I-K: Jackson through King

See below for annotated biographies of Free Soil Party leaders, members and supporters. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.

JACKSON, William, 1783-1855, Massachusetts, newspaper publisher, abolitionist, temperance activist.  U.S. Congressman, Whig Party.  Vice president, 1833-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Founding member, Liberty Party.  President of the American Missionary Society from 1846-1854. His antislavery views had him help found and support the Free-Soil party after its establishment in 1848.

(Dumond, 1961, p. 286; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III; Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 1, p. 561; Sewell, 1976; pp. 77, 189; “Coalition in Massachusetts. Election of Mr. Sumner,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 1, p. 561

JACKSON, WILLIAM (September 2, 1783-February 27, 1855), tallow chandler, railway promoter, congressman, the son of Timothy and Sarah (Winchester) Jackson, and said to be a descendant of Edward Jackson, one of the earliest settlers of Cambridge, was born in Newton, Massachusetts. Systematic in his reading and study, he supplemented the elementary education which he received in the town schools. At the age of twenty-one, after three years' experience in a manufactory of soap and candles in Boston, he established himself in th e business, in which, in spite of reverses suffered during the War of 1812, he succeeded in laying the foundations of a modest fortune. He served a term as representative of Boston in the Massachusetts General Court in 1819, retiring at this time from active connection with his tallow chandlery. About 1826 he became greatly interested in railroads. Later as a member of the General Court, 1829-1831, he was an active supporter of railroad projects in Massachusetts, lecturing extensively and writing for many newspapers upon this subject for the next eighteen years. Many of his arguments and predictions which now seem conservative were received with ridicule and abuse at that time when many persons considered canals more advantageous. He participated actively in the construction of several Massachusetts railroads including the Western, the Boston & Worcester, the Boston & Albany, and the New Bedford & Taunton.

Jackson was a member of the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth congresses (1833-37), being elected by Anti-Masonic and National Republican support. He refused to be a candidate for a third term. In 1840 he took part in the organization of the Liberty party, and as their candidate was defeated for the lieutenant-governorship in 1842, 1843, and 1844. His antislavery views led him to support the Free-Soil party after its establishment in 1848. Long convinced of the evils of intoxication, he was active in temperance reform, abolishing, as an employer, the custom of furnishing rum to his employees, and adding the extra sum to the wages paid. He was a founder and deacon of the Eliot Church of Newton, and president of the Ameri-can Missionary Association for the first eight years of its existence, 1846-54. His financial concerns late in life were largely confined to the land company which he organized in 1848 for laying out that part of Newton known as Auburndale, and to two banks, the Newton Savings Bank, founded in 1831, of which he was president from 1831 to 1835, and the Newton National Bank, of which he was president from its founding in 1848 to his death. He was married twice: on December 1, 1806, to Hannah Woodward of Newton (died August 11, 1814) by whom he had one son and four daughters, and in 1816 to Mary Bennett of Lunenburg, by whom he had four so ns and seven daughters.

[S. F. Smith, History of Newton, Massachusetts (1880); H. K. Rowe, Tercentenary History of Newton (1930); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Boston Transcript, Daily Evening Traveller, February 28, 1855. Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe]

R. E. M.


JAY, John, 1817-1894, New York, diplomat, lawyer.  Grandson of Chief Justice John Jay.  President of the New York Young Men’s Anti-Slavery Society in 184.  Active and leader in the Free soil Party and founding member of the Republican Party. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, pp. 413-414; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, pp. 10-11; Drake, 1950, pp. 95, 98; Sewell, 1976; p. 260)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

JAY, John, diplomatist, born in New York city, 23 June, 1817; died  there, 5 May, 1894, was graduated at Muhlenberg's institute, and at Columbia in 1836. After his admission to the bar in 1839 he became well known by his active opposition to slavery and his advocacy of St. Philip's colored church, which was admitted to the Protestant Episcopal convention after a nine years' contest. He was secretary of the Irish relief committee of 1847, and was counsel for many fugitive slaves, including George Kirk, two Brazilian slaves that were landed in New York, Henry Long, and the Lemmons. (See ARTHUR, CHESTER ALAN.) In 1854 he organized the meetings at the Broadway tabernacle, that resulted in the state convention at Saratoga on 10 Aug., and in the dissolution of the Whig and the formation of the Republican party at Syracuse, 27 Sept., 1855. During the civil war he acted with the Union league club, of which he was president in 1866, and again in 1877. In 1868, as state commissioner for the Antietam cemetery, he reported to Gov. Reuben E. Fenton on the chartered right of the Confederate dead of that campaign to burial, a right questioned by Gov. John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, and Hon. John Covode. In 1869 he was sent as minister to Austria, where his diplomatic work included a naturalization treaty, the establishment of a convention on trademarks, and the supervision of the U. S. commission to the world's fair of 1873. He resigned and returned to the United States in 1875, afterward residing in New York city. In 1877 he was appointed by Sec. Sherman chairman of the Jay commission to investigate the system of the New York custom-house, and in 1883 was appointed by Gov. Cleveland as the Republican member of the state civil service commission, of which he was made president. Mr. Jay was active in the early history of the American geographical and statistical society, and was long manager and corresponding secretary of the New York historical society. He was also the first president of the Huguenot society, organized in 1855 in New York. In connection with his political career, Mr. Jay delivered numerous addresses on questions connected with slavery, and also bearing on its relation to the Episcopal church, of which he was a leader among the laity. His speeches and pamphlets, which have been widely circulated, include “America Free, or America Slave” (1856); “The Church and the Rebellion” (1863); “On the Passage of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery” (1864); “Rome in America” (1868); “The American Foreign Service” (1877); “The Sunday-School a Safe-guard to the Republic”; “The Fisheries Question”; “The Public School a Portal to the Civil Service.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, pp. 413-414.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, pp. 10-11;

JAY, JOHN (June 23, 1817-May 5, 1894), lawyer, author, diplomat, grandson of Chief Justice John Jay [q.v.], and the only son who grew to maturity of Judge William Jay [q.v.] and Hannah Augusta (McVickar) Jay, was born in New York City. His early years were spent happily in his grandfather's home at Bedford. Prepared for college at Dr. Muhlenberg's Institute, Flushing, L. I., he was graduated from Columbia in 1836, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1839, and practised in New· York City for about twenty years. On the death of his father in 1858 he retired from practice to give the rest of his life to the care of the ancestral estate and to public service.

Oppressed or suffering humanity everywhere had his sympathy. While still a student in Columbia College he was manager of the New York Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. As a young lawyer he was particularly prominent in the seven-years struggle (1846-53) to procure the admission of St. Philip's Church (negro) to the Protestant Episcopal Convention. He served as secretary of the Irish Relief Committee during the potato famine in 1847. After the enactment in 1850 of the Fugitive-Slave Law he acted as counsel for many black fugitives. At a mass meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle, January 30, 1854, he framed the resolutions that were adopted opposing the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the following year he was an enthusiastic leader in the organization of the new Republican party in New York State. Though he was an exponent of peace like his father, nevertheless when the Civil War became a reality, he declared, in an address to his Mount Kisco neighbors, July 4, 1861, that "a whipped hound should be the emblem of the Northern man who whimpers for a peace that can only be gained by dishonour" (The Great Conspiracy, 1861, p. 48). He favored enlistment of the blacks in the Union army, the proclamation of emancipation, the organization of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. On the other hand, he showed a liberal attitude toward the defeated South in favoring an allotment in the National Cemetery at Antietam for fallen Confederate soldiers (Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, 1868, no. 82). As minister to Austria, 1869-74, he had the difficult task of bringing order out of a calumniting chaos in connection with the United States Commission to the International Exhibition held in Vienna in 1873 (see his article, "The American Foreign Service," International Review, May-June 1877). After his return he was appointed chairman of a commission to investigate the New York Custom House for the Treasury Department, he was vice-president of the Civil Service Reform Association of the State of New York, a member, 1884-87, of the state Civil Service Commission, and one of the framers of the state's first civil-service law. A stout defender of the public schools, he assailed the Roman Catholic Church for its attempts "to overthrow our common school system, to tax the people for Romish schools where children will be bent like the twig, moulded in the confessional, educated as subjects of the Pope, owing to him their chief allegiance" (Rome, th e Bible and the Republic, 1879, p. 13). In his presidential address before the American Historical Association (1890), he maintained that the only sure guarantee of America's continued greatness was that every teacher in the common schools should be well grounded in American history. That Jay was well grounded himself is evidenced in all of his writings, especially in an excellent piece of historical research, The Peace Negotiations of 1782 and 1783, published by the New York Historical Society in 1884, and under slightly different titles as a chapter in Volume VII of Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (1888) and in Papers of the American Historical Association, vol. III (1888). In November 1877 he contributed ''Motley's Appeal to History" to the International Review, an article which precipitated a controversy by its criticism of Grant's administration.

Jay was one of the founders of the Union League Club and its president in 1866 and 1877; he was the first president (1883-94) of the Huguenot Society of America, one of the founders (1852) of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, an active member of the New York Historical Society, the Metropolitan Muse um of Art, and the National Academy of Design. He married, June 23, 1837, Eleanor Kingsland Field, of New York City.

[New York Tribune, New York Times, May 6, and (New York) Evening Post, May 7, 1894; J. T. Scharf, History of Westchester County (1886), vol. I; W. W. Spooner, History Families of America (1907); "Slavery and the War," a collection of twenty-one pamphlets by Jay presented by him to various libraries including the Library of Congress; Annual Report American Historical Association, 1894 (1895); Proceedings Huguenot Society of America, vol. III, pt. I (1896); The Union League Club Dinner Given to Hon. John Jay on His Seventieth Birthday (1887).]

A.E.P.


JOHNSON, Oliver, 1809-1889, anti-slavery leader, newspaper editor, printer, reformer.  An early supporter of William Lloyd Garrison.  American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Member Executive Committee, 1841-1843, Manager, 1852-1853.  Occasionally helped Garrison in the editing of The Liberator.  In 1832, co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society.  Lectured extensively against slavery.  Johnson edited various anti-slavery newspapers, including the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the Pennsylvania Freeman, and the Anti-Slavery Bugle.  He was also connected with the Republican (Philadelphia), a Free-Soil paper, and the Practical Christian (Milford, Massachusetts).

(Mabee, 1970, pp. 86, 87, 214, 215, 226, 261, 262, 297, 335, 368; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 367; Sewell, 1976; pp. 40, 341; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 446; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 412; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 12, p. 107)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 412

JOHNSON, OLIVER (December 27, 1809-December 10, 1889), anti-slavery leader, editor, was born at Peacham, Caledonia County, Vermont, the son of Ziba Johnson, a Peacham pioneer in 1795, and Sally Lincoln. He was related on his mother's side to the Lincolns and Leonards of Massachusetts, and on his father's was descended from Isaac Johnson, who came to America in the late seventeenth century. Oliver grew up on a farm and attended the common school until he became an apprentice in the printing office of the Vermont Watchman, Montpelier. Here he came under the influence of William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.], whose paper, Journal of the Times (Bennington), he eagerly devoured. On September 8, 1832, he married Mary Anne White, daughter of Reverend Broughton White of Putney, Vermont. She was assistant matron of the female prison at Sing Sing, a promoter of prison reform, and later a lecturer on anatomy and physiology to women.

Going to Boston in 1831, he established the Christian Soldier, in opposition to the doctrine of Universalism. His office was in the same building with that of the Liberator and there soon sprang up between Johnson and Garrison an intimacy and an agreement on all phases of the slavery question which lasted throughout their lives. When in 1833 and 1840 Garrison went to England, he intrusted the editing of the Liberator in his absence to Johnson, and during the summers of 1837 and 1838 Garrison, because of ill health, turned his paper over to Johnson's care. In 1832 Johnson became one of the twelve founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and in 1836, its traveling agent. From this time forward he continuously engaged in the work of the anti-slavery crusade, lecturing under the auspices of several of the numerous anti-slavery societies, writing, and editing. He was Boston correspondent of the New York Tribune, 1842-44, and assistant to Horace Greeley, 1844-48. In 1849 he became editor of the Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Massachusetts), somewhat later of the Pennsylvania Freeman, from which in 1853 the National Anti-Slavery Society transferred him to the associate editorship of the National Anti-Slavery Standard at New York. This post he held until the end of the Civil War. He was also connected with the Republican (Philadelphia), a Free-Soil paper, and the Practical Christian (Milford, Massachusetts). After the Civil War he was associate editor of the Independent, 1865-70; editor of the New York Weekly Tribune, 1870-73; managing editor of the Christian Union, 1873-76; editor of the Journal (Orange, New Jersey); and associate editor of the New York Evening Post (1881-89). His wife died in June 1872, and on August 27, 1873, he married Jane Abbott, daughter of John S. C. Abbott [q.v.], by whom he had one daughter. He died in Brooklyn, New York.

Johnson has been called "a wheel horse in every humanitarian movement for almost half a century, a man whose philosophy of life was quite simply to love his neighbor as himself " (Henry Ward Beecher, p. 238). As a reformer he was interested not only in abolition but in nearly all the progressive movements of his day. As early as 1838 his interest in women's rights was shown when he advocated full participation of women in anti-slavery societies. He was temporary secretary of the Peace Convention of 1838 at Boston and showed a consistent interest in the peace movement throughout his life. In politics he followed much the same course as Garrison until, in the election of 1872, he became an active worker in the reform campaign of Horace Greeley. He was a close friend of Henry Ward Beecher and of Theodore Tilton. As an editor he was able to use his pen in the interests of all those reforms which attracted him. His works include: Consider This, Ye That Forget God (1831); Correspondence with George F. White (1841); What I Know of Horace Greeley (campaign tract, 1872); William Lloyd Garrison and His Times (1880); The Abolitionists Vindicated in a Review of Eli Thayer's Paper on the New England Emigrant Aid Society (1887). In maturity he abandoned the Calvinism of his youth and became identified with a small group known as "Progressive Friends," whose center was at Kennett Square, Pa. Because of this affiliation, he was buried at Kennett Square.

[William Lloyd Garrison, 1805- 1879, The Story of his Life. Told by his Children (4 vols., 1885-89); Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher (1927); Independent, December 19, 1889; New York Herald, December 11, 1889; Evening Post (New York), December 11, 1889; Nation, December 19, 1889; genealogical material from family records in the possession of Johnson's grand-niece, Miss F. F. Clark, Peacham, Vermont ]

J. W. P-t.
A.G.T.


JULIAN, George Washington, 1817-1899, Society of Friends, Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana, vice president of the Free Soil Party, 1852.  Member of U.S. Congress from Indiana, 1850-1851.  Was against the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.  Fought in court to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to their owners.  Joined and supported early Republican Party.  Re-elected to Congress, 1861-1871.  Supported emancipation of slaves.  Husband of Ann Elizabeth Finch, who was likewise opposed to slavery.  After her death in 1860, he married Laura Giddings, daughter of radical abolitionist Joshua Giddings. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 486; Blue, 2005, pp. ix, 9, 10, 11, 13, 161-183, 210, 225-229, 259-260, 265-270; Riddleberger, 1966; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 54, 354-355; Sewell, 1976; pp. 166, 168n, 172, 176, 185-186, 215, 241, 246-248, 251, 257-258, 267-268, 273, 285; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, pp. 245-246; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 486-487; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 12, p. 315).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

JULIAN, George Washington, statesman, born near Centreville, Ind., 5 May, 1817; died  in Irvington, Ind., 7 July, 1899. He taught for three years, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1840. He was elected to the Indiana house of representatives in 1845 as a member of the Whig party; but becoming warmly interested in the slavery question through his Quaker training, severed his party relations in 1848, became one of the founders and leaders of the Free-soil party, was a delegate to the Buffalo convention, and was then elected to congress, serving from 3 Dec., 1849, to 3 March, 1851. In 1852 he was a candidate for the vice-presidency on the Free-soil ticket. He was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention of 1856, the first National convention of the Republican party, and was its vice-president, and chairman of the committee on organization. In 1860 he was elected as a Republican to congress, and served on the joint committee on the conduct of the war. He was four times re-elected, and served on the committee on reconstruction, and for eight years as chairman of the committee on public lands. He espoused the cause of woman suffrage as early as 1847, and in 1868 proposed in congress a constitutional amendment conferring the right to vote on women. During the discussions on reconstruction he was zealous in demanding the electoral franchise for the negro. In 1872 he joined the Liberal Republicans, and supported Horace Greeley for president. His most strenuous efforts in congress were directed to the championship of the homestead policy and the preservation of the public lands for the people. In May, 1885, he was appointed surveyor-general of New Mexico. He had published “Speeches on Political Questions,” containing a sketch of his life by Lydia Maria Child (Boston, 1872), and “Political Recollections” (Chicago, 1884), and had contributed to magazines and reviews articles dealing with political reforms.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 245;

JULIAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON (May 5, 1817-July 7, 1899), abolitionist leader, son of Isaac and Rebecca (Hoover) Julian, was born in a log cabin a mile and a half south of Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana. His father, descended from Rene St. Julien, a Huguenot who came to America about the end of the seventeenth century, was a soldier in the War of 1812 and at one time a member of the Indiana legislature. His mother, of German descent, was a Quaker, whose paternal ancestors were also those of Herbert Hoover. Isaac Julian died when George was only six years old, but by hard work and frugality the widowed mother managed to bring up the family of children. George attended the common schools, at eighteen taught a district school, presently studied law, and in 1840 was admitted to the bar, practising successively in Newcastle, Greenfield, and Centerville. In 1845 he was elected to the state legislature as a Whig, but voted with the Democrats against the repudiation of the Wabash and Erie Canal bonds. About the same time he began to write newspaper articles attacking slavery. Defeated in 1847 in an attempt to secure the Whig nomination for state senator, he presently joined the Free-Soil party and the next year attended the Buffalo convention that nominated Van Buren. His activities as an abolitionist had caused him to be ostracized by many former friends and associates and had even brought about the dissolution of a law partnership with his brother, but the political tide presently turned in his favor and in 1848, having been nominated for Congress by the Free-Soilers, he was elected, with the assistance of many Democratic votes. As a member of the little group of anti-slavery men in Congress he vigorously opposed the compromise measures of 1850. Beaten for reelection in that year, he resumed the practice of law but continued his advocacy of abolition both in speeches and in the press. In 1852 he was nominated for the vice-presidency by the Free-Soil party and took an active part in the campaign.

Julian's real opportunity came with the rise of the Republican party, of which the Free-Soil party had been a forerunner. In 1856 he participated in the Pittsburgh convention that formally organized the new party, and was chosen one of the vice-presidents and chairman of the committee on organization. His earnest fight for human freedom brought reward at last when in 1860 he was elected to Congress. Four times reelected, he speedily won a prominent place in legislative deliberations, and among the committees on which he served was the very important committee on the conduct of the war. He early began to urge the emancipation of slaves as a war measure, advancing the argument of John Quincy Adams, that such a step would be within the war powers of the president and Congress. As chairman of the committee on public lands he had an important part in the passage of the celebrated Homestead Act, a measure, he had urged in 1851. Though he thought Lincoln too slow in some respects and opposed his reconstruction plan, Julian refused to join in the attempt in 1864 to nominate Chase in Lincoln's stead. Julian favored punishing Confederate leaders and confiscating their lands and early advocated the granting of the suffrage to the freedmen. He stood, therefore, with the Radicals in their battles with President Johnson, and in 1867 was one of the committee of seven appointed by the House to prepare the articles of impeachment against the President. In 1868 he proposed an amendment to the Constitution conferring the right of suffrage upon women, a reform he continued to champion to the end of his life.

Failing of renomination in 1870, he devoted much of his time to recuperating his broken health and to compiling a volume of Speeches 0n Political Questions, published in 1872. He had come to be out of sympathy with the influences that dominated the Republican party nationally and in Indiana, and joined the Liberal Republican movement, presiding during parts of two days over the Cincinnati convention (1872) that nominated Horace Greeley. The next year he removed to Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, and for some years was occupied with writing and championing reform measures. He supported Tilden in the campaign of 1876, and two million copies of his speech, The Gospel of Reform, were distributed by the Democratic National Committee. In the years that followed he contributed notable articles on politics, the public lands, and other subjects to the North American Review and other periodicals. Meanwhile he was writing his Political Recollections 1840- 1872, published in 1884. After the election of Cleveland in that year he was appointed surveyor general of New Mexico, a post for which he was particularly fitted. During his administration (July 1885-September 1889) he brought to light many flagrant frauds in connection with public land grants. In 1889 he published a volume, Later Speeches on Political Questions with Select Controversial Papers, edited by his daughter. His last important literary work was The Life of Joshua R. Giddings (1892). In 1896 he supported the Gold Democrats. He died at his home in Irvington in the summer of 1899.

Julian was twice married. His first wife was Anne Elizabeth Finch of Centerville, who died in November 1860, a few days after his election to Congress. His second wife, whom he married December 31, 1863, was Laura Giddings, daughter of Joshua R. Giddings [q.v.]. She died in 1884.

[Consult Julian's own Political R ecollections (1 884); George W. Julian (192 3), by his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke; and Indianapolis Sentinel, July 7, 1899. Julian also left an unpublished diary, containing much interesting and important historical material, which is in the possession of his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke, Indianapolis.]

P. L. H.


KANE, Thomas Leiper (January 27, 1822- December 26, 1883), soldier, “At heart he was an abolitionist and contributed many articles on this and other subjects to the press of the day. In 1848 he became chairman of the Free Soil State Central Committee, and upon the passage of the Fugitive-slave Law of 1850, found that the duties of a United States commissioner were in conflict with the dictates of his conscience and resigned the office.”

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, pp. 258-259.

KANE, THOMAS LEIPER (January 27, 1822- December 26, 1883), soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the son of John Kintzing [q.v.] and Jane Duval (Leiper) Kane, and the brother of Elisha Kent Kane [q.v.]. He attended school in Philadelphia until he was seventeen then visited England and France, remaining some years in Paris. Upon his return to Philadelphia he studied law with his father and was admitted to the bar in 1846 but rarely practised. He did, however, hold the position of clerk under his father who was judge of the United States district court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. He also served as one of the United States commissioners in this district. At heart he was an abolitionist and contributed many articles on this and other subjects to the press of the day. In 1848 he became chairman of the Free Soil State Central Committee, and upon the passage of the Fugitive-slave Law of 1850, found that the duties of a United States commissioner were in conflict with the dictates of his conscience and resigned the office. His father construed his letter of resignation as contempt of court and he was committed. This action, however, was overruled by the supreme bench and he was set free, becoming an active agent of the Underground Railroad. Having become interested in the activities of the Mormons, he took part in securing the assistance of the government in their westward migration and accompanied them in their wanderings for a considerable time. In this way he became a friend of Brigham Young and won his confidence to such an extent that in 1858, when Young had called upon his people to resist the entrance of United States troops into Utah, and a proclamation had been issued declaring the territory to be in a state of rebellion, Kane was able to convince the Mormon leader that such an action would be useless and so brought about an amicable settlement of the affair. In later years he continued his interest in the Mormon church, though there is no evidence that he ever became a member.

Shortly after his return to Philadelphia he removed to the northwestern part of Pennsylvania and founded the town of Kane. It was here that he organized at the outbreak of the Civil War a regiment of woodsmen and hunters known as the "Bucktails." He was elected colonel of this regiment on June 12, 1861, but shortly resigned in favor of the Mexican War veteran, Charles J. Biddle. He was immediately elected lieutenant-colonel and continued to serve with the regiment. He was wounded at Dranesville and captured at Harrisonburg. On September 7, 1862, he was appointed brigadier-general for gallant services and commanded the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, XII Army Corps, at Chancellorsville. He contracted pneumonia and was in the hospital at Baltimore just before the battle of Gettysburg when he was entrusted with a message to General Meade that the Confederates were in possession of the Union cipher. He delivered the message after considerable difficulty and resumed command of his brigade on the second day of fighting, although still too weak to sit his horse. He was compelled to resign November 7, 1863, being brevetted major-general for "gallant and meritorious services at Gettysburg" on March 13, 1865. Upon retiring from the army he resided at his home in Kane and also in Philadelphia, taking an active interest in charitable matters and serving as the first president of the Pennsylvania Board of State Charities. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and other organizations and was a director in various enterprises. He was the author of three privately printed books: The Mormons (1850): Alaska (1868), and Coahuila (1877). He had married, on April 21, 1853, Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood, who afterward became a doctor of medicine. He died of lobar pneumonia in Philadelphia.

[S. P. Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, vol. I (1869); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); 0. R. H. Thomson and W. H. Rauch, History of the Bucktails (1906); E. P. Oberholtzer, Philadelphia: A History of the City and Its People (n.d.), vol. II; F. J. Cannon and G. L. Knapp, Brigham Young and His Mormon Empire (1913); T. B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints (1873); the Press (Philadelphia), December 27, 1883.]

J.H.F.


KASSON, John Adam, 1822-1910, lawyer, diplomat.   Supporter of the Free-Soil Party. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa.  Served as a Congressman from 1863-1867, 1873-1877, 1881-1884.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 494; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 260; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 12, p. 392; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 260;

KASSON, JOHN ADAM  (January 11, 1822-May 18, 1910), diplomat, son of John Steele and Nancy (Blackman) Kasson, was descended from a Scotch-Irish immigrant, Adam Kasson, who came to America in 1722. Born at Charlotte, Vermont, he was educated at an academy in Burlington, and at the University of Vermont, where he graduated second in his class in 1842. He studied law in the office of his brother in Burlington, and then at Worcester, Massachusetts, and after being admitted to the bar devoted himself to mercantile and maritime practice. On May 1, 1850, he married Caroline Eliot (G. M. Kasson, Genealogy of a Part of the Kasson Family, 1882; although Who's Who in America, 1899, gives his status as "unmarried"). In 1850 he moved to the West, settling first at St. Louis, where he became associated in his law practice with B. Gratz Brown. In 1857 he established himself at Des Moines, Iowa. As early as 1848 he had shown an interest in the slavery question and had gone as a delegate to the Free-Soil convention in Buffalo. He now became an active Republican and chairman of the Republican state committee. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860, and as a member of the drafting committee shared with Horace Greeley the chief responsibility for the platform finally adopted.

On Lincoln's election to the presidency, Kasson, through the good will of political friends in Missouri, became first assistant postmaster-general. This might easily have been a routine job, with patronage-peddling as its principal activity. Kasson made it of high importance. He secured the codification of the postal laws and devised a plan for securing uniformity in postal intercourse between the United States and foreign nations. At his suggestion the President called a postal conference which met in Paris in 1863, and to which Kasson was sent as a delegate. In this conference the way was prepared for the foundation of the International Postal Union. Later in 1867, Kasson acted as United States commissioner in the negotiation of six postal conventions.

In 1862 he was elected to Congress, after a close contest for the nomination in which his control of patronage materially aided him. In the post-bellum controversy over reconstruction he clearly belonged to the moderate wing of his party, but, to judge from his frequent abstentions from voting, he lacked the courage vigorously to oppose the radicals, and he withdrew from Congress in 1866. He was elected to the state legislature, serving from t868 to 1872 and taking a leading part in the successful fight for a new state capitol. In 1872 he was again a candidate for Congress, and served from 1873 to 1877. He voted for resumption of specie payments, and for the Civil Rights Bill, but against the Force Bill of 1875. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes as minister to Austria-Hungary, and in that post gained great popularity. Returning to the United States, he again entered the House, serving from 1881 to 1884. A member of the committee which drafted the Civil Service Act of 1883, he piloted it through the debates to final passage. In 1884 he was sent to Berlin as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, and he served as the American representative in the international conference to regulate the status of the Congo. He here performed important services, helping to secure the acceptance by the conference of liberal treaty provisions for the protection of the natives and for freedom of trade, and promoting the agreement to respect the neutrality of the region. In 1889 he was one of the American representatives at the Berlin conference held to regulate the status of Samoa. Under the McKinley administration he served as a member of the British-American Joint High Commission of 1898 which made an unsuccessful effort to solve the Alaskan boundary question, and as special commissioner to negotiate reciprocity agreements with foreign countries under the Dingley Act. Though he was successful in negotiating a number of such conventions, his work failed to receive the approval of the Senate, and after having once offered his resignation and seen it declined, Kasson laid down his post in 1901. He died at Washington in May 1910.

Kasson was not a great political leader, but he had genuine abilities, and some pretensions to scholarship. In 1887 he was president of the Centennial Commission which directed the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution, and for this occasion prepared his "History of the Formation of the Constitution," published in the first volume of the History of the Celebration ... (2 vols., 1889). It was later republished in The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States of America and History of the Monroe Doctrine (1904). He wrote on the tariff, revealing himself as a firm but not always logical protectionist, with a bent toward reciprocity (Information Respecting Reciprocity and the Existing Treaties, 1901). In 1890 he gave a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute on the Historical Evolution of Diplomacy, following these with similar courses at Johns Hopkins. His "History of the Monroe Doctrine" is a summary of judicious quality. One of his most interesting contributions was a speech to the Naval War College, published with the title, International Arbitration (1896). In this address Kasson brings forward the fruitful idea, of classifying certain types of disputes as peculiarly susceptible of submission to arbitration. In international matters, indeed, he showed much breadth of view, a willingness to enter into closer relations with other nations, an interest in the protection of weaker peoples, and a genuine desire to promote the cause of peace. Not an imposing figure, he deserves an honorable place amongst American diplomats. In personal bearing he was cool, and suave, without great personal magnetism.

[Perhaps the best account of Kasson's life is in E. H. Stiles, Recollections and Sketches of Notable Lawyers and Public Men of Early Iowa (1916). See also B. F. Gue, History of Iowa (4 vols., 1903); "John A. Kasson: An Autobiography," Annals of Iowa, July 1920; Ibid., July 1899, January 1900, July 1911; J. L. Laughlin and H. P. Willis, Reciprocity (1903); A. B. Keith, The Belgian Congo and the Berlin Act (1919); Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of Iowa, Reunion of I911 (1913); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; obituaries in Washington Post, Sioux City Journal, and Register and Leader (Des Moines), May 19, 1910. Kasson's activities in Congress are naturally to be traced in the Congressional Globe, Congressional Record, and his diplomatic career in the archives of the State Department. Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)].

D. P.


KEYES, Edward L., Congressman, member of the Free Soil Party.

(Sewell, 1976; pp. 219, 271n; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 345, pp. 122, 157, 252, 345; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).


KING, Preston, 1806-1865, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, politician.  Son of founding father Rufus King.  Opponent of the extension of slavery into the new territories acquired from Mexico after 1846.  Supporter of the Wilmot Proviso in Congress.  Co-founder of Free Soil Party.  Opposed the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854.  Congressman from March 1849-March 1853 in the Free Soil Party. U.S. Senator, 1857-1863.  Supported Lincoln and the Union.  Later organized Republican Party and supported William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed and John Frémont. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 12, p. 708; Encyclopaedia Americana, 1831, Vol. VII, pp. 326-328; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 396; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe; Sewell, 1976; pp. 139, 150n, 151, 156,) 227-229, 242n, 263, 277, 280, 289, 324, 331.)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

KING, Preston, senator, born in Ogdensburg, New York, 14 Oct., 1806; drowned in Hudson river, 12 November, 1865. He was graduated at Union in 1827, studied law, and practised in St. Lawrence county, New York. He entered politics in early life, was a strong friend of Silas Wright, and an admirer of Andrew Jackson, and established the “St. Lawrence Republican” at Ogdensburg in 1830, in support of the latter. He was for a time postmaster there, and in 1834-'7 a member of the state assembly. He was a representative in congress in 1843-'7 and in 1849-'53, having been elected as a Democrat, but in 1854 joined the Republican party, was its candidate for secretary of state in 1855, and in 1857-'63 served as U. S. senator. Early in 1861, in the debate on the naval appropriation bill, Mr. King said that the Union could not be destroyed peaceably, and was one of the first to give his opinion thus plainly. In closing, he said: “I tell these gentlemen, in my judgment this treason must come to an end—peacefully, I hope; but never, in my judgment, peacefully by the ignominious submission of the people of this country to traitors—never. I desire peace, but I would amply provide means for the defence of the country by war, if necessary.” After the expiration of his term, Mr. King resumed the practice of law in New York city. He was a warm friend of Andrew Johnson, and, as a member of the Baltimore convention of 1864, did much to secure his nomination for the vice-presidency. After his accession to the presidency, Mr. Johnson appointed Mr. King collector of the port of New York. Financial troubles and the responsibilities of his office unsettled his mind, and he committed suicide by jumping from a ferry-boat into the Hudson river. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 396)

KING, PRESTON (October 14, 1806-November 13, 1865), politician, was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of John King and Margaret Galloway. His elementary education obtained in Ogdensburg was followed by a classical course in Union College where he graduated with honors in 1827. He passed the bar after a study of the law in Silas Wright's office. In 1830 he established the St. Lawrence Republican. He was a Democrat from principle and became a dogged, uncompromising Jacksonian. Through Wright's influence he served as postmaster at Ogdensburg from 1831 to 1834 at which time he was elected to the Assembly. He was hostile toward the movement to finance internal improvements at government expense and thought Whiggery was an extension of Federalism, neither of which had accomplished any good. He won the confidence and respect of his party before he became involved in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-38. The imprisonment of some of his friends whom he had urged to participate in that war temporarily unbalanced his mind and he entered an asylum in Hartford, Connecticut, after his fourth term in the Assembly. He recovered rapidly, however, returned to politics, and entered Congress in 1843. Having long opposed the extension of slavery, he broke with the majority of his party in 1846, when he advised Wilmot to introduce his Proviso and then gave it his powerful support. He participated in the Free Soil convention at Buffalo in 1848 and supported Van Buren. He was not a candidate for election to the Thirtieth Congress, but he was elected in 1848 as a Free Sailer and was reelected in 1850. He was strong in his opposition to the Fugitive-slave Law. In 1852 he supported Pierce for President but later turned against him and the party, because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and allied himself with its opponents. He urged the nomination of Fremont and was himself considered for the vice-presidential nomination by the Philadelphia convention in 1856. In 1857 he entered the Senate where he severely denounced Buchanan as being "false to his high trust" (Congressional Globe, 35 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1134). He proposed to establish agricultural land grant colleges in every state, but he failed to secure the passage of such a bill. The idea of secession was repugnant to him, although he advocated state rights in preference to extreme centralization. He refused to support any proposed compromises with the South in 1860, and he ardently supported Lincoln in his war policies. At the expiration of his term in 1863 he returned to his law practice. He acted as chairman of the National Committee of the Republican party from 1860 to 1864 and served as a delegate in the Republican Convention at Baltimore where he urged the nomination of Johnson for vice-president. After the latter became president, he appointed King collector of customs in New York City (August 15, 1865). King accepted the office, for which he believed himself wholly unfitted, only upon the earnest insistence of Weed. An invasion of office-seekers and the fear that he might fail to perform his duties satisfactorily caused another mental aberration. He tied a bag of shot about his body and slipped off a Hoboken ferry-boat. His remains were buried near the graves of his father and mother at Ogdensburg, New York, in May 1866. He had never married.

[D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, vol. II (1906); Autobiography of Thurlow Weed (1884), ed. by Harriet A. Weed; C. B. Going, David Wilmot, Free Soiler (1924); H. D. A. Donovan, The Barnburners (1925); Diary of Gideon Welles (3 vols., 1911); S. W. Durant and H. B. Pierce, History of St. Lawrence County, New York (1878); obituary notices in the World (New York), November 15, 16, 1865, and the New York Tribune, November 15, 1865. Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe.]

W. E. S-h.



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