Sea-Shi: Seaton through Shipley

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


SEATON, William Winston (January 11, 1785-June 16, 1866), journalist, editor. Seaton was a Whig, a Free Mason, and a Unitarian.  For many years he was an official in the American Colonization Society; he favored gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves, but opposed the Garrison abolitionists.

(Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of the "National Intelligencer" (1871); Atlantic Monthly, October 1860, July 1871; Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the U.S. from 1690 to 1872 (1873).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, pp. 541-542:

SEATON, WILLIAM WINSTON (January 11, 1785-June 16, 1866), journalist, was born at the stately homestead "Chelsea" in King William County, Virginia, the son of Augustine and Mary (Winston) Seaton. The Seatons, whose forefather, Henry, settled in Gloucester County, Virginia, in 1690, were of Scottish, and the Winstons of English, ancestry; both were of the Virginia gentry. First trained by tutors, William entered Ogilvie's academy in Richmond, where he acquired a taste for drama, literature, art, and journalism. At eighteen, having already gained a practical knowledge of printing in a Richmond newspaper office, he entered on his journalistic career. After brief service as an assistant editor of the Richmond Virginia Patriot, he edited successively the Petersburg Republican and the North Carolina Journal of Halifax, North Carolina. In 1809 he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and became associated with the elder Joseph Gales [q.v.] of the Raleigh Register, a Jeffersonian newspaper; on March 30 of the same year he married Gales's daughter, Sarah Weston Gales. In 1812 he joined his brother-in-law, the younger Joseph Gales [q.v.], as associate editor of the National Intelligencer of Washington, D. C.

Seaton's policy as an editor of the "Court Paper" for fourteen years became conservative, nationalistic, and free from partisanship. His characteristically short and dignified editorials can hardly be distinguished from those of Gales. His ablest work, however, was done as a reporter of the debates in the Senate while Gales reported the debates of the House. Masters of shorthand, the brothers-in-law were the exclusive reporters of Congress from 1812 to 1829. Upon the authorization of Congress their shorthand reports, with those of the earlier reporters, covering the years from 1789 to 1824, were published by Gales & Seaton (42 volumes, 1834-56), as The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, better known by the half-title, Annals of Congress. They also issued the Register of Debates in Congress, covering the years 1824-37 (14 volumes in 29, 1825-37), and the monumental series, American State Papers (38 volumes, 1832- 61).

Seaton was sanguine in nature and amused by the bitter attacks made upon him by editors and congressmen of opposite views. He preferred Crawford to Adams for president in 1824, and never accepted the leadership of Jackson, whom he respected as an honest, patriotic citizen but considered a rough frontiersman and an advocate of a low type of democracy. Seaton's personal tastes were aristocratic, although he sympathized with the laboring class, gave freely to the unfortunate, and died a poor man. He was genial, generous, captivatingly courteous, and a good conversationalist; in appearance he was tall, vigorous and handsome. He traveled in America and Europe. Among his friends he counted the leading Southern politicians and planters, and also Daniel Webster. He maintained a farm and a shooting-box in Prince George County to which he could retreat with friends of like tastes and his fine dogs to relax after a strenuous season in Washington. He was skilled in the use of the rod and gun. His witty and charming wife, who translated Spanish documents for him to use in the National Intelligencer, was a capable and attractive hostess, maintaining an elegant house to which came men and women of the higher circles of society.

Seaton was a Whig, a Free Mason, and a Unitarian. Much of his time was given to public service. He was an alderman of Washington from 1819 to 1831 and mayor from 1840 to 1850. He served on many committees, made numerous addresses, gave the city a progressive administration, developed the local educational system, led the movement for the Washington Monument, was active in the organization of the Smithsonian Institution and acted as its treasurer from 1846 until his death. He served in the state militia in Virginia, enrolled as a private in the War of 1812, and saw service at Bladensburg. For many years he was an official in the American Colonization Society; he favored gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves, but opposed the Garrison abolitionists and maintained that the national government should not interfere with slavery. Though he was at a11 times a compromiser on slavery, he was stanchly Unionist. He retired from his editorial work in 1864. His two sons died in 1827 and 1835, respectively; his wife died in 1863, leaving only his daughter, Josephine, to survive him.

[Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of the "National Intelligencer" (1871); Atlantic Monthly, October 1860, July 1871; Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the U.S. from 1690 to 1872 (1873); A. C. Clark, "Colonel William Winston Seaton and His Mayoralty," Records of the Columbia Historical Society, volumes XXIX-XXX (1928); Joseph Henry, "A Sketch of the Services of the Late Hon. W. W. Seaton in Connection with the Smithsonian Institution," Annual Report ... Smithsonian, Inst . . . . 1866 (1867), reproduced in W. J. Rhees, The Smithsonian Inst. (1879); O. A. Seaton, The Seaton Family (1906); Daily Nat. Intelligencer, June 18, 19, 20, 1866.]

W.E.S.


SEDGWICK, Theodore, 1780-1839, lawyer.  Member of the U.S. Congress from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in Congress.  Advocated Free Trade and temperance reform.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 451; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, p. 551; Locke, 1901, p. 93; Annals of Congress). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, pp. 551-552:

SEDGWICK, THEODORE (January 27, 1811- December 8, 1859), author, lawyer, and diplomat, was born at Albany, New York, the son of Theodore Sedgwick [q.v.], the second of that name, and of Susan Anne Livingston (Ridley) Sedgwick. Catharine Maria Sedgwick [q. v.] was his aunt. Prepared for college in the public schools of New York City and at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the family seat, he graduated at Columbia in 1829. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1833, and in the same year was appointed attaché at the United States legation in Paris under Edward Livingston [q. v.]. Here he enjoyed a number of stimulating personal contacts, notably with De Tocqueville, the historian, who became his friend and correspondent.

Returning to New York in 1834, Sedgwick began a law practice which in the next sixteen years grew to be very extensive. Ill health, however, made it impossible for him to continue in his profession after 1850, and during 1851-52 he travel ed in Italy, Switzerland, France, and England. Upon his return to New York he became president of the newly incorporated Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations ("Chrystal Palace Association"), in which capacity he carried on a voluminous correspondence with eminent men all over the world. After a year, however, the delicate state of his health forced him into retirement, first in New York and then at Stockbridge, where he partially recuperated. In 1857 President Buchanan offered him the post of minister to the Netherlands and later that of assistant secretary of state, both of which offices he declined. In 1858 he was persuaded to accept the position of United States district attorney of the southern district of New York, in which capacity he served until his death in December 1859, at Stockbridge.

Sedgwick was a keen student of legal, judicial, and political problems, and wrote extensively on th ese subjects. In politics he was, like his father, a n advocate of Jeffersonian principles, but some later democratic developments, such as the popular election of judges, "filled him with disgust, and he labored ... energetically to have the system altered" (Harper's Weekly, December 31, 1859). He contributed largely to Harper's Monthly and Harper's Weekly, and under the pseudonym Veto, to the New York Evening Post, then edited by William Cullen Bryant. In the year he was admitted to the bar he published a biography of his great-grandfather, A Memoir of the Life of William Livingston (1833), and thereafter books and articles from his pen appeared at frequent intervals: What is a Monopoly? (1835); A Statement of Facts -iii Relation to the Delays and Arrears of Business in the Court of Chancery of the State of New York (1838); Review of the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly (1841); Constitutional Reform (1843); Thoughts on the Proposed Annexation of Texas (1844); The American Citizen (1847), an address at Union College; Address ... Delivered before the Columbia College Alumni Association ... October 27, 1858 (1858). In 1840 he edited A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett, in two volumes. His most important publication was A Treatise on the Measure of Damages, or, an Inquiry into the Principles Which Govern the Amount of Compensation Recovered in Suits at Law (1847; 9th edition, eel. by Arthur George Sedgwick and J. H. Beale, 4 volumes, 1912). For some years the only work in English on the subject, this study, in the opinion of a contemporary, was "characterized by a philosophic spirit ... and by accuracy of detail," and "may well take its place by the side of the more famous works of Chancellor Kent and Mr. Justice Story" (Solicitors' Journal, January 14, 1860, p. 183). In 1857 he published another considerable volume, A Treatise on the Rules Which Govern the Interpretation and Application of Statutory and Constitutional Law, of which a second edition was issued in 1874, with additional notes by J. N. Pomeroy.

Sedgwick was a man of methodical habits, preserving and carefully labeling all his private correspondence and official documents. He married, September 28, 1835, Sarah Morgan Ashburner, of a Stockbridge family, and was the father of seven children, three of whom died in infancy. His son Arthur George Sedgwick [q.v.] followed his father's profession and a daughter, Susan, married Charles Eliot Norton [q.v.].

[H. D. Sedgwick, "The Sedgwicks of Berkshire" (1900), Berkshire Historical and Sci. Society Colts., volume III; B. W. Dwight, The History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Massachusetts (1874), II, 744-45; Sedgwick's correspondence as president of the Crystal Palace Company, in New York Historical Society; MSS. in the possession of E. L. W. Heck; Horace Greeley, Art and Industry as Represented in the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, New York, 1853-4 (1853); Harper's Weekly, December 31, 1859; Solicitors' Journal and Reporter (London), January 14, 1860; New York Daily Tribune, December 10, 1859; Evening Post (New York), December 9, 1859.]

E.L.W.H.


SERGEANT, John, 1779-1852, lawyer.  U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania.  Opposed extension of slavery into the territories.  Stated in Congressional debate of 1819:  “It is to no purpose, to say that the question of slavery is a question of state concern.  It affects the Union, in its interests, its resources, and character, permanently; perhaps forever.  One single State, to gratify the desire of a moment, may do what all the Union cannot undo; may produce an everlasting evil, shame and reproach.  And why?  Because it is a State right…  Sir, you may turn this matter as you will; Missouri, when she becomes a State, grows out of the Constitution; she is formed under the care of Congress, and admitted by Congress; and if she has a right to establish slavery, it is a right derived directly from the Constitution, and conferred upon her through the instrumentality of Congress.”  Further, Sergeant said, “If Missouri be permitted to establish slavery, we shall bring upon ourselves the charges of hypocrisy and insincerity, and upon the Constitution a deep stain, which must impair its lustre, and weaken its title to the public esteem.” 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 462-463; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, p. 588; Dumond, 1961, pp. 103, 105, 107, 213-214, 383n24, 29; 16 Congress, 1 Session, 1819-1820, II, p. 1201). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, pp. 588-589:

SERGEANT, JOHN (December 5, 1779-Nov. 23, 1852), lawyer, congressman, was born in Philadelphia, the third child of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant [q.v.] and Margaret (Spencer) Sergeant, and elder brother of Thomas Sergeant [q.v.]. He was orphaned at fourteen, and at sixteen, in 1795, was graduated from the College of New Jersey. He then began an apprenticeship in the house of Ellison & Perot, where he learned the rudiments of finance. In March 1797 he entered the law office of Jared Ingersoll [q.v.] and on July 17, 1799, was admitted, in Philadelphia, to the practice of law. Within six years, aided by a comfortable fortune, he had established himself, and for the next half-century he was an acknowledged leader of a famous bar.

In 1800 he was appointed by Governor Thomas McKean [q.v.] to be deputy attorney general for Chester County and Philadelphia. Two years later Thomas Jefferson made him commissioner of bankruptcy for Pennsylvania (Luzerne Federalist, July 12, 1802). He was elected to the legislature in 1805, and in 1806 declined reelection as well as an offer of the recordership of Philadelphia (Meredith, post, p. 9). Elected to the legislature again in 1807, he served as chairman of the committee on roads and inland navigation, and, though he did not (as claimed, Ibid., p. 9) report the first bill giving direct aid to internal improvements in Pennsylvania, he did demonstrate a deep and lasting interest in transportation and also in banking. At this time, furthermore, he revealed one of his fundamental traits of character as a public man by introducing a bill prohibiting masquerades as dangerous to public morals. Probably his growing law practice among a wealthy clientele and his identification with the vested interests brought about his temporary retirement from politics and, with it, his transition from a McKean-Jefferson Republican to a firm Federalist. Having scholarly tastes, he naturally fell in with the circle of intellectuals led by Joseph Dennie, Nicholas Biddle, and Joseph Hopkinson [qq.v. ]. His resulting friendship with Biddle lasted until the latter's death and in consequence Sergeant had an influence in the banking affairs of the nation that has never been fully recognized.

He was elected to the Fourteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jonathan Williams, and served in that body from 1815 to 1823, from 1827 to 1829, and, again, from 1837 to September 15, 1841. He gave entire support to the "American system," despite bitter opposition to a high tariff by the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the mercantile interests of his constituency. The woollen manufacturers of the Middle States, however, wrote him that "the Manufacturing Part of Society ... observe your zealous regard for their interest" (Sergeant MSS., Historical Society of Pennsylvania, post, Jan. 20, 1816). He opposed the Missouri Compromise, favored uniform bankruptcy laws, championed internal improvements, and throughout his terms in Congress was the chief legal and political adviser to the Second Bank of the United States. In 1816, armed with plenary powers and letters of introduction, he was sent by the Bank on a mission to Europe to obtain specie to bolster the banking structure of the country. The skilful diplomacy which this thirty-seven-year old lawyer used in wresting a signal victory from stich lords of the world's financial capital as Baring Brothers and Reid, Irving & Company is a significant index to his abilities. A historian of the Bank, R. H. C. Catterall, criticizes the "pitiably inadequate" amount of specie kept on hand, but does not mention the strategic victory won by Sergeant in the face of great difficulties (The Second Bank of the United States. 1903, p. 29); yet Sergeant's successful mission undoubtedly had an ameliorating effect upon the depression of 1819. Besides serving as a director of the Bank and as its adviser, Sergeant fought some of its most notable legal battles before the Supreme Court (Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, 1922, II, 90, 108, and passim). He is credited with having had more influence than anyone else in inducing Biddle to apply for a renewal of the Bank's charter (Catterall, pp. 217-18; but cf. R. C. McGrane, The Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle Dealing with National Affairs, 1919, p. 147) . His position on public questions made him an ideal, but unsuccessful, National Republican candidate for vice-president in 1832 (E. M. Carroll, Origins of the Whig Party, 1925). In 1834 the Bank sought Sergeant's election to the United States Senate, and, though the attempt failed, it did prevent the election of Richard Rush [q.v.], an unfriendly candidate (Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, volume IX, 1876, p. 40).

He was president of the board of canal commissioners of Pennsylvania in 1825-26, and was named a member of the Panama Congress of 1826, though he never proceeded farther than Mexico city on his way to Tacubaya. He was president of the constitutional convention of Pennsylvania in 1837-38 and took the lead in the fight over the judiciary. His stature can be measured by the offices that he declined: these included a seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court, a cabinet position under Harrison, and the embassy to England under Tyler (H. A. Wise, Seven Decades of the Union, 1872, p. 219; H. L. Carson, The Supreme Court of the United States, 1891, p. 343; Meredith, post, p. 27). His great strength was as a forensic legalist, less eloquent than intellectual, but powerful enough to win such battles as the Girard Will Case (2 Howard, 127) over such opponents as Webster. In the famous cases he conducted before the Supreme Court-Osborn vs. United States Bank (9 Wheaton, 738), Worcester vs. Georgia (6 Peters, 515), etc.-he was the advocate of national powers as opposed to state rights, and though he usually defended the strongholds of vested interests, he also fought legal battles for purely humanitarian ends, as in the Cherokee cases (5 Peters, 1). He headed several humanitarian and scholarly enterprises in Philadelphia, and his printed lectures were so extensive and well received that his admirers in 1832, possibly as an aid to his campaign of that year, gathered a number of them into a volume, Select Speeches of John Sergeant of Pennsylvania, in an effort "to rescue from the precarious tenure of ephemeral publications the reputation of an eminent man." He was married June 23, 1813, to Margaretta Watmough, by whom he had ten children.

[Sergeant MSS., 5 volumes, Conarroe MSS., Etting Papers, and Poinsett Papers in Historical Soc . of Pennsylvania; Hopkinson MSS. in hands of Hopkinson family, Philadelphia; Biddle, Sergeant, Clay, and Webster MSS. in Library of Congress; Sergeant MSS. and Canal Board Papers, in Pennsylvania State Library; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); W. M. Meredith, Eulogy on the Character and Services of the Late John Sergeant (1853); Horace Binney, Remarks to the Bar of Philadelphia on the Occasion of the Deaths of Charles Chauncey and John Sergeant (1853); S. R. Gammon, The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922); Edward Stanwood, A History of Presidential Elections (1884); Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of ... Pennsylvania, to Propose Amendments to the Constitution ... 1837 (volumes I-XIII, 1837-39); Pa. Magazine of History and Biography, October 1924; Public Ledger (Philadelphia), November 25, 1852. ]

J.P. B.


SEWALL, Samuel, 1652-1730, Massachusetts, jurist, early Colonial opponent of slavery.  Wrote essay, “The Selling of Joseph,” 1700, which spoke out against slavery. 

(Basker, 2005, pp. 120-121; Bruns, 1977, pp. 10-14; Dumond, 1961, pp. 16-17; Francis, 2005; La Plante, 2007, 2008; Locke, 1901, pp. 16-20, 23, 27, 34, 52, 131, 192; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 467-468; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, p. 610; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 19, p. 671). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, pp. 610-612:

SEWALL, SAMUEL (March 28, 1652-January 1, 1730), merchant, colonial magistrate, diarist, was the grandson of Henry Sewall, a linen draper of Coventry, England, who acquired a considerable fortune and was several times mayor. In 1634 Samuel's father, Henry, emigrated to New England, where he married Jane, daughter of Stephen and Alice (Archer) Dummer. They soon returned to England, where Samuel, the second of eight children, was born at Bishopstoke. Some months afterward the family moved to Baddesley. There Samuel received his first schooling, going later to the grammar school at Rumsey. When he was nine years old the family returned to New England and settled in Boston. After further preparation, Samuel entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1671. At this time he seems to have been undecided whether he would enter the ministry or embark on a mercantile career. On November 5, 1673, he was chosen resident fellow, or tutor, at Harvard, and was installed on November 26. On Feb. 28, 1675/6 he married the first of his three wives, Hannah, daughter of John Hull [q.v.], by whom he had fourteen children.

Made a freeman April 29, 1679 ("Records of the Suffolk County Court," Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, volume XXX, 1933, p. 1015), he began a long political career. From October 12, 1681, to September 12, 1684, he managed the colony's printing press. He was present at the General Court on November 7, 1683, as deputy from Westfield, Hampden County, and from 1684 to 1686 he was a member of the Council. The twelve months from November 1688 were devoted to a trip to England, during which he spent some time in London and traveled through the provinces, visiting both Cambridge and Oxford. The trip was primarily on private business connected with his mercantile enterprises, but he appeared before the King and Council and gave some assistance to Increase Mather [q.v.] in his efforts to recover the Massachusetts charter. Upon his return to Massachusetts, he resumed his position on the Council as one of the officers elected in 1686, and in 1691 he was named a councilor in the new charter which the colony was forced to receive. This post he continued to hold until he declined reelection in 1725.

On June 13, 1692, the governor, Sir William Phips [q.v.], appointed him one of the special commissioners of oyer and terminer to try the cases of witchcraft at Salem. The court met during July and August and sentenced nineteen persons to death, the executions taking place September 22, 1692. Sewall was the only one of the judges who ever publicly admitted that he had been in error in this matter. The part he played long preyed on his mind, and for some reason he considered himself as more guilty than any of the other judges. The legislature appointed January 14, 1697, to be a fast day for whatever might have been done amiss in the tragedy, and on that day Sewall stood up in the Old South Church, Boston, while the clergyman, the Reverend Samuel Willard, read a confession of error and guilt which Sewall wished to make for himself thus publicly. On December 6, 1692, he had been appointed a justice of the superior court. He was made a commissioner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England in 1699, and shortly afterward became its local secretary and treasurer. He always showed much interest in the Indians and also in the negro slaves, publishing in 1700 a tract entitled The Selling of Joseph, one of the earliest appeals in the antislavery cause. He believed that the Indians should be set apart on permanent reservations and taught the English language and habits.

Sewall continued to hold various offices until almost the close of his life. In 1701 he was made captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He became judge of probate for Suffolk County in 1715, and chief justice of the superior court of judicature in 1718, which office he held for ten years. He was typical of the provincial judge of his time, without preliminary training in the law and with an unsystematic reading acquaintance with the legal classics ("Diary," post, I, 419). Yet he was a competent jurist and of more than average liberality, as evidenced by his modification of the rigorous miscegenation act of 1705 (Ibid., II, 143), his opposition to high-handed interpretations of the treason laws (Ibid., p. 149), and his stand against capital punishment for counterfeiting (Ibid., III, 277).

In the field of authorship he is credited with Proposals Touching the Accomplishment of Prophesies Humbly Offered (1713); A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians (1721); and Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica ad Aspectum Novi Orbis Configuration, or, Some Few Lines Towards a Description of the New Heaven as It Makes to Those Who Stand Upon the New Earth (1697). With Edward Rawson, he wrote The Revolution in New England Justified (1691). He also composed many verses which circulated in manuscript form. Chiefly, however, he is remembered for his diary, which was published in three volumes by the Massachusetts Historical Society a century and a half after his death. It covers the period from 1674 to 1729, with a gap of about eight years, 1677- 85. There are other American diaries of higher importance from a political point of view, but none in which the journalist's entire world is so vividly reproduced. In it is given an incomparable picture of the mind and life of a Puritan of the transition period. Sewall, as unwittingly portrayed by himself, emerges as mercenary, mercantile, of average mentality, conventional, Puritanically introspective, morbidly fond of dwelling on death, yet playful, affectionate, honorable, strong, and fearless. The rich merchant who could plead for slaves and publicly abase himself for wrongdoing on the bench in the Boston of 1690-1700 was no ordinary man.

Sewall's first wife died October 19, 1717, and on October 29, 1719, he married Abigail, daughter of Jacob Melyen and widow of James Woodmansey and William Tilley. She died on May 26, 1720. Subsequently he courted Madam Katherine Winthrop, with gifts of sermons, gingerbread, and sugar almonds at three shillings a pound (he gave her half a pound); but the lady insisted on his keeping a coach and wearing a wig, which, with a disagreement over a marriage settlement, cooled her suitor's ardor ("Diary," III, 262-75). On March 29, 1722, however, he married Mary Gibbs, daughter of Henry Shrimpton. By his last two wives he had no children. At his death he was buried in the Granary Burying Ground, Boston.

[The "Diary of Samuel Sewall," in 3 volumes, was pub. as Massachusetts Historical Society Colls., 5 series V-VII (1878-82); an abridged edition, Samuel Sewalls Diary, ed. by Mark Van Doren, was pub. in 1927; Sewall's letter-book, containing mercantile matters chiefly, is printed in Massachusetts Historical Society Colts., 6 series, I. II (1886-88); "Letters of Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall Relating to New England and the Indians," ed. by G. L. Kittredge, appears in Colonial Society of Massachusetts Pubs., volume XIV (1913). The Judge's son, Joseph Sewall, preached and published a funeral sermon, The Orphan's Best Legacy (1730). Other sources include J. L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, volume II (1881); G. E. Ellis, An Address on the Life and Character of Chief-Justice Samuel Sewell (1885); Emory Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts from I630 to ... I775 (1840); N. B. Shurtleff, Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay (1854), volume V; John Noble, Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, volume I (1901); minutes and files of the superior court of judicature, Suffolk County Court House, Boston; R. C. Winthrop, A Difference of Opinion Concerning the Reasons Why Katherine Winthrop Refused to Marry Chief Justice Sewall (1885); V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, volume I (1927).]

J.T.A.


SEWARD, Frederick William (July 8, 1830-April 25, 1915), journalist and diplomat, son of William Henry Seward. opposed slavery.

(Who's Who in America, 1914-15; Who's Who in New York City and State, 1907; New York Times, April 26, 1915)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, pp. 612-613:

SEWARD, FREDERICK WILLIAM (July 8, 1830-April 25, 1915), journalist and diplomat, was born at Auburn, New York, the son of William Henry [q.v.] and Francis (Miller) Seward. In 1849 he graduated from Union College, and then became secretary to his father who had just been elected to the United States Senate. After admission to the bar, through the influence of his father he became, in 1851, a member of the staff of the Albany Evening Journal, conducted by Thurlow Weed [q. v.], and served on this paper continuously, most of the time as associate editor, for the next ten years.

With his father's entry into the State Department, Frederick became assistant secretary of state, He had special charge of the consular service, but played a part in the preparation of many diplomatic dispatches. He was present at the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. In the spring of 1865, when the Secretary was incapacitated by a carriage accident, Frederick became acting secretary of state. In this connection he sent out the notices for the last of Lincoln's cabinet meetings (April 14, 1865), attended the meeting itself, and left an interesting account of what occurred on that day (Reminiscences, pp. 254-57). On the same night on which the President was assassinated, one of the conspirators forced his way into William Seward's house. Frederick met him in the hall, and there a tussle ensued in which the younger Seward was seriously hurt, without, however, being able to prevent the would-be murderer reaching his father's bedside and inflicting painful wounds upon him. In 1866 Frederick was sent with Vice-Admiral David D. Porter [q.v.] on a diplomatic mission which had in view the leasing or purchasing of the Bay of Samana, in the island of Santo Domingo. The negotiations broke down, temporarily, but some months later a treaty was negotiated in Washington, which, however, was never ratified by the Senate.

With the change of administration in 1869 the two Sewards retired to private life, and Frederick accompanied his father to Mexico. In 1874, two years after his father's death, he was elected to the New York Assembly, and in the subsequent session he introduced two constitutional amendments, providing for a superintendent of public works and a superintendent of prisons; a bill for th e construction of an elevated railway (the fir st of its kind); and a measure for the reduction of canal tolls. He was nominated for secretary of state of New York in the fall, but was defeated in the election. With the advent of the Hayes administration, Seward again went to Washington as assistant secretary of state (March 21, 1877-October 31, 1879). In this capacity he laid down the policy pursued by the administration with regard to the recognition of Porfirio Diaz in Mexico, negotiated for the lease of the harbor of Pago-Pago in Samoa, and prepared the presidential proclamation which resulted in the sending of troops to Pittsburgh in connection with the riots of 1877. After retiring from office he took little part in public life. In 1877 he published Autobiography of William H. Seward from 1801 to 1834, with a Memoir of His Life and Selections from His Letters, from 1831 to 1846, reprinted in 1891 as William H. Seward: An Autobiography, which he supplemented by Seward at Washington (2 volumes, 1891), and "Seward's West Indian Cruise" (Godey's Magazine, April-November 1894). His Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat (1916) was published after his death. On November 9, 1854, he married Anna M. Wharton of Albany.

[In addition to Seward's own writings, see Encyclopedia of Contemporary Biography of New York (4 volumes, 1878-85); Outlook, May 5, 1915; Who's Who in America, 1914- 15; Who's Who in New York City and State, 1907; New York Times, April 26, 1915.]

D. P.


SEWARD, William Henry, 1801-1872, statesman, U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, U.S. Senator from New York, abolitionist, member Anti-Slavery Republican Party 

(Baker, 1884; Dumond, 1961, pp. 292, 302, 355-356; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 9, 10, 54, 119-121, 160, 162, 165-167, 168, 177, 191-192, 198, 247; Pease, 1965, pp. 177-181, 483-485; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 52, 62, 136, 138, 240, 513, 634-636; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 470-472; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 2, p. 615; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 19, p. 676).

SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY (May 16, 1801-October 10, 1872), statesman, was born in Florida, Orange County, New York, the son of Dr. Samuel S. and Mary (Jennings) Seward. After preparatory studies in Florida and the neighboring village of Goshen, he was sent at the age of fifteen to Union College. Graduating in 1820, he began to read law and was admitted to the bar in 1822, establishing himself the next year in Auburn, New York, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. Seward's convivial temperament as well as his profession fitted him for politics; the question was with what political group he would affiliate himself. His family had been Democratic-Republicans of the strictest persuasion, but with praiseworthy independence the rising young lawyer chose to ally himself with the opposing elements. In this decision the principal factors, according to his Autobiography (p. 54) written nearly fifty years later, were his distrust of the Southern Jeffersonians, and his great interest in internal improvements. At any rate, Seward voted for De Witt Clinton for governor, and John Quincy Adams for president in 1824, and wrote a good "Address" in support of the former (Works, III, 335). The enthusiasm which he then felt for Adams was never dimmed, and undoubtedly had its part in forming his own political ideals as time went on.

The closing  years of the 1820's saw the rise of the Anti-Masonic movement in western New York. To this Seward found himself drawn, both by expediency and by conviction. In the deliberations of the new organization, as indeed in previous political discussions, the rising young politician was drawn close to Thurlow Weed [q.v.], whose casual acquaintance he had first made in 1824 and with whom he was to maintain one of the most intimate and long-standing friendships in American political annals. It was due to Weed's influence that Seward stood for and was elected in the fall of 1830 to the state Senate. In this body he served for the next four years, as a distinguished member of the minority and later as its leader. He played a prominent part in the debates on Andrew Jackson's bank policy; he sustained the President in his opposition to Nullification; he continued to advocate internal improvements; he supported abolition of imprisonment for debt. Defeated for reelection in 1833, he was unanimously nominated for governor in 1834. By this time the Whig party had supplanted the Anti-Masons, and it was under the Whig banner that Seward was to fight for the next twenty years. In this first Whig candidacy, however, he was defeated, by William L. Marcy [q.v.]. The next few years Seward devoted to the practice of law, and he acquired a modest competence through his success as agent for the Holland Company, in settling disputes with settlers in Chautauqua County (Autobiography, p. 328; Works, III, 461).

The Whigs carried the New York legislature in the election of 1837 and Seward's political ambitions, which he professed were dead in 1834, rapidly came to life again, with the governorship as their objective. The contest for the nomination lay between him and the dignified Francis Granger [q.v.], nearly nine years his senior. Seward professed to be willing to let the convention decide, but an active organization was set on foot, the young voters being particularly active in his favor. Weed, after some hesitation, decided that his protege should have the nomination, and in a closely contested convention battle Seward was chosen. In the electoral campaign itself, he was compelled for the first time to face the issue of slavery. His attitude in 1838 can hardly be called an advanced one. By the abolitionists he was asked three questions, whether he was in favor of (1) a law granting trial by jury to all fugitives, (2) of abolishing the special qualifications for negro voters, and (3) of repealing a law permitting the importation and detention of slaves in the state of New York for a period of nine months. He answered the first question in the affirmative, but the other two in the negative, declaring that the subjects with which they dealt did not enter "into the political creed" of his party (Works, III, 426-32).

The election of 1838 resulted in a victory for Seward, as did that of 1840, though by a reduced plurality. His four years in the governorship reveal the natural ardor and optimism of his temperament, his strong humanitarian sympathies, and also his impulsiveness and tendency to challenge majority opinion. Always warmly convinced of the desirability of internal improvements, Seward courageously urged them upon successive legislatures (see his message of 1840, Works, II, 212-55). In the midst of the depression, he refused to acquiesce in the suspension of activities already undertaken, and from first to last boldly defended large expenditures. In this particular case the policy cannot be said to have succeeded. The state's credit was adversely affected, its bonds selling at a discount of twenty per cent in 1841. When the Democrats regained control of both houses of the legislature in the fall elections, they proceeded to suspend virtually all but the most necessary expenditures, and to levy additional taxes. Seward, however, stoutly insisted that his policy had been wise, and that the obstacles to its accomplishment were merely a blind distrust of the future, on the part of foreign investors and of the American people. His natural impulsiveness, as well as his generosity of feeling, was illustrated also by his attitude on the question of public education in New York City. The schools there, conducted by a private corporation, the Public School Society, had been unacceptable to the rapidly growing Catholic population, and, furthermore, did not attract the children of the immigrant classes. In his message of 1840, after consulting with his old friend, Dr. Eliphalet Nott of Union College, Seward recommended "the establishment of schools in which they (the children of New York) may be instructed by teachers speaking the same language with themselves and professing the same faith" (Works, II, 215). This recommendation caused a storm of criticism from the nativist elements in the state, stronger in the Whig than in the Democratic party. Seward was compelled to retreat from the position which he had assumed, though he succeeded in securing the establishment of public schools free from sectarian influence in the city.

On the slavery question Seward took advanced ground during his term of office. He refused to surrender three sailors, who had instigated the flight of a fugitive slave to New York, when the extradition of these men was demanded by the state of Virginia. His act provoked so much irritation in Virginia as to bring about reprisals against New York shipping. But it was typical of his humanitarian spirit, and it won him the ardent support of the growing abolitionist element (for the controversy, 1839-41, see Works, II, 449 ff.). No one would maintain, however, that Seward was an uncompromising idealist in the governorship. He dispensed offices on the strict spoils basis, as was the custom of the time; he signed a law requiring registration of voters in New York City under party pressure and very much against his personal convictions; and it may be that other motives than humanitarian interest were operating in the evolution of the policies above described. But he declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1842, and his letters show that he felt himself at this time to be too far in advance of public opinion to prosper politically.

The years in the governorship depleted Seward's financial resources. During the next seven years he worked assiduously to restore them, at first in his old field, the court of chancery, but, after a little, more and more in patent cases. From time to time he took criminal cases, involving trial before a jury. One of the most striking involved the death sentence on a poor imbecile negro, Freeman, in whose defense Seward made in 1846 one of the most eloquent of his speeches (Works, I, 391-475) ; this he afterwards declared he would have repeated without the alteration of a word. A case which won him still more fame was that in which in a suit for damages he unsuccess fully defended in 1846-47 Van Zandt, an Ohio farmer, who had assisted in the flight of fugitive slaves (Ibid.,   I, 476 ff.). In these years of private practice Seward was very far from abandoning his interest in politics. He took part in almost every campaign, often outside the borders of the state. He also ardently championed the cause of Irish freedom, gaining the support of the Irish-American voters as a result. The tide was running more and more his way, also, with regard to the question of slavery. By 1848 anti-slavery sentiment had become so strong that it was possible for him to be elected to the United States Senate, many Democrats, as well as all the Whig members of the legislature, voting for him.

When Seward entered the Senate the slavery question had become acute, and the question of its relation to the disposition of the territories just acquired from Mexico was assuming portentous proportions. In the celebrated debate growing out of Henry Clay's famous resolutions of 1850, Seward took his stand firmly against all compromise, and in favor of the unconditional admission of California as a free state. In his well-known speech of March 11 he declared that there was no reason to jumble together a variety of important questions in a single measure, as Clay had wished to do; he boldly asserted that the fugitive-slave law was impossible of enforcement in the North; he wished to abolish, not only the slave trade, as proposed by Clay, but also slavery in the District of Columbia; he was opposed to leaving the territories to organize themselves with or without slavery. In a prescient sentence he declared that the slave system would either be removed "by gradual voluntary effort, and with compensation," within the framework of the Union, or the Union would be dissolved, and civil wars ensue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation he had been passed over in 1856 in the Republican National Convention for Fremont; and some of his shifts of attitude may be attributed to the fact that he had his eye on the presidential nomination of 1860.

In 1859 Seward went abroad, meeting many celebrities in England and France, and returning to a great reception in New York. In February 1860, he again advocated the admission of Kansas as a free state, and made a speech which may be regarded as an expression of the platform on which he would stand for the Republican nomination (February 29, 1860, Ibid., IV, 619-43). Its general tenor was extremely conciliatory and moderate; with rare exceptions, Seward optimistically believed that Republicanism involved no threat to the unity of the American people. When the Republican National Convention met in Chicago in June 1860, he was undoubtedly the leading candidate, but the hostility of Horace Greeley, the opposition of the Know-Nothings, and Seward's own too widely known radical utterances, conspired to deprive him of the nomination. It was a severe blow, but he bore it with his usual outward equanimity and with very real generosity. He campaigned for the Republican ticket throughout the North, minimizing the Southern threats of secession, and urging the election of Lincoln. In the crisis which followed the election Seward showed characteristic elements of strength and weakness. His invincible optimism inclined him to minimize the dangers that lay ahead; yet, in the face of secession, he employed the language and the method of conciliation. He was also one of the Senate committee of thirteen constituted to consider means of composing the situation; as the spokesman of the section, and at the suggestion of Weed, he proposed on December 24 that Congress guarantee slavery in the slave states, and request the repeal of the personal liberty laws in exchange for the grant of jury trial to fugitive slaves (Senate Report No. 288, 36 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 10, 11, 13). His speech of January 12, 1861, made after three more states had seceded, was admirable in its spirit (Works, IV, 651-69). Clearly avowing his loyalty to the Union, he again spoke in the most conciliatory vein, advocating a constitutional convention to settle outstanding difficulties, and even suggesting, in departure from the Republican platform, the admission of the remaining territories as two states without regard to slavery. It is entirely possible that he personally favored the Crittenden Compromise; but the influence of the President-elect was thrown on the other side, and Seward voted against this proposal when it came before the Senate on March 2.

As early as December 8, Seward had been offered the office of secretary of state by Lincoln. He accepted on December 28; and although he was deeply displeased at the selection of Chase and Blair as cabinet colleagues, and even sought to reverse his decision as late as March 2, he yielded to the entreaties of the President. He took office on March 4, no doubt believing that he would be, and deserved to be, the dominant figure in the administration, and the man who could best avert the perils of civil war. In the critical period from March 4 to April 12, 1861 (the date of the firing on Sumter), Seward appears at very far from his best. He still retained the delusion that he might determine the course of the administration; and his famous memorandum, "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration, April 1, 1861," admits of no apology. In this reckless document he advocated embroiling the United States with most of Europe and waging actual war on Spain and France, as a means of solidifying the Union (Nicolay and Hay, post, II, 29). The only concrete grievance on the horizon was the Spanish re-annexation of Santo Domingo, and this had not been officially consummated. A madder or wilder project than Seward's could hardly have been devised. Nor is it possible to imagine anything more arrogant than the last sentence of his memorandum, in which he virtually suggested that the President abdicate his power to the Secretary of State. Seward's course with regard to secession itself is not easy to justify. It is understandable that he entered into negotiations with the Confederate commissioners sent to Washington to demand the surrender of the forts still held by the Union government in the South; but it is not so easy to justify machinations behind the back of the President, by which the reënforcement of Fort Pickens was delayed, and the expedition to Sumter, when it sailed, weakened by the absence of the Powhatan. Seward was not even resolutely pacifist; on one occasion he spoke of using force to collect the revenue, and in general he was in favor of holding the Gulf forts, perhaps with a view to a possible war with Spain, though not of holding Sumter. No doubt much to his discomfiture, and with many a wound to his pride, he saw himself overruled and the decisive events which culminated in the opening of the Civil War directed by the chief whose real measure he had not yet taken.

Seward's conduct of the office of secretary of state during the four years of the war deserves high praise. More than any preceding secretary he conducted his diplomatic correspondence with an eye to public opinion at home. It is no chance that the publication of diplomatic dispatches in one or more annual volumes put out by the State Department begins with him (Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 2 volumes, 1861). He no doubt wrote almost too much for the American public, as compared with those to whom his dispatches were actually directed. But in so doing he did much both to inspirit and to restrain public opinion as occasion demanded. His early dispatches were too blustering in tone, and might have gotten him into serious trouble sometimes had it not been for the wisdom of Lincoln. As time went on, he dropped the truculent tone and expressed the views of the United States with dignity and force. On the occasion of the seizure of Mason and Slidell on board the Trent, an act received with something like ecstasy by Northern opinion, he behaved with great coolness in the midst of popular excitement. When the protest of the British government against such action arrived, it was the Secretary, this time somewhat against the opinion of the President, who decided that the protest must be heeded. The dispatch in which he conceded the surrender of the Southern commissioners is a masterpiece (Works, V, 295-309). Written with an eye to making palatable an act sure to be violently condemned by the hotheads in the United States, it flattered Northern opinion by its specious reasoning, and made the action appear as in accord with fundamental American traditions.

The possibility of European intervention in the Civil War Seward met, on the whole, with similar adroitness. The optimism of his dispatches, their profound self-confidence, and their array of facts, could hardly fail to make an impression. This tone, maintained through good fortune and bad, and coupled with warning after warning of the dangerous consequences of intervention, was, in general, just what the situation demanded. At times Seward was still a little bumptious, and his habit of publishing many of his dispatches was often irritating, but the general principle was sound. He could depend, too, on the tact and high diplomatic skill of Charles Francis Adams in interpreting his instructions. Seward made skilful use abroad of the question of slavery to check the anti-Northern agitation in France and England. On the Emancipation Proclamation he was at first conservative, because of his fear of its domestic consequences. When it was first discussed in July 1862, he urged Lincoln to postpone action, at least until a Federal victory (Nicolay and Hay, II, 479). But when the preliminary proclamation was issued after Antietam, he used it with great effect in his dispatches to Adams and W. L. Dayton. The danger of intervention seemed greatest in the fall of 1862 and the winter of 1863. At the end of October, the French government sought to secure joint action with Great Britain and Russia looking to an armistice. The proposal was rejected, and Seward wisely made no protest. But when the French directly proffered mediation early in 1863, Seward responded in one of his most effective dispatches (February 6, 1863, Senate Executive Document No. 38, 37 Congress, 3 Session, p. 11-16).

In his correspondence Seward adroitly defended the broad interpretation of continuous voyage in dispatches that suggest Sir Edward Grey's half a century later, and he protested vigorously against the outfitting of Confederate privateers in British ports. His steady pressure, combined with the skill of Adams, finally led the British government to take due precautions, in the case of the Laird rams, while his protests in the case of the Alabama laid the basis for solid pecuniary claims later. Nowhere was Seward more adroit than in his treatment of the French intervention in Mexico, and the establishment of Maximilian on a Mexican throne. From an early period he made the distaste of the United States for the whole project obvious; yet he suavely assumed the rumors of monarchy to be ill-founded as long as he could do so, and until the end of the war never let anything like menace enter into his tone. When the House of Representatives on April 4, 1864, condemned the schemes of Louis Napoleon (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, l Session, p. 1408), Seward penned a masterly dispatch in which he soothed French susceptibilities, explaining that the opinion of the legislative branch of the government did not alter executive policy (April 7, 1864, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 1865, volume III, 356-57). When the Civil War was over, there was much sentiment for vigorous action against the French. Seward handled this delicate situation magnificently. He temporized while he could; the situation of the French grew more and more difficult; and then in dispatches gradually mounting in tone he edged his adversary, Drouyn de L'huys, from one position to another, until he finally secured the promise of the evacuation of Mexico in a fixed period of time. In the latter part of the correspondence Seward fell into his old habit of writing for domestic consumption; and the same may be said of his correspondence with Austria on the same subject; but the total effect of his activity is admirable.

Seward was, in temperament and conviction, an expansionist. During the 1850's this sentiment came in conflict with his anti-slavery views, and led him to oppose such projects as the purchase of Cuba. But when the war was over the strong instinct revived. In 1867 he negotiated the cession of Alaska, and with the aid of Sumner secured the prompt ratification of the treaty by the Senate. He sought to acquire the two most important islands of the Danish West Indies; but this agreement was never ratified. He encouraged overtures from the Dominican Republic looking to incorporation in the United States, again unsuccessfully. In his instructions to the American minister at Honolulu he advocated the annexation of Hawaii. Seward's views were those which a later generation was to accept.

In domestic affairs Seward exercised a constant influence both on the Lincoln and the Johnson administrations. He had a large, indeed it may be said the chief, responsibility for the treatment of political prisoners at the beginning of the war, and contrary to his general temperament he here showed much rigor. He exercised, as has been seen, a positive influence on the policy of the administration with regard to the border states and emancipation. He performed heavy labors as a sort of political liaison officer, and his interest in problems of patronage, while not always wisely exerted, was continuous. In the Johnson administration he was a central figure. He advocated a conciliatory policy towards the South, wrote some of Johnson's most important veto messages, and supported the President in many speeches, making "the swing around the circle" with him in 1866. By doing so he lost both popularity and influence, and he valued both dearly; but whatever the reaction of the moment, the judgment of time has been that he was wiser than his opponents.

The burdens of his last four years at Washington Seward sustained in circumstances that would have daunted a man less tenacious and industrious. He had suffered serious injury in a carriage accident in the spring of 1865, and this had been followed by the brutal attack upon him in his house which was contemporaneous with the assassination of Lincoln; yet he was soon transacting the public business with as much skill and coolness as ever. At the end of his term of office, despite the fact that he was partially crippled, he went around the world, the first important American political figure to do so, and much enjoyed the enthusiasm which his visit evoked. He returned to Auburn in the autumn of 1871, and there increasing paralysis overtook him. He died on October 10, 1872. On October 20, 1824, he had married Frances Miller, the daughter of his law partner. A woman of liberal sympathies and humanitarian views, she undoubtedly influenced his later career, and especially his attitude toward slavery. They had three sons and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Fredrick William Seward [q.v.] was closely associated with his father. A nephew, Clarence Armstrong Seward (October 27, 1828-July 24, 1897), who became an orphan in childhood and was brought up in his uncle's family, served for a brief time in 1865 as assistant secretary of state and attained prominence as a corporation lawyer. His cousin, George Frederick Seward [q.v.], another nephew of William H. Seward, was launched upon his diplomatic career under the latter's influence.

In Seward the politician and the statesman are interestingly, and on the whole happily, commingled. It is easy to discover occasions on which he equivocated, as politicians do; it is easy to discover occasions on which he sought the applause of the multitude, not always careful of the consequences. Even in his diplomacy, and strikingly in his early utterances on questions of foreign affairs, this is true. Yet Seward chose his early political creed, it would appear, from conviction; he associated himself with definite policies, and loved to do so; much earlier than most anti-slavery leaders of the political stripe, he adopted that important cause; he often showed real courage in advocating it. He made serious blunders, and might have made more, in estimating the true value of the conflicting forces at the end of 1860 and the beginning of 1861 but his years at the State Department are years of steady growth, and of very creditable achievement, while his role in maintaining national morale must not be underestimated. He was the partisan of a wise policy of reconciliation when the war was over. The unswervingly independent mind has its uses in the world; but its possessor is not apt to succeed in politics. It may be fairly argued that Seward combined devotion to principle, and flexibility as to means, in such proportions as to make him most effective.

As a human being, few could have been more lovable. Cheerful, generous, loathing personal controversy, he had a wide range of interests and of sympathies. He read much and widely; he traveled extensively, going to Europe several times, and seeing a great deal of his own country. He was a little vain, and he had his political enemies; he is dwarfed by the master-spirit of his great chief; but, compared with the irascible Stanton, the pompous Sumner, the intriguing Chase, and many others, he looms up as one of the most attractive, as well as most important, figures in a critical period of American history.

[Autobiography of William H. Seward, from 1801 to 1834, with a Memoir of His Life, and Selections from His Letters, from 1831 to 1846 (1877), ed. by F. W. Seward, the continuation of this by F. W. Seward, Seward at Washington (2 volumes, 1891); G. E. Baker, ed.,   The Works of William H. Seward (5 volumes, 1884); Life of Thurlow Weed (2 volumes, 1883-84), including his autobiography, ed. by Harriet A. Weed, and a memoir by T. W. Barnes; J. D. Hammond, The History of Political Parties in the State of New York (3 volumes, 1842-48); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volume II (1906); Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. (2 volumes, 1861), and Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs (14 volumes, 1862-66), bound and usually cited as Diplomatic Correspondence of the U.S.; Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Seward (1874); F. W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat (1916); Olive R. Seward, ed., William H. Seward's Travels Around the World (1873); J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works (2 volumes, 1894); Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward (2 volumes, 1900), which is sympathetic yet critical, and is exceedingly well proportioned; T. K. Lothrop, William Henry Seward (1896) and E. E. Hale, Jr., William H. Seward (1910), of less importance; an interesting sketch in Gamaliel Bradford, Union Portraits (1916); C. F. Adams, Seward and the Declaration of Paris (1912); Tyler Dennett, "Seward's Far Eastern Policy," in American History Review, October 1922; studies of Seward's Mexican policy in J. M. Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (1932), and Dexter Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1826- 1867 (1933); detailed study of his policy toward Great Britain in E. D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War (2 volumes, 1925); general treatment by H. W. Temple in S. F. Bemis, ed., The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, volume VII (1928); unpublished materials in the possession of Mrs. Thomas G. Spencer, Rochester, New York, and W. H. Seward, Auburn, New York ;unpublished correspondence in Department of State, Washington, D. C.]

D.P.


SHADD-Cary, Mary Ann Camberton, 1823-1893, see Cary, Mary Ann Camberton Shadd


SHARP, Granville, anti-slavery activist

(Basker, 2005, pp. 3, 32, 55, 82, 128, 132, 170, 238, 241, 291, 295; Bruns, 1977, pp. 79, 108, 193-199, 262-267, 302-306, 310-311, 314, 325, 351, 486, 488, 491; Drake, 1950, pp. 56, 85, 91, 119, 121; Locke, 1901, pp. 52, 131, 192; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 101, 290; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 89-90)


SHAW, Francis George, 1809-1882, humanitarian

(Rodriguez, 2007, p. 707; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 486; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 19, p. 751)


SHAW, Robert Gould, 1837-1863, abolitionist, Colonel, 54th Massachusetts Infantry, U.S. Colored Troops, killed in action and buried with his men.

(Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 67, 144; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 486; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 19, p. 751)


SHAW, William Smith, 1778-1826, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.  Wrote in his historic decision, Commonwealth v. Aves (1836) regarding slavery in Massachusetts:  “How, or by what act particularly, slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, whether by the adoption of the opinion in Sommersett’s case, as a declaration and modification of the common law, or by the Declaration of Independence, or by the Constitution of 1780, it is not now very easy to determine, and it is rather a matter of curiosity than utility; being agreed on all hands, that if not abolished before, it was so by the declaration of rights.”

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 487; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 49)


SHERMAN, John, 1823-1900, statesman.  Whig U.S. Congressman, 1855.  Republican U.S. Senator.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Brother of Union commander, General William T. Sherman. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, pp. 506-508; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 84; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 19, p. 813; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 84-88:

SHERMAN, JOHN (May 10, 1823-October 22, 1900), statesman, born at Lancaster, Ohio, was the eighth child of Charles Robert and Mary (Hoyt) Sherman, and a younger brother of William Tecumseh Sherman [q.v.]. His father, a descendant of Edmund Sherman who came from England to Massachusetts probably in 1634 or 1635 and later settled in Connecticut, removed from the latter state in 1811 to Ohio, where he practised law. Charles Robert Sherman rose to the bench of the state supreme court, but his untimely death in 1829 required his widow to share the responsibility of educating some of their eleven children with various friends and relatives. The famous brothers, Tecumseh and John, were bound by rare ties of mutual under standing and affection. John had a lively, careless disposition, that was trying alike to teachers and foster parents; and his education, divided between Lancaster and Mt. Vernon, where he lived for four years with John Sherman, a cousin of his father, g av e him little taste for the college life that was planned for him. He developed a liking for mathematics and surveying, left school at fourteen to work on canal improvements, and at sixteen had grown men working under him, constructing a dam. Fortunately for him, defeat of the Whigs by the Democrats in 1839 led to his dismissal. After a few months of roistering, a change came over him. Helped by material influences, dormant ambitions, inherited from six generations of paternal ancestors addicted to the law and public service, were awakened; a new Sherman emerged-one who realized that Ohio, lush with expansion, was a fertile field for well directed purpose. He substituted extreme self-control for careless abandon, and in 1840 set himself studying law under his uncle, Judge Jacob Parker, and his eldest brother, Charles Taylor Sherman, at Mansfield. In this field, his father's repute and his wide family connections proved stimulating and useful.

Thus arbitrarily shortening his period of immaturity and dependence, Sherman gained an early start on his career. Before formal admission to the bar, May 10, 1844, he was doing much of a full-fledged lawyer's work. Also he launched into business, proving competent as partner in a lumber concern and buying real estate wisely. His rise to local prominence was attested by his marriage, on August 31, 1848, to Margaret Sarah Cecilia, the only child of a prominent Mansfield lawyer, Judge James Stewart. The Shermans had no children, but adopted a daughter. Not content with country-town law and business, Sherman entered state politics. Loss of a job at Democratic hands in 1839 had scarcely cooled his ardor for Whiggery in 1840; thereafter he presented himself faithfully at Ohio Whig conclaves, and he attended the national conventions of 1848 and 1852. He ran for no elective office until 1854, when the wave of anti-Nebraska sentiment carried him into the federal House of Representatives, along with many other comparatively unknown young men.

Unlike most of these, however, Sherman of Ohio remained an official part of the Washington scene continuously through nearly a half century; as representative, 1855-61; as senator, 1861-77; as secretary of the treasury, 1877-81; as senator, 1881-97; as secretary of state, 1897- 98. This was an astounding feat, considering the fact that during these years Ohio four times elected a Democratic governor and thrice sent Sherman a Democratic colleague in the Senate. The explanation lies in Sherman's temperament and situation. His heritage, his mother's oft-repeated precepts, his victory over youthful excesses, and his quick success in local law and business combined to overlay his naturally hot temper with a cautious reserve that was excellently adapted to Ohio's uncertainties. Economically, the conservative, creditor point of view became his personal preference; but, politically, he understood the radical, debtor psychology that flourished among his constituents during the three major and four minor depressions that punctuated his tenure of office. He carefully studied the attitude of the Middle West and helped to stamp national legislation with the influence of that section. While he was compromising his conservative personal preferences with more radical demands from the Ohio electorate, the East was compromising with the West on each piece of major legislation. Thus he and his work in some sense became typical of his political generation.

He had been elected in 1854 because he was a compromise candidate on whom warring factions could agree; and, at Washington, his more moderate utterances on slavery, contrasted with those of men like Joshua R. Giddings and Owen Lovejoy [qq.v.], quickly aided his rise. Membership on a House committee investigating unsavory Kansas affairs was exploited; Sherman wrote a report, scoring the Democracy and all its Kansas works, which was used effectively in the 1856 campaign (House Report No. 200, 34 Congress, l Session, "Kansas Affairs"). He became a hardworking and effective laborer in the young Republican vineyard and at the beginning of his third term (December 5, 1859) was the caucus nominee for speaker. A forgotten indorsement carelessly given Helper's Impending Crisis deprived him of the coveted honor, and increased thereafter his leaning toward compromise and caution in legislative matters. The successful candidate, William Pennington [q.v.], adopted Sherman's committee slate and named him chairman of the ways and means committee. Here his tariff convictions insured equable relations with Eastern Republicans. From loyalty to party he never deviated.  

Campaign labors of 1860 fortified Sherman further, making him, in spite of Ohio's Republican factions, the successor to Senator Chase, whom Lincoln elevated to the Treasury. On a widened stage the tall, spare, impressive junior senator was ready to play his part, especially in his favorite field of finance, for he at once became a member, and in 1867 became chairman, of the finance committee. In the din of war, with its necessities, he helped give the greenbacks the status of legal tender; but he never completely forgot that there must be a clay of reckoning, that order must be wrought out of a chaotic currency. He sometimes tried to encourage a policy of "paying as you go" and led in planning, with Secretary Chase, the national banking system (embodied in the act of February 25, 1863). If Sherman's program of economies and rigorous taxation, especially income taxes, had seemed politically expedient, fewer bond and greenback issues might have sprouted during the war. As it was, he quieted his uneasiness over the greenbacks by reiterating the popular doctrine that the country would "grow up to" the expanded currency.

On the reconstruction issue, war between Sherman's personal preferences and popular dicta waged unremittingly, for political rivalries in Ohio, as elsewhere, imposed irrational tests of party loyalty and defined patriotism without humanity. His desire for moderation was sufficiently well known for many Southerners to write him concerning tolerance, and he spoke out against the fiery Sumner's program. But he did not carry his efforts at moderation so far from the radical path as to stray outside the confines of dominant Republicanism. Opposing Thaddeus Stevens' drastic military reconstruction plan, he advanced a substitute little less rigorous, which became law March 2, 1867; and he voted for most of the radical program. For his former friend, Andrew Johnson, Sherman openly expressed sympathy; he admired Johnson's "combative propensity," and asserted his right to remove Stanton (Congressional Globe, 39 Congress, l Session, Appendix, p. 129). But, knowing the ostracism suffered by the President's supporters, he voted to convict him. When seven other Republicans prevented conviction, he felt "entirely satisfied" (Recollections, I, 432).

On post-war finance Sherman dominated national policy, because of his Senate chairmanship, his interest, and his ability; like most congressmen he was swayed by the strong tide of inflationist sentiment, although as a private individual he cherished anti-inflationist desires. He saw in cancellation of greenbacks the most direct route to specie resumption and declared that a beneficial fall in prices must mark resumption; yet on these very grounds he opposed McCulloch's currency contraction policies of 1866 and 1868. The Middle West being then strongly inflationary, he claimed that resumption would speedily come if the government merely met current obligations. The greenbacks outstanding, he thought, were not too much for the condition of the country. When public opinion blamed McCulloch's contraction policy for the stringency of 1868, Sherman said contraction should cease in deference to that opinion. It did. He realized that national credit must be safeguarded by resumption as soon as political conditions permitted; and he entertained dreams of financial reforms international in scope, aiding Emperor Napoleon Ill's scheme for a stable, unified currency among the great trading nations (Recollections, I, 406-12). His work on the funding act of July 14, 1870, r educed th e burden of public interest and helped restore national credit. While the dollar was still at a premium, he pushed the mint-reform bill which ended the coinage of silver dollars, so that after silver fell he was labeled the arch marplot of the "Crime of '73." On the resumption act of January 14, 1875, he had to yield his own excellent plan, of funding greenbacks into bonds, for the substitute of George F. Edmunds. His preeminence in financial matters, and his aid to Hayes's candidacy, made him the natural choice for the Treasury in 1877.

As secretary of the treasury, Sherman occupied a congenial place, for responsibility for the national finances gave rein to his native skill at economical management and deafened him to inflationist outcry. He strengthened the resumption act by his interpretation of it, declaring that it empowered the secretary to issue bonds after, as well as before, resumption (a position for which John G. Carlisle had reason to be grateful in 1893); and, in the face of congressional clamor, he convinced hard-headed bankers that the government would redeem its bonds in gold, thus immensely enhancing the national prestige. He disappointed bankers who were confidently expecting concessions from the government and amazed them by discarding their advice and achieving sale abroad at a bond price above that of the op en market. Thoroughly informing himself beforehand, he coolly bargained with London and New York syndicates and bankers, playing them off against one another, even when they fought him in the gold market and when exchange rates and London discounts went against him. He facilitated direst sales to investors, independent of syndicates. The loans of 1878 and 1879 were especially skilful.

Sherman's statesmanship while secretary was proved by the political obstacles he surmounted. The political odds against him in Hayes's administration were terrific. Hayes's title to office was uncertain; the House was Democratic for four years, and the Senate for two; and the populace was discouraged by a wearisome depression. Business failures, especially in the West, increased in Sherman's first and second years, magnifying opposition to resumption, while mine-owners and inflationists joined hands in a concerted effort to obtain "free silver." With both parties torn sectionally on this issue, it appeared late in 1877 that inflation politics would prevent Sherman from attaining his main objectives, resumption of specie payments and funding of the public debt. The House stopped resumption operations temporarily by passing two bills: Bland's for a silver dollar with unlimited legal tender and unlimited coinage, and Ewing's for indefinite postponement of the date of resumption (November S. 23, 1877). While these bills awaited Senate action, Sherman's Republican successor, Stanley Matthews, fathered a concurrent resolution (which lacks the force of law) declaring government bonds payable in silver; and both Houses passed it, thus humiliating Sherman.

However, divisions among inflationists ultimately gave Sherman sufficient support to defeat the more extreme objectives of Bland and Ewing. The Bland-Allison Act (February 28, 1878) stipulated a limited coinage of silver, rather than free coinage; and instead of postponing resumption indefinitely Congress, on May 31, 1878, forbade further retirement of greenbacks. Sherman has been severely criticized for failure to oppose the Matthews resolution originally or to support Hayes's veto of the Bland-Allison bill finally. Faced by a fiscal and political exigency, he labored to obtain maximum concessions from the extremists. He judged resumption and funding might be achieved, in spite of Bland-Allison dollars and of 348,000,000 outstanding greenbacks; and they were.

After the passage of the silver bill, Sherman helped to rally conservative support behind the administration, and the insurgents were somewhat discredited in the 1878 elections. Henceforward comparatively free from the opposition that had been hounding him, and aided by favorable trade developments, he carefully protected the final preparations for resumption. He had the New York sub-treasury made a member of the clearing houses at Boston and New York, and made payments to the government receivable in either legal tenders or coin. Consequently, the premium on gold disappeared (December 17, 1878) after nearly seventeen years; and on January 2, 1879, specie payments were smoothly resumed, to the general astonishment.

Whether or not Sherman could continue specie payments thereafter depended upon the demand for gold. The law of May 31, 1878, to which he had agreed, not only had stopped cancellation of legal t enders redeemed in gold but also had directed their reissue. Later, realizing the potential drain, he fabricated a theory that notes once redeemed need not be reissued when the gold reserve became less than 40 per cent. of outstanding notes. Fortunately for him, rainswept Britain and Europe in 1879 had to buy huge quantities of American wheat, corn, and cotton, paying in gold. Trade rebounded beautifully, and specie payments seemed so secure that the Secretary described legal tenders as "the best circulating medium known" (Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury . . . 1880, p. xiv). Not so the Bland-Allison dollars. They soon worried Sherman, since their intrinsic worth was declining, business men were forcing them back on the government, and treasury channels were so choked with them as to threaten the placing of the United States on the silver standard. The Secretary made a futile plea to Congress to impose new limitations on their coinage. Then a rise in interior trade temporarily removed his apprehension and he soon returned to th e Senate and to his political point of view on silver. As the end of his cabinet service approached, the United States still stood on the gold standard. Resumption was an admitted success.

The most distinguished phase of Sherman's career was closing, but he did not suspect it. He planned further achievements in the White House: refunding the public debt at lower interest, perfecting disbursements, settling the silver question without banishing gold or displacing paper, reducing taxes, freeing the civil service from "infernal scramble," breaking down sectionalism in party politics, and turning politics from outworn war issues to "business and financial interests and prosperity" (Sherman, to Richard Smith June 14, 1880, Sherman MSS.). His dreams were of the stuff that made the inner man, but his success at resumption had made him a failure as a candidate for the presidential nomination. He felt that the business cl ass in general and the party in particular owed him th e office; but the unparalleled prosperity that he had helped to create made Republican victory in 1880 so certain as to insure bitter competition for the nomination. Poorly organized Sherman forces, although they helped defeat the unit rule, could not rout the Grant phalanx, or match the Blaine magnetism. Worse, ten Ohio delegates stubbornly refused to vote for Sherman. The nomination fell to the popular and available Garfield, whose presence at Chicago Sherman had thought essential to his own success. In 1880, as in 1888 and to a less degree in 1884, Sherman failed of the nomination because he lacked unscrupulousness in the use of patronage, color in personality and appeal, cordial unity in the Ohio delegation, and skill in manipulating politicians, and because he had an abundance of inflationist opposition. In 1888 he reached the exciting total of 249 votes on the second ballot; but the thread of Ohio intrigue, tortuously unwinding through the correspondence of Foraker, Garfield, Hanna, Hayes, McKinley, and Sherman, shows how futile was his dearest hope.

Through his second period of sixteen years in the Senate (1881-97) Sherman played the role of prominent politician, so cast by his adaptation to the plot of the play in Ohio and in the nation at large. Ohio gave him Garfield's seat only after a contest and he had to keep watch lest he should be shelved, in 1879 and later, with the governorship. Democrats won the state thrice, but luckily Republicans controlled when he came up for reelection in 1885 and in 1892 he succeeded in postponing the candidacy of Foraker (until 1896). In national politics, also, the atmosphere was one of continual uneasiness. Neither Republicans nor Democrats obtained simultaneous control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency for more than a single period of two years during this time (Republicans, 1889-91; Democrats, 1893- 95); and all the political veterans were confused by uncertainties rising from the economic revolution and by cleavages between East and West that were disruptive of party strength. In such a situation Sherman's services seemed indispensable, because of his long experience in legislative compromise, his understanding of Western demands, and his reputation for astuteness in estimating reactions. The newer group of Senate managers--Nelson W. Aldrich, Eugene Hale, O. H. Platt, and John C. Spooner [qq. v. ]-left Sherman out of much of their basic planning, for he, unlike William B. Allison [q.v.], never joined them on terms of close intimacy; but when the time came to compromise with the West, they leaned heavily on him. He functioned most strikingly in connection with the anti-trust and silver-purchase laws of 1890. The final draft of the first came from the pen of Edmunds and the important purchase provisions of the second never had Sherman's hearty approval; but on the one he carried the responsibility, for the finance committee, of initiating tentative drafts during two experimental years (1888-90), and on the other he so adjusted a conference committee stalemate between the two Houses as to save his party from a silver veto and from the defeat of the McKinley tariff. Then, as often during his legislative career, the immediate political exigency faced by him and his fellow partisans warped his judgment on "sound" currency and the protection of the Treasury.

Republican colleagues honored Sherman with the position of president pro tempore (1885-87) and listened deferentially whenever the famous ex-Secretary spoke on finance. He was important in campaigns as keynoter on currency and tariff subjects. Insistence of Ohio wool-growers on protection led him into yeoman's service regimenting Middle-Western Republicans behind a high tariff. His assignment (1886) to the chairmanship of the foreign relations committee proved none too congenial. On minor issues he shifted his position, not always in conformity with popular trends. His economic philosophy always remained basically conservative; for example, he favored general regulation of interstate commerce but questioned the right of Congress to establish maximum and minimum rates and opposed the prohibition of pooling. After he recovered from his nomination fiasco of 1888, Sherman was content in the familiar Senate environment. There were leisure for profitable business undertakings, a never-forgotten sense of service, long evenings alone in his peaceful study and, latterly, preoccupation with the work, published in two volumes in 1895 as John Sherman's Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabin et. In 1879 he had publish ed Selected Speeches and Reports on Finance and Taxation, from 1859 to 1878. Things might have drifted into the usual peaceful Senate demise if Hanna and the embarrassed McKinley had not translated Sherman to the State Department to give Hanna a Senate seat. In the unaccustomed place, under stress of Cuban excitements, it became all too evident that Sherman h ad a growing and humiliating weakness of memory which incapacitated him for functioning out of his usual routine. The fur-seal, Hawaiian, and Spanish negotiations were taken out of his hands. When the cabinet decided for war with Spain he rose to the defense of his anti-expansionist views, and resigned in protest. Two years of unhappy private life ensued before his final release.

[John Sherman MSS. (c. 110,000 letters), and William Sherman MSS., Library Congress; House Executive Document No. 9, 46 Congress, 2 Session, "Specie Resumption and Refunding of National Debt." containing many letters; Annual Reports of the Sec. of the Treasury, 1877-80; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S., I897-98; S. A. Bronson, John Sherman; What He Has Said and Done (1880); T. E. Burton, John Sherman (1906); W. S. Kerr, John Sherman, His Life and Public Services (2 volumes, 1908); R. S. Thorndike, The Sherman Letters (1894); M.A. De W. Howe, Home Letters of General Sherman (1909); J. G. Randall, "John Sherman and Reconstruction," Miss. Valley Historical Rev., December 1932; E. G. Lewis, "Contributions of John Sherman to Public and Private Finance " (unprinted thesis, U. of Illinois, 1932); L. M. Sears, " John Sherman," in S. F. Bemis, ed., The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, IX (1929); T. T. Sherman, Sherman Genealogy (1920). A biography by J. P. and R. F. Nichols is in process of preparation.]

J.P.N.


SHERMAN, Roger, 1721-1793, founding father, opponent of slavery. Signer of the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.  Sherman opposed a tax on slaves because it would imply that they were property and not human beings. 

(Bruns, 1977, pp. 394, 522-523; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 97; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 123, 124; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 502; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 88; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002). 



SHIELDS, James (May 12, 1806--June 1, 1879), soldier, senator from Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, A strict Republican party man, he had the courage to fight for a California as a free state. 

(W. H. Condon, Life of Major-General James Shields (1900)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 106-107:

SHIELDS, JAMES (May 12, 1806--June 1, 1879), soldier, senator from Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland, the son of Charles and Katherine (McDonnell) Shields. Trained in a hedge school and later in an academy and by a retired priest from Maynooth, he received a good classical education, supplemented by some teaching in tactics and swords play. Probably in 1822 he sailed by way of Liverpool for Quebec and was wrecked on the Scottish coast with only two other survivors. As a tutor, he earned a livelihood in Scotland until he obtained a berth on a merchantman and about 1826 arrived in New York harbor. He settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he taught French, read law, fought in the Black Hawk War, and practised Democratic politics and law. In 1836 he was elected a member of the legislature. As state auditor, he helped correct the disordered finances of the state brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the panic and canal building, but not without sharp criticism in the Whig press. As a result of anonymous charges in the newspaper, traced to the Misses Todd and Jayne, later the wives of Abraham Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull, he challenged to a duel Lincoln, who shouldered some responsibility. The matter was compromised on explanations from the latter, and the principals became permanent friends. In 1843 Shields was named to the supreme court by Governor Thomas Ford, whose manuscript History of Illinois he edited and published later, in 1854. As a jurist, he was honest, industrious, and surprisingly detached in delivering decisions that were marked by common sense and some legal erudition. He was renamed by the legislature for a full term in 1845, but he resigned soon to accept President Polk's appointment to the commissionership of the general land office in Washington.

With the outbreak of the Mexican War he resigned and was commissioned brigadier-general of Illinois volunteers on July 1, 1846. At Cerro Gordo he was dangerously wounded, was brevetted a major-general, and cited by General Scott for his gallant conduct there. At Churubusco, after initial mistakes of some importance (Smith, post, pp. u5-17, 384), he led the charge of New York Irish and South Carolina volunteers that is commemorated in the painting in the national Capitol. In July 1848 his brigade was disbanded, and he returned to Kaskaskia and Belleville to build up his law practice, but he was soon appointed governor of Oregon Territory. This position he resigned immediately to accept an election to the federal Senate. A Whig Senate found a technicality in that he had not been a citizen the required number of years and declared his election void. He, however, was reelected for the same term and served from October 27, 1849, to March 3, 1855. Martial in carriage, scrupulously neat, urbane and courteous of manner, graceful and humorous in debate, he was well informed because of his ability, experiences, and his command of Latin, French, and Spanish. In temper he was sharp and somewhat arrogantly independent. Something of a demagogue, he was intentionally candid. A strict party man, he had the courage to disagree with fanatics on either side of the slavery issue and to fight for a free California, land grants for veterans, railroad construction, and agricultural education. In 1855 he was defeated for reelection by Lyman Trumbull in a legislature in deadlock between himself and Lincoln.

A Douglas appointee to distribute Sioux half-breed scrip, he went to Minnesota Territory, where he settled down on his land grant. He did much to stimulate an Irish movement into the region by organizing the townships of Shieldsville, Erin, Kilkenny, and Montgomery in Lesueur and Rice counties and by establishing with Alexander Faribault the town of Faribault. Elected to the federal Senate, on the admission of Minnesota, he drew the short term that expired March 3, 1859, and a Republican legislature failed to reelect him. He went to San Francisco, where in 1861 he married Mary Ann Carr, the daughter of an old friend in Armagh, Ireland, by whom he had three surviving children. Settled in Mazatlan, Mexico, as manager and part owner of a mine, he sold his interest and offered his services to Lincoln, when he learned that Fort Sumter had surrendered. Appointed as a brigadier-general of volunteers on August 19, 1861, he campaigned in the Shenandoah Valley, where he won recognition at Winchester and at Port Republic. He resigned his commission on March 28, 1863, and retired to San Francisco, where he was appointed a state railroad commissioner. In 1866, he was in Carrollton, Missouri. There he entered politics again, campaigning against the ''ironclad oath," losing an election to Congress when a canvassing board cast out the votes of two counties, and supporting the Liberal-Republican candidates of 1872. He lectured for religious, Irish, and charitable causes such as Southern relief during the cholera epidemic. Serving in the legislature, he promoted an act for a railroad commission to which he was afterward appointed. He was elected to fill out an unexpired term in the federal Senate from January 27, 1879, to March 3, 1879, but lack of health forced him to decline being a candidate for reelection. He died at Ottumwa, Iowa, while on a lecture tour, and was buried with simple Roman Catholic rites at St. Mary's Cemetery in Carrollton, Missouri, where in 1910 a colossal statue was erected to his n1ernory. In 1893 his statue was placed in Statuary Hall in the national Capitol by Illinois and, in 1914, Minnesota, at the insistence of the Grand Army of the Republic, raised a memorial in the state capitol.

[W. H. Condon, Life of Major-General James Shields (1900); H. A. Castle, "General James Shields," and John Ireland, "Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of General Shields," Minn. Historical Society Collections, volume XV (1915); New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, May 4, 1861, June 7, 14, 1879, January 1, 1887; Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, volume IX (1900), volume XIV (1915); Studies (Dublin), March 1932; W.W. Folwell, A History of Minnesota (1924), volume II; J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2 volumes, 1919); date of birth from statement concerning original family records in Castle, ante, p.711.]

R.J.P.


SHINN, Asa (May 3, 1781-February 11, 1853), Methodist clergyman, one of the founders of the Methodist Protestant Church. At a General Conference of 1838 the slavery issue brought on an acrimonious debate in which Shinn took the anti-slavery view and defended that position in a speech of great power.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 110-111:

SHINN, ASA (May 3, 1781-February 11, 1853), Methodist clergyman, one of the founders of the Methodist Protestant Church, was born in New Jersey, the son of Jonathan and Mary (Clark) Shinn, and a descendant of John Shinn, who emigrated from England to America and was in New Jersey as early as 1680. Both of Asa's parents were Quakers. When he was seven years of age they moved to one of the inland counties of Virginia, and seven years later to what is now Harrison County, West Virginia. In these frontier communities the boy's only schooling was received from a former sailor who wandered through the country conducting schools as opportunity afforded. In 1798, under the preaching of Reverend Robert Manly, a Methodist circuit rider, Shinn professed conversion and three years later, influenced by the scarcity of ministers in the West, he joined the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was assigned to the Redstone circuit in southwestern Pennsylvania. In 1803 he was transferred to the Western Conference, which included all the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains. Here he remained until 1807, serving circuits in western Virginia, southern Ohio, and Kentucky. He returned to the Baltimore Conference in 1807 and about the same time married Phebe Barnes of western Virginia, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Until 1816, when he was forced by mental derangement temporarily to discontinue his work, he had charge of circuits in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

During the course of his life Shinn suffered four periods of insanity, resulting from a fracture of the skull in his boyhood. The first three of these, in 1816, 1820, and 1828, were of short duration; from the last, in 1843, he never recovered, and he died in an asylum for the insane at Brattleboro, Vermont. Except for the short periods of inactivity caused by his ailment, Shinn continued to hold important circuits and stations in the Baltimore Conference until his transfer to the Pittsburgh Conference in 1825, where he served as presiding elder of the Pittsburgh district and as minister at Washington, Pennsylvania.

In 1824 he became greatly interested in the agitation for certain reforms in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The reformers established a monthly paper in 1824 called The Mutual Rights of Ministers and Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for which Shinn became one of the most voluminous and effective contributors. He also wrote several controversial pamphlets, among them, An Appeal to the Good Sense of the Citizens of the United States (1826), A Finishing Stroke to the High Claims of Ecclesiastical Sovereignty (1827). When the Baltimore Conference in 1827 expelled a minister for circulating Mutual Rights, Shinn became active in his defense. Other reformers were also suspended. At the General Conference of 1828 the great issue was the appeal of these persons for restoration. Shinn presented their case in an eloquent speech which won the admiration even of his opponents, and had the vote been taken at once, the reformers would probably have been reinstated; but it was delayed until the next day and their cause was defeated.

Convinced that all chance at conciliation was past, the leading reformers now proceeded to form separate congregations and Conferences, and on November 2, 1830, a convention of delegates from the disaffected groups met in the city of Baltimore and there formed the Methodist Protestant Church. Shinn took a leading part in its organization, was chosen president of the Ohio Conference when it was constituted, and in 1833, was elected president of the Pittsburgh Conference. From 1834 to 1836 he was in Baltimore, editing with Nicholas Snethen [q.v.], the new denominational paper, Mutual Rights and Methodist Protestant, and thereafter for the next ten years held important pulpits in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Allegheny City. At the General Conference of 1838 the slavery issue brought on an acrimonious debate in which Shinn took the anti-slavery view and defended that position in a speech of great power.

He was the author of two considerable books on theology. The first, published in 1812, was entitled An Essay on the Plan of Salvation; the second, On the Benevolence and Rectitude of the Supreme Being, appeared in 1840. He possessed a logical mind and was particularly impressive in public address. After the death of his first wife he married Mary Bennington (Wrenshall) Gibson, widow of Woolman Gibson, and daughter of John Wrenshall, by whom he had one son.

[J. H. Shinn, The History of the Shinn Family in Europe and America (1903); E. J. Drinkhouse, History of Methodist Reform (1899); W. B. Sprague, Annals American Pulpit, volume VII (1859); A.H. Bassett, A Concise History of the Methodist Protestant Church (2nd ed.,1882); R. F. Shinn, A Tribute to Our Fathers (1853); Matthew Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism (1878); Daily Commercial Journal (Pittsburgh), February 18, 1853.]

W.W.S.


SHIPHERD, John Jay (March 28, 1802- September 16, 1844), home missionary, one of the founders of Oberlin College.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 111-112:

SHIPHERD, JOHN JAY (March 28, 1802- September 16, 1844), home missionary, one of the founders of Oberlin College, was born near Granville, New York, the third son of Zebulon Rudd and Betsy (Bull) Shipherd. His father, a successful lawyer, served for many years as a trustee of Middlebury College and, for one term (1813- 15), as a Federalist member of Congress. When John was seventeen "the Lord mercifully revealed Himself to his mind" and he determined to become a minister. He was at that time attending Pawlet Academy, Pawlet, Vermont, from which he soon transferred to Cambridge Academy, Cambridge, New York He planned to complete his education at Middlebury College, but an accidental dose of poison so weakened his eyes and voice and so undermined his health generally that he was forced, for a time, to abandon the prospect of further study. After two years spent in unsuccessful ventures in the marble and whetstone industries at Vergennes, Vermont, however, he entered the household of Reverend Josiah Hopkins at New Haven, Vermont, to prepare for ordination. Here he spent a year and a half, depending largely upon the eyes of others for his reading.

He was ordained as an evangelist by a Congregational council at Blanton, Vermont, October 3, 1827, but after preaching for a year at Shelburn, in the autumn of 1828 he accepted the general agency of the Vermont Sabbath School Union and removed to Middlebury. For the next two years he traveled about the state, founding and inspecting Sunday schools; he also published a semi-annual, The Sabbath School Guide, and a tiny juvenile religious magazine, The Youth's Herald. Middlebury College granted him an honorary master's degree in 1830: Already, however, he had decided to go as a home missionary " to Mississippi's vast valley."

Accordingly, in the autumn of 1830, without waiting to secure an appointment, he went West, stopping at Rochester, New York, to receive the advice and blessing of Charles G. Finney [q.v.]. Upon reaching Cleveland he was promptly assigned to the missionary pastorate of a Plan-of Union Presbyterian church in the village of Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio. His experience here was checkered but generally disappointing to him, and in the summer of 1832, in collaboration with a classmate of Pawlet days, Philo P. Stewart [q.v.], he formulated a scheme for the evangelization of the West through a Christian colony and manual-labor school to be founded in the wilderness, far from the polluting influence of established communities. The new enterprise was christened Oberlin in honor of the philanthropist and educator, Jean Frederic Oberlin, a life of whom had recently been published by the American Sunday School Union. In 1832-33 Shipherd traveled through New York and New England, securing money, teachers, pious settlers, and title to a tract of land nine miles from Elyria; while Stewart and other associates forwarded the enterprise on the spot. The first settlement was made in April 1833. Shipherd returned in September and presided at the opening of the preparatory and "infant" departments of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, December 3, 1833. A full staff of teachers was secured the following spring, and in the fall, the first students of college grade appeared. The initial report of the Institute, published in December 1834, was optimistic, but Shipherd knew that the funds available were insufficient to guarantee the long continuance of the enterprise.

The rebellion of the students at Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, furnished the means of saving Oberlin. Lane, also, had been founded to promote the evangelization of the West and for this purpose had been liberally endowed by Arthur and Lewis Tappan [qq.v.]. Under the leadership of Theodore Weld [q.v.] the students had beg un the discussion of the slavery question and formed an anti-slavery society. The trustees, mostly conservative Cincinnati business men, prohibited further debate of this dangerous issue and the students walked out, almost to a man. Shipherd read of the situation in the religious periodicals and hastened to Cincinnati, where he discussed with the "rebels" and Reverend Asa Mahan [q.v.], one of the friendly minority of the Lane trustees, the possibility of their coming to Oberlin. His proposition was favorably received, but final acceptance was conditioned upon securing the support of the Tappans and the appointment of Charles G. Finney to teach theology at Oberlin. Shipherd and Mahan therefore proceeded to New York, where they won over the Tappans and persuaded Finney to accept the appointment if the Oberlin trustees would agree to leave the internal administration of the school exclusively to the faculty. Shipherd persuaded his reluctant associates to accept this condition. In the spring of 1835 Mahan became president of the Institute and the Lane "rebels" arrived to study theology under Finney in the newly founded theological department. Oberlin was now firmly established as a center of reform and revival piety.

After 1835, the leadership having passed to Finney and Mahan, Shipherd turned to the founding of other colonies and schools. His Grand River Seminary in Michigan, announced in 1836, and his Lagrange Collegiate Institute, proposed in the spring of 1838, were stillborn. In 1844 he led personally the little group ot people who established the colony and school at Olivet in Michigan. There, early in the autumn of the same year, he died. In 1824 he had married Esther Raymond of Ballston, New York, by whom he had a daughter who died in infancy, and six sons.

[Letters and other manuscripts in the possession of Oberlin College and privately owned; D. L. Leonard, The Story of Oberlin (copyright 1808); New York Evangelist, June 18, 1831, January 30, 1832, September 7, 1833, March 21, July 18, 1835, September 17, 1836, March 31, Apr. 22, 1837; Ohio Observer (Hudson, Ohio), June 12, July 17, 1834, February 5, July 9, 1835; W. B. Williams, A History of Olivet College (1901), and "Two Early Efforts to Found Colleges in Mich.," Historical Collection ... Mich. Pioneer and Historical Society, volume XXX (1906); R. S. Fletcher, "Oberlin, 1833- 1866," in MS.]

R. S. F.


SHIPLEY, Thomas, Philadelphia, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Member of the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania

(Drake, 1950, pp. 118, 130, 140; Mabee, 1970, pp. 24, 30, 275, 278; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)



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