, social reformer.  President, Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois.  Pastor, Salem Street Church, Boston.  Executive committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  Friend of abolitionist leader Elijah J. Lovejoy.  Co-founded Anti-Slavery Society in Illinois.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1842.  Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Charles Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 153-154, 288; Merideth, 1968; Pease, 1965, pp. 268-272; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 40, 187-188; Rugoff, 1981; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 219-220; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 128)

BEECHER, Edward, clergyman, b. in East Hampton, L. I., 27 Aug., 1803. He was graduated at Yale in 1822, studied theology at Andover and New Haven, became tutor in Yale in 1825, and then removed to Boston to take charge of the Park street congregation. Here he remained from 1826 till 1830, when he was elected president of Illinois College, Jacksonville. In 1844 he returned to Boston, as pastor of Salem street church, and in 1855 he became pastor of the Congregational church at Galesburg, Ill., where he remained until1870. For some years he was professor of exegesis in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1872 he retired from the ministry and removed to Brooklyn, N. Y. The title of D. D. was conferred on him by Marietta College in 1841. He has been a constant contributor to periodicals, was senior editor of “The Congregationalist” for the first six years of its existence, and after 1870 was a regular contributor to the “Christian Union.” His two works on the “Ages” gave rise to much discussion, and have modified doctrinal statements as to the origin of human depravity. The central idea presented is, that man's present life upon earth is the outgrowth of a former life as well as the prelude to a future one; that during the ages a conflict has been going on between good and evil, which will not be terminated in this life, but that sooner or later all the long strifes of ages will become harmonized into an everlasting concord. He has published “Address on the Kingdom of God” (Boston, 1827); '”Six Sermons on the Nature, Importance, and Means of Eminent Holiness throughout the Church” (New York, 1835); “History of Alton Riots” (Cincinnati, 1837); “Statement of Anti-Slavery Principles and Address to People of Illinois” (1837); “Baptism, its Import and Modes” (New York, 1850); “Conflict of Ages” (Boston, 1853); “Papal Conspiracy exposed” (New York, 1855); “Concord of Ages” (1860); “History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Future Retribution” (1878).—Another son, George, clergyman, b. in East Hampton, L. I., 6 May, 1809; d. in Chillicothe, Ohio, 1 July, 1843, was graduated at Yale in 1828, after which he studied theology. Subsequent to his ordination in the Presbyterian church he filled pulpits at Rochester, N. Y., and afterward at Chillicothe, Ohio. His death was caused by an accidental discharge of a gun while shooting birds in his own garden. See the “Memoirs of George Beecher,” by his sister Catherine (New York, 1844). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 219-220.   

BEECHER, George, Clinton County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-38

BEECHER, Reverend Henry Ward, 1813-1887, social reformer, clergyman, abolitionist leader.  Supported women’s suffrage and temperance movements.  Opposed compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.  Supported early Republican Party and its candidate for President, John C. Fremont.  Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.  (Applegate, 2006; Filler, 1960, pp. 155, 196, 241; Hibben, 1942; Mabee, 1970, pp. 140, 240, 241, 298, 300, 318, 320, 337, 365; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 380, 656-657; Rugoff, 1981; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 218-219; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 128-135; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 64-66)

BEECHER, Henry Ward, clergyman, b. in Litchfield, Conn., 24 June, 1813; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 8 March, 1887. At an early age he had a strong desire for a seafaring life, which he renounced in consequence of a deep religious impression experienced during a revival. He studied at the Boston Latin-school, in Mount Pleasant institute, was graduated at Amherst in 1834, and then studied theology at Lane seminary, under the tuition of his father, who was president of the institution. He first settled as a Presbyterian minister in Lawrenceburgh, Indiana, in 1837, and married Eunice White, daughter of Dr. Artemas Bullard; then removed to Indianapolis in 1839, where he preached until 1847. In that year he received a call from Plymouth church, a new Congregational society in Brooklyn, N. Y., and almost from the outset he began to acquire that reputation as a pulpit orator which he maintained for more than a third of a century. The church and congregation under his charge were among the largest in America. The edifice has a seating capacity of nearly 3,000. Mr. Beecher discarded many of the conventionalities of the clerical profession. In his view, humor had a place in a sermon, as well as argument and exhortation, and he did not hesitate sometimes to venture so near the comic that laughter was hardly to be restrained. He was fond of illustration, drawing his material from every sphere of human life and thought, and his manner was highly dramatic. Though his keen sense of humor continually manifested itself, the prevailing impression given by his discourses was one of intense earnestness. The cardinal idea of his creed was that Christianity is not a series of dogmas, philosophical or metaphysical, but a rule of life in every phase. He never hesitated to discuss from the pulpit the great social and political crimes of the day, such as slavery, intemperance, avarice, and political abuses. In 1878 he announced that he did not believe in the eternity of punishment. He now held that all punishment is cautionary and remedial, and that no greater cruelty could be imagined than the continuance of suffering eternally, after all hope of reformation was gone; and in 1882 he and his congregation formally withdrew from the association of Congregational churches, since their theology had gradually changed from the strictest Calvinism to a complete disbelief in the eternity of future punishment. His sermons, reported by stenographers, for several years formed a weekly publication called the “Plymouth Pulpit.” He early became prominent as a platform orator and lecturer, and as such had a long and successful career. His lectures came to be in such demand, even at the rate of $500 a night, that he was obliged to decline further engagements, as they interfered with his ministerial duties, and for a long time he refused all applications for public addresses except for some special occasion. In January, 1859, he delivered an oration at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the birthday of Robert Burns, which is considered one of his most eloquent efforts. He became a member of the Republican party on its formation, and delivered many political sermons from his pulpit, also addressing political meetings, especially in 1856, when he took an active part in the canvass, not only with his pen but by speaking at meetings thoughout the northern states. During the presidential canvass of 1884, Mr. Beecher supported the Democratic candidate, and by his action estranged many of his political admirers. In the long conflict with slavery he was an early and an earnest worker. In 1863 he visited Europe, and addressed large audiences in the principal cities of Great Britain on the questions involved in the civil war then raging in the United States, with a special view to disabuse the British public in regard to the issues of the great struggle. His speeches exerted a wide influence in changing popular sentiment, which previously had been strongly in favor of the southern Confederacy, and were published in London as “Speeches on the American Rebellion” (1864). In April, 1865, at the request of the government, he delivered an oration at Fort Sumter on the anniversary of its fall. In 1878 he was elected chaplain of the 13th regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., and appeared on parade in the customary uniform. In 1871 one of his parishioners, Henry W. Sage, founded a lectureship of preaching, called “The Lyman Beecher Lectureship,” in Yale college divinity school, and the first three annual courses were delivered by Mr. Beecher. In the summer of 1874, Theodore Tilton, formerly Mr. Beecher's associate, afterward his successor, in the editorship of the “Independent,” charged him with criminality with Mrs. Tilton. A committee of Plymouth congregation reported the charges to be without foundation; but meanwhile Mr. Tilton instituted a civil suit against Mr. Beecher, laying his damages at $100,000. The trial lasted six months, and at its close the jury, after being locked up for more than a week, failed to agree on a verdict. They stood three for the plaintiff and nine for the defendant. Mr. Beecher was of stout build, florid, and of strong physical constitution. He was fond of domestic and rural life; a student of nature; a lover of animals, flowers, and gems; an enthusiast in music, and a judge and patron of art. He owned a handsome residence at Peekskill on the Hudson, which he occupied during a part of every summer. In 1886 he made a lecturing tour in England, his first visit to that country after the war. During his theological course in 1836, for nearly a year Mr. Beecher edited the “Cincinnati Journal,” a religious weekly. While pastor at Indianapolis he edited an agricultural journal, “The Farmer and Gardener,” his contributions to which were afterward published under the title “Plain and Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming” (New York, 1859). He was one of the founders and for nearly twenty years an editorial contributor of the New York “Independent,” and from 1861 till 1863 was its editor. His contributions to this were signed with an asterisk, and many of them were afterward collected and published as “Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature” (New York, 1855), and as “New Star Papers; or, Views and Experiences of Religious Subject” (1858). The latter has been republished in England under the title of '”Summer in the Soul.” On the establishment of the “Christian Union” in 1870, he became its editor-in- chief. To a series of papers in the '”New York Ledger” he gave the title “Thoughts as they Occur,” by “One who keeps his eyes and ears open,” and they were afterward published under the title of “Eyes and Ears” (Boston, 1864). In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Beecher published “Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Subjects” (Indianapolis, 1844, revised ed., New York, 1850); “Freedom and War: Discourses suggested by the Times” (Boston, 1863); “Aids to Prayer” (New York, 1864); “Norwood; or, Village Life in New England” (1867); “Overture of Angels” (1869), being an introductory installment of “Life of Jesus the Christ; Earlier Scenes” (1871); “Lecture-Room Talks: A Series of Familiar Discourses on Themes of Christian Experience” (1870); “Yale Lectures on Preaching” (3 vols., 1872-'4); “A Summer Parish: Sermons and Morning Services of Prayer” (1874); “Evolution and Religion” (1885). Also, numerous addresses and separate sermons, such as “Army of the Republic” (1878); “The Strike and its Lessons” (1878); “Doctrinal Beliefs and Unbeliefs” (1882); “Commemorative Discourse on Wendell Phillips” (1884); “A Circuit of the Continent,” being an account of his trip through the west and south (1884); and “Letter to the Soldiers and Sailors” (1866, reprinted with introduction, 1884). He edited “Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes” (New York, 1855), and “Revival Hymns” (Boston, 1858). Numerous compilations of his utterances have been prepared, among which are: “Life Thoughts” (New York, 1859), by Edna Dean Proctor; “Notes from Plymouth Pulpit” (1859), by Augusta Moore; both of the foregoing have been reprinted in England; “Pulpit Pungencies” (1866); “Royal Truths” (Boston, 1866), reprinted from a series of extracts prepared in England without his knowledge; “Prayers from Plymouth Pulpit” (New York, 1867); “Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher: Selected from Published and Unpublished Discourses,” edited by Lyman Abbott (2 vols., 1868); “Morning and Evening Devotional Exercises,” edited by Lyman Abbott (1870); “Comforting Thoughts” (1884), by Irene Ovington. Mr. Beecher had completed the second and concluding volume of his “Life of Christ,” which is to be published this year (1887), with a re-publication of the first volume. His biography has been written by Lyman Abbott (New York, 1883). A new life, to be written by his son, William C. Beecher, will include an unfinished autobiography. Mr. Beecher was buried in Greenwood cemetery, and a movement was immediately begun for a monument, to be paid for by popular subscription. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 218-219.

BEECHER, Lyman, 1775-1863, abolitionist leader, clergyman, educator, writer.  Active in the Cincinnati, Ohio, auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, founded in Washington, DC, December 1816.  Co-founder, American Temperance Society.  President, Lane Theological Seminary.  Major spokesman for the anti-slavery cause in the United States.  Father of notable abolitionists, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Edward Beecher and Charles Beecher. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 216-217; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 135; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 134, 140, 196, 231)

BEECHER, Lyman, clergyman, b. in New Haven, Conn., 2 Oct., 1775; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 10 Jan., 1863. His ancestor in the fifth ascent emigrated to New England, and settled at New Haven in 1638. His father, David Beecher, was a blacksmith. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was committed to the care of his uncle Lot Benton, by whom he was adopted as a son, and with whom his early life was spent between blacksmithing and farming. But it was soon found that he preferred study. He was fitted for college by the Rev. Thomas W. Bray, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale, where, besides the usual classical course, he studied theology under President Dwight and was graduated in 1797. After this he continued his studies until September, 1798, when he was licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association, entered upon his clerical duties by supplying the pulpit in the Presbyterian church at East Hampton, Long Island, and was ordained in 1799. Here he married his first wife, Roxana Foote. His salary was $300 a year, after five years increased to $400, with a dilapidated parsonage. To eke out his scanty income, his wife opened a private school, in which the husband also gave instruction. Mr. Beecher soon became one of the foremost preachers of his day. A sermon that he delivered in 1804, on the death of Alexander Hamilton, excited great attention. Finding his salary wholly inadequate to support his increasing family, he resigned the charge, and in 1810 was installed pastor of the Congregational church in Litchfield, Conn. Here he remained for sixteen years, during which he took rank as the foremost clergyman of his denomination. In his autobiography he says this pastorate was “the most laborious part of his life.” The vice of intemperance had become common in New England, even the formal meetings of the clergy being not unfrequently accompanied by gross excesses, and Mr. Beecher resolved to take a stand against it. About 1814 he delivered and published six sermons on intemperance, which contain eloquent passages hardly exceeded by anything in the English language. They were sent broadcast through the United States, ran rapidly through many editions in England, and were translated into several languages on the continent, and have had a large sale even after the lapse of fifty years. His eloquence, zeal, and courage as a preacher, and his leading the way in the organization of the Bible, missionary, and educational societies, gave him a high reputation throughout New England. During his residence in Litchfield arose the Unitarian controversy, in which he took a prominent part. Litchfield was at this time the seat of a famous law school and several other institutions of learning, and Mr. Beecher (now a doctor of divinity) and his wife undertook to supervise the training of several young women, who were received into their family. But here too he found his salary ($800 a year) inadequate. The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregational churches in Boston and vicinity, under the lead of Dr. Channing and others in sympathy with him, had excited much anxiety throughout New England; and in 1826 Mr. Beecher received a call to become pastor of the Hanover street church in Boston. At the urgent request of his clerical brethren, he took the charge for the purpose of upholding the doctrines of Puritanism, and remained in this church six years and a half. His sermons at this time were largely controversial; he flung himself into the thickest of the fray, and was sustained by an immense following. About this time the religious public had become impressed with the growing importance of the great west; a theological seminary had been founded at Walnut Bills, near Cincinnati, O., and named Lane Seminary, after one of its principal benefactors, and a large amount of money was pledged to the institution on condition that Dr. Beecher accept the presidency, which he did in 1832. He retained the place for twenty years, and his name was continued in the seminary catalogue, as president, until his death. He was also, during the first ten years of his presidency, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church in Cincinnati. Soon after his removal thither he startled the religious public in the east by a tract calling attention to the danger of Roman Catholic supremacy in the west. The French revolution of 1830, the agitation in England for reform and against colonial slavery, and the punishment by American courts of citizens who had dared to attack the slave-trade carried on under the American flag, had begun to direct the attention of American philanthropists to the evils of American slavery, and an abolition convention met in Philadelphia in 1833. Its president, Arthur Tappan, through whose liberal donations Dr. Beecher had been secured to Lane seminary, forwarded to the students a copy of the address issued by the convention, and the whole subject was soon under discussion. Many of the students were from the south; an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings; slaveholders went over from Kentucky and incited mob violence; and for several weeks Dr. Beecher lived in a turmoil, not knowing how soon the rabble might destroy the seminary and the houses of the professors. The board of trustees interfered during the absence of Dr. Beecher, and allayed the excitement of the mob by forbidding all further discussion of slavery in the seminary, whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A very few were persuaded to return and remain, while the seceders laid the foundation of Oberlin College. For seventeen years after this, Dr. Beecher and his able coworker, Prof. Stowe, remained and tried to revive the prosperity of the seminary, but at last abandoned it. The great project of their lives was defeated, and they returned to the eastern states. In 1835 Dr. Beecher, who had been called “a moderate Calvinist,” was arraigned on charges of hypocrisy and heresy by some of the stronger Calvinists. The trial took place in his own church; and he defended himself, while burdened with the cares of his seminary, his church, and his wife at home on her death-bed. The trial resulted in acquittal, and, on an appeal to the general synod, he was again acquitted; but the controversy engendered by the action went on until the Presbyterian church was rent in twain. In the theological controversies that led to the excision of a portion of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in 1837-'8, Dr. Beecher took an active part, adhering to the new school branch. In 1852 he resigned the presidency of Lane Seminary, and returned to Boston, purposing to devote himself mainly to the revisal and publication of his works. But his intellectual powers began to decline, while his physical strength was unabated. About his eightieth year he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and thenceforth his mental powers only gleamed out occasionally with some indications of their former splendor. The last ten years of his life were passed in Brooklyn, N. Y., in the home of his son, Henry Ward Beecher. Dr. Beecher was a man of great intellectual power, though not a profound scholar. His sermons were usually extemporaneous, as far as form was concerned, but were carefully thought out, often while he was engaged in active physical exercise; but his writings were elaborated with the utmost care. He stood unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness, pungent appeal, lambent wit, vigor of thought, and concentrated power of expression. He possessed intense personal magnetism, and an indomitable will, and was thoroughly devoted to his chosen work. The sincerity and spirituality of his preaching were generally acknowledged, and were attended by tangible results. He was bold to the point of audacity, and it was this feature of his character, probably more than any positive errors, that made him a subject of anxiety to the more conservative class of the theologians of his own denomination. His great boldness in denouncing laxity in regard to the standard of the Christian orthodoxy made a deep impress on the public mind. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Yale in 1809, and that of D. D. by Middlebury College in 1818. When he became president of Lane Seminary, he took also the chair of sacred theology. He was the author of a great number of printed sermons and addresses. His published works are: “Remedy for Duelling” (New York, 1809); “Plea for the West,” “Six Sermons on Temperance,” “Sermons on Various Occasions,” (1842), “Views in Theology,” “Skepticism,” “Lectures on Various Occasions,” “Political Atheism.” He made a collection of those of his works which he deemed the most valuable (3 vols., Boston, 1852). He was three times married—in 1799, 1817, and 1836—and had thirteen children. Most of his children have attained literary or theological distinction. All his sons became Congregational clergymen, viz., William Henry, Edward, George, Henry Ward, Charles, Thomas Kinnicut, and James Chaplin. The daughters are Catherine Esther, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Beecher Perkins, and Isabella Beecher Hooker. He was proverbially absent-minded, and after having been wrought up by the excitement of preaching was accustomed to relax his mind by playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the violin, or dancing the “double shuffle” in his parlor. His autobiography and correspondence was edited by the Rev. Charles Beecher (New York, 1863). See also “Life and Services of Lyman Beecher,” by the Rev. D. H. Allen (Cincinnati, 1863). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 216-217.

BEECHER, William H., N. Brookfield, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1859

BEESON, John, 1803-1889, abolitionist, early Native American advocate.  Wrote, A Plea for the Indians, 1857.  (Beeson, John, 1994; Beeson, Welborn, 1993)

BELDEN, Henry, New York, New York, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1852-55

BELKNAP, Dr. Jeremy, 1744-1798, Boston, Massachusetts, prominent theologian, opposed African slave trade.  (Marcou, Jane Belknap, 1847; Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 224; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 147; Locke, 1901, pp. 41, 90, 129, 134n, 187)

BELKNAP, Jeremy, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., 4 June, 1744; d. there, 20 June, 1798. He was graduated at Harvard in 1762, and, after teaching school and studying theology, was ordained 18 Feb., 1767, pastor of the Congregational church in Dover, N. H. On 4 April, 1787, he took charge of the Federal street church, Boston, where he remained until his death. From his fifteenth year he kept notes of his reading, and also a diary, in a series of curious interleaved almanacs. Soon after going to Dover he began his “History of New Hampshire” (1st vol., Philadelphia, 1784; 2d and 3d vols., Boston, 1791-'2), which takes high rank for accuracy, thoughtfulness, and agreeable style, though the part relating to the natural history of the state is worth little, owing to the author's deficient knowledge. The progress of the work was somewhat delayed by the revolution, during which Mr. Belknap was an ardent patriot. The work did not pay expenses; and the author was granted the sum of £50 in its aid by the legislature of New Hampshire. In 1792 he was given the degree of S. T. D. by Harvard, and made an overseer of the college. On 23 Oct. of that year he delivered before the Massachusetts historical society, which he had founded two years before, a tercentennial discourse on the discovery of America. He published a life of Watts (1793); two volumes of “American Biographies” (1794, 1798); and a collection of psalms and hymns (1795), of which several were written by himself. In 1796 he published “The Foresters, an American Tale,” a humorous apologue, which had originally appeared in the “Columbian Magazine,” and was intended to portray the history of the country, with special reference to the formation of the constitution. He was also the author of many miscellaneous pieces, among them several essays on the African slave-trade, to which he was strongly opposed. A life of Dr. Belknap, with selected letters, was published by his granddaughter (New York, 1847). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 224.   

BELL, James Madison, 1826-1902, African American abolitionist, poet, lecturer.  Member of African American community in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.  Supported John Brown on his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  Supported African American civil rights before and after the Civil War. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 463.  American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 502.)

BELL, Philip Alexander, 1808-1889, African American abolitionist, editor, journalist, civic leader.  Member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Subscription Agent for abolitionist newspaper, Liberator.  Active in Underground Railroad.  Editor, “Weekly Advocate” and later assisted with “Colored American” early Black newspapers.  Founded “National Council of Colored People,” one of the first African American civil rights organizations. (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 516)

BELL, Robert, , Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39

BELL, S. M., Virginia.  Vice Presidential candidate for the Liberty Party in 1852 (lost).  Opposed slavery.

BEMAN, Amos Geary, 1812-1874, New Haven, Connecticut, African American clergyman, abolitionist, speaker, temperance advocate, community leader.  Member of the American Anti-Slavery Society 1833-1840.  Later, founding member of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  Traveled extensively and lectured on abolition.  Leader, Negro Convention Movement.  Founder and first Secretary of Anti-Slavery Union Missionary Society.  Later organized as American Missionary Association (AMA), 1846.  Championed Black civil rights.  Promoted anti-slavery causes and African American civil rights causes, worked with Frederick Douglass and wrote for his newspaper, The North Star.  (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 540; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 463)

BEMAN, Jehiel C., c. 1789-1858, Connecticut, Boston, Massachusetts, African American, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance activist.  Manger, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1837-1839.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1841-1843. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 477)

BEMAN, Mrs. Jehiel C., African American, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 58n40)

BEMAN, Nathaniel Sydney Smith, 1785-1871, Presbyterian college president, clergyman, abolitionist (Sorin, 1971, p. 90; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 231-232; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 171-172; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 541)

BEMAN, Nathaniel Sydney Smith, clergyman, b. in New Lebanon, N. Y., 26 Nov., 1785; d. in Carbondale, Ill., 8 Aug., 1871. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1807, studied theology, and about 1810 was ordained pastor of a Congregational church in Portland, Me. A few years later he went as a missionary to Georgia, where he devoted himself to the work of establishing educational institutions. He became pastor of the Presbyterian church in Troy, N. Y., in 1822, and continued as such for upward of forty years. He was actively interested in the temperance, moral reform, revival, and anti-slavery movements of his time. In 1831 he was moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church, and during the discussions that, in 1837, led to the division in that church, he was the leader of the new-school branch. Resigning his pastorate in 1863, he passed the remainder of his life in retirement in Troy and in Carbondale. Besides sermons, essays, and addresses, which have been separately published, he was the author of a volume entitled “Four Sermons on the Atonement.” He was also one of the compilers of the hymn-book adopted by the new-school branch of the Presbyterian church.   Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 231-232.

BEMENT, Jasper, Ashfield, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-, 42-44

BEMIS, Phineas, Dudley, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-44-

BENEDICT, Mary F., New York, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 43n40)

BENEDICT, Seth W., New York, New York, abolitionist, Manager, 1839-1840, and publishing agent, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1851. (Yellin, 1994, p. 43n40)

BENEZET, Anthony, 1713-1784, French-born American, Society of Friends, Quaker, philanthropist, author, reformer, educator, early and important abolitionist leader.  Founded Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, in Philadelphia.  Also founded one of the first girls’ public schools that was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Worked with abolitionist John Woolman.  Wrote: A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions, 1766; Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants, with an Enquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave-Trade, Its Nature and Lamentable Effects, 1771; and Observations on the Inslaving, Importing and Purchasing Negroes, 1748. (Basker, 2005; Bruns, 1977, pp. 108, 214, 221, 224, 246, 262-263, 269-270, 302; Drake, 1950, pp. 54-56, 62, 64, 70, 75, 83, 86, 90-94, 106-107, 112-113, 120-121, 155; Dumond, 1961, pp. 17, 19, 52, 87; Locke, 1901, pp. 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 52, 54, 56, 78, 94; Nash, 1991; Pease, 1965, pp. xxiv, 1-5; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 17-20, 290, 331, 433, 458, 515; Soderlund, 1985, pp. 4, 10, 29-30, 43-45, 47, 78, 140, 151, 166, 170-171, 174, 175, 176, 186, 189, 198; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 27, 72, 74-75, 85-93, 98, 125, 131; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 234; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 177-178; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 562; Vaux, Robert, Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet, 1817.)

BENEZET, Anthony, philanthropist, b. in St. Quentin, France, 31 Jan., 1713; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 3 May, 1784. He was descended from wealthy and noble French parents, who fled from France to Holland in 1685, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and thence to England in 1715. In London his relatives became Quakers, and in 1731 they settled in Philadelphia. He apprenticed himself to a cooper, but in 1742 became instructor in the Friends' English school, and continued to teach until near the end of his life. He devoted much attention to the abolition of the slave-trade, and advocated the emancipation and education of the colored population, opening for that purpose an evening school. During the revolutionary war and the occupation of Philadelphia by the British army, he was active in alleviating the sufferings of the prisoners. He published tracts, which were gratuitously distributed throughout the country, the most important being “A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominion” (Philadelphia, 1767); “Some Historical Account of Guinea, with an Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade” (1772); “Observations on the Indian Natives of this Continent” (1784); “A Short Account of the Society of Friends” (1780); and “Dissertation on the Christian Religion” (1782). See “Memoir of Anthony Benezet,” by Roberts Vaux (New York, 1817). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 234.

BENJAMIN, Simeon, abolitionist, founder and president of Elmira College (Gates, 2013, Vol. 6, p. 588)

BENNET, Clark, Sommerville, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1846

BENSON, Edmund L., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1842-44

BENSON, Egbert, member of the New York Manumission Society (Zilversmit, 1967, p. 166)

BENSON, George, Brooklyn, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35

BENSON, George William, 1808-1879, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist, Society of Friends (Quaker).  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833, Brooklyn, Connecticut.  Brother-in-law of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison.  (Clark, 2003; Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 1885; Mabee, 1970, pp. 82, 85, 109, 149; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 17, 21-22, 68, 86-87; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BENSON, Henry E., , Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Recording Secretary, 1836-37

BENT, A. A., Gardner, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1853-55

BENTON, Andrew, St. Louis, Missouri, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-46

BETHUNE, Divie, New York, merchant, philanthropist, President of the New York auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 40)

BETHUNE, George Washington, 1805-1862, Dutch Reform clergyman, abolitionist.  Director, 1839-1840, of the American Colonization Society.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 252-253; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 229-230; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BETHUNE, George Washington, clergyman, b. in New York city in March, 1805; d. in Florence, Italy, 27 April, 1862. His parents were distinguished for devout Christianity and for charitable deeds. His father, Divie Bethune, was an eminent merchant, well known as a philanthropist. He was graduated at Dickinson college, Carlisle, Pa., in 1822, studied theology at Princeton, and after completing his course was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian church in 1825. He accepted an appointment as chaplain to seamen in the port of Savannah, but in 1826 returned to the north and transferred his ecclesiastical allegiance to the Reformed Dutch church, settling soon after at Rhinebeck, N. Y., where he remained four years, when he was called to the pastorate of the first Reformed Dutch church in Utica. In 1834 his reputation as an eloquent preacher and an efficient pastor led to an invitation from a Reformed Dutch church in Philadelphia. He remained in that city till 1848, his character as a preacher and scholar steadily growing, and then became pastor of the newly organized “Reformed Dutch Church on the Heights” in Brooklyn, N.Y. For eleven years he continued in the pastorate of this church, but in 1859 impaired health led him to resign and visit Italy. In Rome he sometimes preached in the American chapel, at that time the only Protestant place of worship in the city. He returned in 1860 with improved health, and was for some months associate pastor of a Reformed Dutch church in New York city; but, his health again becoming impaired, he returned to Italy in the summer of 1861, and, after some months' residence in Florence, died from apoplexy. Dr. Bethune, though best remembered by his literary work, exercised a wide influence as a clergyman and a citizen. One of his latest public efforts before leaving his native city for his last voyage to Europe was an address delivered at the great mass meeting in Union square, New York, 20 April, 1861, in which with extraordinary fire and eloquence he urged the duty of patriotism in the trying crisis that then threatened the nation. A memoir by A. R. Van Nest, D. D., was published in 1867. Dr. Bethune was an accomplished student of English literature, and distinguished himself as a writer and editor. He published an excellent edition of the “British Female Poets, with Biographical and Critical Notices” (Philadelphia, 1848); and Izaak Walton's “Complete Angler,” for which last he was peculiarly qualified by his fondness for fishing. Among his original works are “Lays of Love and Faith” (Philadelphia, 1847); “Orations and Discourses” (1850); “Memoirs of Joanna Bethune” (New York, 1863); “Fruits of the Spirit,” a volume of sermons; and two smaller works, “Early Lost, Early Saved,” and “The History of a Penitent.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 234.

BEXLEY, Lord, London, Great Britain, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1840-1841.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BIBB, Henry Walton, 1815-1854, African American, author, newspaper publisher, former slave, anti-slavery lecturer.  Wrote Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, 1849.  Published Voice of the Fugitive: An Anti-Slavery Journal, in 1851.  Organized the North American League.  Lectured for Michigan Liberty Party.  (Dumond, 1961, p. 338; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 220, 447, 489, 618-619, 632-634; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 717; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 532)

BIDWELL, Barnabas, 1763-1833, writer, lawyer, member of the U.S. Congress from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in U.S. House of Representatives (Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 149, 151; Annals of Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 246-247)

BIDWELL, Riverius, Trumbull County, Ohio, abolitionist, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39

BILBO, William, circa 1815-1867, lawyer, journalist, entrepreneur.  Participated in lobbying effort in Congress for the passage of the Constitutional amendment banning slavery in the United States.  Worked with Secretary of State William H. Seward.

BINGHAM, John Armor, 1815-1900, Republican Congressman, judge, advocate, U.S. Army.  Bingham was one of the writers and sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  One of three military judges presiding in the Lincoln assassination trial.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. p. 263; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 277)

BINGHAM, John A., lawyer, b. in Mercer, Pa., in 1815. He passed two years in a printing-office, and then entered Franklin college, Ohio, but left, on account of his health, before graduation. He was admitted to the bar in 1840, was district attorney for Tuscarawas co., Ohio, from 1846 till 1849, was elected to congress as a republican in 1854, and re-elected three times, sitting from 1855 till 1863. He prepared in the 34th congress the report on the contested Illinois elections, and in 1862 was chairman of the managers of the house in the impeachment of Judge Humphreys for high treason. He failed of re-election in 1864, and was appointed by President Lincoln judge-advocate in the army, and later the same year solicitor of the court of claims. He was special judge-advocate in the trial of the assassins of President Lincoln. In 1865 he returned to congress, and sat until 1873, serving on the committees on military affairs, freedmen, and reconstruction, and in the 40th congress as chairman of the committees on claims and judiciary, and as one of the managers in the impeachment trial of President Johnson. On 3 May, 1873, he received the appointment of minister to Japan, which post he held until 1885, when he was recalled by President Cleveland.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

Binney, Horace, 1780-1875, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, constitutional lawyer, member of the Philadelphia auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Burin, 2005, pp. 84, 112; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 265-266; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 280; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 40, 72)

BINNEY, Horace, lawyer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 4 Jan., l780; d. there, 12 Aug., 1875. He was of English and Scotch descent. His father was a surgeon in the revolutionary army. In 1788, the year after his father's death, he was placed in a classical school at Bordentown, N. J., where he continued three years, and distinguished himself especially by his attainments in Greek. In July, 1793, he entered the freshman class of Harvard, and at graduation in 1797 he divided the highest honor with a single classmate. He had acquired the art and habit of study, and a love for it which never abated until the close of his life. This art he ever regarded as his most valued acquisition. He began the study of law in November, 1797, in the office of Jared Ingersoll, and was called to the bar in March, 1800, when he was little more than twenty years of age. His clientage for some years was meagre, but his industry continued unflagging, and gradually, in the face of a competition with eminent lawyers, such as no other bar in the country then exhibited, he became an acknowledged leader. In 1806 he was sent to the legislature of the state, in which he served one year, declining a re-election. So early as 1807 his professional engagements had become extremely large, and before 1815 he was in the enjoyment of all that the legal profession could give, whether of reputation or emolument. Between 1807 and 1814 he prepared and published the six volumes of reported decisions of the supreme court of Pennsylvania that bear his name. They are among the earliest of American reports, and are regarded as almost perfect models of legal reporting. Soon after 1830 Mr. Binney's health began to be impaired, and he desired to withdraw from the courts and throw off the business that oppressed him. It was this, in part, that made him willing to accept a nomination for congress; but there was doubtless another reason that influenced him—the hostility of President Jackson to the United States bank. The veto of the bill for its recharter aroused the deepest feeling of almost the entire business community of Philadelphia, and with that community Mr. Binney was closely associated, while his ability, combined with his well-known knowledge of the condition and operations of the bank, pointed him out as the fittest man to defend the institution in congress. He accepted a nomination, and was elected to the 23d congress. In the consideration of great subjects, notably that of the removal of the public deposits from the United States bank, he proved himself to be a statesman of high rank and an accomplished debater. But official life was distasteful to him, and he declined a re-election. On his return to Philadelphia he refused all professional engagements in the courts, though he continued to give written opinions upon legal questions until 1850. Many of these opinions are still preserved. They relate to titles to real estate, to commercial questions, to trusts, and to the most abstruse subjects in every department of the law. They are model exhibitions of profound and accurate knowledge, of extensive research, of nice discrimination, and wise conclusion, and they were generally accepted as of almost equal authority with judicial decision. Once only after 1836 did Mr. Binney appear in the courts. In 1844, by appointment of the city councils of Philadelphia, he argued in the supreme court of the United States the case of Bidal vs. Girard's executors, in which was involved the validity of the trust created by Mr. Girard's will for the establishment and maintenance of a college for orphans. The argument is in print, and it is still the subject of admiration by the legal profession in this country, and almost equally so by the profession in Great Britain. It lifted the law of charities out of the depths of confusion and obscurity that had covered it, and while the fulness of its research and the vigor of its reasoning were masterly, it was clothed with a precision and a beauty of language never surpassed. The argument was a fitting close to a long and illustrious professional life. Mr. Binney had a fine, commanding person, an uncommonly handsome face, a dignified and graceful manner, and a most melodious voice, perfectly under his control, and modulated with unusual skill. In fine, he was in all particulars a most accomplished lawyer. No words can better describe him than those which he applied to a great man, the friend of his early man-hood: “He was an advocate of great power; a master of every question in his causes; a wary tactician in the management of them; highly accomplished in language; a faultless logician; a man of the purest integrity and the highest honor; fluent without the least volubility; concise to a degree that left every one's patience and attention unimpaired, and perspicuous to almost the lowest order of understanding, while he was dealing with almost the highest topics.” If it be added to this that his mental power was equal to the comprehension of any legal subject, that his mode of presentation was the best possible, that his rhetoric was faultless, that he had an aptness of illustration that illuminated the most abstruse subjects, and a personal character without a visible flaw, it will be seen that he must have been, as he was, a most persuasive and convincing advocate. In 1827, by invitation of the bar of Philadelphia, he delivered an address on the life and character of Chief-Justice Tilghman; and in 1835, complying with a request of the select and common councils of the city, an address on the life and character of Chief-Justice Marshall. Until the close of his life he was a constant reader and an indefatigable student. He kept himself well informed of current events, and in regard to all public questions he not only sought information, but matured settled opinions. In 1858 he published a sketch of the life and character of Justice Bushrod Washington, in which he delineated the qualities that make up a perfect nisi prius judge, with singular acuteness. In the same year he published sketches of three leaders of the old Philadelphia bar, which were greatly admired. He also in 1858 gave to the press a more extended discussion, entitled “An Inquiry into the Formation of Washington's Farewell Address,” strikingly illustrative of the character of his own mind, and of his habits of investigation and reasoning. And in 1862 and in 1863 he published three pamphlets in support of the power claimed by President Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. His argument was not less remarkable than the best of his earlier efforts. Throughout his life Mr. Binney manifested a deep interest in many literary, scientific, and art institutions of Philadelphia, and in many of the noblest charities. He was also an earnest Christian, a devout member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and often a leading member of its conventions. The activity of his mind remained undiminished until his death. This occurred forty years after the age when most men are at the zenith of their reputation, forty years after he had substantially retired from public view and from participation in all matters that attract public notice, and at the end of a period when public recollection of most lawyers has faded into indistinctness. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BINTLIFF, James, 1824-1901, abolitionist, newspaper editor, publisher, proprietor, businessman, Union Army colonel, helped found Republican Party.  (Hunt, Roger, Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue. Gaithersburg, MD, 1990)

BIRCHARD, Matthew W., Vermont.  Vice president and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BIRD, Francis William, 1809-1894, anti-slavery political leader, radical reformer.  Member of the anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs,” leader of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party.  Led anti-slavery faction of the newly formed Republican Party.  Supported abolitionist Party leader Charles Sumner.  Opposed Dred Scott decision.  “Bird Club” greatly influenced radical Republican politics in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate.  Organized Emancipation League.  Supported enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army and emancipation of Blacks in the District of Columbia.  Supported women’s rights, Indian rights, suffrage rights for Chinese, and other causes. (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 805)

BIRGE, Luther, Illinois, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-1844

BIRNEY, James Gillespie, 1792-1857, abolitionist leader, statesman, orator, writer, lawyer, jurist, newspaper publisher.  On two occasions, mobs in Cincinnati attacked and wrecked his newspaper office.  Beginning in 1832, Birney was an agent for the American colonization Society, representing the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.  In 1833, he transferred to agent in Kentucky.  Wrote pro-colonization articles for Alabama Democrat.  Editor of the Philanthropist, founded 1836.  Founder and president of the Liberty Party in 1848.  Third party presidential candidate, 1840, 1844.  Founder University of Alabama.  Native American rights advocate.  Member of the American Colonization Society.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1836, Vice President, 1835-1836, 1836-1838, Executive Committee, 1838-1840, Corresponding Secretary, 1838-1840. American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Secretary, 1840-1841, Executive Committee, 1840-1842.  His writings include: “Ten Letters on Slavery and Colonization,” (1832-1833), “Addresses and Speeches,” (1835), “Vindication of the Abolitionists,” (1835), “The Philanthropist,” a weekly newspaper (1836-1837), “Address of Slaveholders,” (1836), “Argument on Fugitive Slave Case,” (1837), “Political Obligations of Abolitionists,” (1839), “American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery,” (1840), and “Speeches in England,” (1840).  (Birney, 1969; Blue, 2005, pp. 20-21, 25, 30, 32, 48-51, 55, 9-99, 101, 139, 142, 163, 186, 217; Burin, 2005, pp. 84, 112; Drake, 1950, pp. 141, 149, 159; Dumond, 1938; Dumond, 1961, pp. 90, 93, 176, 179, 185, 197, 198, 200-202, 257-262, 286, 297, 300-301, 303; Filler, 1960, pp. 55, 73, 77, 89, 94, 107, 128, 131, 137, 140-141, 148, 152, 156, 176; Fladeland, 1955; Harrold, 1995; Mabee, 1970, pp. 27, 36, 40, 41, 49, 54, 55, 60, 71, 92, 195, 228, 252,293, 301, 323, 328, 350; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4-5, 7, 8, 13-15, 18, 21-31, 35, 50, 101, 199, 225; Pease, 1965, pp. 43-49; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 43-44, 46, 48, 163, 188-189, 364, 522; Sorin, 1971, pp. 25, 47, 51, 52, 65, 70n, 97, 103n; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 146-148, 211-212, 229-230; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 267-269; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 291-294; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 79-80; Birney, William, Jas. G. Birney and His Times, 1890; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 312-313)

BIRNEY, James Gillespie, statesman, b. in Danville, Ky., 4 Feb., 1792; d. in Perth Amboy, N. J., 25 Nov., 1857. His ancestors were Protestants of the province of Ulster, Ireland. His father, migrating to the United States at sixteen years of age, settled in Kentucky, became a wealthy merchant, manufacturer, and farmer, and for many years was president of the Danville bank. His mother died when he was three years old, and his early boyhood was passed under the care of a pious aunt. Giving promise of talent and force of character, he was liberally educated with a view to his becoming a lawyer and statesman. After preparation at good schools and at Transylvania university he was sent to Princeton, where he was graduated with honors in 1810. Having studied law for three years, chiefly under Alexander J. Dallas, of Philadelphia, he returned to his native place in 1814 and began practice. In 1816 he married a daughter of William McDowell, judge of the U. S. circuit court and one of several brothers who, with their relatives, connections, and descendants, were the most influential family in Kentucky. In the same year he was elected to the legislature, in which body he opposed and defeated in its original form a proposition to demand of the states of Ohio and Indiana the enactment of laws for the seizure, imprisonment, and delivery to owners of slaves escaping into their limits. His education in New Jersey and Pennsylvania at the time when the gradual emancipation laws of those states were in operation had led him to favor that solution of the slavery problem. In the year 1818 he removed to Alabama, bought a cotton plantation near Huntsville, and served as a member of the first legislature that assembled under the constitution of 1819. Though he was not a member of the convention that framed the instrument, it was chiefly through his influence that a provision of the Kentucky constitution, empowering the general assembly to emancipate slaves on making compensation to the owners, and to prohibit the bringing of slaves into the state for sale, was copied into it, with amendments designed to secure humane treatment for that unfortunate class. In the legislature he voted against a resolution of honor to Gen. Jackson, assigning his reasons in a forcible speech. This placed him politically in a small minority. In 1823, having found planting unprofitable, partly because of his refusal to permit his overseer to use the lash, he resumed at Huntsville the practice of his profession, was appointed solicitor of the northern circuit, and soon gained a large and lucrative practice. In 1826 he made a public profession of religion, united with the Presbyterian church, and was ever afterward a devout Christian. About the same time he began to contribute to the American colonization society, regarding it as preparing the way for gradual emancipation. In 1827 he procured the enactment by the Alabama legislature of a statute "to prohibit the importation of slaves into this state for sale or hire." In 1828 he was a candidate for presidential elector on the Adams ticket in Alabama, canvassed the state for the Adams party, and was regarded as its most prominent member. He was repeatedly elected mayor of Huntsville, and was recognized as the leader in educational movements and local improvements. In 1830 he was deputed by the trustees of the state university to select and recommend to them five persons as president and professors of that institution, also by the trustees of the Huntsville female seminary to select and employ three teachers. In the performance of these trusts he spent several months in the Atlantic states, extending his tour as far north as Massachusetts. His selections were approved. Returning home by way of Kentucky, he called on Henry Clay, with whom he had been on terms of friendship and political sympathy, and urged that statesman to place himself at the head of the gradual emancipation movement in Kentucky. The result of the interview was the final alienation in public matters and politics of the parties to it, though their friendly personal relations remained unchanged. Mr. Birney did not support Mr. Clay politically after 1830 or vote for him in 1832. For several years he was the confidential adviser and counsel of the Cherokee nation, an experience that led him to sympathize with bodies of men who were wronged under color of law. In 1831 he had become so sensible of the evil influences of slavery that he determined to remove his large family to a free state, and in the winter of that year visited Illinois and selected Jacksonville as the place of his future residence. Returning to Alabama, he was winding up his law business and selling his property with a view to removal, when he received, most unexpectedly, an appointment from the American colonization society as its agent for the southwest. From motives of duty he accepted and devoted himself for one year to the promotion of the objects of that society. Having become convinced that the slave-holders of the gulf states, with few exceptions, were hostile to the idea of emancipation in the future, he lost faith in the efficacy of colonization in that region. In his conversations about that time with southern politicians and men of influence he learned enough to satisfy him that, although the secret negotiations in 1829 of the Jackson administration for the purchase of Texas had failed, the project of annexing that province to the United States and forming several slave states out of its territory had not been abandoned; that a powerful combination existed at the south for the purpose of sending armed adventurers to Texas; and that southern politicians were united in the design to secure for the south a majority in the U. S. senate. The situation seemed to him to portend the permanence of slavery, with grave danger of civil war and disunion of the states. Resigning his agency and relinquishing his Illinois project, he removed, in November, 1833, to Kentucky for the purpose of separating it from the slave states by effecting the adoption of a system of gradual emancipation. He thought its example might be followed by Virginia and Tennessee, and that thus the slave states would be placed in a hopeless minority, and slavery in process of extinction. But public opinion in his native state had greatly changed since he had left it; the once powerful emancipation element had been weakened by the opposition of political leaders, and especially of Henry Clay. His efforts were sustained by very few. In June, 1834, he set free his own slaves and severed his connection with the colonization society, the practical effect of which, he had found, was to afford a pretext for postponing emancipation indefinitely. From this time he devoted himself with untiring zeal to the advocacy in Kentucky of the abolition of slavery. On 19 March, 1835, he formed the Kentucky anti-slavery society, consisting of forty members, several of whom had freed their slaves. In May, at New York, he made the principal speech at the meeting of the American anti-slavery society, and thenceforward he was identified with the Tappans, Judge William Jay, Theodore D. Weld, Alvan Stewart, Thomas Morris, and other northern abolitionists, who pursued their object by constitutional methods. In June, 1835, he issued a prospectus for the publication, beginning in August, of an anti-slavery weekly paper, at Danville, Ky.; but before the time fixed for issuing the first number the era of mob violence and social persecutions, directed against the opponents of slavery, set in. This was contemporaneous with the renewed organization of revolts in Texas; the beginning of the war for breaking up the refuge for fugitive slaves, waged for years against the Florida Seminoles; and the exclusion, by connivance of the postmaster-general, of anti-slavery papers from the U. S. mails; and it preceded, by a few months only, President Jackson's message, recommending not only the refusal of the use of the mails, but the passage of laws by congress and also by the non-slaveholding states for the suppression of “incendiary” (anti- slavery) publications. Mr. Birney found it impossible to obtain a publisher or printer; and as his own residence in Kentucky had become disagreeable and dangerous, he removed to Cincinnati, where he established his paper. His press was repeatedly destroyed by mobs; but he met all opposition with courage and succeeded finally in maintaining the freedom of the press in Cincinnati, exhibiting great personal courage, firmness, and judgment. On 22 Jan., 1836, a mob assembled at the court-house for the purpose of destroying his property and seizing his person; the city and county authorities had notified him of their inability to protect him; he attended the meeting, obtained leave to speak, and succeeded in defeating its object. As an editor, he was distinguished by a thorough knowledge of his subject, courtesy, candor, and large attainments as a jurist and statesman. The “Philanthropist” gained rapidly an extensive circulation. Having associated with him as editor Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, he devoted most of his own time to public speaking, visiting in this work most of the cities and towns in the free states and addressing committees of legislative bodies. His object was to awaken the people of the north to the danger menacing the freedom of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, the system of free labor, and the national constitution, from the encroachments of the slave-power and the plotted annexation of new slave states in the southwest. In recognition of his prominence as an anti-slavery leader, the executive committee of the American anti-slavery society unanimously elected him, in the summer of 1837, to the office of secretary. Having accepted, he removed to New York city, 20 Sept., 1837. In his new position he was the executive officer of the society, conducted its correspondence, selected and employed lecturers, directed the organization of auxiliaries, and prepared its reports. He attended the principal anti-slavery conventions, and his wise and conservative counsel had a marked influence on their action. He was faithful to the church, while he exposed and rebuked the ecclesiastical bodies that sustained slavery; and true to the constitution, while he denounced the constructions that severed it from the principles contained in its preamble and in the declaration of independence. To secession, whether of the north or south, he was inflexibly opposed. The toleration or establishment of slavery in any district or territory belonging to the United States, and its abolition in the slave states, except under the war power, he held was not within the legal power of congress; slavery was local, and freedom national. To vote he considered the duty of every citizen, and more especially of every member of the American anti-slavery society, the constitution of which recognized the duty of using both moral and political action for the removal of slavery. In the beginning of the agitation the abolitionists voted for such anti-slavery candidates as were nominated by the leading parties; but as the issues grew, under the aggressive action of the slave power, to include the right of petition, the freedom of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, the equality of all men before the law, the right of the free states to legislate for their own territory, and the right of congress to exclude slavery from the territories, the old parties ceased to nominate anti-slavery candidates, and the abolitionists were forced to make independent nominations for state officers and congress, and finally to form a national and constitutional party. Mr. Birney was their first and only choice as candidate for the presidency. During his absence in England, in 1840, and again in 1844, he was unanimously nominated by national conventions of the liberty party. At the former election he received 7,369 votes; and at the latter, 62,263. This number, it was claimed by his friends, would have been much larger if the electioneering agents of the whig party had not circulated, three days before the election and too late for denial and exposure, a forged letter purporting to be from Mr. Birney, announcing his withdrawal from the canvass, and advising anti-slavery men to vote for Mr. Clay. This is known as “the Garland forgery.” Its circulation in Ohio and New York probably gave the former state to Mr. Clay, and greatly diminished Mr. Birney's vote in the latter. In its essential doctrines the platform of the liberty party in 1840 and 1844 was identical with those that were subsequently adopted by the free-soil and republican parties. In the summer of 1845 Mr. Birney was disabled physically by partial paralysis, caused by a fall from a horse, and from that time he withdrew from active participation in politics, though he continued his contributions to the press. In September, 1839, he emancipated twenty-one slaves that belonged to his late father's estate, setting off to his co-heir $20,000, in compensation for her interest in them. In 1839 Mr. Birney lost his wife, and in the autumn of 1841 he married Miss Fitzhugh, sister of Mrs. Gerrit Smith, of New York. In 1842 he took up his residence in Bay City, Mich. In person he was of medium height, robust build, and handsome countenance. His manners were those of a polished man of the world, free from eccentricities, and marked with dignity. He had neither vices nor bad habits. As a presiding officer in a public meeting he was said to have no superior. As a public speaker he was generally calm and judicial in tone; but when under strong excitement he rose to eloquence. His chief writings were as follows: “Ten Letters on Slavery and Colonization,” addressed to R. R. Gurley (the first dated 12 July, 1832, the last 11 Dec., 1833); “Six Essays on Slavery and Colonization,” published in the Huntsville (Ala.) “Advocate” (May, June, and July, 1833); “Letter on Colonization,” resigning vice-presidency of Kentucky colonization society (15 July, 1834); “Letters to the Presbyterian Church” (1834); “Addresses and Speeches” (1835); “Vindication of the Abolitionists” (1835); “The Philanthropist,” a weekly newspaper (1836 and to September, 1837); “Letter to Col. Stone” (May, 1836); “Address to Slaveholders” (October, 1836); “Argument on Fugitive Slave Case” (1837); “Letter to F. H. Elmore,” of South Carolina (1838); “Political Obligations of Abolitionists” (1839); “Report on the Duty of Political Action,” for executive committee of the American anti-slavery society (May, 1839); “American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery” (1840); “Speeches in England” (1840); “Letter of Acceptance”; “Articles in Q. A. S. Magazine and Emancipator” (1837-'44); “Examination of the Decision of the U. S. Supreme Court,” in the case of Strader et al., v. Graham (1850). —His son, James, b. in Danville, Ky., 7 June, 1817; was a state senator in Michigan in 1859, and was lieutenant-governor of the state and acting governor in 1861-'3. He was appointed by President Grant, in 1876, minister at the Hague, and held that office until 1882.—Another son, William, lawyer, b. near Huntsville, Ala., 28 May, 1819. While pursuing his studies in Paris, in February, 1848, he took an active part in the revolution, and he was appointed on public competition professor of English literature in the college at Bourges. He entered the U. S. national service as captain in April, 1861, and rose through all the grades to the rank of brevet major-general of volunteers, commanding a division for the last two years of the civil war. He participated in the principal battles in Virginia, and, being sent for a short time to Florida after the battle of Olustee, regained possession of the principal parts of the state and of several of the confederate strongholds. ln 1863-'4, having been detailed by the war department as one of three superintendents of the organization of U. S. colored troops, he enlisted, mustered in, armed, equipped, drilled, and sent to the field seven regiments of those troops. In this work he opened all the slave-prisons in Baltimore, and freed their inmates, including many slaves belonging to men in the confederate armies. The result of his operations was to hasten the abolition of slavery in Maryland. He passed four years in Florida after the war, and in 1874 removed to Washington, D. C., where he practised his profession and became attorney for the District of Columbia.— The third son, Dion, physician, entered the army as lieutenant at the beginning of the civil war, rose to the rank of captain, and died in 1864 of disease contracted in the service.—The fourth son, David Bell, b. in Huntsville, Ala., 29 May, 1825; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 18 Oct., 1864, studied law in Cincinnati, and, after engaging in business in Michigan, began the practice of law in Philadelphia in 1848. He entered the army as lieutenant-colonel at the beginning of the civil war, and was made colonel of the 23d Pennsylvania volunteers, which regiment he raised, principally at his own expense, in the summer of 1861. He was promoted successively to brigadier and major-general of volunteers, and distinguished himself in the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, the second battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. After the death of Gen. Berry he commanded the division, receiving his commission as major-general, 23 May, 1863. He commanded the 3d corps at Gettysburg, after Gen. Sickles was wounded, and on 23 July, 1864, was given the command of the 10th corps. He died of disease contracted in the service.—A fifth son, Fitzhugh, died, in 1864, of wounds and disease, in the service with the rank of colonel—A grandson, James Gillespie, was lieutenant and captain of cavalry, served as staff officer under Custer and Sheridan, was appointed lieutenant in the regular army at the close of the war; and died soon afterward of disease contracted in the service. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 267-269.

BIRNEY, William, 1819-1907, lawyer, Union soldier, abolitionist leader, strong opponent of slavery, commander of U.S. Colored Troops (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 269; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936 Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 294; Who’s Who in America, 1899-1907; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 819)

BLACKBURN, Gideon, 1772-1838, Kentucky, Virginia, clergyman, abolitionist, strong supporter of the American colonization Society.  Went to Illinois in 1833.  Assisted Elijah P. Lovejoy in organizing Illinois Anti-Slavery Society.  Founded Blackburn College at Carlinville, Illinois.  Established school for Cherokee Indians.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 91, 92, 135, 198-199; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 272; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 315; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 139)

BLACKBURN, Gideon, clergyman, b. in Augusta co., Va., 27 Aug., 1772; d. in Carlinville, Ill., 23 Aug., 1838. He was educated at Martin academy, Washington co., Tenn., licensed to preach by Abingdon presbytery in 1795, and settled many years at Marysville, Tenn. He was minister of Franklin, Tenn., in 1811-'3, and of Louisville, Ky., in 1823-'7. He passed the last forty years of his life in the western states, in preaching, organizing churches, and, from 1803 to 1809, during a part of each year, in his mission to the Cherokees, establishing a school at Hywassee. He established a school in Tennessee in 1806, and from 1827 till 1830 was president of Center college, Kentucky. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 272.

BLACKBURN, William Jasper, b. 1820, newspaper editor, U.S. Congressman, printer, opponent of slavery.  Published Blackburn’s Homer’s Iliad, in Homer, Louisiana.  Published pro-Union paper in the South during the Civil War.  Published editorials against the assault in the Senate against Charles Sumner, who was opposed to slavery.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 272-273)

BLACKBURN, William Jasper, editor, b. in Randolph co., Ark., 24 July, 1820. He was early left an orphan, and received his education in public schools, also studying during the years 1838-'9 in Jackson College, Columbia, Tenn.; after which he became a printer, and worked in various offices in Arkansas and Louisiana. Later he settled in Homer, La., where he established “Blackburn's Homer Iliad,” in which he editorially condemned the assault on Charles Sumner by Preston S. Brooks, being the only southern editor that denounced that action. Although born in a slave state, he was always opposed to slavery, and his office was twice mobbed therefor. The “Iliad” was the only loyal paper published during the civil war in the gulf states. He was a member of the constitutional convention of Louisiana convened in 1867, and was elected as a republican to congress, serving from 17 July, 1868, till 3 March, 1869. From 1872 till 1876 he was a member of the Louisiana state senate. Subsequently he removed to Little Rock, Ark., and became owner and editor of the Little Rock “Republican.” He received the nomination of the republicans for the state senate, but failed to secure his seat, though he claimed to have been elected by 2,000 majority. Mr. Blackburn is known as an occasional writer of verse. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 272-273.

BLACKFORD, Mary Berkeley Minor, Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Active supporter of the American Colonization Society, along with her husband, newspaper publisher William Blackford.  Freed some of her slaves for colonization to Africa.  (Burin, 2005, pp. 39, 51, 60, 101; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 110)

BLACKFORD, William Maxwell, Fredericksburg, Virginia, newspaper publisher.  Owner of the newspaper, Arena, which endorsed  and sponsored the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 109-157, 179)

BLACKSTONE, Dr., Athens, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39

BLACKWELL, Antoinette Louisa, 1825-1921, abolitionist, reformer (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 274; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 319-320; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 82-83)

BLACKWELL, Antoinette Louisa Brown, author and minister, b. in Henrietta, Monroe co., N. Y., 20 May, 1825. When sixteen years old she taught school, and then, after attending Henrietta academy, went to Oberlin, where she was graduated in 1847. She spent her vacations in teaching and in the study of Hebrew and Greek. In the winter of 1844 she taught in the academy at Rochester, N. Y., where she delivered her first lecture. After graduation she entered upon a course of theological study at Oberlin, and completed it in 1850. When she asked for the license to preach, usually given to the theological students, it was refused; but she preached frequently on her own responsibility. The four years following her graduation were spent in study, preaching, and in lecturing on literary subjects, temperance, and the abolition of slavery. At the woman's rights convention in Worcester, Mass., in 1850, Miss Brown was one of the speakers, and she has since been prominent in the movement. In 1853 she was regularly ordained pastor of the orthodox Congregational church of South Butler and Savannah, Wayne co., N. Y., but gave up her charge in 1854 on account of ill health and doctrinal doubts. In 1855 she investigated the character and causes of vice in New York city, and published, in a New York journal, a series of sketches entitled “Shadows of our Social System.” In 1856 she married Samuel C. Blackwell, brother of Elizabeth Blackwell. They have six children, and now live in Elizabeth, N. J. Mrs. Blackwell still preaches occasionally, and has become a Unitarian. She is the author of “Studies in General Science” (New York, 1869); “The Market Woman”: “The Island Neighbors” (1871); “The Sexes Throughout Nature” (1875); and “The Physical Basis of Immortality” (1876). She has in preparation (1886) “The Many and the One.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 274.

BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, 1821-1910, Bristol, England, abolitionist, physician. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp.274-275; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 230)

BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, physician, b. in Bristol, England, in 1821. Her father emigrated with his family in 1832, and settled in New York, but removed in 1838 to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he died a few months afterward, leaving a widow and nine children almost destitute. Elizabeth, then seventeen years old, opened a school in connection with two elder sisters, and conducted it successfully for several years. A friend now suggested that she should study medicine, and she resolved to become a physician. At first she pursued her studies in private, with some help from Dr. John Dixon, of Asheville, N. C., in whose family she was governess for a year. She then continued her studies in Charleston, S. C., supporting herself by teaching music, and after that in Philadelphia, under Dr. Allen and Dr. Warrington. She now made formal application to the medical schools of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston for admission as a student, but in each instance the request was denied, although several professors avowed interest in her undertaking. Rejecting advice to adopt an assumed name and male attire, she persevered in her attempt, and after several more refusals was finally admitted to the medical school at Geneva, N. Y., where she took her degree of M. D. in regular course in January, 1849. During her connection with the college, when not in attendance there upon lectures, she pursued a course of clinical study in Blockley hospital, Philadelphia. After graduation she went to Paris, and remained there six months, devoting herself to the study and practice of midwifery. The next autumn she was admitted as a physician to walk the hospital of St. Bartholomew in London, and after nearly a year spent there she returned to New York, and began practice in 1851. In 1854, with her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, she organized the New York infirmary for women and children. In 1859 she revisited England, and delivered in London and other cities a course of lectures on the necessity of medical education for women. In 1861, having returned to New York, she held, with Dr. Emily Blackwell, a meeting in the parlors of the infirmary, at which the first steps were taken toward organizing the women's central relief association for sending nurses and medical supplies for the wounded soldiers during the civil war. In 1867 the two sisters organized the women's medical college of the New York infirmary, in which Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell held the chair of hygiene and Dr. Emily Blackwell the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women. In 1869, leaving Dr. Emily in. charge of their joint work, Dr. Elizabeth returned to London and practised there for several years, taking an active part in organizing the women's medical college, in which she was elected professor of the diseases of women. She also took part in forming in England the national health society, and the society for repealing the contagious-diseases acts. Besides several health tracts, she has published “Laws of Life, or the Physical Education of Girls” (Philadelphia, 1852), and “Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children” (1879), which has been translated into French.

BLACKWELL, Samuel Charles, 1823-1901, England, abolitionist, husband of abolitionist Antoinette Brown, brother of Elizabeth Blackwell.

BLAGDON, George W., Boston, Massachusetts.  Supporter of the American Colonization Society.  Raised funds for the Society in Boston.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 214)

BLAIN, John, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-37

BLAINE, James Gillespie, 1830-1893, statesman.  Founding member of the Republican Party.  Member of Congress 1862-1880.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 275-280; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 322-329; Congressional Globe)

BLAINE, James Gillespie, statesman, b. in West Brownsville, Washington co., Pa., 31 Jan., 1830. He is the second son of Ephraim L. Blaine and Maria Gillespie. On his father's side he inherited the hardy and energetic qualities of the Scotch-Irish blood. His great-grandfather, Ephraim Blaine, b. 1741; d. 1804, bore an honorable part in the revolutionary struggle, was an officer of the Pennsylvania line, a trusted friend of Washington, and during the last four years of the war served as the commissary-general of the northern department of his command. Possessed of ample means, he drew largely from his own private purse and enlisted the contributions of various friends for the maintenance of the army through the severe and memorable winter at Valley Forge. From the Cumberland valley, where his ancestors had early settled and had been among the founders of Carlisle, Mr. Blaine's father removed to Washington co. in 1818. He had inherited what was a fortune in those days, and had large landed possessions in western Pennsylvania; but their mineral wealth had not then been developed, and though relieved from poverty he was not endowed with affluence, and a large family made a heavy drain on his means. He was a man of liberal education, and had travelled in Europe and South America before settling down in western Pennsylvania, where he served as prothonotary. Mr. Blaine's mother, a woman of superior intelligence and force of character, was a devout Catholic; but her son has adhered to the Presbyterian convictions and communion of his paternal Scotch-Irish ancestry. The early education of Mr. Blaine was sedulously cultivated. He had the advantage of excellent teachers at his own home, and for a part of the year 1841 he was at school in Lancaster, Ohio, where he lived in the family of his relative, Thomas Ewing, then secretary of the treasury. In association with Thomas Ewing, Jr., afterward a member of congress, young Blaine began his preparation for college under the instruction of a thoroughly trained Englishman. William Lyons, brother of Lord Lyons, and at the age of thirteen he entered Washington college in his native county, where he was graduated in 1847. It is said that when nine years old he was able to recite Plutarch's lives. He had a marked taste for historical studies, and excelled in literature and mathematics. In the literary society he displayed the political aptitude and capacity that distinguished his subsequent career. Some time after graduation he became a teacher in the western military institute, at Blue Lick Springs, Ky. Here he formed the acquaintance of Miss Harriet Stanwood, of Maine, who was connected with a seminary for young ladies at the neighboring town of Millersburg, and to whom within a few months he was married. He soon returned to Pennsylvania, where, after some study of the law, he became a teacher in the Pennsylvania institution for the blind at Philadelphia. The instruction was chiefly oral. The young teacher had charge of the higher classes in literature and science, and the principal has left a record that his “brilliant mental powers were exactly qualified to enlighten and instruct the interesting minds before him.” After an association of two years with this institution, he removed in 1854 to Augusta, Maine, where he has since made his home. Purchasing a half interest in the Kennebec “Journal,” he became its editor, his ready faculty and trenchant writing being peculiarly adapted to this field. He speedily made his impress, and within three years was a master spirit in the politics of the state.

He engaged in the movement for the formation of the republican party with all his energy, and his earnest and incisive discussion of the rising conflict between freedom and slavery attracted wide attention. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first republican national convention, which nominated Gen. Frémont for the presidency. His report at a public meeting on his return home, where he spoke at the outset with hesitation and embarrassment, and advanced to confident and fervid utterance, first illustrated his capacity on the platform and gave him standing as a public speaker. The next year he broadened his journalistic work by taking the editorship of the Portland “Advertiser”; but his editorial service ended when his parliamentary career began. In 1858 he was elected to the legislature, remaining a member through successive annual re-elections for four years, and serving the last two as speaker. At the beginning of the civil war Mr. Blaine gained distinction not only for his parliamentary skill, but for his forensic power in the debates that grew out of that crisis. The same year that he was elected to the legislature he became chairman of the state committee, a position which he continued to hold uninterruptedly for twenty years, and in which he led in shaping and directing every political campaign of his party in Maine.

In 1862 Mr. Blaine was elected to congress, where in one branch or the other he served for eighteen years. To the house he was chosen for seven successive terms. His growth in position and influence was rapid and unbroken. In his earlier years he made few elaborate addresses. During his first term his only extended speech was an argument in favor of the assumption of the state war debts by the general government, and in demonstration of the ability of the north to carry the war to a successful conclusion. But he gradually took an active part in the running discussions, and soon acquired high repute as a facile and effective debater. For this form of contention his ready resources and alert faculties were singularly fitted. He was bold in attack, quick in repartee, and apt in illustration. His close study of political history, his accurate knowledge of the record and relations of public men, and his unfailing memory, gave him great advantages. As a member of the committee on post-offices, he was largely instrumental in securing the introduction of the system of postal cars. He earnestly sustained all measures for the vigorous prosecution of the war, but sought to make them judicious and practical. In this spirit he supported the bill for a draft, but opposed absolute conscription. He contended that it should be relieved by provisions for commutation and substitution, and urged that an inexorable draft had never been resorted to but once, even under the absolutism of Napoleon. At the same time he enforced the duty of sustaining and strengthening the armies in the field by using all the resources of the nation, and strongly advocated the enrolment act. The measures for the reconstruction of the states that had been in rebellion largely engrossed the attention of congress from 1865 till 1869, and Mr. Blaine bore a prominent part in their discussion and in the work of framing them. The basis of representation upon which the states should be readmitted was the first question to be determined, Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the committee on reconstruction, had proposed that representation should be apportioned according to the number of legal voters. Mr. Blaine strenuously objected to this proposition, and urged that population, instead of voters, should be the basis. He submitted a constitutional amendment providing that “representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which shall be included within this union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by taking the whole number of persons, except those whose political rights or privileges are denied or abridged by the constitution of any state on account of race or color.” He advocated this plan on the ground that, while the other basis of voters would accomplish the object of preventing the south from securing representation for the blacks unless the blacks were made voters, yet it would make a radical change in the apportionment for the northern states where the ratio of voters to population differed very widely in different sections, varying from a minimum of 19 per cent. to a maximum of 58 per cent. The result of the discussion was a general abandonment of the theory that apportionment should be based on voters, and the 14th amendment to the constitution, as finally adopted, embodied Mr. Blaine's proposition in substance.

On 6 Feb., 1867, Mr. Stevens reported the reconstruction bill. It divided the states lately in rebellion into five military districts, and practically established military government therein. The civil tribunals were made subject to military control. While the majority evinced a readiness to accept the bill, Mr. Blaine declared his unwillingness to support any measure that would place the south under military government, if it did not at the same time prescribe the methods by which the people of a state could by their own action reëstablish civil government. He accordingly proposed an amendment providing that when any one of the late so-called confederate states should assent to the 14th amendment to the constitution and should establish equal and impartial suffrage without regard to race or color, and when congress should approve its action, it should be entitled to representation, and the provisions for military government should become inoperative. This proposition came to be known as the Blaine amendment. In advocating it, Mr. Blaine expressed the belief that the true interpretation of the election of 1866 was that, in addition to the proposed constitutional amendment—the 14th—impartial suffrage should be the basis of reconstruction, and he urged the wisdom of declaring the terms at once. The application of the previous question ruled out the Blaine amendment, but it was renewed in the senate and finally carried through both branches, and under it reconstruction was completed.

The theory that the public debt should be paid in greenbacks developed great strength in the summer of 1867 while Mr. Blaine was absent in Europe. On his return at the opening of the next session he made an extended speech against the doctrine, and was the first man in congress to give utterance to this opposition. The long unsettled question of protecting naturalized American citizens while abroad attracted special attention at this time. Costello, Warren, Burke, and other Irish-Americans had been arrested in England, on the charge of complicity in Fenian plots. Costello had made a speech in 1865 in New York, which was regarded as treasonable by the British government, and he was treated as a British subject and tried under an old law on this accusation. His plea of American citizenship was overruled, and he was convicted and sentenced to sixteen years' penal servitude. Mr. Blaine, who, with other American statesmen, resisted the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance, and maintained that a naturalized American was entitled to the same protection abroad that would be given to a native American, took active part in pressing these questions upon public attention, and, as the result of the agitation, Costello was released. The discussion of these cases led to the treaty of 1870, in which Great Britain abandoned the doctrine of “once a subject always a subject,” and accepted the American principle of equal rights and protection for adopted and for native citizens. Mr. Blaine was chosen speaker of the house of representatives in 1869, and served by successive reëlections for six years. His administration of the speakership is commonly regarded as one of the most brilliant and successful in the annals of the house. He had rare aptitude and equipment for the duties of presiding officer; and his complete mastery of parliamentary law, his dexterity and physical endurance, his rapid despatch of business, and his firm and impartial spirit, were recognized on all sides. 'Though necessarily exercising a powerful influence upon the course of legislation, he seldom left the chair to mingle in the contests of the floor. On one of those rare occasions, in March, 1871, he had a sharp tilt with Gen. Butler, who had criticised him for being the author of the resolution providing for an investigation into alleged outrages perpetrated upon loyal citizens of the south, and for being chiefly instrumental in securing its adoption by the republican caucus. The political revulsion of 1874 placed the democrats in control of the house, and Mr. Blaine became the leader of the minority. The session preceding the presidential contest of 1876 was a period of stormy and vehement contention. A general amnesty bill was brought forward, removing the political disabilities of participants in the rebellion which had been imposed by the 14th amendment to the constitution. Mr. Blaine moved to amend by making an exception of Jefferson Davis, and supported the proposition in an impassioned speech. After asserting the great magnanimity of the government, and pointing out how far amnesty had already been carried, he defined the ground of his proposed exception. The reason was, not that Davis was the chief of the confederacy, but that, as Mr. Blaine affirmed, he was the author, “knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and wilfully, of the gigantic murders and crimes of Andersonville.” In fiery words Mr. Blaine proceeded to declare that no military atrocities in history had exceeded those for which Davis was thus responsible. His outburst naturally produced deep excitement in the house and throughout the country. If Mr. Blaine's object as a political leader was to arouse partisan feeling and activity preparatory to the presidential struggle, he succeeded. An acrid debate followed. Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, assumed the lead on the other side, and not only defended Davis against the accusations, which he pronounced unfounded, but preferred similar charges against the treatment of southern prisoners in the north. In reply, Mr. Blaine turned upon Mr. Hill with the citation of a resolution introduced by him in the confederate senate, providing that every soldier or officer of the United States captured on the soil of the confederate states should be presumed to have come with intent to incite insurrection, and should suffer the penalty of death. This episode arrested universal attention, and gave Mr. Blaine a still stronger hold as a leader of his party.

He now became the subject of a violent personal assault. Charges were circulated that he had received $64,000 from the Union Pacific railroad company for some undefined services. On 24 April, 1876, he rose to a personal explanation in the house and made his answer. He produced letters from the officers of the company and from the bankers who were said to have negotiated the draft, in which they declared that there had never been any such transaction, and that Mr. Blaine had never received a dollar from the company. Mr. Blaine proceeded to add that the charge had reappeared in the form of an assertion that he had received bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith railroad as a gratuity, and that these bonds had been sold through the Union Pacific company for his benefit. To this he responded that he never had any such bonds except at the market price, and that, instead of deriving any profit from them, he had incurred a large pecuniary loss. A few days later another charge was made to the effect that he had received as a gift certain bonds of the Kansas Pacific railroad, and had been a party to a suit concerning them in the courts of Kansas. To this he answered by producing evidence that his name had been confounded with that of a brother, who was one of the early settlers of Kansas, and who had bought stock in the Kansas Pacific before Mr. Blaine had even been nominated for congress.

On 2 May a resolution was adopted in the house to investigate an alleged purchase by the Union Pacific railroad company, at an excessive price, of certain bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith railroad. It soon became evident that the investigation was aimed at Mr. Blaine. An extended business correspondence on his part with Warren Fisher, of Boston, running through years and relating to various transactions, had fallen into the hands of a clerk named Mulligan, and it was alleged that the production of this correspondence would confirm the imputations against Mr. Blaine. When Mulligan was summoned to Washington, Mr. Blaine possessed himself of the letters, together with a memorandum that contained a full index and abstract. On 5 June he rose to a personal explanation, and, after denying the power of the house to compel the production of his private papers, and his willingness to go to any extremity in defence of his rights, he declared his purpose to reserve nothing. Holding up the letters he exclaimed: “Thank God, I am not ashamed to show them. There is the very original package. And with some sense of humiliation, with a mortification I do not attempt to conceal, with a sense of outrage which I think any man in my position would feel, I invite the confidence of forty-four millions of my countrymen, while I read those letters from this desk.” The demonstration closed with a dramatic scene. Josiah Caldwell, one of the originators of the Little Rock and Fort Smith railroad, who had full knowledge of the whole transaction, was travelling in Europe, and both sides were seeking to communicate with him. After finishing the reading of the letters, Mr. Blaine turned to the chairman of the committee and demanded to know whether he had received any despatch from Mr. Caldwell. Receiving an evasive answer, Mr. Blaine asserted, as within his own knowledge, that the chairman had received such a despatch, “completely and absolutely exonerating me from this charge, and you have suppressed it.” A profound sensation was created, and Gen. Garfield said: “I have been a long time in congress, and never saw such a scene in the house.”

The republican national convention was now at hand, and Mr. Blaine was the most prominent candidate for the presidential nomination. He had a larger body of enthusiastic friends than any other leader of his party, and the stirring events of the past few months had intensified their devotion. On 11 June, the Sunday preceding the convention, just as he was entering church at Washington, he was prostrated with the extreme heat, and his illness for a time created wide apprehension. The advocates of his nomination, however, remained unshaken in their support. On the first ballot he received 285 votes out of a total of 754, the remainder being divided among Senator Morton, Sec. Bristow, Senator Conkling, Gov. Hayes, and several others. On the seventh ballot his vote rose to 351, lacking only 28 of a majority, but a union of the supporters of all the other candidates gave Gov. Hayes 384 and secured his nomination. Immediately after the convention, on the resignation of Senator Morrill to accept the secretaryship of the treasury, Mr. Blaine was appointed senator to fill the unexpired term, and in the following winter he was chosen by the legislature for the full ensuing term. In the senate he engaged in the discussion of current questions. He opposed the creation of the electoral commission for the settlement of the disputed presidential election of 1876, on the ground that congress did not itself possess the power that it proposed to confer on the commission. He held that President Hayes's southern policy surrendered too much of what had been gained through reconstruction, and contended that the validity of his own title involved the maintenance of the state governments in South Carolina and Louisiana, which rested on the same popular vote. On the currency question he always assumed a pronounced position. While still a member of the house, in February, 1876, he had made an elaborate speech on the national finances and against any perpetuation of an irredeemable paper currency, and soon after entering the senate, when the subject was brought forward, he took strong ground against the deterioration of the silver coinage. He strenuously opposed the Bland bill, and, when its passage was seen to be inevitable, sought to amend it by providing that the dollar should contain 425 grains of standard silver, instead of 412½ grains. He favored a bi-metallic currency, and equally resisted the adoption of the single gold standard and the depreciation of silver. Measures for the development and protection of American shipping early engaged his attention. In 1878 he advocated the establishment of a line of mail steamers to Brazil, and unhesitatingly urged the application of a subsidy to this object. On frequent occasions he recurred to the subject, contending that Great. Britain and France had built up their commerce by liberal aid to steamship lines, and that a similar policy would produce similar results here. He argued that congress had endowed the railroad system with $500,000,000 of money, which had produced $5,000,000,000 to the country, and that the policy ought not to stop when it reached the sea.

In March, 1879, congress was deeply agitated by a conflict over the appropriation bills. The democrats, being in control of both houses, had refused to pass the necessary measures for the support of the government unless accompanied by a proviso prohibiting the presence of troops at any place where an election was being held. The republicans resisted this attempt, and, in consequence of the failure of the bills at the regular session, the president was compelled to call an extra session. Mr. Blaine was among the foremost in the senate in defending the executive prerogative and in opposing what he denounced as legislative coercion. Be pointed out how few troops there were in all the states of the south, and said: “I take no risk in stating, I make bold to declare, that this issue on the troops being a false one, being one without foundation, conceals the true issue, which is simply to get rid of the federal presence at federal elections, to get rid of the civil power of the United States in the election of representatives to the congress of the United States.” He proceeded to characterize the proposition to withhold appropriations except upon the condition of executive compliance as revolutionary, saying: “I call it the audacity of revolution for any senator or representative, or any caucus of senators or representatives, to get together and say: ‘We will have this legislation, or we will stop the great departments of the government.’” The resistance was unsuccessful, and the army appropriation bill finally passed with the proviso. Mr. Blaine at all times defended the sanctity of the ballot, and in December, 1878, pending a resolution presented by himself for an inquiry into certain alleged frauds in the south, made a powerful plea as to the injustice wrought by a denial of the franchise to the blacks. When the attempt was made to override the plain result of the election of 1879 in Maine, and to set up a state government in defiance of the popular vote, Mr. Blaine took charge of the effort to establish the rightful government, and through his vigorous measures the scheme of usurpation was defeated and abandoned. On the Chinese question he early declared himself decidedly in favor of restricting their immigration. In a speech on 14 Feb., 1879, when the subject came before the senate, he argued that there were only two courses: that the Chinese must be excluded or fully admitted into the family of citizens; that the latter was as impracticable as it was dangerous; that they could not be assimilated with our people or institutions; and that it was a duty to protect the free laborer of America against the servile laborer of China.

As the presidential convention of 1880 approached, it was apparent that Mr. Blaine retained the same support that had adhered to him so tenaciously four years before. The contest developed into an earnest and prolonged struggle between his friends and those who advocated a third term for Gen. Grant. The convention, one of the most memorable in American history, lasted through six days, and there were thirty-six ballots. On the first the vote stood: Grant 304, Blaine 284, Sherman 93, Edmunds 34, Washburne 30, Windom 10, Garfield 1. On the final ballot the friends of Blaine and Sherman united on Gen. Garfield, who received 399 votes to 306 for Grant, and was nominated. On his election, Mr. Blaine was tendered and accepted the office of secretary of state. He remained at the head of the department less than ten months, and his effective administration was practically limited by the assassination of President Garfield to four. Within that period, however, he began several important undertakings. His foreign policy had two principal objects. The first was to secure and preserve peace throughout this continent. The second was to cultivate close commercial relations and increase our trade with the various countries of North and South America. The accomplishment of the first object was preliminary and essential to the attainment of the second, and, in order to promote it, he projected a peace congress to be held at Washington, to which all the independent powers of North and South America were to be invited. His plan contemplated the cultivation of such a friendly understanding on the part of the powers as would permanently avert the horrors of war either through the influence of pacific counsels or the acceptance of impartial arbitration. Incidentally, it assumed that the assembling of their representatives at Washington would open the way to such relations as would inure to the commercial advantage of this country. The project, though already determined, was delayed by the fatal shot at Garfield, and the letter of invitation was finally issued on 29 Nov., 1881, fixing 24 Nov., 1882, as the date for the proposed congress. On 19 Dec. Mr. Blaine retired from the cabinet, and within three weeks his successor had reversed his policy and the plan was abandoned, after the invitation had been accepted by all the American powers except two.

When Mr. Blaine entered the department of state, war was raging between Chili and Peru, and he sought to exercise the good offices of our government, first, for the restoration of peace, and, second, to mitigate the consequences of the crushing defeat sustained by Peru. Other efforts failing, he despatched William Henry Trescott on a special mission to offer the friendly services of the United States; but this attempt, like the one for the peace congress, was interrupted and frustrated by his retirement from the department. His brief service was also signalized by an important correspondence with the British government concerning the modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The Colombian republic had proposed to the European powers that they should unite in guaranteeing the neutrality of the Panama canal. On 24 June Mr. Blaine issued a circular letter declaring the objection of this government to any such concerted action, and asserting the prior and paramount rights and obligations of this country. He pointed out that the United States had entered into a guarantee by the treaty of 1846 with the republic of New Grenada—now Colombia; that this country had a supreme interest in watching over any highway between the two coasts; and that any agreement among European powers to supersede this guarantee and impair our exclusive rights would be regarded as an indication of unfriendly feeling. In this connection he made formal proposal to the British government for the abrogation of certain clauses of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which were not in harmony with the rights of the United States as secured by the convention with the Colombian republic. He urged that the treaty, by prohibiting the use of land forces and of fortifications, without any protection against superior naval power, practically conceded to Great Britain the control of any interoceanic canal that might be constructed across the isthmus, and he proposed that every part of the treaty which forbids the United States fortifying the canal and holding the political control of it in conjunction with the country in which it is located should be cancelled. To the answer of the British government that the treaty was an engagement which should be maintained and respected, Mr. Blaine replied that it could not be regarded as a conclusive determination of the question; that since its adoption it had been the subject of repeated negotiations between the two countries; that the British government had itself proposed to refer its doubtful clauses to arbitration; and that it had long been recognized as a source of increasing embarrassment. Throughout the correspondence Mr. Blaine insisted in the firmest tone that “it is the fixed purpose of the United States to consider the isthmus canal question as an American question, to be dealt with and decided by the American governments.”

Upon the retirement of Mr. Blaine from the state department in December, 1881, he was, for the first time in twenty-three years, out of public station. He soon entered upon the composition of an elaborate historical work entitled “Twenty Years of Congress,” of which the first 200 pages give a succinct review of the earlier political history of the country, followed by a more detailed narrative of the eventful period from Lincoln to Garfield. The first volume was published in April, 1884, and the second in January, 1886 (Norwich, Conn.). The work had a very wide sale, and secured general approval for its impartial spirit and brilliant style. When the republican national convention of 1884 met at Chicago, it was clear that Mr. Blaine had lost none of his hold upon the enthusiasm of his party. On the first ballot he received 334½ votes, President Arthur 278, Senator Edmunds 93, Senator Logan 63½, and the rest were scattering. His vote kept gaining till the fourth ballot, when he received 541 out of a total of 813 and was nominated. The canvass that followed was one of peculiar bitterness. Mr. Blaine took the stump in Ohio, Indiana, New York, and other states, and in a series of remarkable speeches, chiefly devoted to upholding the policy of protection to American industry, deepened the popular impression of his intellectual power. The election turned upon the result in New York, which was lost to Mr. Blaine by 1,047 votes, whereupon he promptly resumed the work upon his history, which had been interrupted by the canvass. After the result had been determined, he made, at his home in Augusta, a speech in which he arraigned the democratic party for carrying the election by suppressing the republican vote in the southern states, and cited the figures of the returns to show that, on an average, only one half or one third as many votes had been cast for each presidential elector or member of congress elected in the south as for each elected in the north. This speech had a startling effect, and attracted universal attention, though Mr. Blaine had set forth the same thing in a speech in congress as long before as 11 Dec., 1878, when he said:

“The issue raised before the country is not one of mere sentiment for the rights of the negro; though far distant be the day when the rights of any American citizen, however black or however poor, shall form the mere dust of the balance in any controversy! . . . The issue has taken a far wider range, one of portentous magnitude; and that is, whether the white voter of the north shall be equal to the white voter of the south in shaping the policy and fixing the destiny of this country; or whether, to put it still more boldly, the white man who fought in the ranks of the union army shall have as weighty and influential a vote in the government of the republic as the white man who fought in the ranks of the rebel army. . . . In Iowa and Wisconsin it takes 132,000 white population to send a representative to congress; but in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, every 60,000 white people send a representative.”

Mr. Blaine took an active part in the Maine canvass of 1886, opening it, 24 Aug., in a speech at Sebago Lake devoted chiefly to the questions of the fisheries, the tariff, and the third-party prohibition movement. The fishery controversy had acquired renewed interest and importance from recent seizures of American fishing-vessels on the Canadian coast, and Mr. Blaine reviewed its history at length, and sharply criticised the attitude and action of the administration. He presented the issue of protection against free-trade as the foremost one between the two parties; and, with regard to prohibition, insisted that there was no warrant or reason for a third-party movement in Maine, because the republican party had enacted and enforced a prohibitory law. His succeeding speeches, continued throughout the canvass, followed the same line. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 275-280.  

BLAIR, Arba, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

BLAIR, Jacob B., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BLAIR, Montgomery, 1813-1883, statesman, attorney, jurist, abolitionist, Postmaster General of the United States. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 282; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 340)

BLAIR, Montgomery, statesman, b. in Franklin co., Ky., 10 May, 1813; d. in Silver Spring, Md., 27 July, 1883. He was a son of Francis P. Blair, Sr., was graduated at West Point in 1835, and, after serving in the Seminole war, resigned his commission on 20 May, 1836. He then studied law, and, after his admission to the bar in 1839, began practice in St. Louis. He was appointed U. S. district attorney for Missouri, and in 1842 was elected mayor of St. Louis. He was raised to the bench as judge of the court of common pleas in 1843, but resigned in 1849. He removed to Maryland in 1852, and in 1855 was appointed U. S. solicitor in the court of claims. He was removed from this office by President Buchanan in 1858, having left the democratic party on the repeal of the Missouri compromise. In 1857 he acted as counsel for the plaintiff in the celebrated Dred Scott case. He presided over the Maryland republican convention in 1860, and in 1861 was appointed postmaster-general by President Lincoln. It is said that he alone of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet opposed the surrender of Fort Sumter, and held his resignation upon the issue. As postmaster-general he prohibited the sending of disloyal papers through the mails, and introduced various reforms, such as money-orders, free delivery in cities, and postal railroad cars. In 1864 Mr. Blair, who was not altogether in accord with the policy of the administration, told the president that he would resign whenever the latter thought it necessary, and on 23 Sept. Mr. Lincoln, in a friendly letter, accepted his offer. After this Mr. Blair acted with the democratic party, and in 1876-'7 vigorously attacked Mr. Hayes's title to the office of president. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 282.

BLAISDELL, James, J., Lebanon, New Hampshire, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40

BLAISDELL, Timothy K., Haverhill, New Hampshire, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39, 1840-42

BLAKE, James H., Member of the Memorial Committee and Founding Manager of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

BLAKESLEY, J. M., anti-slavery agent.  Founded 15 anti-slavery societies in Chataqua and Erie Counties in New York.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 186, 392n21; Friend of Man, February 1, 1837, May 10, 1837, March 21, 1838)

BLANCHARD, Jonathan, 1811-1892, clergyman, educator, abolitionist, theologian, lecturer.  Worked for more than thirty years for the abolition of slavery.  Member of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  President of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, 1845-1858.  President, Illinois Institute.  Vice president, World Anti-Slavery Convention, London, England, 1843.  (Bailey, J.W., Knox College, 1860;  Blanchard Papers, Wheaton College Library, Wheaton, Illinois; Blanchard Jonathan, and Rice, N.L. [1846], 1870; Dumond, 1961, p. 186; Kilby, 1959; Maas, 2003; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 196-197; Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 350-351)

BLEAKLEY, John, abolitionist, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Employ, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  (Nash, 1991, p. 129)

BLEEKER, Harmanus, 1779-1849, Albany, New York, attorney, U.S. congressman.  Founder and officer of the Albany auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 291-292; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 81, 129)

BLEECKER, Harmanus, lawyer, b. in Albany, N. Y., 19 Oct., 1779; d. there, 19 July, 1849. He studied at Union, but before the completion of his course was admitted to the bar in Albany, where he practised many years as a partner of Theodore Sedgwick. Afterward he was elected to congress as a federalist, serving from 4 Nov., 1811, till 3 March, 1813. His career in congress was memorable for his opposition to the war of 1812. From 1822 till 1834 he was a regent of the University of the State of New York. In 1839 he was appointed chargé d’affaires at the Hague, where he remained until 1842, when he returned to Albany, N. Y. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BLEEKER, Leonard, New York, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35

BLISS, Abel, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40

BLISS, Philemon, 1813-1889, lawyer, U.S. congressman, 1854, Chief Justice, Dakota Territory in 1861, elected Supreme Court of Missouri, 1868.  Helped found anti-slavery  Free Soil Party.  Agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  (Blue, 2005, p. 76; Dumond, 1961, p. 165; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 375-376)

BLOOMFIELD, Dr. Joseph, 1753-1823, New Jersey, abolitionist lawyer, soldier, political leader, member and delegate, New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (Basker, 2005, pp. 223-225, 239n7; Locke, 1901, pp. 86, 92; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 175-176, 185; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 385)

BLOSS, William Clough, 1795-1863, abolitionist leader, reformer, temperance advocate.  Early abolitionist leader in Rochester, New York, area.  Founded abolitionist newspaper, Rights of Man, in 1834.  Petitioned U.S. Congress to end slavery in Washington, DC.  Early supporter of women’s rights and African American civil rights.  Activist in aiding fugitive slaves in the Underground Railroad.  manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1843-1845.  (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 54)

BLOW, Henry Taylor, 1817-1875, statesman, diplomat.  Active in pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 297; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 443-444; Congressional Globe)

BLOW, Henry T., statesman, b. in Southampton co., Va., 15 July, 1817; d. in Saratoga, N. Y., 11 Sept., 1875. He went to Missouri in 1830, and was graduated at St. Louis university. He then engaged in the drug business and in lead-mining, in which he was successful. Before the civil war he took a prominent part in the anti-slavery movement, and served four years in the state senate. In 1861 he was appointed minister to Venezuela, but resigned in less than a year. He was a republican member of congress from 1863 till 1867, and served on the committee of ways and means. He was minister to Brazil from 1869 till 1871, and was appointed one of the commissioners of the District of Columbia in 1874. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 297.

BOLES, Harper, Dalton, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40

BOLLES, William, New London, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-42, 1843-46

BOND, Thomas E., Dr., Maryland, physician.  Vice President and founding member of the Maryland State Colonization Society in 1831.  Founder of the University of Maryland Medical School.  (Campbell, 1971, pp. 19-20)

BONDI, August, 1833-1907, Vienna, Austria, abolitionist.  Supported radical abolitionist John Brown in Bleeding Kansas war.

BOORMAN, James, 1783-1866, New York, merchant, philanthropist.  Vice President, 1838-1841, of the American Colonization Society.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 316; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 443-444; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BOORMAN, James, merchant, b. in Kent co., England, in 1783; d. in New York city, 24 Jan., 1866. He accompanied his parents to the United States when about twelve years of age, was apprenticed to Divie Bethune, of New York, and entered into partnership with him in 1805. Afterward, in connection with John Johnston, he formed the firm of Boorman & Johnston, which almost entirely controlled the Dundee trade, and dealt largely in Swedish iron and Virginia tobacco. Mr. Boorman was one of the pioneers in the construction of the Hudson river railroad, and was for many years its president. He was also one of the founders of the Bank of Commerce. He retired from active business in 1855. The institution for the blind, the Protestant half-orphan asylum, the southern aid society, and the union theological seminary were among the recipients of his bounty. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 316.

BOOTH, Mord, founding charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

BOOTH, Sherman M., 1812-1904, abolitionist, orator, politician, temperance activist.  Editor of anti-slavery newspaper, the Wisconsin Freeman, in Racine, Wisconsin.  Member, Free Soil Party, and helped found the Liberty Party.  Assisted runaway slave Joshua Glover.  Was arrested, tried and convicted for violation of Fugitive Slave Law.  Booth was acquitted under Wisconsin State law. (Blue, 2005, pp. 6-7, 13, 117-137, 267, 268; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 62, 151)

BORDEN, Nathaniel B., Fall River, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1842, Executive Committee, 1842-1843.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1849.

BOUDINOT, Elias, 1740-1821, New Jersey, philanthropist, lawyer, Revolutionary statesman, U.S. Congressman, opponent of slavery.  Trustee of Princeton.  Former president of the Congress of Confederation.  Secretary of Foreign Affairs.  Supported right to petition Congress against slavery. (Basker, 2005, pp. 128, 133, 321, 322, 348, 350-351; Drake, 1950, pp. 85, 106; Dumond, 1961, p. 54; Locke, 1901, pp. 92, 93, 140; Staudenraus, 1961, pp. 16, 18, 25; Annals of Congress; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 327; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 477-478; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 243)

Biography from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

BOUDINOT, Elias, philanthropist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 2 May, 1740; d. in Burlington, N. J., 24 Oct., 1821. His great-grandfather, Elias, was a French Huguenot, who fled to this country after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. After receiving a classical education, he studied law with Richard Stockton, and became eminent in his profession, practising in New Jersey. He was devoted to the patriot cause, in 1777 appointed commissary-general of prisoners, and in the same year elected a delegate to congress from New Jersey, serving from 1778 till 1779, and again from 1781 till 1784. He was chosen president of congress on 4 Nov., 1782, and in that capacity signed the treaty of peace with England. He then resumed the practice of law, but, after the adoption of the constitution, was elected to the 1st, 2d, and 3d congresses, serving from 4 March, 1789, till 3 March, 1795. He was appointed by Washington in 1795 to succeed Rittenhouse as director of the mint at Philadelphia, and held the office till July, 1805, when he resigned, and passed the rest of his life at Burlington, N. J., devoted to the study of biblical literature. He had an ample fortune, and gave liberally. He was a trustee of Princeton college, and in 1805 endowed it with a cabinet of natural history, valued at $3,000. In 1812 he was chosen a member of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions, to which he gave £100 in 1813. He assisted in founding the American Bible society in 1816, was its first president, and gave it $10,000. He was interested in attempts to educate the Indians, and when three Cherokee youth were brought to the foreign mission school in 1818, he allowed one of them to take his name. This boy became afterward a man of influence in his tribe, and was murdered on 10 June, 1839, by Indians west of the Mississippi. Dr. Boudinot was also interested in the instruction of deaf-mutes, the education of young men for the ministry, and efforts for the relief of the poor. He bequeathed his property to his only daughter, Mrs. Bradford, and to charitable uses. Among his bequests were one of $200 to buy spectacles for the aged poor, another of 13,000 acres of land to the mayor and corporation of Philadelphia, that the poor might be supplied with wood at low prices, and another of 3,000 acres to the Philadelphia hospital for the benefit of foreigners. Dr. Boudinot published “The Age of Revelation,” a reply to Paine (1790); an oration before the Society of the Cincinnati (1793); “Second Advent of the Messiah” (Trenton 1815); and “Star in the West or An Attempt to Discover the Long-lost Tribes of Israel” (1816), in which he concurs with James Adair in the opinion that the Indians are the lost tribes. He also wrote, in “The Evangelical Intelligencer” of 1806, an anonymous memoir of the  Rev. William Tennet, D. D. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 327.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

As the most tranquil and prosperous periods of a nation afford but scanty materials for the historian, so it frequently happens that men eminent for their morality and virtue, and whose lives have been past in continual acts of beneficence, leave only meagre details for the instruction and example of others. The progress of professional or literary talent contains little of interest, except it is traced by the hand of one who can follow all its windings, and give us feelings as well as facts,—and the deeds of goodness which endear a man to society are done in secret, or known but to few, so that he whose death leaves the greatest void in his immediate circle is often the most speedily forgotten.

ELIAS BOUDINOT was born in Philadelphia, in the year 1740. His family was of French extraction, his great grandfather being one of the many protestants compelled to leave their country on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His father’s name was likewise Elias; his mother, Catharine Williams, was of Welsh descent. Young BOUDINOT received a classical education, such as was at that time common in the colonies, after which he pursued the study of the law under Richard Stockton. At the termination of his studies, entering upon the practice of his profession in New Jersey, he soon became distinguished. At the commencement of the difficulties between the colonies and the mother country, he advocated the cause of the Americans, and when hostilities had actually commenced took a decided part in favor of the colonists. In 1777, congress appointed him commissary general of prisoners, and in the same year he was elected a member of that body. In November, 1782, he was elected president of congress, and in that capacity signed the treaty of peace which was soon afterwards concluded. He now resumed the practice of the law, but in 1789, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution he was again elected a member of congress, and occupied his seat by successive reëlections for six years. In 1796, he was appointed by Washington to succeed Rittenhouse as director of the mint; in this office he continued until 1805, when resigning all public employment he retired to Burlington, N. J. The remainder of his life BOUDINOT passed in attending to the affairs of his estate, in the study of biblical literature, which was always one of his favorite pursuits, and in the exercise of a munificent charity, both private and public. He was a trustee of Princeton college, and in 1805, founded in it a cabinet of natural history at the cost of three thousand dollars. In 1812, he was elected a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to which he presented a donation of one hundred pounds sterling. He was active in promoting the formation of the American Bible Society, and in 1816, being elected its first president, he made it the munificent donation of ten thousand dollars. After a long life of usefulness Mr. BOUDINOT died on the twenty-fourth of October, 1821, in the eighty-second year of his age; a sincere and devout christian, his death bed was cheered by that religion which had guided him through life. He knew that his end approached, but he was prepared and ready to meet it, and his last prayer was, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Mr. BOUDINOT married in early life the sister of his preceptor, Richard Stockton; by whom he had an only daughter, who survives him. Mrs. Boudinot died in 1808.

In his last will, after having suitably provided for his daughter, BOUDINOT bequeathed the bulk of his large property for the furtherance of those objects which he had so steadily pursued through life: the diffusion of religion, the promotion of literature, and the alleviation of the distresses of the poor. Four thousand acres of land were left to the Society for the Benefit of the Jews; five thousand dollars to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; four thousand and eighty acres for theological students at Princeton; four thousand acres to the college of New Jersey for the establishment of fellowships; three thousand two hundred and seventy acres to the Hospital of Philadelphia; thirteen thousand acres to the mayor and corporation of Philadelphia for the supply of the poor with wood on low terms; besides, numerous other bequests for religious and charitable purposes. Mr. BOUDINOT is the author of several publications, the principal of which is the “Star in the West, or an attempt to discover the long lost tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city of Jerusalem,” 8vo., 1816; in which he endeavors to prove that the American Indians are the lost tribes. The work exhibits great benevolence of feeling towards the Indians, extensive research, and considerable acuteness, yet it is to be regretted that his time and talents were wasted upon a subject so ill calculated to reward his labor.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Vol. 3.

BOURNE, George, 1780-1845, New York City.  Author.  Presbyterian and Dutch Reform clergyman. Pioneer abolitionist leader.  Manager (1833-1839) and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Wrote The Book of Slavery Irreconcilable (1816); An Address to the Presbyterian Church, Enforcing the Duty of Excluding all Slaveholders from the Communion of Saints; and Man Stealing and Slavery Denounced by the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 93, 175, 348; Mason, 2006, pp. 79, 100, 132-133, 231-232, 285n75; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 34, 105; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 330; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 485; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 254)

BOURNE, George, author, b. in England about 1760; d. in New York city in 1845. He was educated in his native country, emigrated to the United States, and became a minister of the reformed Dutch church in 1833. He held no pastorate, but engaged in literary work in New York city. He was an ardent and learned controversialist, and wrote works on Romanism and slavery. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 330.

BOUTON, Nathan, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971; Staudenraus, 1961, pp. 120, 202)

BOUTWELL, George Sewall, 1818-1905, statesman, lawyer.  Helped organize the Republican Party.  Member of Congress, 1862-1868.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senator.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 331-332; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 489-490; Congressional Globe)

BOUTWELL, George Sewall, statesman, b. in Brookline, Mass., 28 Jan., 1818. His early life was spent on his father's farm until, in 1835, he became a merchant's clerk in Groton, Mass. He was afterward admitted to partnership, and remained in business there until 1855. In 1836 he began by himself to study law, and was admitted to the bar, but did not enter into active practice for many years. He also began a course of reading, by which he hoped to make up for his want of a college education. He entered politics as a supporter of Van Buren in 1840, and between 1842 and 1851 was seven times chosen as a democrat to the state legislature, where he soon became recognized as the leader of his party. In 1844, 1846, and 1848 he was defeated as a candidate for congress, and in 1849 and 1850 he was the democratic nominee for governor with no better success; but he was finally elected in 1851 and again in 1852 by a coalition with the free-soil party. In 1849-'50 he was state bank commissioner; in 1853 a member of the state constitutional convention. After the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 he assisted in organizing the republican party, with which he has since acted. In 1860 he was a member of the Chicago convention which nominated Lincoln, and in February, 1861, was a delegate to the Washington peace conference. President Lincoln invited him to organize the new department of internal revenue in 1862, and he was its first commissioner, serving from July, 1862, till March, 1863. In 1862 he was chosen a member of congress from Massachusetts, and twice re-elected. In February, 1868, he made a speech advocating the impeachment of President Johnson, was chosen chairman of the committee appointed to report articles of impeachment, and became one of the seven managers of the trial. In March, 1869, he entered President Grant's cabinet as secretary of the treasury, where he opposed diminution of taxation and favored a large reduction of the national debt. In 1870 congress, at his recommendation, passed an act providing for the funding of the national debt and authorizing the selling of certain bonds, but not an increase of the debt. Secretary Boutwell attempted to do this by means of a syndicate, but expended more than half of one per cent., in which he was accused of violating the law. The house committee of ways and means afterward absolved him from this charge. In March, 1873, he resigned and took his seat as a U. S. senator from Massachusetts, having been chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the election of Henry Wilson to the vice-presidency. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes to codify and edit the statutes at large. Mr. Boutwell was for six years an overseer of Harvard, and for five years secretary of the Massachusetts state board of education, preparing the elaborate reports of that body. He afterward opened a law office in Washington, D. C. He is the author of “Educational Topics and Institutions” (Boston, 1859); a “Manual of the United States Direct and Revenue Tax” (1863); “Decisions on the Tax Law” (New York, 1863); “Tax-Payer's Manual” (Boston, 1865); a volume of “Speeches and Papers” (1867); and “Why I am a Republican” (Hartford, Conn., 1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 331-332.

BOWDITCH, Henry Ingersoll, 1819-1909, Boston, lawyer, abolitionist, physician.  Influenced by William Lloyd Garrison to join the anti-slavery cause.  Aided fugitive slaves, and promoted anti-slavery actions in the North.  Counsellor, 1843-1850, and Vice president, 1850-1860, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  (Mabee, 1970, pp. 36, 94, 103, 110, 129, 336; Pease, 1965, pp. 343-348; Bowditch, Slavery and the Constitution, Boston: Robert F. Walcutt, 1849, pp. 120-126; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 492-494; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 103-104; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 267; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 334)

BOWDITCH, Henry Ingersoll, physician, b. in Salem, Mass., 9 Aug., 1808, was graduated at Harvard in 1828, took his medical degree there in 1832, and studied in Paris from 1833 to 1835. He was professor of clinical medicine at Harvard from 1859 till 1867, chairman of the state board of health (1869-'79), and member of the national board in the latter year, surgeon of enrollment during the civil war, president of the American medical association in 1877, and physician at the Massachusetts general hospital and the Boston city hospital, where he served from 1868 to 1872. To Dr. Bowditch is due the discovery of the law of soil moisture as a potent cause of consumption in New England. He has also proved to the medical profession of this country and Europe that thoracentesis, in pleural effusions, if performed with Wyman's fine trocars and suction-pump, is not only innocuous; but at times saves life or gives great relief. Dr. Bowditch was made an abolitionist by the mobbing of Garrison in 1835, and worked earnestly in the anti-slavery cause. “He was the first in Boston,” says Frederick Douglas, “to treat me as a man.” He is the author of “Life of Nathaniel Bowditch, for the Young” (1841); “The Young Stethoscopist” (Boston, 1846; 2d ed., New York, 1848); “Life of Lieutenant Nathaniel Bowditch” (50 copies, printed privately, 1865); “Public Hygiene in America,” a centennial address at Philadelphia in 1876, and many articles in medical journals and papers read before the State board of health (1870-'8). He has translated “Louis on Typhoid” (2 vols., Boston, 1836); “Louis on Phthisis” (1836); and “Maunoir on Cataract” (1837). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 334.

BOWDITCH, William I., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1852-56, Treasurer, 1862-64, Executive Committee, 1863-64.

BOWEN, Ozias, anti-slavery  judge, Ohio, freed slaves in court case in 1856. (Dumond, 1961, p. 317)

BOWN, Benjamin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1841-42, 1843-53, Vice-President, 1860-63.

Bowne, Walter, New York, New York, Mayor of New York City.  Officer in the New York City auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  Strong advocate of colonization.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 130, 135)

BOXLEY, George, 1780-1865, abolitionist.  Tried to start a slave rebellion in Spotsylvania and Orange County, Virginia, 1815. (Mason, 2006, p. 108; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 33)

BOYD, George, Reverend, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, clergyman, lawyer, Rector of St. John’s, Philadelphia.  Agent for the American Colonization Society.  Successful in founding auxiliaries and recruiting members.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 85-86)

BOYD, Sempronius Hamilton, b. 1828, lawyer, soldier.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Colonel, 24^th Missouri Volunteers.  (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 341; Congressional Globe)

BOYD, Sempronius Hamilton, lawyer, b. in Williamson co., Tenn., 28 May, 1828. He received an academic education at Springfield, Mo., after which he studied law. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar and practised in Springfield, where he became clerk, attorney, and twice mayor. During the civil war he was colonel of the 24th Missouri volunteers, a regiment which he raised, and which was known as the “Lyon Legion.” In 1863 he was elected as representative in congress from Missouri. Afterward, resuming his profession, he was appointed judge of the 14th judicial circuit of Missouri. He was a delegate to the Baltimore convention in 1864, and in 1868 elected to congress, serving until 3 March, 1871. Since then he has spent a quiet life in Missouri, devoting his time partly to the practice of his profession and partly to stock-raising. The Springfield wagon factory and the first national bank of Springfield were founded by him. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 341.

BOYES, Nathan, abolitionist, founding member, Electing Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787 (Basker, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nathan, 1991)

BOYLE, James, Rome, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1842-43

BOYLE, Jeremiah Tilford, 1818-1871, lawyer, anti-slavery advocate, Union Army Brigadier General.  Called for gradual emancipation of slaves as a delegate to the Kentucky State Constitutional Convention in 1849.  (Warner, Ezra, Generals in Blue, 1964; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 342; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 532)

BOYLE, Jeremiah Tilford, soldier, b. 22 May, 1818; d. in Louisville, Ky., 28 July, 1871. He was graduated at Princeton in 1838, and, after qualifying himself for the law, he was admitted to the bar and began practice in Kentucky. When the slave-states seceded from the union, and Kentucky was in doubt which side to join, he declared in favor of the union, and was appointed a brigadier-general of U. S. volunteers, 9 Nov., 1861. After distinguished and patriotic services in organizing for defence against the confederate invasion that was threatened from the south, he was appointed military governor of Kentucky, and retained that office from 1862 till 1864, when he resigned his commission. From 1864 till 1866 he was president of the Louisville city railway company, and from 1866 till his death was president of the Evansville, Henderson, and Nashville railroad company. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. 

BOYNTON, Charles, Cincinnati, Ohio, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64

BOYNTON, Charles Brandon, 1806-1883, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, lawyer, clergyman, anti-slavery activist.  Chaplain, U.S. House of Representatives, 39^th and 49^th Congress. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 342-343; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 536-539)

BOYNTON, Charles Brandon, clergyman, b. in Stockbridge, Mass., 12 June, 1806; d. in Cincinnati, Ohio, 27 April, 1883. He entered Williams in the class of 1827, but, owing to illness, was obliged to leave college during his senior year. He took up the study of law, and, after filling one or two local offices, was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. While studying law he became interested in religion, qualified himself for the ministry, and was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian church at Housatonic, Conn., in 1840. Thence, after a stay of three years, he removed successively to Lansingburg, Pittsfield, and in 1846 to Cincinnati, and remained there until 1877, with the exception of his terms of service as chaplain of the house of representatives in the 39th and 40th congresses. For a time he was pastor of the Congregational church at Washington, D. C. He bore an important part in the anti-slavery controversy, which was fiercely waged in Cincinnati during the early years of his pastorate. His published books are “Journey through Kansas, with Sketch of Nebraska” (Cincinnati, 1855); “The Russian Empire” (1856); “The Four Great Powers—England, France, Russia, and America; their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future” (1866); “History of the Navy during the Rebellion” (New York, 1868). He received the degree of D. D. from Marietta college in recognition of his acquirements as a biblical scholar. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 342-343.

BRACKETT, Josiah, Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1841-43

BRADBURN, George, 1806-1880, Nantucket, Massachusetts, politician, newspaper editor, Unitarian clergyman, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, lecturer.  Member, American Anti-Slavery Society.  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1840-1845.  Attended World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in June 1840, where he protested the exclusion of women from the conference.  Lectured for the American Anti-Slavery Society with fellow abolitionists William A. White and Frederick Douglass in 1843.  Editor, the Pioneer and Herald of Freedom from 1846 to 1849 in Lynn, Massachusetts.

BRADFORD, William, 1663-1752, Leicester, England, Society of Friends, Quaker, printed first anti-slavery publication in the colony in 1693, titled “An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes” (Drake, 1950, p. 14; Soderlund, 1985, p. 194; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 350; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 463)

BRADFORD, William, printer, b. in Leicester, England, in 1658; d. in New York, 23 May, 1752. He was one of the Quakers brought over by Penn in 1682, who founded in the midst of the forest the town of Philadelphia. In 1685 he set up his printing-press, the first one south of New England, and the third one in the colonies. The same year he issued the “Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense” for 1686. In 1690 he joined with two others in building a paper-mill on the Schuylkill. Among his earliest publications were Keith's polemical tracts against the New England churches. In 1691, having sided with Keith in his quarrel with the authorities, and printed his “Appeal to the People,” and other tracts on his side of the controversy, Bradford was arrested for seditious libel, and his press, forms, materials, and publications were confiscated. He was tried on the charge of having printed a paper tending to weaken the hands of the magistrates, but, conducting his own case with shrewdness and skill, escaped punishment through the disagreement of the jury. In his defence he contended, in opposition to the ruling of the court directing the jury to find only as to the facts of the printing, that the jurors were judges of the law as well as of the fact, and competent to determine whether the subject-matter was seditious, a point that, in after times, was much controverted in similar cases. Having incurred the displeasure of the dominant party in Philadelphia, and receiving an invitation to establish a printing-press in New York, he settled there in 1693, set up the first press in the province, and the same year printed the laws of the colony. He was appointed public printer with an allowance of £50 per annum, and also received the appointment of printer to the government of New Jersey. He retained an interest in the press in Philadelphia, which was managed by a Dutchman named Jansen until Bradford's eldest son, Andrew, took charge of it in 1712, and obtained the appointment of public printer. On 16 Oct., 1725, William Bradford began the publication of the “New York Gazette,” the fourth newspaper in the colonies, and in 1728 he established a paper-mill at Elizabethtown, N. J. He was the only printer in the colony for thirty years, and retained the office of public printer for more than fifty years. He is buried in Trinity church-yard. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 350.

BRADLEY, Henry, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

BRADLEY, Phineas, Washington, DC, American Colonization Society, Manager, 1834-1839.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BRADLEY, Stephan Row, 1754-1830, jurist, Member of Congress, U.S. Senator, New Jersey, opposed slavery in U.S. Congress (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. 1, p.353; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 575-576; Locke, 1901, pp. 94, 149f; Annals of Congress)

BRADLEY, Stephen Row, senator, b. in Wallingford (now Cheshire), Conn., 20 Oct., 1754; d. in Walpole, N. H., 16 Dec., 1830. He was graduated at Yale in 1775, studied law under Judge Reeve, and was admitted to the bar in 1779. During the revolutionary war he commanded a company of the Cheshire volunteers, and was the aide of Gen. Wooster when that officer was killed at Danbury. In 1779 he settled in Vermont and became active in the organization of the state. He was one of its first senators, being elected as a democrat to the 2d, 3d, and 7th, to 12th congresses, and was president pro tem. during portions of the 7th and 10th congresses. He was the author of “Vermont's Appeal” (1779), which has been ascribed.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 353.

BRAINERD, Lawrence, 1794-1870, anti-slavery activist, capitalist, statesman, U.S. Senator, member of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833-1839.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 594)

BRAINERD, Lawrence, senator, b. in 1794; d. in St. Albans, Vt., 9 May, 1870. He was active in forwarding the political, commercial, and railroad interests of Vermont, and was for several years candidate for governor. After the death of Senator Upham, Mr. Brainerd was chosen to the senate as a free-soiler for the remainder of the term, serving from 5 Dec., 1854, till 3 March, 1855. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 358.

BRAMHALL, Cornelius, New York , New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1856-64.

BRANAGAN, Thomas, former slaveholder in West Indies, wrote anti-slavery book in the United States.  Wrote, The Penitential Tyrant; or, Slave Trader Reformed: A Pathetic Poem, and A Preliminary Essay on the Exiled Sons of Africa Consisting of Animadversions on the Impolicy and Barbarity of the Deleterious Commerce and Subsequent Slavery of the Human Species (1801).  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 45, 80; Mason, 2006, pp. 26, 248n111; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 30-31)

BRANCH, John, 1782-1863, Raleigh, North Carolina, statesman, political leader, Secretary of the Navy, Governor of North Carolina.  President, Raleight auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 594; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)

BRANCH, John, secretary of the navy, b. in Halifax, N. C., 4 Nov., 1782; d. in Enfield, N. C., 4 Jan., 1863. After graduation at the university of North Carolina in 1801, he studied law, became judge of the superior court, and was a state senator from 1811 till 1817, in 1822, and again in 1834. He was elected governor of his state in 1817, and from 1823 till 1829 was U. S. senator, resigning in the latter year, when he was appointed secretary of the navy by President Jackson. He held this office till 1831, when the cabinet broke up, more on account of social than political dissensions, as was commonly thought. A letter from Sec. Branch on the subject is published in Niles's “Register” (vol. xli.). Judge Branch was elected to congress as a democrat in 1831. In 1838 he was defeated as democratic candidate for governor of his state, and in 1844-'5 was governor of the territory of Florida, serving until the election of a governor under the state constitution.  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BRAND, Benjamin, Richmond, Virginia.  Treasurer of the Richmond auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 109)

BRANDEGEE, Augustus, 1828-1904, lawyer, jurist, abolitionist.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Elected to Connecticut State House of Representatives in 1854.  There, he was appointed Chairman of the Select Committee to pass a “Bill for the Defense of Liberty,” which was to prevent the Fugitive Slave Law from being enforced in the state. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; Congressional Globe)

BREATHITT, John, 1798-1834, Kentucky, lawyer, political leader, Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky.  Strong supporter of the American Colonization Society, and of colonization.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 363; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 139)

BREATHITT, John, governor of Kentucky, b. near New London, Va., 9 Sept., 1786; d. in Frankfort, Ky., 21 Feb., 1834. He removed with his father to Kentucky in 1800, was a surveyor and teacher, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1810. He was an earnest Jacksonian democrat, and for several years was a member of the legislature. He was lieutenant-governor of Kentucky in 1828-'32, and governor in 1832-'4. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BRECKINRIDGE, James, 1763-1833, lawyer, founding officer and charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, in 1816.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 364; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 5; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

BRECKENRIDGE, James, lawyer, b. near Fincastle, Botetourt co., Va., 7 March, 1763; d. in Fincastle, 9 Aug., 1846. He was a grandson of a Scottish covenanter, who escaped to America on the restoration of the Stuarts. James served, in 1781, in Col. Preston’s rifle regiment under Greene, was graduated at William and Mary college in 1785, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1787, and began practice in Fincastle. He was for several years a member of the general assembly of Virginia, and a leader of the old federal party in that body, and from 22 May, 1809, till 3 March, 1817, represented the Botetourt district in congress. He was a candidate for governor against James Monroe. He co-operated with Thomas Jefferson in founding the university of Virginia, and was one of the most active promoters of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BRECKINRIDGE, John, Reverend, 1797-1841, Maryland, clergyman.  Board of Managers, Maryland Society of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 365; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 7; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 111, 231, 235)

BRECKENRIDGE, John, clergyman, son of John, b. at Cabell’s Dale, near Lexington, Ky., 4 July, 1797; d. there, 4. Aug., 1841, was graduated at Princeton in 1818, united with the Presbyterian church while in college, and chose the clerical profession, although his father had intended him for the law. He was licensed to preach in 1822 by the presbytery of New Brunswick, and in 1822-'3 served as chaplain to congress. On 10 Sept., 1823, he was ordained pastor of a church in Lexington, Ky., over which he presided four years. While there he founded a religious newspaper called the “Western Luminary.” In 1826 he was called to the 2d Presbyterian church of Baltimore as colleague of Dr. Glendy, and in 1831 he removed to Philadelphia, having been appointed secretary and general agent of the Presbyterian board of education. This place he resigned in 1836, to become professor of theology in the Princeton seminary. While occupying that chair he engaged in a public controversy with Archbishop Hughes, of New York, on the subject of the doctrines of their respective churches, and their arguments have been published in a volume entitled “A Discussion of the Question, ‘Is the Roman Catholic Religion, in any or in all its Principles or Doctrines, inimical to Civil or Religious Liberty?’—and of the Question, ‘Is the Presbyterian Religion, in any or all its Principles or Doctrines, inimical to Civil or Religious Liberty?’” (Philadelphia, 1836). Mr. Breckenridge took a prominent part in the controversies in the Presbyterian church, upholding, in the discussions in presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies, the principles of old-school Presbyterianism, and published a number of polemical writings. He was a keen debater, and was noted for his concise, accurate, and logical extempore speeches and sermons. He became secretary and general agent of the Presbyterian board of foreign missions upon its organization in 1838, and devoted his energies to superintending its operations until he broke down under his exhaustive labors, and died while on a visit to his early home. Just before his death he received a call to the presidency of Oglethorpe university in Georgia. In 1839 he published a “Memorial of Mrs. Breckenridge.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BRECKINRIDGE, Robert Jefferson, 1800-1871, Kentucky, lawyer, clergyman, state legislator, anti-slavery activist.  Supported gradual emancipation.  Opponent of slavery and important advocate for colonization and the American Colonization Society (ACS).  He argued emancipation was the goal of African colonization and it was justified.  He worked with ACS agent Robert S. Finley to establish auxiliaries.  (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 10; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 144-145, 183, 231)

BREWSTER, Henry, LeRoy, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40

BREWSTER, J. M., Pittsfield, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-45.

BRICE, Nicholas, Baltimore, Maryland, jurist.  Board of Managers of the Maryland American Colonization Society.  (Campbell, 1971, pp. 18, 19, 38, 52, 193; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 111)

BRIDGE, J. D., Duxbury, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1840-41

BRISBANE, William Henry, 1803-1878, South Carolina, abolitionist leader.  Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  Clergyman, Baptist Church in Madison, Wisconsin.  Chief Clerk of the Wisconsin State Senate.  He inherited slaves, however he realized slavery was wrong.  In 1835, Brisbane freed 33 of his slaves, bringing them to the North where he helped them settle.  As a result, he was criticized by his family and friends.  He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked for the abolitionist cause. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 93, 286; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 378)

BRISBANE, William H., clergyman, b. about 1803; d. in Arena, Wis., in 1878. He inherited a large number of slaves, but became convinced that slavery was wrong, and in 1835 brought thirty-three of them to the north, manumitting them and aiding them to settle in life. In consequence of this, he was obliged to take rank among the poor men of the country. Making his home in Cincinnati, he became the associate of prominent abolitionists, and a constant worker in their cause. In the early days of the anti-slavery agitation he was among its foremost advocates. In 1855 he removed to Wisconsin, was chief clerk of the state senate in 1857, became pastor of the Baptist church in Madison, and early in the civil war was tax commissioner of South Carolina. In June, 1874, he took an active part in the reunion of the old abolition guards in Chicago. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 378.

BROADNAX, William H., Dinwiddie County, Virginia, Virginia state lawmaker.  Formerly supported the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the Virginia state legislature.  He stated that slavery was a “mildew which has blighted in its course every region it has touched, from the creation of the world.”  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 181)

BROCKETT, Zenas, Manhein, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1852-1853.

BRODESS, Henry Bishop, 1830-1881, Ashland, Kentucky, abolitionist, mayor, jurist, newspaper publisher.  Published anti-slavery newspaper, the American Union.  Served as an officer in the Fourteenth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry.

BROOKE, Abraham, 1806(8?)-1867, physician, radical reformer, abolitionist, Quaker, from Maryland, later moved to Ohio.  Strong supporter of William Lloyd Garrison and immediate abolition of slavery in the U.S.  Leader in Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Organized the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform in October 1842.  Active supporter of women’s rights.  Leader in Western Anti-Slavery Society.  (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 602)

BROOKS, Charles, New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

BROOKS, Joseph, 1821-1877, abolitionist, clergyman, newspaper editor, Union Army chaplain, political leader.  In 1856, moved to St. Louis and was editor of the Central Christian Advocate, a Methodist anti-slavery newspaper.  He was an ardent abolitionist and supporter of women’s suffrage.  In 1863, Brooks recruited and organized African American regiments.  He was appointed Chaplain of Fifty-Sixth U. S. Colored Infantry.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 387)

BROOKS, Joseph, clergyman, b. in Butler co., Ohio, 1 Nov., 1821; d. in Little Rock, Ark., 30 April, 1877. He was graduated at Indiana Asbury university, and in 1840 entered the Methodist ministry. He removed to Iowa in 1846, and in 1856 became editor of the St. Louis “Central Christian Advocate,” the only anti-slavery paper published on slave soil west of the Mississippi. When the civil war began, he became chaplain of the 1st Missouri artillery, Col. Frank P. Blair's regiment. He afterward aided in raising the 11th and 33d Missouri regiments, and was transferred to the latter as chaplain. Early in the war Mr. Brooks urged the enlistment of colored troops, and, when it was decided to employ them, he was offered a major-general's commission if he would raise a division, but he declined. He afterward became chaplain of the 3d Arkansas colored infantry. After the war Mr. Brooks became a planter in Arkansas, and was a leader in the State constitutional convention of 1868. During the presidential canvass of that year an attempt was made to assassinate Mr. Brooks and Congressman C. C. Hines, which resulted in the death of the latter and the wounding of Mr. Brooks. He removed to Little Rock in the autumn of 1868, and was elected state senator in 1870. In 1872 he was a candidate for governor, and, when his opponent was declared to be elected by the legislature, he claimed that the election was fraudulent, and, relying on the decision of a state court in his favor, took forcible possession of the state-house, 13 April, 1874, and held it till dispossessed by proclamation of President Grant, 23 May, 1874. (See BAXTER, ELISHA.) Mr. Brooks was appointed postmaster at Little Rock in March, 1875, and held the office till his death. He was a man of great will-power and a strong speaker. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

BROOMALL, John M., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BROWN, A. B., LaPoret County, Indiana, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1842.

BROWN, Abel, 1810-1844, Springfield, Massachusetts, New York, abolitionist leader.  Aided fugitive slaves in the Underground Railroad in Albany, New York. (Sorin, 1971)

BROWN, Benjamin, abolitionist, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1841-1842.

BROWN, Benjamin Gratz, 1826-1885, lawyer, soldier.  Anti-slavery activist in Missouri legislature from 1852-1859.  Opposed pro-slavery party.  Commanded a regiment and later a brigade of Missouri State Militia.  U.S. Senator 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 105; Congressional Globe)

BROWN, David (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 156)

BROWN, Frederick, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid.  (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 206; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)

BROWN, Henry "Box," c. 1815-1878, former slave, author, orator, abolitionist, wrote Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written from a Statement of Fact by Himself (1849), published by abolitionist Charles Stearns. (Brown, 2002; Mabee, 1970, pp. 388-389; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 52, 184, 204-205, 464, 489; Ruggles, 2003; Stearns, 1848)

BROWN, James C., Putnam, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39

BROWN, James C., Putnam, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Recording Secretary, 1835-36

BROWN, John Mifflin, 1817-1893, educator, clergyman, African American, eleventh Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, abolitionist. (Angell, 1992; Murphy, 1993; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 42, 207-208; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 138)

BROWN, John, 1800-1859, (known as “Old Brown of Osawatomie”), radical abolitionist leader, wrote Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States (1858); condemned slavery; led raid against the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859.  He was captured, tried and convicted and was executed on December 2, 1859 along with four of his co-defendants.  (De Caro, 2002; Drake, 1950, pp. 189, 192, 200; Du Bois, 1909; Oates, 1970; Quarles, 1974; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 58, 59, 61, 62, 138, 153, 198, 205-207, 226, 264, 327-329, 338, 422, 427, 478, 675-676; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 131-134; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 690; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 307-308)

BROWN, John, of Osawatomie, abolitionist, b. in Torrington, Conn., 9 May, 1800; executed in Charlestown, Va., 2 Dec., 1859. His ancestor, Peter Brown, came over with the historic party in the “Mayflower” in 1620. Peter was unmarried, by trade a carpenter, and drew his house-lot in Plymouth with the rest; but he removed soon afterward, with Bradford, Standish, and Winslow, to the neighboring settlement of Duxbury. He was twice married, and died early. One of his descendants in the main line was a Captain John Brown, of the Connecticut militia, who died of disease in the revolutionary service in 1776. This revolutionary captain married Hannah Owen, of Welsh origin; and their son, Owen Brown, married Ruth Mills, who was of Dutch descent; so that John Brown of Osawatomie, their son, had a mingling of the blood of three races in his veins, resulting in a corresponding mixture of strong qualities. Owen Brown left a brief autobiography, which begins by saying: “My life has been of little worth, mostly filled up with vanity.” Then he goes on to describe, with some fulness, this career of frivolity, which will seem to most readers grave and decorous to the last degree. The most interesting entry is the following: “In 1800, May 9, [my son] John was born, one hundred years after his great-grandfather; nothing else very uncommon”; and he adds, in tranquil ignorance of the future: “We lived in peace with all mankind, so far as I know.” How far the parent would have approved the stormy career of the son is now matter of inference only; but we have it in Owen Brown's own declaration that he was one of that early school of abolitionists whom Hopkins and Edwards enlightened; and he apparently took part in the forcible rescue of some slaves claimed by a Virginia clergyman in Connecticut in 1798, soon after that state had abolished slavery. The continuous anti-slavery devotion of the whole family, for three generations, was a thing almost unexampled. Mr. Sanborn has preserved verbatim a most quaint and graphic fragment of autobiography, written by John Brown, of Osawatomie, in 1859. In this he records with the utmost frankness his boyish pursuits and transgressions; how at the age of four he stole three brass pins, and at the age of five removed with his parents to Ohio, where he grew familiar with the Indians, who were then dwelling all around them. He says of himself: “John was never quarrelsome; but was exceedingly fond of the harshest and roughest kind of plays; and could never get enough [of] them. Indeed, when for a short time he was sometimes sent to school, the opportunity it offered to wrestle and snow-ball and run and jump and knock off old seedy wool hats, offered to him almost the only compensation for the confinement and restraint of school.” In this boyish combativeness, without personal quarrelsomeness, we see the quality of the future man. He further records that in boyhood his great delight was in going on responsible expeditions, and by the age of twelve he was often sent a hundred miles into the wilderness with cattle. This adventurous spirit took no military direction; he was disgusted with what he heard of the war of 1812, and for many years used to be fined for refusing to do militia duty. He was very fond of reading, and familiar with every portion of the Bible; but he never danced, and never knew one card from another. Staying in a house where there was a slave-boy almost his own age, and seeing this boy ill-treated—even beaten, as he declares, with an iron fire-shovel—he became, in his own words, “a most determined abolitionist,'” and was led “to declare, or swear, eternal war with slavery.” From the fifteenth to the twentieth years of his age he worked as a farmer and currier, chiefly for his father, and for most of the time as foreman. He then learned surveying, and followed that for a while, afterward gratifying his early love for animals by becoming a shepherd. Mean-while he married, as he says, “a remarkably plain, but neat, industrious, and economical girl, of excellent character, earnest piety, and good practical common sense,” who had, he asserts, a most powerful and good influence over him. This was Dianthe Lusk, a widow, and they had seven children. His second wife was Mary Anne Day, by whom he had thirteen children, and who survived him twenty-five years, dying in San Francisco in 1884. She also was a woman of strong and decided character; and though among the twenty children of the two marriages eight died in early childhood, the survivors all shared the strong moral convictions of their father, and the whole family habitually lived a life of great self-denial in order that his purposes might be carried out.   

The contest for Kansas in 1855-'6 between the friends of freedom and those of slavery was undoubtedly, as it has since been called, the skirmish-line of the civil war. It was there made evident—what an anti-slavery leader so conspicuous as Joshua R. Giddings had utterly refused to believe—that the matter was coming to blows. The condition of affairs was never better stated than in the Charleston “Mercury” by a young man named Warren Wilkes, who had commanded for a time a band of so-called southern “settlers” in Kansas. He wrote in the spring of 1856: “If the south secures Kansas, she will extend slavery into all territories south of the fortieth parallel of north latitude to the Rio Grande; and this, of course, will secure for her pent-up institution of slavery an ample outlet, and restore her power in congress. If the north secures Kansas, the power of the south in congress will be gradually diminished, and the slave property will become valueless. All depends upon the action of the present moment.” Here was a point on which young Wilkes on the one side, and John Brown on the other, were absolutely agreed; and each went to work in his own way to save Kansas to his side by encouraging immigration from their respective regions. We can, at this distance of time, admit that this was within the right of each; but the free-state men went almost wholly as bona-fide settlers, while numbers of those who went from Missouri, Virginia, and South Carolina viewed the enterprise simply as a military foray, without intending to remain. It was also true that the latter class, coming from communities then more lawless, went generally armed; while the free-state men went at first unarmed, afterward arming themselves reluctantly and by degrees. The condition of lawlessness that ensued was undoubtedly demoralizing to both sides; it was to a great extent a period of violence and plunder—civil war on a petty scale; but the original distinction never wholly passed away, and the ultimate character of the community was fortunately shaped and controlled by the free-state settlers. However it might be with others, for John Brown the Kansas contest was deliberately undertaken as a part of the great war against slavery. He went there with more cautious and far-reaching purposes than most others, and he carried out those purposes with the strength of a natural leader. As early as 1834, by a letter still in existence, he had communicated to his brother Frederick his purpose to make active war upon slavery, the plan being then to bring together some “first-rate abolitionist families” and undertake the education of colored youth. “If once the Christians of the free states would set to work in earnest teaching the blacks, the people of the slave-holding states would find themselves constitutionally driven to set about the work of emancipation immediately.” This letter was written when he was postmaster under President Jackson, at Randolph, Pa., and was officially franked by Brown, as was then the practice. When we consider what were Jackson's views as to anti-slavery agitation, especially through the mails, it is curious to consider what a firebrand he was harboring in one of his own post-offices. It appears from this letter and other testimony that Brown at one time solemnly called his older sons together and pledged them, kneeling in prayer, to give their lives to anti-slavery work. It must be remembered that Prudence Crandall had been arrested and sent to jail in Connecticut, only the year before, for doing, in a small way, what Brown now proposed to do systematically. For some time he held to his project in this form, removing from Pennsylvania to Ohio in 1835-'6, and from Ohio to Massachusetts in 1846, engaging in different enterprises, usually in the wool business, but always keeping the main end in view. For instance, in 1840 he visited western Virginia to survey land belonging to Oberlin college, and seems to have had some plan for colonizing colored people there. At last, in 1846, on the anniversary of West India emancipation, Gerrit Smith, a great land-owner in New York state, offered to give a hundred thousand acres of wild land in northern New York to such colored families, fugitive slaves, or others as would take them in small farms and clear them. It was a terribly hard region into which to invite those children of the south; six months of winter and no possibility of raising either wheat or Indian corn. Brown convinced himself, nevertheless, that he could be of much use to the colored settlers, and in 1848-'9 purchased a farm from Mr. Smith and removed the younger part of his family to North Elba, which was their home until his death. His wife and young children lived there in the greatest frugality, voluntarily practised by them all for the sake of helping others. He, meanwhile, often absented himself on anti-slavery enterprises, forming, for instance, at Springfield, Mass., his former home, a “League of Gileadites,” pledged to the rescue of fugitive slaves. In one of his manuscript addresses to this body he lays down the rule, “Stand by one another and by your friends while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged if you must, but tell no tales out of school.” This was nearly nine years before his own death on the scaffold.  

In 1854 five of Brown's sons, then resident in Ohio, made their arrangements to remove to Kansas, regarding it as a desirable home, where they could exert an influence for freedom; but they were so little prepared for an armed struggle that they had among them only two small shot-guns and a revolver. They selected claims eight or ten miles from Osawatomie, and their father, contrary to his previous intention, joined them there in October, 1855. In March of that year the first election for a territorial constitution had taken place. Thousands of Missourians, armed with rifles, and even with cannon, had poured over the border, and, although less than a thousand legal votes were thrown in the territory, more than six thousand went through the form of voting. This state of things continued through that year and the next, and the present writer saw an election precisely similar in the town of Leavenworth, in the autumn of 1856. Hostilities were soon brought on by the murder and unlawful arrest of men known to be opposed to slavery. The Brown family were mustered in as Kansas militia by the free-state party, and turned out to defend the town of Lawrence from a Missourian invasion, which was compromised without bloodshed. A few months later Lawrence was attacked and pillaged. Other murders took place, and a so-called grand jury indicted many free-state men, including in the indictment the “Free State Hotel” in Lawrence. Two of Brown's sons were arrested by United States cavalry, which, at this time, Pierce being president, acted wholly with the pro-slavery party. John Brown, Jr., the oldest, was driven on foot at the head of a cavalry company, at a trot, for nine miles to Osawatomie, his arms being tied behind him. This state of things must be fully remembered in connection with the so-called “Pottawatomie massacre,” which furnishes, in the opinion of both friends and foes, the most questionable incident in Brown's career. This occurrence took place on 25 May, 1856, and consisted in the deliberate assassination of five representatives of the pro-slavery party at night, they being called from their beds for the purpose. It was done in avowed retribution for the assassination of five free-state men, and was intended to echo far beyond Kansas, as it did, and to announce to the slave-holding community that blood for blood would henceforth be exacted in case of any further invasion of rights. It undoubtedly had that effect, and though some even in Kansas regarded it with disapproval, it is certain that leading citizens of the territory, such as Governor Robinson, themselves justified it at the time. Robinson wrote, as late as February, 1878: “I never had much doubt that Capt. Brown was the author of the blow at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he was the only man who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute necessity of some such blow, and had the nerve to strike it.” Brown himself said, a few years later: “I knew all good men who loved freedom, when they became better acquainted with the circumstances of the case, would approve of it.” It is, nevertheless, probable that the public mind will be permanently divided in judgment upon this act; just as there is still room, after centuries have passed, for two opinions as to the execution of Charles I. or the banishment of Roger Williams. Much, of course, turns upon the actual character of the five men put to death—men whom the student will find painted in the darkest colors in Mr. Sanborn's life of John Brown, and in much milder hues in Mr. Spring's “History of Kansas.” The successive phases of sentiment on the whole subject may be partly attributed to the fact that the more pacific Kansas leaders, such as Robinson and Pomeroy, have happened to outlive the fighting men, such as Brown, Lane, and Montgomery; so that there is a little disposition just now to underrate the services of the combatants and overrate those of the noncombatants. As a matter of fact, there was in the territory at the time no noticeable difference of opinion between those two classes; and it is quite certain that slavery would have triumphed over all legal and legislative skill had not the sword been thrown into the balance, even in a small way. The largest affairs in which Brown and his sons took part, “Black Jack” and “Osawatomie,” for instance, seem trifling amid the vast encounters of the civil war; but these petty skirmishes, nevertheless, began that great conflict.  

The purpose that finally took John Brown to Virginia had doubtless been many years in his mind, dating back, indeed, to the time when he was a surveyor in the mountains of that state, in early life. Bishop Meade says, in his “Old Churches and Ministers of Virginia,” that he wrote the book in view of a range of mountains which Washington had selected as the final stronghold of his revolutionary army, should he be defeated in the contest with England; and it was these same mountains which John Brown regarded as having been designed by the Almighty, from all eternity, as a refuge for fugitive slaves. His plan for his enterprise varied greatly in successive years, and no doubt bore marks of the over-excited condition of his mind; but as he ordinarily told it to the few with whom he had consulted outside of his own band, there was nothing incoherent or impracticable about it; it was simply the establishment on slave soil of a defensible station for fugitive slaves, within the reach of the Pennsylvania border, so that bodies of slaves could hold their own for a time against a superior force, and could be transferred, if necessary, through the free states to Canada. Those who furnished him with arms and money at the north did so from personal faith in him, and from a common zeal for his objects, without asking to know details. He had stated his general plan to Douglass and others in 1847, and in 1857 had established at Tabor, in Iowa, a town peculiarly friendly to the free-state men during the Kansas troubles, a sort of school of military drill under the direction of a Scottish adventurer, Hugh Forbes, who attempted to betray him. He afterward had a similar school at Springfield, Iowa, and meanwhile negotiated with his eastern friends for funds. He had already in his hands two hundred rifles from the national Kansas committee; and although these were really the property of George L. Stearns, of Medford, Mass., representing a small part of the $10,000 which that gentleman had given to make Kansas free, yet this was enough to hamper in some degree the action of his Boston allies. Their position was also embarrassed by many curious, rambling letters from his drill-master, Forbes, written to members of congress and others, and disclosing what little he knew of the plans. This led the eastern allies to insist—quite unnecessarily, as it seemed to one or two of them—on a postponement for a year of the whole enterprise. On 3 June, 1858, Brown left Boston, with $500 in gold and with liberty to keep the Kansas rifles. Most of his friends in the eastern states knew nothing more of his movements until it was announced that he had taken possession of the U. S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va. A few, however, were aware that he was about to enter on the execution of his plans somewhere, though they did not know precisely where. Late in June, 1859, Brown and several of his men appeared in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, and soon afterward hired a small farm, which they occupied. Then his daughter Anne, a girl of fifteen, together with his daughter-in-law, wife of Oliver Brown, appeared upon the scene and kept house for them. There they lived for many weeks, unsuspected by their neighbors, and gradually receiving from Ohio their boxes of rifles and pistols, besides a thousand pikes from Connecticut. In August he was visited by Frederick Douglass, to whom he disclosed his plan of an attack on Harper's Ferry, which Douglass opposed, thinking it would not really be favorable to his ultimate object of reaching the slaves. But he persevered, and finally began his operations with twenty-two men, besides himself. Six of these were colored; and it may be added that only six of the whole party escaped alive, and only one of these is now (September, 1886) living—Owen Brown.  

On Sunday evening, 16 Oct., 1859, Brown mustered eighteen of his men—the rest having been assigned to other duties—saying: “Men, get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry.” It was a cold, dark night, ending in rain. At half-past ten they reached the armory-gate and broke it in with a crow-bar, easily overpowering the few watchmen on duty. Before midnight the village was quietly patrolled by Brown's men, without firing a gun, and six men had been sent to bring in certain neighboring planters, with their slaves. He had taken several leading citizens prisoners, as hostages, but had allowed a rail way train to go through northward, which of course carried the news. The citizens of the town gradually armed themselves, and some shots were exchanged, killing several men; and before night Brown, who might easily have escaped, was hopelessly hemmed in. Col. Robert E. Lee, afterward well known in history, arrived from Washington at evening with a company of U.S. marines, and all was practically over. Brown and his men, now reduced to six, were barricaded in a little building called the engine- house, and were shot down one by one, thousands of bullets, according to a Virginia witness, having been imbedded in the walls. Brown constantly returned the fire, refusing to surrender; but when some of his men aimed at passers-by who had taken no part in the matter, he would stop them, according to the same Virginia witness, Capt. Dangerfield, saying: “Don't shoot! that man is unarmed.” Col. Washington, another Virginia witness, has testified to the extraordinary coolness with which Brown felt the pulse of his dying son, while holding his own rifle with the other hand, and encouraging his men to be firm. All this time he was not recognized, until Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart, who had known him in Kansas, called him by his name. When he was finally captured, his two sons were dead, and he himself was supposed to be dying.  

No one will ever be able exactly to understand that mood of John Brown's mind which induced him to remain in Harper's Ferry to certain death. His reason for taking possession of the town and arsenal was undoubtedly a desire to alarm the country at large, and not merely secure arms, but attract recruits to his side, after he should have withdrawn. Why did he remain? Those who escaped from the terrible disaster could not answer. Brown himself is reported as saying that it was preordained; that if he had once escaped, he knew the Virginia mountains too well to be captured; but that he for the first time lost command of himself and was punished for it. Gov. Wise, of Virginia, with several hundred men, reached Harper's Ferry by the noon train of 18 Oct., and Brown held conversations, which have been fully reported, with him and others. Gov. Wise said of him: “They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw; cut and thrust and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth.” This opinion, coming from the man whose immediate duty it was to see him tried and executed as a felon, may be regarded as a final and trustworthy estimate.  

John Brown was tried before a Virginia court, legal counsel going to him from Massachusetts. All thought of a rescue was precluded by strong messages of prohibition sent by him. The proposal to send his wife to him, this being planned partly in the hope that she might shake his determination, was also refused, and she did not see him until after his trial. He was sentenced to death by hanging, and this sentence was executed 2 Dec., 1859. On the day of his death he handed to one of his guards a paper on which he had written this sentence: “Charlestown, Va., Dec. 2, 1859. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” Within eighteen months this prophecy was fulfilled, and many a northern regiment, as it marched to the seat of war, sang that which will always remain, more than any other, the war-song of the great conflict: 

“John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.” 

His bearing on the scaffold, under exceptionally trying circumstances, evinced wonderful fortitude. After the sheriff had told him that all was ready, and had adjusted the rope and the cap, ten or fifteen minutes passed, while the military escort formed a hollow square. During this painfully long interval, John Brown, blindfolded, stood alone erect, like a statue unsupported. An eyewitness who was very near him could not detect a tremor. A further delay occurred while the sheriff descended the steps of the scaffold, but Brown never wavered, and died apparently with muscles and nerves still subject to his iron will. His career is remarkable for its dramatic quality, for the important part he played in events preliminary to the great civil war, and for the strong and heroic traits shown in his life and death. He belonged to a class of men whose permanent fame is out of all proportion to their official importance or contemporary following; and indeed he represents a type more akin to that seen among the Scottish covenanters of two centuries ago than to anything familiar in our own days. With John Brown were executed Copeland, Green, Cook, and Coppoc, of his company.  Stephens and Hazlett were put to death in the same way later. An effort for their rescue, organized in Boston, with men brought mainly from Kansas, under Capt. Montgomery as leader, proved abortive.  

In regard to the bearing of John Brown's enterprise upon subsequent history, it is enough if we recall the fact that a select committee of the U. S. senate investigated the whole affair, and the majority, consisting of John M. Mason, Jefferson Davis, and Graham N. Fitch, submitted a report in which occurs the following passage: “The invasion (to call it so) by Brown and his followers at Harper's Ferry was in no sense of that character. It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority—distinguishable only from ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them, and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedition, and the large armament they brought with them, had been contributed and furnished by the citizens of other states of the union, under circumstances that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace of the southern states, and against which congress has no power to legislate. If the several states, whether from motives of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the union, if not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent on them, after the experience of the country, to guard in future by appropriate legislation against occurrences similar to the one here inquired into, the committee can find no guarantee elsewhere for the security of peace between the states of the union.” It is a sufficient commentary on the implied threat with which this report concludes, to point out that two of its three signers, within the year following, became leaders of the movement for a forcible division of the union. In view of this fact, it is impossible to doubt that the enterprise of John Brown was an important link in the chain of historical events. The life of Capt. Brown has been at least three times written—by James Redpath, by Richard D. Webb, of Dublin, and by Frank B. Sanborn. The last named is the fullest work, and has the approval of John Brown's family; it is the result of much personal research, and is, with some defects of arrangement, a mine of information in regard to one of the most remarkable men of his time. 

BROWN, Josephine, 1839-1874, abolitioninst, daughter of William Wells Brown.

BROWN, John, East Greenwich, Rhode Island, abolitionist, Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1846.

BROWN, Josephine, abolitionist.

BROWN, Moses, 1738-1836, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist, industrialist, educator, Quaker.  Vice president and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Co-founder of Brown University.  Co-founded Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade in 1789. (Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 396; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 146; Bruns, 1977, pp. 308-313, 492-493, 515; Drake, 1950, pp. 79-80, 89, 97, 102, 123; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 2, 7, 17, 60, 87, 111; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 107, 120-121, 156, 157; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BROWN, Moses, b. in Providence, R. I., 23 Sept., 1738; d. there, 6 Sept., 1836. He was brought up in the family of his uncle, Obadiah Brown, whose daughter he married, and a portion of whose estate he inherited by will. In 1763 he became engaged in business with his three brothers, but, after ten years' active experience, withdrew to follow more congenial interests. Although brought up in the Baptist faith, he became, subsequent to severe domestic affliction, a member of the Society of Friends, and remained until his death a firm adherent to the doctrines of that society. He exerted a strong influence in all its concerns, and filled many of its important offices with dignity and usefulness. The Friends' boarding-school in Providence was founded by him, and his donations to its support were frequent and liberal. In 1773 he manumitted his slaves, and was one of the founders of the abolition society of Rhode Island. He was also an active member and liberal supporter of the Rhode Island Peace and Bible societies. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 396.

BROWN, Nathan, 1807-1886, New Ipswich, New Hampshire, American Baptist clergyman, Bible translator, abolitionist.  Brother of abolitionist William Brown.

BROWN, Nicholas, Providence, Rhode Island, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1837-1841.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

BROWN, Obadiah B., Reverend, Washington, DC, Baptist clergyman.  American Colonization Society, Manager, 1833-1834.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 30, 109)

BROWN, Oliver, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid  (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 206, 327, 328; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)

BROWN, Owen, 1771-1856, Torrington, Connecticut.  Father of abolitionist John Brown.  Owen Brown co-founded the Western Reserve Anti-Slavery Society (Western Reserve College).

BROWN, Owen, 1824-1889, radical abolitionist, third son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859; he escaped capture by the U.S. Marines.  He later served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.  (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 206, 327; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)

BROWN, Salmon, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid  (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 206; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)

BROWN, Samuel F., Maine, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1842

BROWN, Stephen W., Canaan, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1844-45

BROWN, William C., Chelsea, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Manager, 1839-.

BROWN, William G., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)

BROWN, William Wells, 1814-1884, African American, abolitionist leader, author, historian, former slave, anti-slave lecturer, temperance activist. Wrote Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, 1847, also The American Fugitive in Europe, 1855.  Lecturer for Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, Massachusetts and American Anti-Slavery Society.  Wrote anti-slavery plays, “Experience; or How to Give a Northern Man a Backbone,” “The Escape; or A Leap for Freedom,” 1856. (Brown, 1856; Brown, 1847; Farrison, 1969; Greenspan, 2008; Mabee, 1970, pp. 52, 61, 65, 96-98, 137, 140, 145, 159, 161, 203, 221, 252, 258, 265, 333, 371, 390; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 29, 50, 55, 57, 61, 72, 179, 208-209, 246; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 161; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 751; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p.  325)

BRUCE, Robert, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, abolitionist.  Vice president, 1833-1835, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BRUNE, Frederick W., Baltimore, Maryland.  Leader, Maryland State Colonization Society.  (Campbell,1971, p. 192)

BRYAN, George, 1731-1791, Dublin, Ireland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist leader, legislator, businessman, statesman, jurist.  Introduced abolition bills.  Elected the first Vice President of Pennsylvania (Lieutenant Governor), 1777-1779, Second President (Governor), 1778. (Basker, 2005, pp. 76, 82-83; Bruns, 1977, pp. 445-446; Locke, 1901, p. 78; Nash, 1991, pp. 100-105, 107, 110, 113-114, 121, 157, 201; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 125, 126, 128, 129, 131; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 421; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 189)

BRYAN, George, jurist, b in Dublin, Ireland, in 1731; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 27 Jan., 1791. He came to this country in early life, and was engaged some years in commercial pursuits in Philadelphia. He was a member of the state assembly, and in 1765 was a delegate to the stamp-act congress, in which, and in the subsequent struggle, he took an active part. He was vice-president of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania from the period of the Declaration of Independence, and in May, 1778, was advanced to the presidency. In November of that year he sent a message to the assembly, pressing upon their attention a bill proposed by the council in 1777 for the gradual abolition of slavery in the state. “In divesting the state of slaves,” said he, “you will equally serve the cause of humanity and policy, and offer to God one of the most proper and best returns of gratitude for his great deliverance of us and our posterity from thraldom.” In 1779 Bryan was elected to the legislature. On his motion the subject was referred to a committee, of which he himself was a member, and he prepared the draft of a law for gradual emancipation. He was appointed a judge of the state supreme court in 1780, and remained in that office until his death. In 1784 he was elected one of the council of censors. He strenuously opposed the adoption of the federal constitution. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 421.

BRYANT, Joseph, Ohio, abolitionist. Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39.

BRYANT, William Cullen, 1794-1874, author, poet, editor.  Wrote antislavery poetry.  (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 326; Staudenraus, 1961, pp. 101-102; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 422-426; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 200; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3)

BRYANT, William Cullen, poet and editor, b. in Cummington, Mass., 3 Nov., 1794; d. in New York, 12 June, 1878. His ancestry might have been inferred from the character of his writings, which reflect whatever is best and noblest in the life and thought of New England. The first Bryant of whom there is any account in the annals of the New World, Stephen, came over from England, and was at Plymouth, Mass., as early as 1632, of which town he was chosen constable in 1663. He married Abigail Shaw, who had emigrated with her father, and who bore him several children between 1650 and 1665. Stephen Bryant had a son Ichabod, who was the father of Philip Bryant, born in 1732. Philip married Silence Howard, daughter of Dr. Abiel Howard, of West Bridgewater, whose profession he adopted, practising in North, Bridgewater. He was the father of nine children, one of whom, Peter, born in 1767, succeeded him in his profession. Young Dr. Bryant married in 1792 Miss Sarah Snell, daughter of Ebenezer Snell, of Bridgewater, who removed his family to Cummington, where the subject of this sketch was born. Dr. Bryant was proud of his profession; and in the hope, no doubt, that his son would become a shining light therein, he perpetuated at his christening the name of a great medical authority, who had died four years before, William Cullen. The lad was exceedingly frail, and had a head the immensity of which troubled his anxious father. How to reduce it to the normal size was a puzzle that Dr. Bryant solved in a spring of clear, cold water, into which the child was immersed every morning, head and all, by two of Dr. Bryant's students. William Cullen Bryant's mother was a descendant of John Alden; and the characteristics of his family included some of the sterner qualities of the Puritans. His grandfather Snell was a magistrate, and without doubt a severe one, for the period was not one that favored leniency to criminals. The whipping-post was still extant in Massachusetts, and the poet remembered that one stood about a mile from his early home at Cummington, and that he once saw a young fellow of eighteen who had received forty lashes as a punishment for theft. It was, he thought, the last example of corporal punishment inflicted by law in that neighborhood, though the whipping-post remained in its place for several years. 

Magistrate Snell was a disciplinarian of the stricter sort; and as he and his wife resided with Dr. Bryant and his family, the latter stood in awe of him, so much so that William Cullen was prevented from feeling anything like affection for him. It was an age of repression, not to say oppression, for children, who had few rights that their elders were bound to respect. To the terrors of the secular arm were added the deeper terrors of the spiritual law, for the people of that primitive period were nothing if not religious. The minister was the great man, and his bodily presence was a restraint upon the unruly, and the ruly too, for that matter. The lines of our ancestors did not fall in pleasant places as far as recreations were concerned; for they were few and far between, consisting, for the most part, of militia musters, “raisings,” corn-huskings, and singing-schools, diversified with the making of maple sugar and cider. Education was confined to the three R's, though the children of wealthy parents were sent to colleges as they now are. It was not a genial social condition, it must be confessed, to which William Cullen Bryant was born, though it might have been worse but for his good father, who was in many respects superior to his rustic neighbors. He was broad-shouldered and muscular, proud of his strength, but his manners were gentle and reserved, his disposition serene, and he was fond of society. He was elected to the Massachusetts house of representatives several times, afterward to the state senate, and associated with the cultivated circles of Boston both as legislator and physician. 

We have the authority of the poet himself that his father taught his youth the art of verse. His first efforts were several clever “Enigmas,” in imitation of the Latin writers, a translation from Horace, and a copy of verses written in his twelfth year, to be recited at the close of the winter school, “in the presence of the master, the minister of the parish, and a number of private gentlemen.” They were printed on 18 March, 1807, in the “Hampshire Gazette,” from which these particulars are derived, and which was favored with other contributions from the pen of “C. B.” The juvenile poems of William Cullen Bryant are as clever as those of Chatterton, Pope, and Cowley; but they are in no sense original, and it would have been strange if they had been. There was no original writing in America at the time they were written; and if there had been, it would hardly have commended itself to the old-fashioned taste of Dr. Bryant, to whom Pope was still a power in poetry. It was natural, therefore, that he should offer his boy to the strait-laced muses of Queen Anne's time; that the precocious boy should lisp in heroic couplets; and that he should endeavor to be satirical. Politics were running high in the first decade of the present century, and the favorite bugbear in New England was President Jefferson, who, in 1807, had laid an embargo on American shipping, in consequence of the decrees of Napoleon, and the British orders in council in relation thereto. This act was denounced, and by no one more warmly than by Master Bryant, who made it the subject of a satire: “The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times” (Boston, 1808). The first edition was sold, and it is said to have been well received; but doubts were expressed as to whether the author was really a youth of thirteen. His friends came to his rescue in an “Advertisement,” prefixed to a second edition (1809), certifying to his age from their personal knowledge. They also certified to his extraordinary talents, though they preferred to have him judged by his works, without favor or affection, and concluded by saying that the printer was authorized to disclose their addresses. 

The early poetical exercises of William Cullen Bryant, like those of all young poets, were colored by the books he read. Among these were the works of Pope, and, no doubt, the works of Cowper and Thomson. The latter, if they were in the library of Dr. Bryant, do not appear to have impressed his son at this time; nor, indeed, does any English poet except Pope, so far as we can judge from his contributions to the “Hampshire Gazette.” They were bookish and patriotic; one, written at Cummington, 8 Jan., 1810, being “The Genius of Columbia”; and another, “An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1812,” to the tune of “Ye Gentlemen of England.” These productions are undeniably clever, but they are not characteristic of their writer, nor of the nature that surrounded his birthplace, with which he was familiar, and of which he was a close observer. 

He entered Williams college in his sixteenth year, and remained there one winter, distinguishing himself for aptness and industry in classical learning and polite literature. At the end of two years he withdrew, and began the study of law, first with Judge Howe, of Worthington, and afterward with William Baylies, of Bridgewater. So far he had written nothing but clever amateur verse; but now, in his eighteenth year, he wrote an imperishable poem. The circumstances under which it was composed have been variously related, but they agree in the main particulars, and are thus given in “The Bryant Homestead Book”: “It was here at Cummington, while wandering in the primeval forests, over the floor of which were scattered the gigantic trunks of fallen trees, mouldering for long years, and suggesting an indefinitely remote antiquity, and where silent rivulets crept along through the carpet of dead leaves, the spoil of thousands of summers, that the poem entitled ‘Thanatopsis’ was composed. The young poet had read the poems of Kirke White, which, edited by Southey, were published about that time, and a small volume of Southey's miscellaneous poems; and some lines of those authors had kindled his imagination, which, going forth over the face of the inhabitants of the globe, sought to bring under one broad and comprehensive view the destinies of the human race in the present life, and the perpetual rising and passing away of generation after generation who are nourished by the fruits of its soil, and find a resting-place in its bosom.” We should like to know what lines in Southey and Kirke White suggested “Thanatopsis,” that they might be printed in letters of gold hereafter. 

When the young poet quitted Cummington to begin his law studies, he left the manuscript of this incomparable poem among his papers in the house of his father, who found it after his departure, “Here are some lines that our Cullen has been writing,” he said to a lady to whom he showed them. She read them, and, raising her eyes to the face of Dr. Bryant, burst into tears—a tribute to the genius of his son in which he was not ashamed to join. Blackstone bade his Muse a long adieu before he turned to wrangling courts and stubborn law; and our young lawyer intended to do the same (for poetry was starvation in America fourscore years ago), but habit and nature were too strong for him. There is no difficulty in tracing the succession of his poems, and in a few instances the places where they were written, or with which they concerned themselves. “Thanatopsis,” for example, was followed by “The Yellow Violet,” which was followed by the “Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood,” and the song beginning “Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow.” The exquisite lines “To a Waterfowl” were written at Bridgewater, in his twentieth year, where he was still pursuing the study of law, which appears to have been distasteful to him. The concluding stanza sank deeply into a heart that needed its pious lesson: 

“He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.” 

The lawyer-poet had a long way before him, but he did not tread it alone; for, after being admitted to the bar in Plymouth, and practising for a time in Plainfield, near Cummington, he removed to Great Barrington, in Berkshire, where he saw the dwelling of the Genevieve of his chilly little “Song,” his Genevieve being Miss Frances Fairchild of that beautiful town, whom he married in his twenty-seventh year, and who was the light of his household for nearly half a century. It was to her, the reader may like to know, that he addressed the ideal poem beginning “O fairest of the rural maids” (circa 1825), “The Future Life” (1837), and “The Life that Is” (1858); and her memory and her loss are tenderly embalmed in one of the most touching of his later poems, “October, 1866.” 

“Thanatopsis” was sent to the “North American Review” (whether by its author or his father is uncertain), and with such a modest, not to say enigmatical, note of introduction, that its authorship was left in doubt. The “Review” was managed by a club of young literary gentlemen, who styled themselves “The North American Club,” two of whose members, Richard Henry Dana and Edward Tyrrel Channing, were considered its editors. Mr. Dana read the poem carefully, and was so surprised at its excellence that he doubted whether it was the production of an American, an opinion in which his associates are understood to have concurred. While they were hesitating about its acceptance, he was told that the writer was a member of the Massachusetts senate; and, the senate being then in session, he started immediately from Cambridge for Boston. He reached the statehouse, and inquired for Senator Bryant. A tall, middle-aged man, with a business-like look, was pointed out to him. He was satisfied that he could not be the poet he sought, so he posted back to Cambridge without an introduction. The story ends here, and rather tamely; for the original narrator forgot, or perhaps never knew, that Dr. Bryant was a member of the senate, and that it was among the possibilities that he was the senator with a similar name. American poetry may be said to have begun in 1817 with the September number of the “North American Review,’ which contained “Thanatopsis” and the “Inscription for the Entrance of a Wood,” the last being printed as a “Fragment.” In March, 1818, the impression that “Thanatopsis” created was strengthened by the appearance of the lines “To a Waterfowl,” and the “Version of a Fragment of Simonides.” 

Mr. Bryant's literary life may now be said to have begun, though he depended upon his profession for his daily bread. He continued his contributions to the “North American Review” in prose papers on literary topics, and maintained the most friendly relations with its conductors; notably so with Mr. Dana, who was seven years his elder, and who possessed, like himself, the accomplishment of verse. At the suggestion of this poetical and critical brother, he was invited to deliver a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard college—an honor which is offered only to those who have already made a reputation, and are likely to reflect credit on the society as well as on themselves. He accepted, and in 1821 wrote his first poem of any length, “The Ages,” which still remains the best poem of the kind that was ever recited before a college society either in this country or in England; grave, stately, thoughtful, presenting in animated picturesque stanzas a compact summary of the history of mankind. A young Englishman of twenty-one, Thomas Babington Macaulay, delivered in the same year a poem on “Evening,” before the students of Trinity college, Cambridge; and it is instructive to compare his conventional heroics with the spirited Spenserian stanzas of Bryant. The lines “To a Waterfowl,” written at Bridgewater in 1815, were followed by “Green River,” “A Winter Piece,” “The West Wind,” “The Burial-Place,” “Blessed are they that mourn,” “No man knoweth his Sepulchre,” “A Walk at Sunset,” and the “Hymn to Death.” These poems, which cover a period of six busy years, are interesting to the poetic student as examples of the different styles of their writer, and of the changing elements of his thoughts and feelings. “Green River,” for example, is a momentary revealment of his shy temperament and his daily pursuits. Its glimpses of nature are charming, and his wish to be beside its waters is the most natural one in the world. The young lawyer is not complimentary to his clients, whom he styles “the dregs of men,” while his pen, which does its best to serve them, becomes “a barbarous pen.” He is dejected, but a visit to the river will restore his spirits; for, as he gazes upon its lonely and lovely stream,

“An image of that calm life appears 
that won my heart in my greener years.” 

“A Winter Piece” is a gallery of woodland pictures, which surpasses anything of the kind in the language. “A Walk at Sunset” is notable in that it is the first poem in which we see (faintly, it must be confessed) the aboriginal element, which was soon to become prominent in Bryant's poetry. It was inseparable from the primeval forests of the New World, but he was the first to perceive its poetic value. The “Hymn to Death”—stately, majestic, consolatory—concludes with a touching tribute to the worth of his good father, who died while he was writing it, at the age of fifty-four. The year 1821 was important to Bryant, for it witnessed the publication of his first collection of verse, his marriage, and the death of his father.  The next four years of his life were more productive than any that had preceded them, for he wrote more than thirty poems during that time. The aboriginal element was creative in “The Indian Girl's Lament” “An Indian Story” “An Indian at the Burial-Place of his Fathers,” and, noblest of all, “Monument Mountain”; the Hellenic element predominated in “The Massacre at Scio” and “The Song of the Greek Amazon”; the Hebraic element touched him lightly in “Rizpah” and the “Song of the Stars”; and the pure poetic element was manifest in “March,” “The Rivulet” (which, by the way, ran through the grounds of the old homestead at Cummington), “After a Tempest,” “The Murdered Traveller,” “Hymn to the North Star,” “A Forest Hymn,” “O Fairest of the Rural Maids,” and the exquisite and now most pathetic poem, “June.” These poems and others not specified here, if read continuously and in the order in which they were composed, show a wide range of sympathies, a perfect acquaintance with many measures, and a clear, capacious, ever-growing intellect. They are all distinctive of the genius of their author, but neither exhibits the full measure of his powers. The publication of Bryant's little volume of verse was indirectly the cause of his adopting literature as a profession. It was warmly commended, and by no one more so than by Gulian C. Verplanck in the columns of the New York “American.” He was something of a literary authority at the time, a man of fortune and college-bred. Among his friends was Henry D. Sedgwick, a summer neighbor, so to speak, of Bryant's, having a country-house at Stockbridge, a few miles from Great Barrington, and a house in town, which was frequented by the literati of the day, such as Cooper, Halleck, Percival, Verplanck, and others of less note. An admirer of Bryant, Mr. Sedgwick set to work, with the assistance of Mr. Verplanck, to procure him literary employment in New York in order to enable him to escape his bondage to the law; and he was appointed assistant editor of a projected periodical called the, “New York Review and Athenæum Magazine.” The at last enfranchised lawyer dropped his barbarous pen, closed his law-books, and in the winter or spring of 1825 removed with his household to New York. The projected periodical was begun, as these sanguine ventures always are, with fair hopes of success. It was well edited, and its contributors were men of acknowledged ability. The June number contained two poems that ought to have made a great hit. One was “A Song of Pitcairn's Island”; the other was “Marco Bozzaris.” There was no flourish of trumpets over them, as there would be now; the writers merely prefixed their initials, “B.” and “H.” The reading public of New York were not ready for the “Review,” so after about a year's struggle it was merged in the “New York Literary Gazette,” which had begun its mission about four years earlier. This magazine shared the fate of its companion in a few months, when it was consolidated with the “United States Literary Gazette,” which in two months was swallowed up in the “United States Review.” The honor of publishing and finishing the last was shared by Boston and New York. Profit in these publications there was none, though Bryant, Halleck, Willis, Dana, Bancroft, and Longfellow wrote for them. Too good, or not good enough, they lived and died prematurely. 

Mr. Bryant's success as a metropolitan man of letters was not brilliant so far; but other walks than those of pure literature were open to him as to others, and into one of the most bustling of these he entered in his thirty-second year. In other words, he became one of the editors of the “Evening Post.” Henceforth he was to live by journalism. Journalism, though an exacting pursuit, leaves its skilful followers a little leisure in which to cultivate literature. It was the heyday of those ephemeral trifles, “Annuals,” and Mr. Bryant found time to edit one, with the assistance of his friend Mr. Verplanck and his acquaintance Robert C. Sands; and a very creditable work it was. His contributions to “The Talisman” included some of his best poems. Poetry was the natural expression of his genius, a fact he could never understand, for it always seemed to him that prose was the natural expression of all mankind. His prose was masterly. Its earliest examples, outside of his critical papers in the “North American Review” and other periodicals (and outside of the “Evening Post,” of course), are two stories entitled “Medfield” and “The Skeleton's Cave,” contributed to “Tales of the Glauber Spa” (1832), a collection of original stories by Paulding, Verplanck, Sands, William Leggett, and Catharine Sedgwick. Three years before (1828) he had become the chief editor of the “Evening Post.” Associated with him was Mr. Leggett, who had shown some talent as a writer of sketches and stories, and who had failed, like himself, in conducting a critical publication for which his countrymen were not ready. He made a second collection of his poems at this time (1832), a copy of which was sent by Mr. Verplanck to Washington Irving, who was then, what he had been for years, the idol of English readers, and not without weight with the trade. Would he see if some English house would not reprint it? No leading publisher nibbled at it, not even Murray, who was Irving's publisher; but an obscure bookseller named Andrews finally agreed to undertake it if Irving would put his valuable name on the title-page as editor. He was not acquainted with Bryant, but he was a kind-hearted, large-souled gentleman, who knew good poetry when he saw it, and he consented to “edit” the book. It was not a success in the estimation of Andrews, who came to him one day, by no means a merry Andrew, and declared that the book would ruin him unless one or more changes were made in the text. What was amiss in it? He turned to the “Song of Marion's Men,” and stumbled over an obnoxious couplet in the first stanza: 

“The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.” 

“That won't do at all, you know.” The absurdity of the objection must have struck the humorist comically; but, as he wanted the volume republished, he good-naturedly saved the proverbial valor of the British soldier by changing the first line to 

“The foeman trembles in his camp,” 

and the tempest in a teapot was over, as far as England was concerned. Not as far as the United States was concerned, however, for when the circumstance became known to Mr. Leggett he excoriated Irving for his subserviency to a bloated aristocracy, and so forth. Prof. Wilson reviewed the book in “Blackwood's” in a half-hearted way, patronizing the writer with his praise. 

The poems that Bryant wrote during the first seven years of his residence in New York (about forty, not including translations) exhibited the qualities that distinguished his genius from the beginning, and were marked by characteristics rather acquired than inherited; in other words, they were somewhat different from those written at Great Barrington. The Hellenic element was still visible in “The Greek Partisan” and “The Greek Boy,” and the aboriginal element in “The Disinterred Warrior.” The large imagination of “The Hymn to the North Star” was radiant in “The Firmament” and in “The Past.” Ardent love of nature found expressive utterance in “Lines on Revisiting the Country,” “The Gladness of Nature” “A Summer Ramble” “A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson,” and “The Evening Wind.” The little book of immortal dirges had a fresh leaf added to it in “The Death of the Flowers,” which was at once a pastoral of autumn and a monody over a beloved sister. A new element appeared in “The Summer Wind,” and was always present afterward in Mr. Bryant's meditative poetry—the association of humanity with nature—a calm but sympathetic recognition of the ways of man and his presence on the earth. The power of suggestion and of rapid generalization, which was the key-note of “The Ages,” lived anew in every line of “The Prairies,” in which a series of poems present themselves to the imagination as a series of pictures in a gallery—pictures in which breadth and vigor of treatment and exquisite delicacy of detail are everywhere harmoniously blended and the unity of pure art is attained. It was worth going to the ends of the world to be able to write “The Prairies.” 

Confiding in the discretion of his associate, Mr. Leggett, and anxious to escape from his daily editorial labors, Bryant sailed for Europe with his family in the summer of 1834. It was his intention to perfect his literary studies while abroad, and devote himself to the education of his children; but his intention was frustrated, after a short course of travel in France, Germany, and Italy, by the illness of Mr. Leggett, whose mistaken zeal in the advocacy of unpopular measures had seriously injured the “Evening Post.” He returned in haste early in 1836, and devoted his time and energies to restoring the prosperity of his paper. Nine years passed before he ventured to return to Europe, though he visited certain portions of his own country. His readers tracked his journeys through the letters that he wrote to the “Evening Post,” which were noticeable for justness of observation and clearness of expression. A selection from his foreign and home letters was published in 1852, under the title of “Letters of a Traveller.” 

The last thirty years of Bryant's life were devoid of incident, though one of them (1865) was not without the supreme sorrow, death. He devoted himself to journalism as conscientiously as if he still had his spurs to win, discussing all public questions with independence and fearlessness; and from time to time, as the spirit moved him, he added to our treasures of song, contributing to the popular magazines of the period, and occasionally issuing these contributions in separate volumes. He published “The Fountain and Other Poems” in 1842; “The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems” in 1844; a collected edition of his poems, with illustrations by Leutze, in 1846; an edition in two volumes in 1855; “Thirty Poems” in 1864; and in 1876 a complete illustrated edition of his poetical writings. To the honors that these volumes brought him he added fresh laurels in 1870 and 1871 by his translation of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey”—a translation which was highly praised both at home and abroad, and which, if not the best that the English language is capable of, is, in many respects, the best that any English-writing poet has yet produced. 

There comes a day in the intellectual lives of most poets when their powers cease to be progressive and productive, or are productive only in the forms to which they have accustomed themselves, and which have become mannerisms. It was not so with Mr. Bryant. He enjoyed the dangerous distinction of proving himself a great poet at an early age; he preserved this distinction to the last, for the sixty-four years that elapsed between the writing of “Thanatopsis” and the writing of “The Flood of Years” witnessed no decay of his poetic capacities, but rather the growth and development of trains of thought and forms of verse of which there was no evidence in his early writings. His sympathies were enlarged as the years went on, and the crystal clearness of his mind was colored with human emotions. To Bryant the earth was a theatre upon which the great drama of life was everlastingly played. The remembrance of this fact is his inspiration in “The Fountain,” “An Evening Revery,” “The Antiquity of Freedom,” “The Crowded Street,” “The Planting of the Apple-Tree,” “The Night Journey of a River,” “The Sower,” and “The Flood of Years.” The most poetical of Mr. Bryant's poems are, perhaps, “The Land of Dreams,” “The Burial of Love,” “The May Sun sheds an Amber Light,” and “The Voice of Autumn”; and they were written in a succession of happy hours, and in the order named. Next to these pieces, as examples of pure poetry, should be placed “Sella” and “The Little People of the Snow,” which are exquisite fairy fantasies. The qualities by which Bryant's poetry are chiefly distinguished are serenity and gravity of thought; an intense, though repressed, recognition of the mortality of mankind; an ardent love for human freedom; and unrivalled skill in painting the scenery of his native land. He had no superior in this walk of poetic art—it might almost be said no equal, for his descriptions of nature are never inaccurate or redundant. “The Excursion” is a tiresome poem, which contains several exquisite episodes. Bryant knew how to write exquisite episodes and omit the platitudes through which we reach them in other poets. 

It is not given to many poets to possess as many residences as Bryant, for he had three—a town-house in New York, a country-house, called “Cedarmere,” at Roslyn, Long Island, and the old homestead of the family at Cummington, Mass. The engraving on page 424 represents the house in Cummington; that on this page is a view of his home in Roslyn. He passed the winter months in New York, and the summer and early autumn at his country-houses. No distinguished man in America was better known by sight than he. 

“O good gray head that all men knew”

rose unbidden to one's lips as he passed his fellow-pedestrians in the streets of the great city, active, alert, with a springing step and a buoyant gait. He was seen in all weathers, walking down to his office in the morning, and back to his house in the afternoon—an observant antiquity, with a majestic white beard, a pair of sharp eyes, and a face that, when observed closely, recalled the line of the poet: 

“A million wrinkles carved his skin.” 

Bryant had a peculiar talent, in which the French excel—the talent of delivering discourses upon the lives and writings of eminent men; and he was always in request after the death of his contemporaries. Beginning with a eulogy on his friend Cole, the painter, who died in 1848, he paid his well-considered tributes to the memory of Cooper, Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and Verplanck, and assisted at the dedication in the Central park of the Morse, Shakespeare, Scott, and Halleck statues. His addresses on these and other occasions were models of justice of appreciation and felicity of expression. His last public appearance was at the Central park, on the afternoon of 29 May, 1878, at the unveiling of a bust of Mazzini. It was an unusually hot day, and after delivering his address, which was remarkable for its eloquence, he accompanied Gen. Jas. Grant Wilson, a friend of many years' standing, to his residence, No. 15 East Seventy-fourth street. Gen. Wilson reached his door with Mr. Bryant leaning on his arm; he took a step in advance to open the inner door, and while his back was turned the poet fell, his head striking on the stone platform of the front steps. It was his death-blow; for, though he recovered his consciousness sufficiently to converse a little, and was able to ride to his own house with Gen. Wilson, his fate was sealed. He lingered until the morning of 12 June, when his spirit passed out into the unknown. Two days later all that was mortal of him was buried at Roslyn, L. I., beside his wife, who died 27 July, 1865. 

Since the poet's death the name of one of the city pleasure-grounds has been changed (in 1884) to Bryant park, where there will be soon unveiled a noble bronze statue of the poet, to be erected by his many friends and admirers. In the Metropolitan museum of art may be seen a beautiful silver vase, presented to Bryant in 1876, and an admirable bronze bust of heroic size, executed from life by Launt Thompson. Among the many portraits of Bryant, painted by prominent American artists, the poet preferred Inman's and Durand's; but these were supplanted in his estimation by photographs of later days, from one of which was taken the fine steel portrait that accompanies this article. A complete edition of his poetical and prose works (4 vols., 8vo) was published in 1883-'4. See “Homes of American Authors” (New York, 1853); “The Bryant Homestead Book” (1870); “Presentation to Bryant at Eighty Years” (1876); “Bryant Memorial Meeting of the Goethe Club” (1878); Symington's “Biographical Sketch of Bryant” (1880); Godwin's “Life of Bryant” (1883); Wilson's “Bryant and his Friends” (1886, two editions, one on large paper and illustrated). A new life of Bryant, by John Bigelow, is now (1886) in preparation. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 422-426.

BUCHANAN, George, orator, spoke out against slavery, wrote: An Oration on the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery (Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 93n5)

BUCHANAN, James M., Illinois, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-1840.

BUCHANAN, Thomas.  American Colonization Society, Executive Committee, 1839-1840.  First Governor of the Commonwealth of Liberia.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 241)

BUCKINGHAM, Goodsell, Richland County, Ohio, abolitionist.  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-37, Vice-President, 1837-38.

BUEL, Daniel, Washington County, Ohio, abolitionist.  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-36.

BUFFUM, Arnold, 1782-1859, Smithfield, Rhode Island, Indiana, New York, New York, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, temperance reformer, philanthropist.  Maor of Lynn, Massachusetts.  Member, Massachusetts House of Representatives.  Co-founder (with William Lloyd Garrison) and first president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, in 1832.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in December 1833.  Manager, Massachusetts, 1833-1837; Manager, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1835-1837; Vice President, 1834-1836.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1846-1855.  Lectured extensively against slavery.  Visited England to promote abolitionism.  Was influenced by English anti-slavery leaders Clarkson and Wilberforce. (Drake, 1950, pp. 137, 157-158, 162-163, 178; Pease, 1965, pp. 418-427; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 218, 401, 433; Staudenraus, 1961, pp. 195-198, 209-210; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 18, 20, 22, 58, 62, 66, 67; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Buffum, Arnold, Lectures Showing the Necessity for a Liberty Party, and Setting Forth its Principles, Measures and Object, 1844; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 241; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 320)

BUFFUM, James M., Lynn, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1845-53.

BUFFUM, James Needham, 1807-1887, Mayor of Lynn, Massachusetts, abolitionist, supporter of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1845-1848.  (Mabee, 1970, pp. 114, 119, 120, 121, 123, 125, 210, 211, 221, 225, 250, 342; New York Times obituary: June 13, 1888)

BUFFUM, William, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, Executive Committee, 1840-41

BURCHARD, Charles, 1810-1879, New York, Wisconsin, political leader, opposed slavery.  Member of the Whig and Liberty Parties.  Major in the Civil War.

BURDICK, Alfred B., Westerly, Rhode Island, abolitionist.  American Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1855-59.

BURDICK, Stephen, New York, abolitionist.  American Abolition Society. (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

BURGESS, Daniel, Hartford, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-41, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1841-43

BURGESS, Dyer, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-37, Vice-President, 1837-39

BURGESS, Ebenezer, Berlington, Vermont, educator.  Agent of the American Colonization Society.  Went to Africa to found colony.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 41-47, 54, 59, 156)

BURLEIGH, Charles Calistus, 1810-1878, Connecticut, radical abolitionist.  Leader of the Pennsylvania Free Produce Association.  Lectured extensively on evils of slavery.  Edited Pennsylvania Freeman paper of the Eastern Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.  Active in temperance, peace and women’s rights movements.  (Drake, 1950, p. 171; Dumond, 1961, pp. 186, 265, 273; Mabee, 1970, pp. 34, 35, 66, 298, 368; Pease, 1965, pp. 172-177; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 455; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 284; Burleigh, “Slavery and the North” [Anti-Slavery Tract No. 10], New York, 1855, pp. 2-3, 8-10; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 959; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II, New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 320)

BURLEIGH, Charles C., abolitionist, b. in Plainfield, Conn., 10 Nov., 1810; d. in Florence, Mass., 14 June, 1878. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Windham co., Conn., but soon became interested in the anti-slavery movement, in which he attained high distinction as an orator and an earnest worker. He, with his brother, edited an abolitionist newspaper called “The Unionist,” the publisher being Miss Prudence Crandall (q. v.), who was indicted for keeping a colored school in Connecticut. He rendered efficient service to Mr. Garrison in Boston in protecting him from the violence of the mob in 1835, and was one of the speakers in Pennsylvania hall, in Philadelphia, when that building was burned by a mob in 1838. He was one of the earliest advocates of women's rights and of liberalism in religion, as he was also of temperance principles, in behalf of which he spoke frequently. For fifteen years he was resident speaker of the free Congregational society in Florence, Mass., and for one year preached in Bloomington, Ill. He was the author of “Thoughts on the Death Penalty” (1845), and a tract on the Sabbath, which advanced anti-Sabbatarian views. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 455.

BURLEIGH, Gertrude, abolitionist, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Yellin, 1994, p. 73)

BURLEIGH, William Henry, 1812-1871, Connecticut, journalist.  Active in temperance, peace and women’s rights movements.  Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society. Editor of the anti-slavery newspapers Christian Freeman, newspaper of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society, and the Charter Oak.  Leader of the Liberty Party.  In 1836, he was appointed a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  In 1840-1841, Burleigh was a Manager of the AASS.  As a result of his protesting the war against Mexico, which he felt was being fought for the “slave power,” Burleigh was attacked by mobs and barely escaped being hurt.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 186, 265, 273, 301; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 455; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 280; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 961)

BURLEIGH, William Henry, journalist, b. in Woodstock, Conn., 2 Feb., 1812 ; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 18 March, 1871. He was a lineal descendant, on his mother's side, of Gov. Bradford. His father, a graduate of Yale in 1803, had been a popular and successful teacher, but in 1827 became totally blind. William, who had been bred on a farm and educated principally by his father, was now apprenticed to a clothier and afterward to a village printer. He contributed to the columns of the newspaper it was a part of his duty to print, not in written communications, but by setting up his articles without the intervention of writing. From the autumn of 1832 till 1835 he was almost constantly engaged in editorial duties and in charge of papers advocating one or all of the great reforms then agitating the public mind—anti-slavery, temperance, and peace. Though naturally one of the most genial and amiable of men, Mr. Burleigh was stern in his adherence to principle. In 1836 he added to his editorial duties the labor of lecturing in behalf of the American anti-slavery society, and defending their views. For a time he had charge of the “Literary Journal” in Schenectady, then became in 1837 editor of the Pittsburg “Temperance Banner,” afterward called the “Christian Witness,” the organ of the western Pennsylvania anti-slavery society. In 1843 he was invited to Hartford by the executive committee of the Connecticut anti-slavery society, and took charge of its organ, the “Christian Freeman,” which soon became the “Charter Oak,” a vigorously edited and brilliant defender of the anti-slavery and temperance reforms. Mr. Burleigh afterward took charge of the Washington “Banner.” He struck trenchant blows at popular vices and political depravity in his papers, and received his reward more than once in mob violence. But while he deemed this heroic defence of unpopular doctrines a duty, and maintained it with unfaltering heart, he disliked controversy, and, whenever he could command the means for it, he would establish a purely literary paper, which, though generally short-lived, always contained gems of poetry and prose from his prolific pen, and avoided controversial topics. In 1850 he disposed of the “Charter Oak” to the free-soilers, the nucleus of the republican party, and removed to Syracuse, and subsequently to Albany, N. Y., to be the general agent and lecturer of the New York state temperance society and-editor of the “Prohibitionist.” When in 1855 Gov. Clark offered him, unsolicited, the place of harbor-master of the port of New York, he accepted it and removed to Brooklyn. For the next fifteen years he was either harbor-master or port-warden, but found time for much literary and some political labor. In the political campaigns he was in demand as a speaker, and his thorough knowledge of all the questions before the people, together with his eloquence, made him popular. He was also in request as a lyceum lecturer, especially on anti-slavery subjects. A collection of his poems was published in 1841, followed by enlarged editions in 1845 and 1850. A part of these were after his death published, with a memoir by his widow (Boston, 1871).—His wife, Celia, reformer, b. in Cazenovia, N. Y., in 1825; d. in Syracuse, 26 July, 1875. She was a teacher, and in 1844 married C. B. Kellum and removed with him to Cincinnati. She was divorced from him, and in 1851 married Charles Channey Burr; was again divorced, and in 1865 married Mr. Burleigh. She was the first president of the Woman’s club, Brooklyn, and took an active part in advocating woman suffrage and other reform movements. After Mr. Burleigh's death she prepared herself for the ministry, and was pastor of a Unitarian church in Brooklyn, Conn., until 1873; but failing health compelled her to resign in October, 1871, when she went to the water-cure establishment of Dr. Jackson in Danville, N. Y. Mrs. Burleigh had a wide reputation as an able writer and an eloquent speaker. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 455.

BURLEY, Alice, African American, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 58n40)

BURLING, William, b. 1678, Flushing, Long Island, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Tried to have fellow Quakers give up slaveholding.  He called it a sin.  Wrote tracts against slavery, circa 1718.  (Basker, 2005, p. 120; Drake, 1950, pp. 34, 36-37, 107)

BURLINGAME, Anson, 1820-1870, New Berlin. New York, diplomat, lawyer, orator, Republican United States Congressman.  Anti-slavery activist in the House of Representatives.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 456-457; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 289).

BURLINGAME, Anson, diplomatist, b. in New Berlin, Chenango co., N. Y., 14 Nov., 1820; d. in St. Petersburg, Russia, 23 Feb., 1870. He was the descendant of a family who were among the early settlers of Rhode Island. His father, a farmer, removed, when Anson was three years old, to a farm in Seneca co., Ohio, where they lived for ten years, and in 1833 again removed to Detroit, and after two years more to a farm at Branch, Mich. In 1837 Anson was admitted to the University of Michigan, and six years later went to Cambridge, Mass., and entered the law-school of Harvard university, where he was graduated in 1846. He began the practice of the law in Boston, and a year or two later became an active member and a popular orator of the free-soil party, then recently formed. In the political campaign of 1848 he acquired a wide reputation as a public speaker in behalf of the election of Van Buren and Adams. In 1849-'50 he visited Europe. In 1852 he was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and in 1853 he served as a member of the state constitutional convention, to which he was elected by the town of Northborough, though he resided in Cambridge. He joined the American party on its formation in 1854, and in that year was elected by it to the 34th congress. In the following year he co-operated in the formation of the republican party, to which he ever afterward steadily adhered. In congress he bore himself with courage and address, and was recognized as one of the ablest debaters on the anti-slavery side of the house. For the severe terms in which he denounced the assault committed by Preston S. Brooks upon Senator Sumner, in 1856, he was challenged by Brooks. He promptly accepted the challenge, and named rifles as the weapons, and Navy island, just above Niagara Falls, as the place. To the latter proposition Mr. Brooks demurred, alleging that, in order to meet his opponent in Canada, in the then excited state of public feeling, he would have to expose himself to popular violence in passing through “the enemy's country,” as he called the northern states. The matter fell through, but the manner in which Mr. Burlingame had conducted himself greatly raised him in the estimation of his friends and of his party; and on his return to Boston, at the end of his term, he was received with distinguished honors. He was re-elected to the 35th and 36th congresses; but failing, after an animated and close contest, to be returned to the 37th, his legislative career ended in March, 1861. He was immediately appointed by President Lincoln minister to Austria; but that government declined to receive, in a diplomatic capacity, a man who had spoken often and eloquently in favor of Hungarian independence, and had moved in congress the recognition of Sardinia as a first-class power. He was then sent as minister to China. In 1865 he returned to the United States with the intention of resigning his office; but the secretary of state urged him to resume his functions for the purpose of carrying out important projects and negotiations that he had initiated. To this he finally consented. When, in 1867, he announced his intention of returning home, Prince Kung, regent of the empire, offered to appoint him special envoy to the United States and the great European powers, for the purpose of framing treaties of amity with those nations—an honor never before conferred on a foreigner. This place Mr. Burlingame accepted, and, at the head of a numerous mission, he arrived in the United States in March, 1868. On 28 July supplementary articles to the treaty of 1858 were signed at Washington, and soon afterward ratified by the Chinese government. These articles, afterward known as “The Burlingame Treaty,” marked the first official acceptance by China of the principles of international law, and provided, in general, that the privileges enjoyed by western nations under that law—the right of eminent domain, the right of appointing consuls at the ports of the United States, and the power of the government to grant or withhold commercial privileges and immunities at their own discretion, subject to treaty—should be secured to China; that nation undertaking to observe the corresponding obligations prescribed by international law toward other peoples. Special provisions also stipulated for entire liberty of conscience and worship for Americans in China, and Chinese in America; for joint efforts against the cooly trade; for the enjoyment by Chinese in America and Americans in China of all rights in respect to travel and residence accorded to citizens of the most favored nation; for similar reciprocal rights in the matter of the public educational institutions of the two countries, and for the right of establishing schools by citizens of either country in the other. The concluding article disclaims, on the part of the United States, the right of interference with the domestic administration of China in the matter of railroads, telegraphs, and internal improvements, but agrees that the United States will furnish assistance in these points on proper conditions, when requested by the Chinese government. From America Mr. Burlingame proceeded in the latter part of 1868 to England, and thence to France (1869), Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Prussia, in all of which countries he was favorably received, and in all of which, but France, to which he intended returning, he negotiated important treaties or articles of agreement. He reached St. Petersburg early in 1870, and had just entered upon the business of his mission when he died of pneumonia, after an illness of only a few days. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BURNET, Jacob, 1770-1853, born in Newark, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Ohio, jurist, lawyer, college president.  Ohio Supreme Court Justice.  Vice-President, 1836-1841, American Colonization Society (ACS).  Member and first President of the Cincinnati auxiliary of the ACS.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 458; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 294; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 138-140

BURNET, Jacob, jurist, b. in Newark, N. J., 22 Feb., 1770; d. in Cincinnati, Ohio, 10 May, 1853, was graduated at Princeton in 1791, studied law in the office of Judge Boudinot, and was admitted to the bar in 1796. The same year he removed to Ohio, where he became distinguished as a lawyer and was a leading citizen in the new settlement of Cincinnati. In 1799 he was appointed to the legislative council of the territory, continuing a member of that body, in which he took the most prominent part in the preparation of legislative measures, until the formation of a state government. In 1812 he was a member of the state legislature, a judge of the supreme court of Ohio in 1821-'8, and in 1828-'31 U. S. senator. He was chosen by the legislature of Kentucky a commissioner to adjust certain territorial disputes with Virginia. He took part in the establishment of the Lancastrian academy in Cincinnati, and was one of the founders of the Cincinnati college, and its first president, and was active in reorganizing the Medical college of Ohio. He was a delegate to the Harrisburg convention in 1839, and was mainly instrumental in securing the nomination of Harrison to the presidency. He was the first president of the Colonization society of Cincinnati. His efforts to alleviate the distress felt by purchasers of western lands, on account of indebtedness to the government which they were unable to discharge, resulted in an act of congress granting relief to the entire west, extricating the settlers from serious financial distress. The debt due to the government amounted to $22,000,000, exceeding the volume of currency in circulation in the west, and threatening both farmers and speculators with bankruptcy. The people of the southwest were in the same situation; all the banks had suspended payment, and forcible resistance was threatened if the government should attempt to dispossess the settlers. Judge Burnett drew up a memorial to congress, proposing a release of back interest and permission to settlers to relinquish as much of the land entered as they were unable to pay for. The memorial was generally approved by the inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and in 1821 congress granted relief in the form desired. In 1830 Judge Burnett secured the revocation of the forfeiture of the congressional land-grant to the state of Ohio for the extension of the Miami canal, and an additional grant that emboldened the legislature of Ohio to carry out the work. He published “Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwestern Territory” (New York, 1847). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

BURNS, Anthony, c. 1830-1862, fugitive slave, abolitionist, clergyman.  (Mabee, 1970, pp.308-312, 324, 373, 418n31; Pease, 1965, pp. lxxviii-lxxix, 251; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 56, 212-213, 303, 415, 477-478; Stevens, 1856; Von Frank, 1998; Boston Slave Riot and the Trial of Anthony Burns, 1854; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404, 460; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 308)

BURNS, Anthony, fugitive slave, b. in Virginia about 1830; d. in St. Catharines, Canada, 27 July, 1862. He effected his escape from slavery in Virginia, and was at work in Boston in the winter of 1853-'4. On 23 May, 1854, the U. S. house of representatives passed the Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing the Missouri compromise, and permitting the extension of negro slavery, which had been restricted since 1820. The news caused great indignation throughout the free states, especially in Boston, where the anti-slavery party had its headquarters. Just at this crisis Burns was arrested by U.S. Marshal Watson Freeman, under the provisions of the fugitive-slave act, on a warrant sworn out by Charles F. Suttle. He was confined in the Boston court-house under a strong guard, and on 25 May was taken before U. S. Commissioner Loring for examination. Through the efforts of Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker, an adjournment was secured to 27 May, and in the mean time a mass-meeting was called at Faneuil hall, and the U.S. marshal summoned a large posse of extra deputies, who were armed and stationed in and about the court-house to guard against an expected attempt at the rescue of Burns. The meeting at Faneuil hall was addressed by the most prominent men of Boston, and could hardly be restrained from adjourning in a body to storm the court-house. While this assembly was in session, a premature attempt to rescue Burns was made under the leadership of Thomas W. Higginson. A door of the courthouse was battered in, one of the deputies was killed in the fight, and Col. Higginson and others of the assailants were wounded. A call for re-enforcements was sent to Faneuil hall, but in the confusion it never reached the chairman. On the next day the examination was held before Commissioner Loring, Richard H. Dana and Charles M. Ellis appearing for the prisoner. The evidence showed that Burns was amenable under the law, and his surrender to his master was ordered. When the decision was made known, many houses were draped in black, and the state of popular feeling was such that the government directed that the prisoner be sent to Virginia on board the revenue cutter “Morris.” He was escorted to the wharf by a strong guard, through streets packed with excited crowds. At the wharf the tumult seemed about to culminate in riot, when the Rev. Daniel Foster (who was killed in action early in the civil war) exclaimed, “Let us pray!” and silence fell upon the multitude, who stood with uncovered heads, while Burns was hurried on board the cutter. A more impressively dramatic ending, or one more characteristic of an excited but law-abiding and God-fearing New England community, could hardly be conceived for this famous case. Burns afterward studied at Oberlin college, and eventually became a Baptist minister, and settled in Canada, where, during the closing years of his life, he presided over a congregation of his own color. See “Anthony Burns, A History,” by C. E. Stevens (Boston, 1854). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 460.

BURR, Aaron, 1756-1836, Newark, New Jersey, soldier, statesman, antislavery activist.  Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 465-467; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 313)

BURR, Aaron, statesman, b. in Newark, N. J., 6 Feb., 1756; d. on Staten Island, N. Y., 14 Sept., 1836. His mother was Esther Edwards, the flower of the remarkable family to which she belonged, celebrated for her beauty as well as for her superior intellect and devout piety. In the truest sense, Aaron Burr was well born. Jonathan Edwards, his grandfather, illustrious as divine and metaphysician, had been elected to succeed his son-in-law as president of Princeton, but died of a fever, resulting from inoculation for small-pox, before he had fairly entered upon his work. Mrs. Burr, his daughter, died of a similar disease sixteen days later. The infant Aaron and his sister Sarah, left doubly orphaned, were placed in charge of their uncle, the Rev, Timothy Edwards, of Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), N. J. A handsome fortune having been bequeathed to them by their father, their education was conducted in a liberal manner; a private tutor was provided, Tapping Reeve, who afterward married his pupil, Sarah Burr, and became judge of the supreme court of Connecticut. A bright, mischievous boy, and difficult to control, Aaron was still sufficiently studious to be prepared to enter Princeton at the age of eleven, though he was not admitted on account of his extreme youth. He was very small, but strikingly handsome, with fine black eyes and the engaging ways that became a fascination in his maturer life. In 1769 he was allowed as a favor to enter the sophomore class, though only in his thirteenth year. He was a fairly diligent student and an extensive reader, and was graduated with distinction in September, 1772. Stories of wild dissipation during his college course are probably exaggerations. Just before his graduation the college was profoundly stirred by religious excitement, and young Burr, who confessed that he was moved by the revival, resorted to Dr. Witherspoon, the president, for advice. The doctor quieted his anxiety by telling him that the excitement was fanatical. Not entirely satisfied, he went in the autumn of the next year to live for a while in the family of the famous theologian, Dr. Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Conn., with the ostensible purpose of settling his mind with regard to the claims of Christianity. The result was a great surprise to his friends, if not to himself; he deliberately rejected the gospel and adopted the infidelity then so rife in Europe and America. The form of unbelief accepted by him was that of Lord Chesterfield, along with his lordship's peculiar views of morality. Here is probably the key to a comprehension of Burr's entire life. He resolved to be a “perfect man of the world,” according to the Chesterfieldian code. Most of the next year (1774) he passed in Litchfield, Conn., where he began the study of the law under Tapping Reeve, who had married his sister. At the beginning of the revolution, in 1775, Burr hastened to join the patriot army near Boston. He had a genuine passion for military life, and was singularly qualified to excel as a soldier. Here, fretted by inaction, he resolved to accompany Col. Benedict Arnold in his expedition to Quebec. Against the expostulations of all his friends and the commands of his uncle, Timothy, he persisted in his determination. Out of the memorable hardships and disasters of that expedition young Burr came back with the rank of major and a brilliant reputation for courage and ability. Soon after his return he became a member of Gen. Washington's family. From some cause the place did not please him, and after about six weeks he withdrew from Washington's table and accepted an appointment as aide to Gen. Putnam. This incident was extremely unfortunate for him. During their brief association Burr contracted prejudices against Washington which grew into deep dislike, and Washington got impressions of Burr that ripened into settled distrust. In July, 1777, Burr was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, with the command of his regiment, the colonel preferring to remain at home. In September, while occupying the house near Ramapo Pass, of which a representation is here given, he defeated the enemy near Hackensack and drove them back to Paulus Hook. At Monmouth he distinguished himself at the head of a brigade. While Burr's command lay in Orange co., N. Y., he became acquainted with Mrs. Theodosia Prevost, an intelligent and accomplished lady living at Paramus, widow of an English officer who had recently died in the West Indies. She was ten years his senior and had two sons. In March, 1779, after four years of service, he resigned his commission on account of broken health. In the autumn of 1780, his health having improved, Burr resumed the study of law, first with Judge Patterson, of New Jersey, and afterward with Thomas Smith, of Haverstraw, N.Y. On 17 April, 1782, he was admitted to the bar in Albany, the rule that required three years spent in study having been in his case relaxed on account of his service as a soldier. Now, at the age of twenty-six, he took an office in Albany and almost immediately commanded a large practice. Being at last in a condition to warrant this step, he married Mrs. Prevost, 2 July, 1782, and at once began housekeeping in Albany in handsome style. In the first year of his marriage his daughter, Theodosia, was born, the only child of this union. In the latter part of the next year, just after the British had evacuated the city, he returned to New York and devoted himself to his profession for eight years, having during that period twice served as a member of the New York legislature. He stood among the leaders of the bar, with no rival but Alexander Hamilton. Obtaining possession of Richmond Hill, a fine New York mansion with ample grounds, he dispensed a liberal hospitality. Talleyrand, Volney, and Louis Philippe were among his guests. In 1788, just after the adoption of the constitution, Burr entered the arena of politics as a candidate of the anti-federal party, though he was not distinctly identified with those who nominated him, and soon afterward he was appointed by Gov. Clinton attorney-general, an office which he held for two years. In 1791 he was elected to the U. S. senate over Gen. Philip Schuyler, to the great surprise of the country and the keen disappointment of Hamilton, Schuyler's son-in-law. The federalists had a majority in the legislature, and Schuyler was one of the pillars of the federal party. The triumph of Burr under these circumstances was mysterious. For six years he served in the senate with conspicuous ability, acting steadily with the republican party. Mrs. Burr died of cancer in 1794. Among the last words he ever spoke was this testimony to the wife of his youth: “The mother of my Theo was the best woman and finest lady I have ever known.” After her death the education of his daughter engrossed a large share of his attention. In 1797 the tables turned, and his defeated antagonist, Gen. Schuyler, was almost unanimously elected to his seat in the senate. Burr was shortly afterward made a member of the New York assembly. Into the presidential contest of 1800 he entered with all his energy. The republicans triumphed; but between the two highest candidates there was a tie, each receiving seventy-three votes, which threw the election into house of representatives. In connection with this affair, Burr was charged with intriguing to defeat the public will and have himself chosen to the first office, instead of Jefferson. After a fierce struggle of seven days, the house elected Jefferson president and Burr vice-president. He was then forty-five years old and at the top-of his fortune. His daughter had made a highly satisfactory marriage, and his pecuniary prospects were improved. In 1801, just before entering upon his duties as vice-president, he was a member of a convention of the state of New York for revising its constitution, and was made chairman by unanimous vote. But a great change was at hand. Near the close of his term of office as vice-president, Burr, finding himself under a cloud with his party, sought to recover his popularity by being a candidate for the governorship of New York, but was defeated by Morgan Lewis. In this contest Alexander Hamilton had put forth his utmost energies against Burr. Though the relations of these political leaders had remained outwardly friendly, they had and long been rivals, and Hamilton had not hesitated to express in private his distrust of Burr, and to balk several of his ambitious projects. In the gubernatorial canvass Hamilton had written concerning his rival in a very severe manner, and some of his expressions having got into the newspapers, Burr immediately fastened upon them as ground for a challenge. A long correspondence ensued, in which Hamilton vainly sought to avoid extremities. At length the challenge was accepted, and the parties met on the bank of the Hudson, at Weehawken, N. J., at seven o'clock A. M., 7 July, 1804. At the first fire Hamilton fell mortally wounded. But Burr's shot was more fatal to himself than to his foe; he left that “field of honor” a ruined man. The tragedy aroused an unprecedented excitement, before which Burr felt it wise to fly. The coroner's inquest having returned a verdict of murder, he escaped to South Carolina and took refuge in the home of his daughter.  Though an indictment for murder was obtained against him, the excitement subsided, and he was left unmolested. After a season he ventured to Washington, and completed his term of service as vice-president. Though his political prospects were now blasted and his name execrated, his bold and resolute spirit did not break. Courage and fortitude were the cardinal virtues of his moral code, and his restless mind was already employed with new and vast projects. Early in 1805 he turned his course toward the great west, then a new world. From Pittsburg he floated in a boat, specially built for him, down to New Orleans, stopping at many points, and often receiving enthusiastic attention. After some time spent in the southwest, he slowly returned to Washington, where he sought from the president an appointment suitable to his dignity. Foiled in this effort, he turned more earnestly to his mysterious western projects. His purpose seems to have been to collect a body of followers and conquer Texas—perhaps Mexico—establishing there a republic of which he should be the head. With this he associated the hope that the western states, ultimately falling away from the union, would cast in their lot with him, making New Orleans the capital of the new nation. As a rendezvous and refuge for his followers, he actually bought a vast tract of land on Washita river, for which the sum of $40,000 was to be paid. It was a wild scheme, and, if not technically treasonable, was so near to it as to make him a public enemy. Events had advanced rapidly, and Burr's plans were nearly ripe for execution, when the president, who had not been ignorant of what was maturing, issued a proclamation, 27 0ct., 1806, denouncing the enterprise and warning the people against it. The project immediately collapsed. On 14 Jan., 1807, Burr was arrested in Mississippi territory, and, having escaped, was again arrested in Alabama, whence he was conveyed to Richmond, Va. Here was held the memorable trial for treason, beginning 22 May, 1807, and lasting, with some interruptions, for six months. In the array of distinguished counsel, William Wirt was pre-eminent for the prosecution and Luther Martin for the defence. Burr himself took an active part in the case. On 1 Sept. the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the indictment for treason, and some time afterward the prisoner was acquitted, on technical grounds, of the charge of misdemeanor. Though Burr was now free, his good name was not restored by the issue of the trial, and he soon sailed for England, still animated by new schemes and hopes. After various adventures in that country, he was expelled as an “embarrassing” person, and went to Sweden. Having spent some time in Copenhagen and various cities of Germany, he reached Paris in February, 1810. Here, kept under government surveillance, and refused permission to return to the United States, he was reduced to the severest pecuniary straits. Returning again to England, he was obliged to remain there in desperate extremities for a year and a half. At last he got away in the ship “Aurora,” and reached Boston in May, 1812. Disguised under the name of Arnot, as well as with wig, whiskers, and strange garments, the returning exile entered the city in a most humiliating plight. The government prosecutions still hung over his head, and some of his creditors had executions against him, which might throw him into a prison. He ventured to New York, however, reaching that place four years after leaving it. He soon opened an office in Nassau street, old friends rallied around him, and the future began to brighten somewhat, when he was stunned by the information that his only grandchild, Theodosia's son, aged eleven, was dead. A still more crushing blow soon came. The daughter, who was his idol, perished at sea while on a voyage from Charleston to New York in January, 1813. Burr was now fifty-seven years old. Shunned by society, though with a considerable practice, he lived on for twenty-three years. At the age of seventy-eight he married Madame Jumel, widow of a French merchant, who had a considerable fortune. The union soon proved unhappy, owing to Burr's reckless use of his wife's money, and they finally separated, though not divorced. In his last days Burr was dependent on the charity of a Scotch woman, a friend of former years, for a home. He died at Port Richmond, Staten Island, and his remains lie, according to his request, in the cemetery at Princeton, near those of his honored father and grandfather. In person, Burr was small, often being spoken of as “little Burr,” but his appearance and manners were fascinating. In his case the finest gifts of nature and fortune were spoiled by unsound moral principles and the absence of all genuine convictions. His habits were licentious. He was a master of intrigue, though to little purpose. He was a respectable lawyer and speaker, but lacked the qualities of a statesman. Dauntless resolution and cool self-possession never forsook him. On the morning of his duel with Hamilton he was found by a friend in a sound sleep. Though a skeptic, he was not a scoffer. In his last hours he said of the holy Scriptures: “They are the most perfect system of truth the world has ever seen.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

BURR, David I., Virginia, businessman.  Member and active supporter of the Richmond auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 109-189)

BURRIS, Samuel D., 1808-1869, African American anti-slavery activist.  Aided fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p. 412)

BURRITT, Elihu, 1810-1879, reformer, free produce activist, advocate of compensated emancipation (Burritt, 1856, pp. 11-18, 30-33; Dumond, 1961, p. 350; Mabee, 1970, pp. 4, 195, 202, 203, 236, 257, 327, 329, 334, 340, 343, 363, 365, 366, 369, 372, 378, 420n1; Pease, 1965, pp. 200-205, 427; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 469; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 328)

BURRITT, Elihu, reformer, b. in New Britain, Conn., 8 Dec., 1810; d. there, 9 March, 1879. He was the son of a shoemaker, was educated in the common schools of his native place, and in 1828, after his father's death, was apprenticed to a blacksmith. The stories of the old revolutionary soldiers who came to his father's house had given him a desire to know more of books, and, when his apprenticeship was ended, he studied Latin, French, and mathematics with his brother, the principal of a small boarding-school. He attempted to perform the duties of a teacher as a means of support, but poor health prevented success. He returned to his forge, still continuing his studies, often watching the castings in his furnace with a Greek grammar in his hand. After beginning the study of Hebrew, he thought of going to sea and using his wages to buy oriental books at the first port, but gave up this plan, and, going to Worcester, Mass., resumed work at the anvil and the study of languages, for which the antiquarian library there gave him special facilities. Here he translated all the Icelandic sagas relating to the discovery of America, and obtained the name of the “learned blacksmith.” In 1839 he published for a year a monthly periodical to teach French, called “The Literary Gemini.” Mr. Burritt made his first public appearance in 1841 as a lecturer maintaining the doctrine that all mental attainments are the result of persistent study and effort. In 1842 he established the “Christian Citizen” at Worcester, a weekly journal, devoted to anti-slavery, peace, temperance, and self-culture. Four years later he went to Europe, and during a visit of three years devoted himself to co-operation with the English peace advocates. During this time also he developed the basis of an international association known as the League of universal brotherhood, which aimed at the abolition of war and the promotion of fraternal relations and feelings between different countries. At this time he was proprietor and editor of the “Peace Advocate,” and published a periodical tract, the “Bond of Brotherhood.” He was prominent in organizing the first peace congress, and took part in two subsequent congresses, in 1849 and 1850. In 1852 he became editor of the “Citizen of the World,” Philadelphia, in which he urged the compensated emancipation of southern slaves. His disappointment at the failure of his project was great. He had advocated it clearly and forcibly, and to its advancement had devoted all his time and resources, living at times almost in poverty. Mr. Burritt then retired to a small farm which he owned at New Britain. He made a brief visit to England in 1863, and during the following two years he published three new books and several volumes of general writings. He was appointed U. S. consul at Birmingham in 1865, returned to America in 1870, and spent the remainder of his days in his native village. He published “Sparks from the Anvil” (London, 1848); “Miscellaneous Writings” (1850); “Olive Leaves” (1853); “Thoughts of Things at Home and Abroad” (Boston, 1854); “Hand-Book of the Nations” (New York, 1856); “A Walk from John O'Groat's to Land's End” (London, 1864); “The Mission of Great Sufferings” (1867); “Walks in the Black Country” (1868); “Lectures and Speeches” (1869); “Ten Minute Talks” (1873); and “Chips from Many Blocks” (1878). See “Life of Elihu Burritt,” by Charles Northend (New York, 1879). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

BUSH, Abigail Norton, c. 1810 - c. 1899, abolitionist, radical reformer, women’s rights activist, member of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society.  Active in Rochester, New York.  Wife of radical abolitionist Henry Bush.  President of the Women’s Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, in 1848.

BUSH, Alice, African American, abolitionist (Yellin, 1994, p. 58n40)

BUSH, Henry, manufacturer, abolitionist, brother of Obadiah Newcomb Bush, married to abolitionist Abigail Norton Bush.

BUSH, Obadiah Newcomb, 1797-1851, New York, educator, businessman, abolitionist.  Vice president of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Member of the Underground Railroad.  Brother of Henry Bush.

BUSH, Oren N., Rochester, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40

BUSTEED, Richard, lawyer, jurist, Union general, anti-slavery advocate. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 476)

BUSTEED, Richard, lawyer, b. in Cavan, Ireland, 16 Feb., 1822. His father, George Washington Busteed, was a Dublin barrister, and at one time held a colonel's commission in the British army. In 1829 the elder Busteed was appointed chief secretary of the island of St. Lucia, but his zeal in the cause of emancipation led to his removal from office, and, after returning to Ireland, he emigrated to London, Canada, where he established a paper called “The True Patriot.” Richard began work on this paper as a type-setter, mid afterward accompanied his father to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Hartford, Conn., and finally to New York, where he worked on the “Commercial Advertiser.” At this time he was licensed as a local preacher in the Methodist church. After a visit to Ireland for his health in 1840, he began the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1846. His management of the defence in several celebrated extradition cases soon made his reputation, and he became a successful lawyer. In 1856 he was elected corporation counsel of New York city, holding the office till 1859, and in the presidential campaign of 1860 he was a supporter of Douglas, and a bitter opponent of Lincoln, but after the attack on Sumter he became a strong union man. On 7 Aug., 1862, he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers by President Lincoln, and assigned to duty, first in New York and then in Washington. In December, 1862, he took command of a brigade at Yorktown, Va. Gen. Busteed's course in support of the administration, and on the slavery question, had raised against him many enemies, who determined to prevent his confirmation. The five colonels of his brigade sent a joint letter to the senate, testifying to the improvement in discipline made by their commands under him. His name, however, was not sent to that body for confirmation, as on 10 March, 1863, he sent his resignation to the president. On 17 Sept., 1863, Gen. Busteed was appointed by President Lincoln to be U. S. district judge for Alabama. He was unanimously confirmed by the senate on 20 Jan., 1864, and in the autumn of 1865 he opened the court. He decided that the test-oath prescribed by congress was unconstitutional, so far as it applied to attorneys practising before U. S. courts, and this decision was followed by judges in other states, the supreme court afterward delivering a similar opinion. In November, 1865, Judge Busteed had a controversy with the U. S. military authorities in Alabama, which excited great interest, and involved important questions relating to the suspension of the habeas corpus act. In 1874 he resigned and resumed the practice of law in New York city. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 476.

BUSTILL, Joseph Cassey, 1822-1895, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist.  African American conductor on the Underground Railroad.

BUTLER, Benjamin Franklin, 1818-1893, New York, attorney, political leader, opponent of slavery, Civil War Union General, Republican member of the U.S. Congress.  Founding member and officer of the Albany auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  As Union General, he refused to return runaway slaves to Southerners at Fort Monroe.  This led to a federal policy of calling enslaved individuals who fled to Union lines contraband of war.  (Burin, 2005, p. 162; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 477-478; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 357; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 81, 129, 178, 224)

BUTLER, Benjamin Franklin, lawyer, b. in Deerfield, N. H., 5 Nov., 1818. He is the son of Capt. John Butler, who served under Jackson at New Orleans. He was graduated at Waterville college (now Colby university), Maine, in 1838, was admitted to the bar in 1840, began practice at Lowell, Mass., in 1841, and has since had a high reputation as a lawyer, especially in criminal cases. He early took a prominent part in politics on the democratic side, and was elected a member of the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1853, and of the state senate in 1859. In 1860 he was a delegate to the democratic national convention that met at Charleston. When a portion of the delegates reassembled at Baltimore, Mr. Butler, after taking part in the opening debates mid votes, announced that a majority of the delegates from Massachusetts would not further participate in the deliberations of the convention, on the ground that there had been a withdrawal in part of the majority of the states; and further, he added, “upon the ground that I would not sit in a convention where the African slave-trade, which is piracy by the laws of my country, is approvingly advocated.” In the same year he was the unsuccessful democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts. At the time of President Lincoln's call for troops in April, 1861, he held the commission of brigadier-general of militia. On the 17th of that month he marched to Annapolis with the 8th Massachusetts regiment, and was placed in command of the district of Annapolis, in which the city of Baltimore was included. On 13 May, 1861, he entered Baltimore at the head of 900 men, occupied the city without opposition, and on 16 May was made a major-general, and assigned to the command of Fort Monroe and the department of eastern Virginia. While he was here, some slaves that had come within his lines were demanded by their masters; but he refused to deliver them up on the ground that they were contraband of war; hence arose the designation of “contrabands,” often applied to slaves during the war. In August he captured Forts Hatteras and Clark on the coast of North Carolina. He then returned to Massachusetts to recruit an expedition for the gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi. On 23 March, 1862, the expedition reached Ship island, and on 17 April went up the Mississippi. The fleet under Farragut having passed the forts, 24 April, and virtually captured New Orleans, Gen. Butler took possession of the city on 1 May. His administration of affairs was marked by great vigor. He instituted strict sanitary regulations, armed the free colored men, and compelled rich secessionists to contribute toward the support of the poor of the city. His course in hanging William Mumford for hauling down the U. S. flag from the mint, and in issuing “Order No. 28,” intended to prevent women from insulting soldiers, excited strong resentment, not only in the south, but in the north and abroad, and in December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation declaring him an outlaw. On 10 May, 1862, Gen. Butler seized about $800,000 which had been deposited in the office of the Dutch consul, claiming that arms for the confederates were to be bought with it. This action was protested against by all the foreign consuls, and the government at Washington, after an investigation, ordered the return of the money. On 16 Dec., 1862, Gen. Butler was recalled, as he believes, at the instigation of Louis Napoleon, who supposed the general to be hostile to his Mexican schemes. Near the close of 1863 he was placed in command of the department of Virginia and North Carolina, and his force was afterward designated as the Army of the James. In October, 1864, there being apprehensions of trouble in New York during the election, Gen. Butler was sent there with a force to insure quiet. In December he conducted an ineffectual expedition against Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, N. C., and soon afterward was removed from command by Gen. Grant. He then returned to his residence in Massachusetts. In 1866 he was elected by the republicans a member of congress, where he remained till 1879, with the exception of the term for 1875-'7. He was the most active of the managers appointed in 1868 by the house of representatives to conduct the impeachment of President Johnson. He was the unsuccessful republican nominee for governor of Massachusetts in 1871; and in 1878 and 1879, having changed his politics, was the candidate of the independent greenback party and of one wing of the democrats for the same office, but was again defeated. In 1882 the democrats united upon him as their candidate, and he was elected, though the rest of the state ticket was defeated. During his administration, he made a charge of gross mismanagement against the authorities of the Tewksbury almshouse; but, after a long investigation, a committee of the legislature decided that it was not sustained. In 1883 he was renominated, but was defeated. In 1884 he was the candidate of the greenback and anti-monopolist parties for the presidency, and received 133,825 votes. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.

BUTLER, J., Waterbury, Vermont, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1834, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

BUTLER, Ovid, 1801-1881, Augusta, New York, lawyer, newspaper publisher, university founder, abolitionist.  Founded abolitionist newspaper, Free Soil Banner, in 1849. Helped found Northwestern Christian University in 1855.  It was later renamed Butler University.

BUTLER, Pardee, 1816-1888, Kansas, farmer, clergyman, abolitionist.  He was a victim of a pro-slavery mob in Kansas in August 1855, and a Republican Party organizer in Kansas in May-June 1856..

BUZBY, Samuel, Delaware, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40

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CADY, Josiah, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

CALDWELL, Elias Boudinet, founding officer and first Secretary of the American Colonization society, Washington, DC, December 1816.  (Burin, 2005, p. 14; Campbell, 1971, p. 7; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 24-27, 29, 30, 74, 97)

Caldwell, Joseph, Dr., Reverend, 1773-1835, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, university president.  Chief officer of the Chapel Hill auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 497-498; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 409; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)

CALDWELL, Joseph, educator, b. in Lammington, N. J., 21 April, 1773; d. in Chapel Hill, N. C., 24 Jan., 1835. He was graduated at Princeton in 1791, delivering the Latin salutatory, and then taught school in Lammington and Elizabethtown, where he began the study of divinity. He became tutor at Princeton in April, 1795, and in 1796 was appointed professor of mathematics in the University of North Carolina. He found the institution, then only five years old, in a feeble state, nearly destitute of buildings, library, and apparatus, and to him is ascribed the merit of having saved it from ruin. He was made its president in 1804, and held the office till his death, with the exception of the years from 1812 till 1817. Princeton gave him the degree of D. D. in 1816. In 1824 he visited Europe to purchase apparatus and select books for the library of the university. A monument to his memory has been erected in the grove surrounding the university buildings. Dr. Caldwell published “A Compendious System of Elementary Geometry,” with a subjoined treatise on plane trigonometry (1822), and “Letters of Carleton” (1825). The latter had previously appeared in a newspaper in Raleigh, and were designed to awaken an interest in internal improvements. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CAMERON, Simon, 1799-1889, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, statesman, U.S. Senator, Secretary of War, 1861-1862, under President Lincoln.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 508; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 437)

CAMERON, Simon, statesman, b. in Lancaster co., Pa., 8 March, 1799; d. there, 26 June, 1889. He early received a fair English education, and began to learn the printer's trade when but nine years of age. He worked as a journeyman in Lancaster, Harrisburg, and Washington, and so improved his opportunities that in 1820 he was editing a newspaper in Doylestown, Pa., and in 1822 one in Harrisburg. As soon as he had accumulated sufficient capital he became interested in banking and in railroad construction in the central part of the state. He was for a time adjutant-general of Pennsylvania. He was elected to the U. S. senate in 1845 for the term ending in 1849, and during this period acted with the democrats on important party questions, such as the Missouri compromise bill. This was repealed in 1854, and Mr. Cameron became identified with the “people's party,” subsequently merged with the republicans, As its candidate he was re-elected to the senate for the full term of six years beginning in 1857, a period that covered the exciting crisis of secession. During this time he was so earnest an advocate of peace that his loyalty was suspected. At the republican convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln he was strongly supported for the presidency, and again for the vice-presidency; but lack of harmony in the Pennsylvania delegation prevented his nomination to the latter office. Mr. Lincoln at once called him to the cabinet as secretary of war, and he proved equal to the arduous duties of the place. He advocated more stringent and aggressive war measures than Mr. Lincoln was prepared to carry out, and when Gen. Butler asked for instructions regarding fugitive slaves, directed him to employ them “under such organizations and in such occupations as exigencies may suggest or require.” Similar instructions were given to Gen. Sherman and other officers in the field. In the original draft of his annual report to congress, in December, 1861, he boldly advocated arming fugitive slaves; but this was modified, on consultation with the cabinet. Mr. Cameron resigned the secretaryship 11 Jan., 1862, was at once appointed minister to Russia, and his influence undoubtedly tended in a large measure to secure the friendship of that powerful nation during the civil war. His official conduct in a certain transaction was censured by the house of representatives, 30 April, 1862; but Mr. Lincoln immediately sent a message assuming, with the other heads of departments, an equal share in the responsibility. He resigned as minister to Russia 8 Nov., 1862, and remained at home until 1866, when he was elected U. S. senator, and appointed chairman of the committee on foreign affairs on the retirement of Mr. Sumner in 1872. He was sent to the senate for the fourth time in 1873, but resigned in favor of his son. During the years of his active public life he was a powerful political leader, practically dictating the policy of the republican party in Pennsylvania, and wielding a strong influence over its policy in the nation at large. The accompanying view represents “Lochiel,” the residence at Harrisburg of the “Czar of Pennsylvania politics,” as Cameron has been called. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CAMP, David M., Swanton, Vermont, abolitionist.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40.

CAMPBELL, A. R., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1842-46, 1846-.

CAMPBELL, Alexander, 1779-1857, anti-slavery activist, b. Virginia, moved to Ohio in 1830, representative to the Ohio legislature, member of the U.S. Senate, 1809-1813, first Vice President of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, 1835 (Dumond, 1961, p. 93)

CAMPBELL, Alfred G., abolitionist, Trenton, New Jersey, Paterson, New Jersey, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1849-50, 1854-64, Manager, 1852-53.

CAMPBELL, Amos, 1833-1837, Ackworth, New Hampshire, abolitionist.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

CAMPBELL, Archibald, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)

CAMPBELL, David, Andover, Ohio, abolitionist. American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1841-1842.

CAMPBELL, George W., Reverend, South Berwick, Maine.  Agent of the American Colonization Society.  Traveled in New York and Vermont.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 131)

CAMPBELL, Robert, Georgia, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1838-1841.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

CAMPBELL, Thomas, Campbell County, Ohio, abolitionist.  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1836-38.

CAMPBELL, Tunis Gulic, 1812-1891, African American abolitionist, Georgia political leader, moral reformer, temperance activist and lecturer.  Lectured with Frederick Douglass. Worked to help resettle recently-freed slaves near Port Royal, South Carolina.  Later was Bureau agent for Freedman’s Bureau on Georgia Islands.  Resisted acts to reverse gains made by African Americans by President Johnson administration during Reconstruction. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p. 500; American National Biography, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 299.)

CANNING, Stratford, British Minister to the United States.  Supporter of the American Colonization society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 70)

CAPRON, Effingham L., 1791-1851, New England, Smithfield, Rhode Island, Uxbridge, Massachusetts, Society of Friends, Quaker, philanthropist, abolitionist.  Vice president, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Vice president, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1836-1840, 1840-1860.  (Drake, 1950, pp. 137-140; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)

CARBERRY, Thomas, charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, in 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

CAREY, George, abolitionist, Cincinnati, Ohio, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40.

CAREY, Mathew, 1760-1839, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, publisher, philanthropist.  Strong advocate for colonization and the American Colonization Society.  Printed pamphlets for the Society, “Letters on the Colonization Society.”  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 524-525; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 491; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 128, 183, 215)

CAREY, Mathew, publisher, b. in Ireland, 28 Jan., 1760; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 16 Sept., 1839. He received a liberal education, and when he was fifteen years old his father gave him a list of twenty-five trades from which to make the choice of his life-work. He selected the business of printer and bookseller, and two years afterward brought out his first pamphlet, a treatise on duelling, followed by an address to Irish Catholics, so inflammatory that young Carey was obliged to avoid prosecution by flight to Paris. During his stay there he became acquainted with Benjamin Franklin, then representing the United States at the court of Versailles, who gave him employment. Returning to Ireland after a year's stay, he established a new paper called the “Volunteer’s Journal,” which, by its bold and able opposition to the government, became a power in politics, and eventually brought about the legislative independence of Ireland. A too violent attack upon parliament and the ministry led to his arraignment before the house of commons for libel in 1784, and he was imprisoned until the dissolution of parliament. After his liberation he sailed for America, reaching Philadelphia, 15 Nov., 1784, and two months afterward began to publish “The Pennsylvania Herald,” the first newspaper in the United States that furnished accurate reports of legislative debates, Carey acting as his own reporter. He fought a duel with Col. Oswald, editor of a rival journal, and received a wound that confined him to his house for more than sixteen months. Soon after this he began the publication of “The American Museum,” which he conducted for six years. In 1791 he married, and opened a small bookselling shop. During the yellow-fever epidemic two years later he was a member of the committee of health, and tireless in his efforts for the relief of sufferers. The results of his extensive observation were collected and published in his “History of the Yellow Fever of 1793.” In the same year he founded the Hibernian society. In 1796 he was one of a few citizens who, under the direction of Bishop White, formed the first American Sunday-school society. With characteristic vigor he engaged in the discussions concerning the United States bank, writing articles for newspapers and publishing pamphlets, which he distributed at his own expense. In 1814 appeared his “Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides, Federal and Democratic,” designed to harmonize the antagonistic parties of the country pending the war with Great Britain. It passed through ten editions, and is still a recognized authority in regard to the political history of the period. In 1819 he published his “Vindici­æ Hibernicæ,” an examination and refutation of the charges against his countrymen in reference to the butcheries alleged to have been committed by them in the rebellion of 1641. From this time he devoted himself almost exclusively to politico-commercial pursuits, publishing in 1820 the “New Olive Branch,” in which he endeavored to show how harmonious were the real interests of the various classes of society, and in 1822 “Essays on Political Economy.” This was followed by a series of tracts extending to more than 2,000 pages. The object of all these was to demonstrate the necessity of the protective system as the only means of advancing the real interests of all classes in the community. He was active in the promotion of all the public works of the city and state, and advocated the system of internal improvements that led to the construction of the Pennsylvania canals. He interested himself in forwarding education and in establishing the charitable institutions for which Philadelphia is now famous. In 1833-'4 he contributed his autobiography to the “New England Magazine.”  Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CAREY, Shepard, 1805-1866, Maine, abolitionist, political leader.  U.S. House of Representatives, 1843, 1850-1853.  Candidate for Governor in Liberty Party in Maine in 1854, lost.

CARLTON, William, Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-

CARMAN, Joshua, clergyman, anti-slavery activist, founded anti-slavery church, Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1796, leader of Emancipating Baptists (Dumond, 1961, p. 91; Locke, 1901, pp. 44, 90)

CARMICHAEL, Daniel, abolitionist, Brooklyn, New York, American Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1843-44, 1845-46.

CARPENTER, James, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1843-.

CARPENTER, Philo, 1805-1886, Chicago, Illinois, pharmacist, abolitionist.  Helped found Chicago chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1838, along with Dr. Charles V. Dyer, Calvin DeWolf and Robert V. Dyer.  Active as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.  His home was used to hide fugitive slaves escaping north to Canada. (Campbell, Tom, Fighting Slavery in Chicago, Chicago, IL: Ampersand, Inc., 2009)

CARR, Overton, founding charger member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, December 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

CARRINGTON, William, Virginia.  Strong supporter of the American Colonization Society.  Contributed funds to the Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

CARROLL, Charles, 1737-1832, Carrollton, Maryland, signer of the Declaration of Independence.  President of the American Colonization Society (ACS).  Head of the Baltimore auxiliary of the ACS.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 536-537; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 522; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 70, 110-111, 183)

Biography from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biogarphy:

CARROLL, Charles, of Carrollton, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. in Annapolis, Md., 20 Sept., 1737; d. in Baltimore, 14 Nov., 1832. The sept of the O’Carrolls was one of the most ancient and powerful in Ireland. They were princes and lords of Ely from the 12th to the 16th century. They sprang from the kings of Munster, and intermarried with the great houses of Ormond and Desmond in Ireland, and Argyll in Scotland. Charles Carroll, grandfather of Carroll of Carrollton, was a clerk in the office of Lord Powis in the reign of James II., and emigrated to Maryland upon the accession of William and Mary in 1689. In 1691 he was appointed judge and register of the land-office, and agent and receiver for Lord Baltimore's rents. His son Charles was born in 1702, and died in 1782, leaving his son Charles, the signer, whose mother was Elizabeth Brook. Carroll of Carrollton, at the age of eight years, was sent to France to be educated under the care of the Society of Jesus, which had controlled the Roman Catholics of Maryland since its foundation. He remained six years in the Jesuit college at St. Omer's, one year in their college at Rheims, and two years in the college of Louis Le Grand. Thence he went for a year to Bourges to study civil law, and from there he returned to college at Paris. In 1757 he entered the Middle Temple, London, for the study of the common law, and returned to Maryland in 1765. In June, 1768, he married Mary Darnall, daughter of Col. Henry Darnall, a young lady of beauty, fortune, and ancient family. Carroll found the public mind in a ferment over many fundamental principles of government and of civil liberty. In a province founded by Roman Catholics on the basis of religious toleration, the education of Catholics in their own schools had been prohibited by law, and Carroll himself had just returned from a foreign land, whither he had been driven by the intolerance of his home authorities to seek a liberal education. Not only were Roman Catholics under the ban of disfranchisement, but all persons of every faith and no faith were taxed to support the established church, which was the church of England. The discussion as to the right of taxation for the support of religion soon extended from the legislature to the public press. Carroll, over the signature “The First Citizen,” in a series of articles in the “Maryland Gazette,” attacked the validity of the law imposing the tax. The church establishment was defended by Daniel Dulany, leader of the colonial bar, whose ability and learning were so generally acknowledged that his opinions were quoted as authority on colonial law in Westminster hall, and are published to this day, as such, in the Maryland law reports. In this discussion Carroll acquitted himself with such ability that he received the thanks of public meetings all over the province, and at once became one of the “first citizens.” In December, 1774, he was appointed one of the committee of correspondence for the province, as one of the initial steps of the revolution in Maryland, and in 1775 was elected one of the council of safety. He was elected delegate to the revolutionary convention from Anne Arundel co., which met at Annapolis, 7 Dec., 1775. In January, 1776, he was appointed by the Continental congress one of the commissioners to go to Canada and induce those colonies to unite with the rest in resistance to Great Britain. On 4 July, 1776, he, with Matthew Tilghman, Thomas Johnson, William Paca, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, and Robert Alexander, was elected deputy from Maryland to the Continental congress. On 12 Jan., 1776, Maryland had instructed her deputies in congress not to consent to a declaration of independence without the knowledge and approbation of the convention. Mainly owing to the zealous efforts of Carroll and his subsequent colleagues, the Maryland convention, on 28 June, 1776, had rescinded this instruction, and unanimously directed its representatives in congress to unite in declaring “the united colonies free and independent states,” and on 6 July declared Maryland a free, sovereign, and independent state. Armed with this authority, Carroll took his seat in congress at Philadelphia, 18 July, 1776, and on 2 Aug., 1776, with the rest of the deputies of the thirteen states, signed the Declaration of Independence. It is said that he affixed the addition “of Carrollton” to his signature in order to distinguish him from his kinsman, Charles Carroll, barrister and to assume the certain responsibility himself of his act. He was made a member of the board of war, and served in congress until 10 Nov., 1776. In December, 1776, he was chosen a member of the first senate of Maryland, in 1777 again sent to congress, serving on the committee that visited Valley Forge to investigate complaints against Gen. Washington, and in 1788 elected the first senator from the state of Maryland under the constitution of the United States. He drew the short term of two years in the federal senate in 1791, and was again elected to the state senate, remaining there till 1801. In 1797 he was one of the commissioners to settle the boundary-line between Maryland and Virginia. On 23 April, 1827, he was elected one of the directors of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company, and on 4 July, 1828, laid the foundation-stone of the beginning of that undertaking. His biographer, John H. B. Latrobe, writes to the senior editor of this Cyclopædia: “After I had finished my work I took it to Mr. Carroll, whom I knew very well indeed, and read it to him, as he was seated in an arm-chair in his own room in his son-in-law's house in Baltimore. He listened with marked attention and without a comment until I had ceased to read, when, after a pause, he said: ‘Why, Latrobe, you have made a much greater man of me than I ever thought I was; and yet really you have said nothing in what you have written that is not true.’ . . . In my mind's eye I see Mr. Carroll now—a small, attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and somewhat receding chin, small eyes that sparkled when he was interested in conversation. His head was small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while his face and forehead were seamed with wrinkles. But, old and feeble as he seemed to be, his manner and speech were those of a refined and courteous gentleman, and you saw at a glance whence came by inheritance the charm of manner that so eminently distinguished his son, Charles Carroll of Homewood, and his daughters, Mrs. Harper and Mrs. Caton.” The accompanying view represents his spacious mansion, known as Carrollton, still owned and occupied by his descendants. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

IT has been asserted that the American colonies, now the United States, began seriously to entertain the design of throwing off their allegiance to the British king, soon after the conquest of Canada by the arms of the British and provincial forces. There is, however, no evidence to sustain that assertion; and the probability is, that the colonies, although they each had cause for discontent, had never been united in their complaints until the British parliament united them by a series of general grievances. The charters granted to the various colonies had been uniformly violated so soon as they began to thrive; and they, in their weakness and sincere attachment to “the mother country,” had patiently submitted. Yet it is evident that they retained, from generation to generation, a lively sense of their natural and chartered rights. The descendants of those who had braved the dangers and hardships of the wilderness for the sake of civil and religious liberty, inherited the spirit of their fathers;—what the fathers had gained by patient toil, unbending fortitude, or by charter from the king, their children claimed as their birthright.

In 1764, parliament, for the first time, attempted to raise a revenue in the colonies without their consent. This led to a discussion of the right in the provincial assemblies and among the people, and the general sentiment appears to have been, that “taxation and representation were inseparable.” In 1765 the famous Stamp Act was passed; and the policy of the British government being unveiled, an universal expression of indignation and opposition was echoed through the colonies. In addition to these general causes for complaint, each colony remembered its own individual grievances. It is only our purpose, on this occasion, to trace the causes of discontent in Maryland; and to show, that when her sons embarked their “lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,” in their country’s cause, they had reason and justice on their side.

The charter of Maryland was obtained by Lord Baltimore, from Charles I., in June, 1632. By the charter it was declared, that the grantee was actuated by a laudable zeal for extending the Christian religion and the territories of the empire. Lord Baltimore was a Roman Catholic; and his avowed intention was, to erect an asylum in America for the Catholic faith. In honor of the queen the province was named, and its endowment was accompanied with immunities more ample than any other of the colonies. Lord Baltimore was created the absolute proprietary, saving the allegiance due to the crown—license was given to all British subjects to transport themselves thither, and they and their posterity were declared entitled to the liberties of Englishmen, as if they had been born within the kingdom; with powers to make laws for the province, “not repugnant to the jurisprudence of England,”—power was given to the proprietary, with assent of the people, to impose all just and proper subsidies, which were granted to him for ever; and it was covenanted on the part of the king, that neither he nor his successors should at any time impose, or cause to be imposed, any tollages on the colonists, or their goods and tenements, or on their commodities, to be laden within the province. The proprietary was also authorized to appoint officers, repel invasions, and suppress rebellions. The charter contained no special reservative of royal prerogative to interfere in the government of the province. Thus was laid the foundation of a popular government not likely to be willingly renounced when once possessed.

No efforts were spared by Lord Baltimore to facilitate the population and happiness of the colony; and in five years it had increased to such an extent that a code of laws became necessary. Lord Baltimore composed and submitted a body of laws to the colonists for their assent, but they not approving of them, prepared a code for themselves. At a very early period the proprietary had declared in favor of religious toleration; in 1649 the assembly adopted that principle by declaring, “that no persons professing to believe in JESUS CHRIST should be molested in respect to their religion, or in the free exercise thereof;” thus meriting the distinguished praise of being the first of the American States in which religious toleration was established by law. In 1654 Cromwell sent commissioners to reduce the colony to his subjection, who, although they met with no opposition in Maryland, abolished its institutions and introduced religious discord. They inflamed the Protestants against the Catholics, until, exasperated to extremity, the parties met in an engagement, when the partizans of the proprietary government were defeated, the governor deposed, and a new assembly formed, by which a law was passed depriving the Catholics of the protection of law in the community. With the restoration of Charles II., in 1661, tranquillity was restored to the province; but in a few years that tranquillity was again disturbed by a series of petty vexations, originating in the strife and jealousy of the ruling party in Britain, on account of religion. The king’s ministers commanded that all the offices of the provincial government should in future be committed exclusively to Protestants, and not only in this was the charter violated, but also by the appointment of revenue officers and the exacting of imposts. In 1686 James II. determined to overthrow the proprietary governments of the colonies, but the more important affairs in which he was engaged at home, during his short reign, prevented the consummation of his threat.*[1] On the accession of William III. a Protestant association was formed, which, under the authority and approbation of the king, usurped the direction of the affairs of the province, keeping up the farce of a Papist plot as an excuse for their conduct. Lord Baltimore was deprived, by an act of the privy council, of the political administration, although they could find no fault in him, except that he was of the Catholic faith. With the proprietary’s government the liberal principles of his administration were subverted. The Church of England was established, and a tax levied to support it.

Sanctioned by the authority and instructed by the example of the British government, the newly modelled legislature of Maryland proceeded to enact a series of laws which completely disfranchised the Catholics, by depriving them of all political and religious privileges, and of the ordinary means of education. By an act, passed in 1704 and renewed in 1715, it was ordained that the celebration of Mass, or the education of youth by a Papist, should be punished by transportation to England. These acts were afterwards modified; but the evils inflicted on the colony by the violations of the charter, were not removed until the connection with Great Britain was dissolved by the Revolution. In 1702, in the midst of this state of affairs, Charles Carroll, the father of CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON, was born. We may readily suppose with what attachment to the royal cause he arrived at manhood. We are informed that “he took an active part in the affairs of the provincial government; and in the religious disputes of the times stood prominent as one of the leading and most influential members of the Catholic party.” On the eighth of September, 1737, O. S., his son, CHARLES CARROLL, surnamed OF CARROLLTON, was born at Annapolis; and at eight years old was taken to France to be educated. He remained there until 1757, when he visited London and commenced the study of law. In 1764, he returned to Maryland a finished scholar and an accomplished gentleman. About this period the respective rights of the colonies and of the king’s government began to be discussed; religious disputes subsided and were forgotten, in the new and interesting topics of the time. The celebrated Stamp Act, in 1765, produced an universal excitement, and elicited, from men of the highest character and talents in the country, the most energetic and decisive expressions of opinion. Among those who came boldly forward in vindication of the colonists was CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.

The Stamp Act was repealed and the excitement ceased; but in the colonies the principle of parliamentary taxation was a settled question.

In June, 1768, Mr. CARROLL married.

In 1771-2, Mr. CARROLL’S talents as an advocate of popular rights, were again brought into requisition. The house of delegates, after an investigation, framed and passed a law regulating the fees of the civil officers of the colonial government, but the upper house refused to concur in it. After the adjournment of the assembly, the governor issued a proclamation commanding and enjoining all officers not to take other or greater fees than those therein mentioned. The people viewed this measure as an attempt to fix a tax upon them by proclamation, and in that light considered it as an unjust and arbitrary exercise of official authority. A newspaper contest ensued between numerous advocates of the people and of the governor. At length the parties stood in silence watching the progress of a single combat between the champion of the people, Mr. CARROLL, and his antagonist, the provincial secretary. In this controversy, Mr. CARROLL’S talents and principles were brought fully before the public, and received the applause of the prominent men of the day. His antagonist was silenced, and the governor’s proclamation suspended on a gallows and burnt by the common hangman. The above controversy was conducted by the parties under fictitious signatures, and before it was known who had been the writer to whom the laurel was awarded, the citizens of Annapolis instructed their representatives to address a letter of thanks, through the newspaper, to the “distinguished advocate of the rights of his country;” but when it was generally known that “the distinguished advocate,” was CHARLES CARROLL, “the people of Annapolis, not satisfied with the letter of the delegates, came in a body to thank him for his exertions in defence of their rights.” Mr. CARROLL had evidently made up his mind to abide the issue of the contest, which he foresaw had only been commenced with the pen to be terminated with the bayonet; and he took repeated occasions so to express his convictions to friends and foes. As the great drama of the Revolution advanced, Mr. CARROLL’S popularity evidently became more extensive, and his advice and influence more frequently sought. After the delegates in 1774 had prohibited the importation of tea, a brig arrived at Annapolis with a quantity on board; it was court time, and a great number of people were assembled from the neighboring counties, and so irritated were they, that personal violence was threatened to the captain and consignees of the vessel and destruction to the cargo. Application was made to Mr. CARROLL for advice and protection, by the owner of the vessel. He advised him to burn the vessel and the tea it contained to the water’s edge, as the most effectual means of allaying the popular excitement. His counsel was followed, the sails were set, the colors displayed, and the brig burnt amidst the acclamations of the multitude.

In February, 1776, Mr. CARROLL, then a member of the Maryland convention, was appointed by the continental congress on a commission to visit Canada, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin, Samuel Chase, and the Rev. John Carroll, the object of which was to induce the Canadians to unite their efforts with the United Provinces in the struggle for liberty; but the defeat of Montgomery’s army, the contributions levied on the inhabitants, and the invincible opposition of the priests, rendered their mission abortive. Mr. CARROLL returned to Philadelphia just as the subject of independence was under discussion; he was decidedly in favor of it, but was not a member of congress; and the delegates from Maryland had been instructed to refuse their assent to it. He proceeded to Annapolis with all speed, and in his place in the convention advocated the cause of independence with such effect, that on the 28th of June new instructions were given in the place of the old ones, and on the 4th of July, 1776, the votes of the Maryland delegation were given for independence.

On the same day, Mr. CARROLL was appointed a delegate to congress, and took his seat as a member, for the first time, on the 18th. On the next day a secret resolution was adopted, directing the Declaration to be engrossed on parchment, and signed by all the members, which was accordingly done on the 2d of August. As Mr. CARROLL had not given a vote on the adoption of that instrument, he was asked by the President if he would sign it; “most willingly,” he replied, and immediately affixed his name to that “record of glory,” which has endeared him to his country, and rendered his name immortal. By those who have the curiosity to compare that signature with the autograph accompanying our portrait, it will be perceived that the first was traced by a firm and manly hand, the latter after a lapse of more than half a century, and at an age when “the keepers of the house tremble.” Both fac similes are correct.

Mr. CARROLL assisted in the formation of the constitution of Maryland in 1776, and continued in congress until 1778.

He served in the senate of the state for several years, was a member of the United States senate, from 1788 to 1791, from which time until 1801 he was an active member of the senate of his native state.

For the next thirty years he dwelt in the retirement of private life, in the enjoyment of tranquillity, health, fortune, and the richest reward of his patriotic labors; the veneration and gratitude of his country. After the death of Jefferson and Adams, in 1826, he was the sole survivor of the immortal band whose talents and inflexible virtues, in the midst of peril, pledged for their country, all that men esteem of value; life, fortune, honor: and the sole inheritor of the rich legacy of glory which they had left. But, on the 14th of November, 1832, the mandate which all must obey, summoned to the tomb the last of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; that deed of noble daring which gave his country “a place among nations,” and opened an asylum for the oppressed of all. To it the eyes of all nations are turned for instruction and example, and it is evident that the political institutions of the old world are gradually conforming to its model, to which they must very nearly approach, before the people, for whose happiness governments are framed, will be content.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Vol. 1.

[1]About this time Charles Carroll (the son of Daniel Carroll, of Kings county, Ireland, and grandfather of CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON,) came into the colony.

CARROLL, George A., founding charger member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, December 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

CARROLL, Henry, founding member and Manager of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, December 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)

CARSON, Andrew, abolitionist, founding member, Electing Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787 (Basker, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nathan, 1991)

CARTER, Gaius, Becket, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.

CARTER, James G., Lancaster, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-45, Executive Committee, 1843-45.

CARTER, Robert, 1819-1879, Albany, New York, newspaper editor.  Member and active in the Free Soil Party.  Edited the Boston Commonwealth, a paper of the Free Soilers.  Early member of the Republican party.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 541-542)

CARTER, Robert, editor, b. in Albany, N. Y., 5 Feb., 1819; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 15 Feb., 1879. He received a common-school education, and passed one term in the Jesuit college of Chambly, Canada. In his fifteenth year he was appointed assistant librarian in the state library at Albany, where he remained till 1838. At this time he began to publish poems and sketches in the daily papers, his first contribution being a long poem, which he dropped stealthily into the editor's letterbox, and which appeared the next day with flattering comments, but so frightfully misprinted that he hardly knew it. This experience and a natural aptitude led him to acquire proof-reading as an accomplishment, at which he became very expert. In 1841 he went to Boston, where he formed a life-long friendship with James Russell Lowell, and together they began “The Pioneer,” a literary monthly magazine, which Duyckinck says was “of too fine a cast to be successful.” Nevertheless, its want of success was due, not to the editors, but to the publisher, who mismanaged it and failed when but three numbers had been issued. Among the contributors were Poe, Hawthorne, Whittier, Neal, Miss Barrett (afterward Mrs. Browning), and the sculptor Story. Mr. Carter began in its pages a serial novel entitled “The Armenian's Daughter.” He next spent two years in editing statistical and geographical works, and writing for periodicals. His story, “The Great Tower of Tarudant,” ran through several numbers of the “Broadway Journal,” then edited by Poe. In 1845 he became a clerk in the post-office at Cambridge, and in 1847-'8 was private secretary to Prescott the historian. His elaborate article on the character and habits of Prescott, written for the New York “Tribune” just after the historian's death in 1859, was re-published in the memorial volume issued by the Massachusetts historical society. Mr. Carter joined the free-soil party in 1848, and in 1850 wrote for the Boston “Atlas” a series of brilliant articles in reply to Francis Bowen's attack on the Hungarian revolutionists. These articles were re-published in a pamphlet, “The Hungarian Controversy” (Boston, 1852), and are said to have caused the rejection of Mr. Bowen's nomination as professor of history at Harvard. At the same time Carter edited, with Kossuth's approval, a large volume entitled “Kossuth in New England” (Boston, 1852). In 1851-'2 he edited, at first as assistant of John G. Palfrey and afterward alone, the Boston “Commonwealth,” the chief exponent of the free-soilers. For two years he was secretary of the state committee of the free-soil party, and in the summer of 1854 he obtained the consent of the committee to call a convention, which he did without assistance, sending out thousands of circulars to men whose names were on the committee's books. The convention met in Worcester, 20 July, was so large that no hall could contain it, and held its session in the open air. A short platform drawn up by him was adopted, together with the name “Republican,” and on his motion a committee of six was appointed to organize the new party, John A. Andrew being made its chairman. In 1855 Carter edited the Boston “Telegraph,” in conjunction with W. S. Robinson and Hildreth the historian; in 1856 he edited the “Atlas”; and in 1857-'9 he was Washington correspondent of the New York “Tribune.” His next work was with Messrs. Ripley and Dana on the first edition of the “American Cyclopædia” (1859-'63), in which many important articles were from his pen, including “Egypt,” “Hindostan,” “Mormons,” and the history of the United States. In January, 1864, he was appointed private secretary of the treasury agent whose headquarters were at Beaufort, S. C.; and from July of that year till October, 1869, he edited the Rochester, N. Y., “Democrat,” doing such work for it as was seldom done on any but metropolitan journals. When news came of the assassination of President Lincoln, he wrote, without consulting any book or memoranda, an article giving a brief but circumstantial account, with dates, of every celebrated case of regicide. He was editor of “Appletons’ Journal” in 1870-'3, and then became associate editor for the revision of the “American Cyclopædia.” But in 1874 impaired health compelled him to discontinue his literary work, and in the next three years he made three tours in Europe. He was the author of “A Summer Cruise on the Coast of New England” (Boston, 1864), which passed through several editions; and he left unpublished memoirs, of which only the first volume was complete in manuscript.—His first wife, Ann Augusta Gray, was a successful writer of poems and tales for the young.—His second wife, Susan Nichols, is principal of the female art school in Cooper institute, New York, and has published hand-books of art and contributed largely to periodicals.  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CARTWRIGHT, Peter, 1785-1872, born in Virginia, went to Kentucky in 1790, then to Illinois in 1824, state senator in Ohio (Dumond, 1961, p. 93; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 544-545; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 546)

CARTWRIGHT, Peter, clergyman, b. in Amherst co., Va., 1 Sept., 1785; d. near Pleasant Plains, Sangamon co., Ill., 25 Sept., 1872. His father was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and about 1790 removed with his family to Logan co., Ky. At that time, according to his own account, there was not a newspaper printed south of Green river, no schools worth the name, and no mills within forty miles. Clothing was home-made from the cotton and flax, and imported tea, coffee, and sugar were unknown. Methodist preachers had just begun to ride “circuits” in that section, and the Rev. John Lurton obtained permission to hold public services in Mr. Cartwright's cabin when in the neighborhood. After a few years a conference was formed, known as the western conference, the seventh then in the United States. In 1801 a camp-meeting was held at Cane Ridge, at which nearly 2,000 persons were converted. Peter was then a wild boy of sixteen, fond of horse-racing, card-playing, and dancing. He was soon awakened to a sense of his sinfulness, but fought against his convictions for some time, plunging more recklessly than ever into his dissipations, until, after a night's dance and debauch at a wedding some miles from his father's house, he fell under conviction of sin, and began to pray. He sold a favorite race-horse, burned his cards, gave up gambling, to which he was greatly addicted, and, after three months' earnest seeking was converted. He immediately began to preach as a “local,” but in 1803 was received into the regular ministry, and ordained an elder in 1806 by Bishop Asbury. In 1823 Mr. Cartwright removed from the Cumberland district and sought a home in Illinois, settling the year following in Sangamon co., then peopled only by a few hardy and enterprising pioneers. After a few years he was elected to the legislature, wherein his rough-and-ready wit and his unflinching courage made him the victor in many debates. He attended annual conferences with almost unfailing regularity for a series of years, and was always a conspicuous member. Year after year he attended camp-meetings, finding his greatest happiness in them. He was a delegate to numerous general conferences, and retained his interest in religion to the last. From a very early period he was a zealous opponent of slavery, and was rejoiced when the Methodist Episcopal church was rid of all complicity with it by the division in 1844. Nevertheless, he retained his allegiance to the democratic party, and was its candidate for congress in 1846, in opposition to Abraham Lincoln, who defeated him by a majority of 1,500. For more than fifty years he was presiding elder in the church, which he saw rise, from 72,874 members when he joined it, to about 1,750,000 when he was called away. He was a powerful preacher and a tireless worker. His quaint and eccentric habits, and his exhaustless fund of stories, drawn largely from personal experience, gained favor and popularity wherever he went. Numerous stories are told of his personal prowess in dealing with the rough characters of the frontier, who often sought to interrupt his meetings, and whom, if report be true, he invariably vanquished by moral suasion if possible, or, failing that, by the arm of flesh. In conference meetings he was loved, revered, and dreaded, for he hesitated not to arraign the house of bishops to their face; but his influence was powerful, and his strong good sense often shaped the policy of the whole denomination. He published several pamphlets, of which his “Controversy with the Devil” (1853) was perhaps the most famous. “The Autobiography of the Rev. Peter Cartwright” (New York, 1856) was edited by William P. Strickland. See also Dr. Abel Stevens' “Observations on Dr. Cartwright,” and his many books treating of the history of Methodism, and “The Backwoods Preacher” (London, 1869). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 546.

CARY, Lott, 1780-1828, Charles City co., Virginia, formerly enslaved individual.  Vice President, American Colonization Society, in 1828.  (Burin, 2005, pp. 16-17, 67, 68; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 548; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 555)

CARY, Lott, negro slave, b. in Charles City co., Va., in 1780; d. in Monrovia, Africa, 8 Nov., 1828. In 1804 he was sent to Richmond, and hired out as a common laborer. Gifted with a high order of native intelligence, he soon taught himself, with slight assistance, to read and write, and, having a remarkable memory and sense of order, he became one of the best shipping-clerks in the Richmond tobacco warehouses. Until 1807 he was an unbeliever, but during that year became converted to Christianity, and was ever afterward a leader among the Baptists of his own color. In 1813 he purchased his own freedom and that of his two children for $850. As a freeman he maintained his habits of industry and economy, and when the colonization scheme was organized had accumulated a sum sufficiently large to enable him to pay his own expenses as a member of the colony sent out to the African coast in 1822. He was with the colony during its early wars with the barbarous natives, and rendered invaluable services as a counsellor, physician, and pastor. He was elected vice-agent of the colonization society in 1826, and during the absence of Mr. Ashmun, the agent, acted in his place. On the evening of 8 Nov., 1828, he was making cartridges in anticipation of an attack from slave-traders, when an accidental explosion fatally injured him and seven of his companions. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CARY, Mary Ann Shadd, 1823-1893, African American, abolitionist leader. (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 446-447; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p. 596)

CASSEY, Amy Matilda, abolitionist, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Yellin, 1994, pp. 75-76, 97, 116, 116n)

CASSEY, Joseph, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-37.

CATTO, Octavius Valentine, 1839-1871, African American educator, activist, soldier.  Opposed slavery.  Recruited Black soldiers for the Union Army.  Established Union League Association.  Served as a Major in the Army. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p. 611)

CHACE, Elizabeth Buffum, 1806-1899, Society of Friends, Quaker, women’s suffrage leader, penal reform leader, abolitionist leader.  Co-founder of the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1836.  Member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, founded by her father, Arnold Buffum, in 1832.  Contributed articles for abolitionist newspaper, Liberator.  Her home was a station on the Underground Railroad.  She resigned from the Society of Friends in 1843 as a result of its continuing pro-slavery position.  At the end of the Civil War, she was elected Vice President of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  She published her memoirs in 1891, Anti-Slavery Reminiscences. Her grandfather, parents, husband, two sisters, and two brothers-in-law were all abolitionists.  (Drake, 1950, p. 158; Mabee, 1970, pp. 225, 280, 290, 424n54; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 44, 218; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 22, 37, 49-52, 58, 67, 69-71, 73, 159, 171, 191-192, 208-209, 219-221, 232n5; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 584; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 158-159; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 609)

CHAFFEE, Calvin C., 1811-1896, physician, politician, U.S. Congressman, abolitionist.  (Blaustein, 1991)

CHALMERS, John, Jr., charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, in December 1816.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258)

CHAMBERLAIN, Homer M., Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Manager, 1839-

CHAMBERLAIN, Jeremiah, 1794-1851, clergyman, educator, abolitionist.  President of Centre College, Kentucky, 1822-1825.  Founder and President of Oakland College in Mississippi, 1830-1851.  Co-founded Mississippi Colonization Society.  He was murdered for his anti-slavery stance on September 5, 1851, by a pro-slavery planter.

CHAMBERLAIN, Lewis, New York, American Abolition Society (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

CHAMBERS, Ezekiel Forman, 1788-1867, Maryland, jurist, soldier, U.S. Senator from Maryland.  Supported the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the Senate.  Proposed bill in Senate to support the ACS with federal funding.  Defended colonization from detractors.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 566; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 602; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 176, 207)

CHAMBERS, Ezekiel F., senator, b. in Kent county, Md., 28 Feb., 1788; d. in Charleston, Md., 30 Jan., 1867. He was graduated at Washington college, Md., in 1805, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1808. He performed military service in the war of 1812, and subsequently attained the rank of brigadier-general of militia. Though elected in 1822 to the state senate against his will, he took an active part in the legislation of that body, and in 1825 arranged a system for the more effectual recovery of slaves. In 1826 he was elected U. S. senator from Maryland, and in 1832 re-elected. He distinguished himself as one of the ablest debaters and antagonists in that body. In 1834 he was appointed chief judge of the second judicial district and a judge of the court of appeals, which places he held till 1857, when the Maryland judiciary became elective. In 1850 he was a member of the constitutional convention of the state. In 1852 President Fillmore offered him the post of secretary of the navy on the resignation of Sec. Graham, but the condition of his health compelled him to decline. Yale conferred on him the degree of LL. D. in 1833, and Delaware in 1852. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CHANDLER, Elizabeth Margaret, 1807-1834, poet, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist.  Member of the Free Produce Society.  Co-founded the first anti-slavery society in Michigan, the Logan Female Anti-Slavery Society, in Lenawee County, Michigan Territory, October 8, 1832, with Laura Haviland.  Writer for Benjamin Lundy’s Genius of Universal Emancipation after 1829.  In 1836, Chandler’s anti-slavery writings were published. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 279-281, 350-351; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 90-91, 97, 111, 113, 120; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 573; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 613; Mason, Martha J. Heringa, ed. Remember the Distance That Divides Us. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2004)

CHANDLER, Elizabeth Margaret, author, b. in Centre, near Wilmington, Del., 24 Dec., 1807; d. 22 Nov., 1834. She was the daughter of Thomas Chandler, a Quaker farmer, was educated at the Friends' school in Philadelphia, and began at an early age to write verses. Her poem “The Slave-Ship,” written when she was eighteen years old, gained the prize- offered by the “Casket,” a monthly magazine. She became a contributor to the “Genius of Universal Emancipation,” a Philadelphia periodical favoring the liberation of the slaves, and in it nearly all her subsequent writings appeared. In 1830, with her aunt and brother, she removed to a farm near Tecumseh, Lenawee co., Mich., and from there continued her contributions in prose and verse on the subject of slavery. A collection of her poems and essays was edited, with a memoir, by Benjamin Lundy (Philadelphia, 1836). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 573.

CHANDLER, Thomas, abolitionist, Adrian, Michigan, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-42.

CHANDLER, William, abolitionist.  Founder and first President, Delaware Abolition Society, 1827.

CHANDLER, William Eaton, b. 1835, Concord, New Hampshire.

CHANDLER, William Eaton, cabinet minister, b. in Concord, N. H., 28 Dec., 1835. He studied law in Concord, and at the Harvard law-school, where he was graduated in 1855. For several years after his admission to the bar in 1856 he practised in Concord, and in 1859 was appointed reporter of the New Hampshire supreme court, and published five volumes of reports. From the time of his coming of age Mr. Chandler was actively connected with the republican party, serving first as secretary, and afterward as chairman of the state committee. In 1862 he was elected to the New Hampshire house of representatives, of which he was speaker for two successive terms in 1863-'4. In November, 1864, he was employed by the navy department as special counsel to prosecute the Philadelphia navy-yard frauds, and on 9 March, 1865, was appointed first solicitor and judge-advocate-general of that department. On 17 June, 1865, he became first assistant secretary of the treasury. On 30 Nov., 1867, he resigned this place and resumed law practice. During the next thirteen years, although occupying no official position except that of member of the Constitutional convention of New Hampshire in 1876, he continued to take an active part in politics. He was a delegate from his state to the Republican national convention in 1868, and was secretary of the national committee from that time until 1876. In that year he advocated the claims of the Hayes electors in Florida before the canvassing board of the state, and later was one of the counsel to prepare the case submitted by the republican side to the electoral commission. Mr. Chandler afterward became an especially outspoken opponent of the southern policy of the Hayes administration. In 1880 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention, and served as a member of the committee on credentials, in which place he was active in securing the report in favor of district representation, which was adopted by the convention. During the subsequent campaign he was a member of the national committee. On 23 March, 1881, he was nominated for U. S. solicitor-general, but the senate refused to confirm, the vote being nearly upon party lines. In that year he was again a member of the New Hampshire legislature. On 7 April, 1882, he was appointed secretary of the navy. Among the important measures carried out by him were the simplification and reduction of the unwieldy navy-yard establishment; the limitation of the number of annual appointments to the actual wants of the naval service; the discontinuance of the extravagant policy of repairing worthless vessels; and the beginning of a modern navy in the construction of the four new cruisers recommended by the advisory board. The organization and successful voyage of the Greely relief expedition in 1884 were largely due to his personal efforts. Mr. Chandler was a strenuous advocate of uniting with the navy the other nautical branches of the federal administration, including the light-house establishment, the coast survey, and the revenue marine, upon the principle, first distinctly set forth by him, that “the officers and seamen of the navy should be employed to perform all the work of the National government upon or in direct connection with the ocean.” Mr. Chandler is controlling owner of the daily “Monitor,” a republican journal, and its weekly, the “Statesman,” published in Concord, N. H. In June, 1887, he was elected U. S. senator. N.H. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CHANDLER, Zachariah, 1813-1879, statesman, abolitionist.  Mayor of Detroit, 1851-1852.  U.S. Senator 1857-1975, 1879.  Secretary of the Interior, 1875-1877. Active in Underground Railroad in Detroit area.  Helped organize the Republican Party in 1854.  Introduced Confiscation Bill in Senate, July 1861.  Was a leading Radical Republican Senator.  Chandler was a vigorous opponent of slavery.  He opposed the Dred Scott U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Fugitive Slave Law.  In 1858, opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 574-575; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 618; Congressional Globe)

CHANDLER, Zachariah, senator, b. in Bedford, N. H., 10 Dec., 1813; d. in Chicago, Ill., 1 Nov., 1879. After receiving a common-school education he taught for one winter, at the same time managing his father's farm. He was noted when a youth for physical strength and endurance. It is said that, being offered by his father the choice between a collegiate education and the sum of $1,000, he chose the latter. He removed to Detroit in 1833 and engaged in the dry-goods business, in which he was energetic and successful. He soon became a prominent whig, and was active in support of the so-called “underground railroad,” of which Detroit was an important terminus. His public life began in 1851 by his election as mayor of Detroit. In 1852 he was nominated for governor by the whigs, and, although his success was hopeless, the large vote he received brought him into public notice. He was active in the organization of the republican party in 1854, and in January, 1857, was elected to the U. S. senate to succeed Gen. Lewis Cass. He made his first important speech on 12 March, 1858, opposing the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, and continued to take active part in the debates on that and allied questions. In 1858, when Senator Green, of Missouri, had threatened Simon Cameron with an assault for words spoken in debate, Mr. Chandler, with Mr. Cameron and Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, drew up a written agreement, the contents of which were not to be made public till the death of all the signers, but which was believed to be a pledge to resent an attack made on any one of the three. On 11 Feb., 1861, he wrote the famous so-called “blood letter” to Gov. Blair, of Michigan. It received its name from the sentence, “Without a little blood-letting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.” This letter was widely quoted through the country, and was acknowledged and defended by Mr. Chandler on the floor of the senate. Mr. Chandler was a firm friend of President Lincoln, though he was more radical than the latter in his ideas, and often differed with the president as to matters of policy. When the first call for troops was made, he assisted by giving money and by personal exertion. He regretted that 500,000 men had not been called for instead of 75,000, and said that the short-term enlistment was a mistake. At the beginning of the extra session of congress in July, 1861, he introduced a sweeping confiscation-bill, thinking that stern measures would deter wavering persons from taking up arms against the government; but it was not passed in its original form, though congress ultimately adopted his views. On 16 July, 1862, Mr. Chandler vehemently assailed Gen. McClellan in the senate, although he was warned that such a course might be politically fatal. He was, however, returned to the senate in 1863, and in 1864 actively aided in the re-election of President Lincoln. He was again elected to the senate in 1869. During all of his terms he was chairman of the committee on commerce and a member of other important committees, including that on the conduct of the war. In October, 1874, President Grant tendered him the post of secretary of the interior, to fill the place made vacant by the resignation of Columbus Delano, and he held this office until President Grant's retirement, doing much to reform abuses in the department. He was chairman of the Republican national committee in 1876, and took an active part in the presidential campaign of that year. He was again elected to the senate in February, 1879, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Isaac P. Christiancy, who had succeeded him four years before. On 2 March, 1879, he made a speech in the senate denouncing Jefferson Davis, which brought him into public notice again, and he was regarded in his own state as a possible presidential candidate. He went to Chicago on 31 Oct., 1879, to deliver a political speech, and was found dead in his room on the following morning. During the greater portion of his life Mr. Chandler was engaged in large business enterprises, from which he realized a handsome fortune. He was a man of commanding appearance, and possessed an excellent practical judgment, great energy, and indomitable perseverance. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 574-575.

CHANNING, Reverend William Ellery, 1780-1842, Unitarian clergyman, orator, writer, strong opponent of slavery.  Active in the peace, temperance, and educational reform movements.  Published anti-slavery works, The Slavery Question, in 1839, Emancipation in 1840, and The Duty of the Free States, in 1842. (Brown, 1956; Channing, “Slavery,” 1836; Dumond, 1961, pp. 273, 352-353; Filler, 1960, pp. 33, 34, 59, 80, 88, 93, 101, 128, 141, 184; Goodell, 1852, pp. 419, 560; Mabee, 1970, pp. 15, 16, 43, 51, 79, 105, 384n14; Pease, 1965, pp. xxxix-xl, lvii, lx, 114-118, 240-245; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 43, 46, 162, 169; Sorin, 1971, p. 72; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 576-577; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 7-8; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 160-163; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 680)

CHANNING, William Ellery, clergyman, b. in Newport, R. I., 7 April, 1780; d. in Bennington, Vt., 2 Oct., 1842. His boyhood was passed in Newport, where his first strong religious impressions were received from the preaching of Dr. Samuel Hopkins. As a youth, he appears, though small in person and of a sensibility almost feminine, to have been vigorous, athletic, and resolute, showing from childhood a marked quality of moral courage and mental sincerity. In his college life at Harvard, where he was graduated in 1798, he showed a singular capacity to win the ardent personal attachment of his fellows; and, though he was very young, his literary qualities seem even then to have been fully developed, his style being described by his classmate, Judge Story, as “racy, flowing, full, glowing with life, chaste in ornament, vigorous in structure, and beautiful in finish.” He was also conspicuous in the students' debating-clubs, and shared fully in the political enthusiasms of the day, refusing the commencement oration assigned him until granted permission to speak on his favorite theme. Among the authors of his choice at this time, Hutcheson appears to have inspired his profound conviction of “the dignity of human nature,” Ferguson (“Civil Society”) his faith in social progress and his “enthusiasm of humanity,” and Price (“Dissertations”) that form of idealism which “saved me,” he says, “from Locke's philosophy.” As a private instructor in Richmond, Va., in the family of D. M. Randolph, in 1798-1800, he felt “the charm of southern manners and hospitality,” and at the same time acquired an abhorrence of the social and moral aspects of slavery, then equally abhorred by the most intelligent men and women at the south. Here he became eagerly interested in political discussions growing out of the revolutionary movements in Europe, and a keen admirer of such writers as Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and especially Rousseau; but, as if by a certain unconscious reaction against these influences, he gave special study to the historical evidences of Christianity, to which class of evidences he ever after strongly adhered, and was confirmed in his purpose to prepare for the ministry. He also disciplined himself by a vigorously ascetic way of life—exposure to cold, hardship, and fatigue, with scant diet (leading to permanent “contraction of the stomach” with painful dyspepsia), insufficient clothing, and excessive devotion to study. The ill-effect of these practices, aggravated by the exposures of his return voyage to Newport, followed him through life, and “from the time of his residence in Richmond to the day of his death he never knew a day of unimpaired vigor.” After a short stay in Newport, where the influences of early life were renewed and deepened, he returned to Cambridge as a student of theology, with the title and petty income of “regent,” a sort of university scholarship. At this period Bishop Butler and William Law were the writers that chiefly influenced his opinions; and he is represented as having had a tendency to Calvinistic views, though “never in any sense a Trinitarian.” His first and only pastoral settlement was over the church in Federal street, Boston, 1 June, 1803, which he accepted, in preference to the more distinguished place in Brattle square, partly on the ground that a smaller and feebler congregation might not overtax his strength. Here he was shortly known for a style of religious eloquence of rare “fervor, solemnity, and beauty.” His views at this time—and indeed, prevailingly, during his later life—are described as “rather mystical than rational”; in particular, as to the controverted doctrine of Christ's divinity, holding “that Jesus Christ is more than man, that he existed before the world, that he literally came from heaven to save our race, that he sustains other offices than those of a teacher and witness to the truth, and that he still acts for our benefit, and is our intercessor with the Father.” Early in his ministry, however, Mr. Channing was closely identified with that movement of thought, literary and philosophic as well as theological, which gave birth to the “Anthology Club,” and to a series of journals, of which those longest-lived and of widest repute were the “North American Review” and the “Christian Examiner.” Essays published in these journals, especially those on Milton and on the character of Napoleon, gave him literary reputation in Europe as well as at home. The intellectual movement in question was marked by an increasing interest in questions of theological and textual criticism, and by a leaning toward, if not identification with, the class of opinions that began about 1815 to be currently known as Unitarian. Though Mr. Channing was disinclined to sectarian names or methods, though he never desired to be personally called a Unitarian, and would have chosen that the movement of liberal theology should go on within the lines of the New England Congregational body, to which he belonged from birth, yet he became known as the leader of the Unitarians, and may almost be said to have first given to the body so called the consciousness of its real position and the courage of its convictions by his sermon delivered in Baltimore, 5 May, 1819, at the ordination of Jared Sparks. This celebrated discourse may be regarded less as a theological argument, for which its method is too loose and rhetorical, than as a solemn impeachment of the Calvinistic theology of that day at the bar of popular reason and conscience. And a similar judgment may be passed, in general, upon the series of controversial discourses that he delivered in the succeeding years. For about fifteen years, making the middle period of his professional life—a life interrupted only by a few months' stay in Europe (1822-'3) and a winter spent in Santa Cruz (1830-'31)—Mr. Channing was best known to the public as a leader in the Unitarian body, and the record of this time survives in several volumes of eloquent and noble sermons, which constitute still the best body of practical divinity that the Unitarian movement in this country has produced. Very interesting testimony to the habit and working of his mind at this period is also to be found in the volume of “Reminiscences” by Miss E. P. Peabody (Boston, 1880). A sermon on the “Ministry at Large” in Boston (1835) strongly illustrates the sympathetic as well as religious temper in which he now undertook those discussions of social topics—philanthropy, moral reform, and political ethics—by which his later years were most widely and honorably distinguished. From organized charity the way was open to questions of temperance and public education, which now began to take new shapes; and from these again, to those that lie upon the border-ground of morals and politics—war and slavery. Regarding the last, indeed, which may be taken as a type of the whole, it does not appear that he ever adopted the extreme opinions, or approved the characteristic modes of action, of the party known as abolitionists. But his general and very intense sympathy with their aims was of great moral value in the anti-slavery movement, now taking more and more a political direction. Of this the earliest testimony was a brief but vigorous essay on slavery (1835), dealing with it purely on grounds of moral argument; followed the next year by a public letter of sympathy to James G. Birney (“The Abolitionists”), who had just been driven from Cincinnati with the destruction of his press and journal; and again, in 1837, by a letter to Henry Clay on the annexation of Texas, a policy which the writer thought good ground to justify disunion. The event that, more than any other, publicly associated his name and influence with the anti-slavery party was a meeting held in Faneuil Hall, 8 Dec., 1837, after the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was shot while defending his press at Alton, Ill., when for the first time Mr. Channing stood side by side, upon the public platform, with men in whom he now saw the champions of that freedom of discussion which must be upheld by all good citizens. His later writings on the subject are a letter on “The Slavery Question” (1839) addressed to Jonathan Phillips; a tract on “Emancipation” (1840), suggested by a work of J. J. Gurney's on emancipation in the British West Indies; and an argument (1842) on “The Duty of the Free States,” touching the case of the slaves on board the brig “Creole,” of Richmond, who had seized the vessel and carried her into the port of Nassau. His last public act was an address delivered in Lenox. Mass., 1 Aug., 1842, commemorating the West India emancipation. A few weeks later, while on a journey, he was seized with an attack of autumn fever, of which he died. Interesting personal recollections remain, now passing into tradition, of Channing's rare quality and power as a pulpit orator, of which a single trait may here be given: “From the high, old-fashioned pulpit his face beamed down, it may be said, like the face of an angel, and his voice floated clown like a voice from higher spheres. It was a voice of rare power and attraction, clear, flowing, melodious, slightly plaintive, so as curiously to catch and win upon the hearer's sympathy. Its melody and pathos in the reading of a hymn was alone a charm that might bring men to the listening like the attraction of sweet music. Often, too, when signs of physical frailty were apparent, it might be said that his speech was watched and waited for with that sort of hush as if one was waiting to catch his last earthly words.” Numerous writings of Dr. Channing were published singly, which were gathered shortly before his death (5 vols., Boston, 1841), to which a sixth volume was added subsequently, and also, in 1872, a volume of selected sermons entitled “The Perfect Life.” All are included in a single volume published by the American Unitarian association (Boston). A biography was prepared by his nephew, W. H. Channing (3 vols., Boston, 1848). Translations of Channing's writings “have been, either wholly or in part, published in the German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Icelandic, and Russian languages.” While in America he is best known as a theologian and preacher, his influence abroad is said to be chiefly as a writer on subjects of social ethics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 576-577.

CHAPIN, Chauncey, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Abolition Society, Manager, 1841-42.

CHAPIN, David, New York, abolitionist.  American Abolition Society.  (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

CHAPIN, Edwin Hubbell, 1814-1880, Union Village, Washington County, New York, clergyman, opponent of slavery.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 579-580; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, p. 15)

CHAPIN, Edwin Hubbell, clergyman, b. in Union Village, Washington co. , N. Y., 29 Dec., 1814; d. in New York city, 27 Dec., 1880. He received his early training at the Bennington, Vt., seminary, his parents having removed to that town, and. after completing the seminary course, studied law in Troy, N. Y., but soon went to Utica and became editor of “The Magazine and Advocate,” a periodical devoted to the interests of Universalism. About the same time he determined to study for the ministry, and was ordained in 1837. His first pastoral duties were in Richmond, Va., where he remained for three years, and then removed to Charlestown, Mass. After six years spent there, he was invited to take charge of the School street Universalist church in Boston, as the colleague of the venerable Hosea Ballou. In 1848 he accepted an invitation from the 4th Universalist church of New York city, then situated near City Hall park. His preaching proved so attractive that a larger building became necessary, and within four years two changes were made to more spacious quarters. In 1850 Dr. Chapin went to Europe as a delegate to the peace congress at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In the period preceding the civil war he was conspicuous among the opponents of negro slavery, and during its continuance lent his great influence to the support of the government. At the close of the war, when the flags of the New York regiments were delivered to the keeping of the state, Dr. Chapin was appointed orator for the occasion, and made an address of remarkable power and eloquence. In 1866 his congregation removed to the “Church of the Divine Paternity,” 45th street and 5th avenue, New York city, where it has since remained. Dr. Chapin had long been one of the most prominent of metropolitan preachers, and the new church became one of the points to which throngs of church-goers—and, which is more important, throngs of non-church-goers—resorted whenever it was known that the pastor would speak. Although he was zealous and diligent in his church duties, he was among the most popular of public lecturers, and, while his health permitted, his services were constantly in demand. He was not a profound student in the scholarly acceptation of the term, but as a student and interpreter of human nature, in its relations to the great questions of the time, he had few superiors. His denominational religious associations were with the Universalists; but his sympathies were of the broadest character, and he numbered among his personal friends many of the staunchest advocates of orthodoxy, who could not but admire his eloquence, however much they may have dissented from his religious teaching. In creeds Dr. Chapin did not believe; but he preached a wise conduct in life, and included in the range of his pulpit themes every topic, social or political, that affects the well-being of mankind. In 1856 he received the degree of S. T. D. from Harvard, and in 1878 that of LL. D. from Tufts. He was a trustee of Bellevue medical college and hospital and a member of many societies. The Chapin Home for aged and indigent men and women, named in his honor, remains a monument to his memory. In 1872 he succeeded Dr. Emerson as editor of the “Christian Leader.” The closing years of his life were marked by failing physical powers, though his mind was as brilliant as ever. He travelled in Europe, but was unable to regain his wonted vigor, and for a long time before his death he suffered from nervous depression that no doubt hastened the end. Most of his sermons and lectures were collected and published in book form. The titles are “Hours of Communion” (New York, 1844); “Discourses on the Lord's Prayer” (1850); “Characters in the Gospels” (1852); “Moral Aspects of City Life” (1853); “Discourses on the Beatitudes” (1853); “True Manliness” (New York, 1854); “Duties of Young Men” (1855); “The Crown of Thorns—a Token for the Suffering, probably the most widely read of his books (1860); “Living Words” (Boston, 1861); “The Gathering”—memorial of a meeting of the Chapin family (Springfield, Mass., 1862); “Humanity in the City”; “Providence and Life”; and “Discourses on the Book of Proverbs.” With James G. Adams as his associate, he compiled “Hymns for Christian Devotion” (1870). Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.

CHAPIN, Josiah, abolitionist, Providence, Rhode Island, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1840-43.

CHAPIN, Rulon, New York, abolitionist.  American Abolition Society.  (Radical Abolitionist, Vol. 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)

CHAPLIN, William Lawrence, 1796-1871, abolitionist leader, Farmington, NY.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1840.  Agent of the New York Anti-Slavery Society.  He was known as “The General.”  (Dumond, 1961, p. 297; Goodell, 1852, pp. 246, 445, 463, 556; Sorin, 1971, p. 113. Radical Abolitionist)

CHAPMAN, Henry G., abolitionist, Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Treasurer, 1835-40, 1840-42.

CHAPMAN, Maria Weston, 1806-1885, educator, writer, newspaper editor, prominent abolitionist leader, reformer.  Advocate of immediate, uncompensated emancipation.  Editor of the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberty Bell.  Also helped to edit William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, the Liberator.  Co-founded and edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard.  Leader and founder of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), which she founded and organized with twelve other women, including three of her sisters.  The Society worked to educate Boston’s African American community and to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.  In 1840, Chapman was elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  She was Councillor of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society from 1841-1865.  Her husband was prominent abolitionist Henry Grafton Chapman. (Dumond, 1961, p. 273; Filler, 1960, pp. 55, 76, 129, 143, 184; Mabee, 1970, pp. 62, 68, 72, 80, 105, 249, 259, 274; Pease, 1965, pp. xliv-l, li, lii, lxx, 205-212; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 199, 367, 402; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 97, 119, 123, 135, 137, 173, 185, 190-191, 206-208; Weston, “How Can I Help Abolish Slavery?, or Councels to the Newly Converted,” New York, 1855; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 581; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 19-20; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 163-164; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 710; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 315)

CHAPMAN, Maria Weston, reformer, b. in Weymouth, Mass., in 1806; d. there in 1885. She was a daughter of Warren Weston, of Weymouth. After being educated in her native town and in England, she was principal of the newly established Young ladies' high-school in Boston in 1829-'30. She was married in 1830, and in 1834 became an active abolitionist. Her husband died in 1842, and in 1848 she went to Paris, France, where she aided the anti-slavery cause with her pen. She returned to this country in 1856, and in 1877 published the autobiography of her intimate friend, Harriet Martineau.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 581. 

CHAPMAN, Mary G., abolitionist leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Yellin, 1994)

CHAPMAN, William M., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

CHASE, Jeremiah Townly, Annapolis, Maryland, Chief Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals.  Member of the Annapolis auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  (Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 70)

CHASE, Salmon Portland, 1808-1873, statesman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1864-1873, abolitionist, member, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Anti-Slavery Republican Party.  “A slave is a person held, as property, by legalized force, against natural right.” – Chase.

“The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character.  It did not make it a national institution… Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you?...Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery?  It is, fellow citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government.  We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.”

“Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated.  Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability… It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.”

(Blue, 2005, pp. 19, 30, 34, 61, 70-73, 76-78, 84, 123, 124, 177, 178, 209, 220, 225, 226, 228, 247, 248, 259; Dumond, 1961; Filler, 1960, pp. 142, 176, 187, 197-198, 229, 246; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4-5, 8-9, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 33-36, 61-64, 67, 68, 70-72, 76, 87, 89, 94, 118, 129, 136, 156, 165, 166, 168-169, 177, 187, 191, 193, 195-196, 224, 228, 248; Pease, 1965, pp. 384-394; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 46, 56, 58, 136, 173, 298, 353-354, 421, 655-656; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 585-588; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, p. 34; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 739; Hart, Albert Bushnell, Salmon Portland Chase, 1899)

CHASE, Salmon Portland, statesman, b, in Cornish, N. H., 13 Jan., 1808; d. in New York city, 7 May, 1873. He was named for his uncle, Salmon, who died in Portland, and he used to say that he was his uncle's monument. He was a descendant in the ninth generation of Thomas Chase, of Chesham, England, and in the sixth of Aquila Chase, who came from England and settled in Newbury, Mass., about 1640. Salmon Portland was the eighth of the eleven children of Ithamar Chase and his wife Jannette Ralston, who was of Scottish blood. He was born in the house built by his grandfather, which still stands overlooking Connecticut river and in the afternoon shadow of Ascutney mountain. Of his father's seven brothers, three were lawyers, Dudley becoming a U. S. senator; two were physicians; Philander became a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church; and one, like his father, was a farmer. His earliest teacher was Daniel Breck, afterward a jurist in Kentucky. When the boy was eight years old his parents removed to Keene, where his mother had inherited a little property. This was invested in a glass-factory; but a revision of the tariff, by which the duty on glass was lowered, ruined the business, and soon afterward the father died. Salmon was sent to school at Windsor, and made considerable progress in Latin and Greek. In 1820 his uncle, the bishop of Ohio, offered to take him into his family, and the boy set out in the spring, with his brother and the afterward famous Henry R. Schoolcraft, to make the journey to what was then considered the distant west. They were taken from Buffalo to Cleveland by the “Walk-in-the-Water,” the first steamboat on the great lakes. He spent three years in Worthington and Cincinnati with his uncle, who attended to his education personally till he went to England in 1823, when the boy returned home, the next year entered Dartmouth as a junior, and was graduated in 1826. He at once established a classical school for boys in Washington, D. C., which he conducted with success, at the same time studying law with William Wirt. Mr. Chase gave much of his leisure to light literature, and a poem that was addressed by him to Mr. Wirt's daughters was printed and is still extant. In 1830, having completed his studies, he closed the school, was admitted to the bar in Washington, and settled in Cincinnati, where he soon obtained a large practice. In politics he did not identify himself with either of the great parties; but on one point he was clear from the first: he was unalterably opposed to slavery, and in this sentiment he was confirmed by witnessing the destruction of the “Philanthropist” office by a pro-slavery mob in 1836. In 1837 he defended a fugitive slave woman, claimed under the law of 1793, and took the highest ground against the constitutionality of that law. One of the oldest lawyers in the court-room was heard to remark concerning him: “There is a promising young man who has just ruined himself.” In 1837 Mr. Chase also defended his friend James G. Birney in a suit for harboring a negro slave, and in 1838 he reviewed with great severity a report of the judiciary committee of the state senate, refusing trial by jury to slaves, and in a second suit defended Mr. Birney. When it became evident, after the brief administration of Harrison was over and that of Tyler begun, that no more effective opposition to the encroachments of slavery was to be expected from the Whig than from the Democratic party, a Liberty party was organized in Ohio in December, 1841, and Mr. Chase was foremost among its founders. The address, which was written by Mr. Chase, contained these passages, clearly setting forth the issues of a mighty struggle that was to continue for twenty-five years and be closed only by a bloody war: “The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character. It did not make it a national institution. . . . Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you? . . . Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery? It is, fellow-citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government. We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.” Writing of this late in life Mr. Chase said: “Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated. Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, and the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability. . . . It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.” Mr. Chase acted as counsel for so many blacks who were claimed as fugitives that he was at length called by Kentuckians the “attorney-general for runaway negroes,” and the colored people of Cincinnati presented him with a silver pitcher “for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.” One of his most noted cases was the defence of John Van Zandt (the original of John Van Trompe in “Uncle Tom's Cabin”) in 1842, who was prosecuted for harboring fugitive slaves because he had overtaken a party of them on the road and given them a ride in his wagon. In the final hearing, 1846, William H. Seward was associated with Mr. Chase, neither of them receiving any compensation. 

When the Liberty party, in a national convention held in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1843, nominated James G. Birney for president, the platform was almost entirely the composition of Mr. Chase. But he vigorously opposed the resolution, offered by John Pierpont, declaring that the fugitive-slave-law clause of the constitution was not binding in conscience, but might be mentally excepted in any oath to support the constitution. In 1840 the Liberty party had cast but one in 360 of the entire popular vote of the country. In 1844 it cast one in forty, and caused the defeat of Mr. Clay. The free-soil convention that met in Buffalo in 1848 and nominated Martin Van Buren for president, with Charles Francis Adams for vice-president, was presided over by Mr. Chase. This time the party cast one in nine of the whole number of votes. In February, 1849, the Democrats and the free-soilers in the Ohio legislature formed a coalition, one result of which was the election of Mr. Chase to the U. S. senate. Agreeing with the Democracy of Ohio, which, by resolution in convention, had declared slavery to be an evil, he supported its state policy and nominees, but declared that he would desert it if it deserted the anti-slavery position. In the senate, 26 and 27 March, 1850, he made a notable speech against the so-called “compromise measures,” which included the fugitive-slave law, and offered several amendments, all of which were voted down. When the Democratic convention at Baltimore nominated Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, and approved of the compromise acts of 1850, Senator Chase dissolved his connection with the Democratic party in Ohio. At this time he addressed a letter to Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, suggesting and vindicating the idea of an independent democracy. He made a platform, which was substantially that adopted at the Pittsburg convention, in the same year. He continued his support to the independent democrats until the Kansas-Nebraska bill came up, when he vigorously opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise, wrote an appeal to the people against it, and made the first elaborate exposure of its character. His persistent attacks upon it in the senate thoroughly roused the north, and are admitted to have influenced in a remarkable degree the subsequent struggle. During his senatorial career Mr. Chase also advocated economy in the national finances, a Pacific railroad by the shortest and best route, the homestead law (which was intended to develop the northern territories), and cheap postage, and held that the national treasury should defray the expense of providing for safe navigation of the lakes, as well as of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

In 1855 he was elect