I-L: Julian through Lovejoy

See below for annotated biographies of Radical Republicans. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

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. Principal framer of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 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. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III; Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. ix, 9, 10, 11, 13, 161-183, 210, 225-229, 259-260, 265-270; Riddleberger, 1966; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 54, 354-355; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 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, Volume 12, p. 315)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 245-246:

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 On 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 Recollections (1884); 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.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 486:

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 December, 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.—His brother, Isaac Hoover, journalist, born in Wayne county, Ind., 19 June, 1823, removed to Iowa in 1846, resided there till 1850, and returning to Indiana settled in Centreville and edited the “Indiana True Republican,” which he afterward published in Richmond, Ind., under the title of “The Indiana Radical.” He occupied several local offices in that town, removed to San Marco, Texas, in 1873, and since that date has edited the “San Marco Free Press.” He has published, besides numerous poems, pamphlets, and essays, a “Memoir of David Hoover” (Richmond, Ind., 1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 1., By William H. Barnes, 1869, p. 345:

GEORGE W. JULIAN.

THE Julian family is of French origin. The first of the V name came to America sometime in the last century, and settled on the eastern shore of Maryland. Their descendants, however, soon scattered in various directions. One of the family is mentioned in Irving's “Life of Washington,” as living near Winchester, Virginia, soon after Braddock's defeat. The next notice we have of the family, is in North Carolina, where Isaac Julian, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born and reared among the Quakers, who gave that State a character for loyalty and anti-slavery sentiment, found nowhere else in the South. Early in the present century, he removed to Indiana, where he was one of the earliest of the pioneer settlers. He was a man of sound judgment and practical ability. He took a part of some prominence in the affairs of the young State, and was at one time a member of the State Legislature.

His son, George W. Julian, was born near Centreville, Indiana, May 5, 1817, in a log house, which is still standing in a good state of preservation. When George was six years old, his father died, leaving to the excellent mother and six children an inheritance of poverty and hardship George was a boy of very industrious habits, exhibiting at an early age those sterling qualities of character which have since distinguished him. He was particularly remarkable for his close application to study, and his unconquerable resolution. When not engaged in labor necessary for the support of himself and other members of the family, he was constantly poring over books, which he had managed to borrow from kind neighbors. His principal opportunities of study were by fire-light, and after the other members of the family had re. tired to rest. Thus he soon prepared himself for teaching; and long before he came of age, he was engaged during the winter months at the head of a district school.

In the twenty-second year of his age, and while engaged in teaching in Illinois, he commenced, without a preceptor, the study of law; and so diligent and successful was he in his law studies, that, in the following year (1840), he was admitted to the bar. He began the practice of his profession in Greenfield, Indiana; and after two years he returned to Centreville, where, with little interruption, he continued the practice of law for more than twenty years.

In 1845, Mr. Julian was elected to the State legislature, to represent the county of Wayne. He took a prominent part in advocating the abolition of capital punishment, and in support of what was then known as the “Butler Bill,” by the passage of which one-half of the State debt was cancelled, and the State probably saved from repudiation.

Mr. Julian, though a strong Whig, yet possessed that fearless and independent spirit which could rise above party ties whenever its principles were likely to be perverted by designing leaders. No party could ever be made strong enough to hold him in its ranks for a moment after he believed it had once deserted the great principles of justice and humanity. It was doubtless this stern conviction of right that ultimately separated him from the Whig party. From his earliest connection with the politics of the country, he abhorred slavery, and regarded with contempt those who would cringe to its power. For years he seems to have foreseen the terrible crisis through which the country has recently passed, and warned the people to resist the encroachments of the slave power, as the only means of averting a great national calamity.

Actuated by such sentiments, Mr. Julian, in 1848, aided in the nomination of Van Buren and Adams, the Free-Soil candidates for President and Vice-President. He returned from the Buffalo Convention overflowing with enthusiasm in the cause of freedom. He was appointed elector for his District for Van Buren and Adams, and engaged with heart and strength in the unequal contest. In this new and great career on which he had entered, he endured the disruption of social ties, and received the hisses and execrations, the abuse and calumnies of many of his former political associates, but courageously confronted his ablest opponents, and lashed the adversaries of freedom until they cowered before him, and confessed the strength of his cause. All parties were astonished at his power and success, which was so great that in 1849 he was elected to Congress over the late Hon. Samuel W. Parker, a prominent Whig politician, and one of the best speakers of the West.

Though elected principally by Democratic votes, Mr. Julian faithfully sustained, against all temptations, and during his entire term in Congress, the principles upon which he was elected. His speeches on the slavery question, and his uncompromising course in opposition to that system, tended still further to widen the breach between him and his former associates. He was one of the fathers of the Homestead Law. Grace Greenwood thus wrote of his speech on the subject of the public lands, delivered during his first term in Congress : “This was a strong, fearless, and eloquent expression of a liberty-loving and philanthropic spirit. It is lying before me now, and I have just been reading some of its finest passages; and, brief and unstudied as it is, it does not seem to me a speech for one day, or for one Congressional session.' It seems moved with the strength of a great purpose, veined with a vital truth, a moral life-blood beating through it warm and generous. It is something that must live and work yet many days.”

In 1851, Mr. Julian was again a candidate for Congress in opposition to Mr. Parker, but was this time defeated. In 1852, he was, by the Free-Soil Convention at Pittsburg, placed upon the ticket with Hon. John P. Hale, as candidate for Vice-President. This served to increase his reputation among the more liberal thinkers of the country, and made his name less than ever the property of his own State.

1854 was the year of Know-Nothingism-a new and strange order, which failed not to find in Mr. Julian a most formidable and uncompromising opponent. He continued to wage an incessant warfare against, it, until it ceased to exist as an organization. His anti-Know-Nothing speech, delivered at Indianapolis in 1855, is esteemed by many as the ablest argument which this remarkable movement called forth.

In February, 1856, occurred at Pittsburg the great National Convention of all who were opposed to the Democratic party. It was at this convention that measures were taken for the organization of the National Republican party. Of this important convention, Mr. Julian was one of the Vice-Presidents, and Chairman of the Committee on Organization, through whose report of a plan of action the party first took life.

In 1860, Mr. Julian received the Republican nomination for Congress in the Fifth District of Indiana, and in spite of much and varied opposition, was elected by an overwhelming majority. He has since been four times re-elected, in the last instance largely by a new constituency, the State having recently been re-districted for Congressional purposes.

At the organization of the Thirty-seventh Congress, Mr. Julian was placed upon the Committee on Public Lands, and also on the important Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. On the election of Mr. Colfax as Speaker of the Thirty-eighth Congress, he appointed Mr. Julian Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. He was continued on the Committee on the Conduct of the War so long as this committee continued to exist.

Mr. Julian has been an exceedingly active and efficient member of the National Legislature. Among the important measures introduced by him during his ten years' service in Congress, may be mentioned the bill repealing the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 and 1793; a bill abolishing the coast-wise slave trade ; a bill providing homesteads for soldiers and seamen on the forfeited lands of rebels ; a bill providing for the sale of the mineral lands of the Government; a bill fixing eight hours as a day's work for all Government employees (laborers and mechanics); a bill extending the homestead law over the public lands of the Southern States, in restricted allotments to white and colored, with a prohibition of further sales in that region; a bill equalizing bounties among our soldiers and sailors on the basis of eight and one-third dollars per month in lieu of bounties in land; a bill preventing the further issue of Agricultural College scrip to the rebellious States ; a bill establishing the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia, without regard to race or color; a bill establishing the same principle in all the Territories of the United States, being the first introduced in either House on the subject; the bill declaring forfeited the lands granted to Southern railroads in 1856 ; a bill making the public domain free to honorably discharged soldiers and seamen ; and a bill withdrawing the public lands from further sale except under the pre-emption and homestead laws.

W. H. Goddard, Esq., in a brief sketch of the life and services of Mr. Julian, published two years ago, thus enumerates his most important speeches :

“ The speeches of Mr. Julian during the war, both in Congress and before the people, have been among the very ablest of the crisis. That delivered in the House on the 14th day of January, 1862, on the 'Cause and Cure of our National Troubles,' is one of which his friends may well be proud, and to-day reads like a prophecy fulfilled. His speech on “Confiscation and Liberation, delivered in May following, is similar in character. That delivered in February, 1863, on the ‘Mistakes of the Past; the duty of the Present,' is a merciless review of ' Democratic Policy, as seen in the facts and figures which had been supplied by the investigations of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. In the winter of 1863-4 he delivered a very thorough and forcible speech on his bill providing homesteads for soldiers on the lands of rebels, which was followed by another on the same subject, involving a controversy with Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, who met with a most humiliating discomfiture. During the session of 1864-5, Mr. Julian delivered an able speech on the sale of mineral lands, and another on “Radicalism and Conservatism,' closing with a handsome and eloquent tribute to the anti-slavery pioneers. His speech on ‘Reconstruction and Suffrage,' delivered last fall before the Legislature of Indiana, is reckoned among the most thorough and effective he has yet made; whilst his speeches at the present session of the Thirty-ninth Congress on ‘Suffrage in the District of Columbia,' and on ‘Amending the Constitution,' add still further to his reputation as a thinker, and a perfectly independent man who knows how to say what lie thinks. All his speeches breathe the spirit of freedom, and have the merit of careful thought, methodical arrangement, and a remarkably clear and forcible diction.”

In addition to the speeches enumerated above, should be named those he has since delivered on “Radicalism, the Nation's Hope,” “ The Punishment of Rebel Leaders,” “ Regeneration before Reconstruction,” “ Forfeiture of the Southern Land Grants," “ The True Policy of Land Bounties," and finally his speech of March 6, 1868, on “Our Land Policy, its Evils and their Remedy.” The latter, made in support of his great measure now pending, forbidding the further sale of our public lands except to actual settlers, is perhaps the ablest and most thoroughly practical of all his speeches.

In 1860, Mr. Julian lost his excellent wife, and was soon after still further bereaved by the death of two promising sons. In December, 1863, he was married to Miss Laura Giddings, the talented and accomplished daughter of the late Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio.

Mr. Julian is tall in stature, possessing much physical as well as intellectual vigor. His expansive brow indicates clearness and strength of thought. His face bespeaks a man of firmness, conscientiousness, and benevolence. While deficient in many of the arts by which the politician wins popularity, he possesses the superior ability by which the statesman earns enduring fame. 230



KELLEY, William Darrah, 1814-1890, lawyer, jurist, abolitionist.  Kelley always opposed slavery and, with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, abandoned the Democratic party to become one of the founders of the Republican organization. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.  Elected in 1860.  Called the “Father of the House.”  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 505; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 494; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe; Gates, 2013, Volume 10, p. 510 Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 299-300)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 299-300:

KELLEY, WILLIAM DARRAH (April 12, 1814-January 9, 1890), congressman, was born in Philadelphia. One group of his ancestors came from Ireland and settled on the Delaware in 1662; another group, of French Huguenot extraction, were early settlers in New Jersey. Both his grandfathers fought in the American Revolution. William Darrah was the youngest of four children and the only son of David and Hannah (Darrah) Kelley. His father, a leading watchmaker and jeweler of Philadelphia, was financially wrecked during the crisis following the War of 1812, and died in 1816.

Kelley attended the congregational school of the Second Presbyterian Church until he was eleven, when he found employment in a lottery office at a salary of a dollar a week. He worked for a time with an umbrella maker, and shortly after became copy-reader in the printing office of Jesper Harding [q.v.]. At the age of thirteen he became a jeweler's apprentice. His indenture expired in 1834 when employment was scarce in Philadelphia, so he proceeded to Boston where he worked at enameling. He employed his leisure hours in study; contributing al so to the periodical press and winning a reputation as a lecturer and debater. He suffered an injury in 1838 and returned to Philadelphia where he read law. He was admitted to the bar in 1841, was appointed prosecutor of the pleas for Philadelphia in 1845 and, in 1847, was appointed judge of the court of common pleas, oyer and terminer, and quarter sessions. When the latter office was made elective in 1851 Kelley was recommissioned for ten years. As judge he showed evidence of sound legal mind as well as genuine interest in public welfare.
Kelley always opposed slavery and, with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, abandoned the Democratic party to become one of the founders of the Republican organization. He resigned the judgeship in 1856 to run for Congress; was defeated, and resumed legal practice until 1860 when he was elected to Congress from the Fourth Pennsylvania District. He was reelected fourteen times and served for twenty years on the committee on ways and means, of which he was chairman in 1881-83.

Although exempt from military service, he answered the emergency call of September 1862, and joined an artillery company just before the battle of Antietam, but never took part in an engagement. He favored a vigorous prosecution of the war, and boldly criticized the dilatory practices of General McClellan; he favored conscription and urged Congress to use negro soldiers. He supported all measures for the abolition of slavery and extension of suffrage to the freedmen; he believed in the "state suicide" theory and in military reconstruction.

After the war he advocated the reduction of internal taxes and became an extreme advocate of protection for American industries. He had once been a free trader, but impressions made on him by English laboring conditions and the business depression of 1857 led to the abandonment of this position and, by 1866, he was recognized as the leader of high protectionists in Congress. For over twenty years, in speeches, pamphlets, and books, he endeavored to refute the "abstract generalities" of free trade and vigorously maintained that protection was needed to attract immigrants, to keep out the "pauper labor" goods of Europe, to develop and diversify American industry, and to make the United States independent of England. He religiously believed in protecting all American industries and gloried in the creation of new ones, plate-glass, beet sugar, and tin-plate being his hobbies. Though he had no iron or steel holdings, he labored so assiduously for high duties, especially on iron and steel, that his colleagues called him "Pig Iron."

He held the unique position of being the chief mouthpiece for the inflationists as well as the protectionists. He opposed the resumption of specie payments until the exportation of precious metals could be checked by a protective tariff. In the depression following the panic of 1873 he adopted theories which bordered closely on repudiation. He believed that more money was needed for the development of the South and West; that it was essential for labor; and he was certain that contraction was a "double- quick march to bankruptcy." His own remedy for the, financial situation was the $3.65% bond bill.

He traveled widely in America and Europe, and wrote a number of books based on his travels and on other subjects, publishing Speeches, Addresses, and Letters on Industrial and Financial Questions (1872); Lincoln and Stanton (1885); The Old South and the New (1888), and other smaller works. His interest in the West led him to be inveigled into receiving a small amount of Credit Mobilier money, but he escaped the censure of Congress. Fiery, humanitarian, and honest, apt at repartee, he was considered the best orator on the Republican side of the House. He was twice married and had four children. His first wife was Isabella Tennant of Baltimore; his second, Caroline Bartram Bonsall of Philadelphia. He died in Washington, D. C., after suffering ill health for many years.

[Biographical Album of Prominent Pennsylvanians, 1 series (1888); L. P. Brockett, Men of Our Day (1872); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); "Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William D. Kelley," House Misc. Doc. No. 229, 51 Congress, 1 Session; T. C. Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield (2 volumes, 1925); R. C. Caldwell, James A. Garfield (1931); Evening Star (Washington), January 10, 11, 1890; letters in the possession of the family.]

H.T.I.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 505: 

KELLEY, William Darrah, congressman, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 12 April, 1814; died in Washington, D. C., 9 January, 1890. His grandfather, John, was a Revolutionary officer, of Salem county, N. J. William was apprenticed first to a printer and subsequently to a jeweler in Boston, where, while following his trade, he acquired a reputation as a writer and speaker. Returning to Philadelphia in 1840 he studied law, was admitted to the bar the next year, and while practising his profession devoted much time to literary pursuits. He was attorney-general of the state in 1845-'6, and a judge of the court of common pleas of Philadelphia from 1846 till 1856. Until 1848 Mr. Kelley was a Democrat and free-trader, but in 1854 he joined the Republican party, became a protectionist and an ardent abolitionist, and delivered in Philadelphia in 1854 an address on “Slavery in the Territories,” that became widely known. In 1860 he was a delegate to the National Republican convention, and was elected to congress, where he was for many years before his death the senior member of the house in continuous service. He was a member of numerous committees, such as those on naval affairs, agriculture, and Indian affairs, was chairman of that on weights and measures in the 40th congress, and of that on the Centennial celebration. He was often called the “Father of the House,” and was popularly known as “Pig-iron Kelley.” In addition to many political speeches and literary essays, he published “Address at the Colored Department of the House of Refuge” (Philadelphia, 1850); “Reasons for abandoning the Theory of Free Trade and adopting the Principle of Protection to American Industry” (1872); “Speeches, Addresses”; “Letters on Industrial and Financial Questions” (1872); “Letters from Europe” (1880); and “The New South” (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 505. 

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 1., By William H. Barnes, 1869, p. 351:

WILLIAM D. KELLEY.

THE subject of this sketch, William Darrah Kelley, was  born in Philadelphia, April 12, 1814. His grandfather,  Major John Kelley, was an officer of the Revolutionary war. His father followed the business of watchmaker and jeweler in Philadelphia. During the financial troubles accompanying the close of the war of 1812, Mr. Kelley fell into pecuniary difficulties; his business was ruined, and he was stripped of all his possessions. He soon afterwards died, leaving his family in very straitened circumstances, when William, who was the youngest, was but two years old.

His mother, thus left with a dependent family of three daughters and a son, succeeded in maintaining herself and her children respectably. William was sent to a neighboring school until eleven years of age, when he left it finally with only the rudiments of an ordinary English education, while any further progressive study must depend upon his own exertions. He served for some time as an errand boy in a book store, and afterwards entered the office of the Pennsylvania Enquirer as a proof-reader, and remained there until his fourteenth year. He then apprenticed himself to a jeweler until twenty years of age-leaving his mother's roof and taking up his residence with his employer, where he continued during the term of his apprenticeship.

Young Kelley keenly realized the deficiencies of his early education, and applied himself diligently to remedy it by reading. Books, however, being difficult of access, he united with a number of his companions to found the “Youth's Library,” afterwards called the “Pennsylvania Literary Institute.” A library of about two thousand  volumes was soon accumulated, and the association sustained for several years an annual course of lectures. The original members and officers were nearly all apprentice boys, and the influence thus exerted upon them was of a highly salutary character. The society continued to exist until its early members had become scattered, or too deeply involved in active business to give it their attention as formerly.

Young Kelley's indenture expired in the spring of 1834—the period of pecuniary embarrassment which followed the struggle between the United States Bank and the Government. In Philadelphia, the seat of the operation of the bank, the consequent excitement and panic were intense, and with the many painful scenes that transpired around him, Mr. Kelley became familiar. Nurtured from childhood in the Democratic faith, and loving its course with all the intensity of an ardent and impulsive nature, he could not but be excited to a strong protest and resistance. He labored earnestly to strengthen the spirits of his Democratic associates against what he considered the tyranny of those who favored the interests of the bank, and it is thought that much of his intense energy of purpose and power of vehement declamation were developed by these exciting times.

Thus, when William Kelley attained his freedom, it was a season of extreme depression, which all the forms of fancy business like that which he had spent his youth in learning, were the first to feel and the last from which to recover. Nor had his course been such as to secure the favor of such employers as were of opposite politics. Hence, failing to obtain employment at his trade in Philadelphia, he proceeded to Boston, where, for four years, he pursued his calling with unremitted industry. His peculiar branch of the trade was enameling, in which he seems to have excelled, and which he is said to have pursued with the enthusiasm of an artist as well as the skill of a cunning workman.

During his residence in Boston, Mr. Kelley was not careless of mental improvement, although he pursued his business with steady industry. He read perseveringly, and gathered around him such a choice collection of standard literature as is seldom seen in the humble apartment of a mechanic. His reading was well selected, while an unusually retentive memory enabled him to profit by it in a greater degree than most others. Nor did his political fervor abate. His enthusiastic attachment to the great distinctive principles of Democracy never grew cold for a moment. Much of his leisure time was devoted to political and historical reading and the details of party organization. It was now that his peculiar talent as a public speaker was first recognized. His style may have been crude and juvenile, but was fresh, vigorous, and impetuous; and he soon became a favorite with the masses of the party. In the Democratic papers of that day his name occurs frequently in association with those of Bancroft, Brownson, and A. H. Everett. He also commenced the cultivation of a written style, with enviable success; and, even while in the workshop, his name appears in more than one programme of lectures with those of Channing and Emerson.

The following testimonial of Mr. Kelley, while in Boston, from the pen of the assistant editor of Burritt's Christian Citizen, will be in place here:

“It was our good fortune, when an apprentice-boy in Boston, to enjoy the intimate companionship of this now eminent jurist and philanthropist, who was then a journeyman mechanic, devoting his days to hard manual toil, and his nights to the acquisition of knowledge. We were made a wiser and a better boy through the influence of his instruction and example; and scores of young men, who were then our companions, but who are now scattered all over the country, from Maine to Oregon, can say the same. And we rejoice, as no doubt they do, that our early friend now occupies a position which enables him to impress the influence of his noble nature upon a whole community, and carry forward his plans for the benefit of his fellowmen, with the co-operation of the wise and good, in the commonwealth which shows its appreciation of his worth by elevating him to one of its most important and responsible trusts."

Being persuaded by his numerous friends, as well as by his own inclination, Mr. Kelley finally resolved to abandon his calling for the study of the law, and with that view returned to Philadelphia. Here he pursued his studies with characteristic industry and perseverance, and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1841. Entering upon the practice of his profession, he at once acquired a considerable business. Meanwhile, his political labors, and his connection with numerous literary and philanthropic associations, gave him a very extensive acquaintance. Very few men, certainly, were acquainted with so many of his fellow-citizens, while all knew him in some connection creditable to himself and calculated to inspire confidence in his manliness, integrity, and intelligence.

Even before his admission to the bar, Mr. Kelley took a warm and active part in the politics of his native State. Popular as a speaker, his influence grew stronger every day. Possessing unusual gifts as a popular orator, the warmth and energy of his speeches roused and attracted his auditors, so that his appearance on the stand was always loudly called for and enthusiastically cheered. He enjoyed, in fact, at this period, a popularity and influence seldom attained by one of his age; and when one of the newspapers of the day, in referring to his efforts to allay the public excitement consequent upon the suspension of specie payments in 1842, spoke of him as the “ tribune of the people,” certainly no other man in Philadelphia deserved the compliment as well.

Mr. Kelley rendered efficient aid in the canvass which resulted in the election of Mr. Polk to the presidency; also in the gubernatorial contest which preceded in Pennsylvania. During this campaign he traversed the State in company with Mr. Shunk, the Democratic candidate for Governor, addressing meetings in various places. Where ever he was heard, his practical good sense, his genuine republicanism, and his enthusiasm in the cause for which he was battling, were thought to have excited a decided influence upon the ensuing election, which made Mr. Shunk Governor of the State.

In 1845, Mr. Kelley was deputed, in conjunction with an associate, to conduct the prosecutions in the courts of the city and county of Philadelphia. To a young lawyer, hardly initiated into practice, this was a commission of special honor as well as responsibility; nor was the latter diminished by the important State trials arising from the riots of 1845. On the part of Mr. Kelley, as well as his colleague, these prosecutions were conducted with skill, fearlessness, and energy, while it is thought to be not too much to say that the firm and capable administration of justice to which Mr. Kelley's exertions so much contributed, averted a threatened civil war.

Among the last acts of Governor Shunk's administration was the appointment of Mr. Kelley to a seat on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. In the important trust thus imposed upon him, he united to the industry and capacity that always characterized him a sound appreciation of the moral wants of the community, and an untiring energy and boldness in the exercise of his judicial functions. His decisions were said to be stamped not only by clearness of perception and vigor of reasoning, but by a general and profound acquaintance with the literature of his profession, for which even his friends had scarcely given him credit.

Judge Kelley's elevation to the bench, while it removed him, of course, from participation in party politics, did not, however, deprive him of his interest in public movements of a general character. In whatever concerned the elevation of the laboring community and the development of the rich resources of his native State, his interest remained deep and abiding. His eloquent and successful appeals in behalf of the Central Pennsylvania Railroad, and his exertions for the establishment of public night-schools in Philadelphia, for those whose daily employment would have otherwise cut them off from all means of instruction—these and other nobler efforts during his judgeship are not forgotten.

As a writer, Judge Kelley has evinced no mean abilities, and is capable of wielding the eloquence of the pen as well as that of the lips. His style is clear, terse, and compressed, and his thoughts eminently rational and practical.

For our sketch of Judge Kelley, as thus far presented, we are indebted substantially to an article in the “United States Magazine and Democratic Review” for June, 1851, from the pen of Dr. Henry S. Patterson. Not far from the time when this article appeared, Judge Kelley united in a decision in a contested election case by which a Democrat, who had secured a fraudulent return of votes, was ousted from a district-attorney ship, and the Whig candidate was placed in the office to which he had been elected. The judiciary of Pennsylvania having become elective, and the Democratic Nominating Convention refusing his name for re-nomination, the people took him up spontaneously, and re-elected him to the bench by a majority of about 10,000. He continued, however, to vote the Democratic ticket until that party repealed the Missouri Compromise.

In 1856 Judge Kelley resigned his judgeship and accepted a Republican nomination for Congress. He made a vigorous and able canvass, but failed of an election. He then resumed the practice of his profession, and with distinguished success. In 1860 he was a member of the Chicago Convention, and was the Pennsylvania member of the Committee of one from each State to inform Mr. Lincoln of his nomination. In October ensuing he was elected a Representative to Congress, which office, by successive elections, he has held to the present time.

In the spring of 1867 Mr. Kelley made a tour in the South, and delivered addresses in the principal cities. While speaking to a large assemblage in Mobile, Alabama, he was assailed by a mob, and narrowly escaped with his life.

As a public speaker Judge Kelley has singular ability. His voice is remarkable for its deep, full, sonorous tone; his manner is deliberate and graceful, and his enunciation most distinct. He speaks as one deeply impressed with the truth and importance of what he says, and never fails to command profound attention.



KIRKWOOD, Samuel Jordan, 1813-1894, statesman, political leader.  Governor of Iowa, 1860-1864, 1876-1877.  U.S. Senator, 1865-1867, 1877-1881.  Secretary of the Interior, 1881-1882.  Anti-slavery Senator.  Early leader in the Republican Party.  Strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union.  During his second term as governor the pro-slavery element, or "Copperheads,"  in Iowa gained strength and at several times threatened insurrection. The Governor's prompt dispatch of home-guard troops successfully quelled internal dissension. The seriousness of the danger in Iowa at that time has often been overlooked. Kirkwood's vigor and promptness in action won him a place of prominence among the Northern war governors.

(Clark, 1917; Lathrop, 1893; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 436-437)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 436-437:

KIRKWOOD, SAMUEL JORDAN (December 20, 1813-September 1, 1894), secretary of the interior, senator, and "war governor" of Iowa, was born in Harford County, Maryland, the son of well-to-do Scotch-Irish parents, Jabez Kirkwood and his second wife, Mary (Alexander) Wallace. His grandfather, Robert Kirkwood, coming from Londonderry, Ireland, had settled at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1731. Jabez Kirkwood, a farmer and blacksmith, was so desirous that his sons should have a thorough education that he sent Samuel to school when he was so small his older brothers had to carry him. In 1823 he went to Washington and for four years studied Latin and Greek in the private school of a family connection, John McLoed. After teaching a year and working for a time as a drug clerk, he returned to his family, who had met with financial reverse s and were starting we st in an effort to regain their fortunes. The family settled in Richland County, Ohio, and young Kirkwood spent his first few years there in clearing land for the new farm and occasionally teaching school or acting as deputy county assessor. In 1841 he moved to the county seat and after two years' study was admitted to the bar. In 1843 he married Jane Clark, whose people soon moved to Iowa City, Iowa. Twelve years later, after much urging from his wife's relatives, Kirkwood also moved to Iowa and purchased an interest in the Clark grist and flour mill.

In Ohio he had served as prosecuting attorney of Richland County, 1845-49, and had been a member of the state constitutional convention of 1850-51. Becoming established in his new home just as the Iowa Republican party was being organized, he was immediately accepted as a leader. After a term in the state Senate, he was nominated for governor in 1859. In one of the hottest campaigns ever conducted in Iowa, the unpolished miller-farmer triumphed over his Democratic rival, Augustus Cesar Dodge [q.v.], just returned from the Court of Spain. Two years later he was reelected. Kirkwood's office brought to him the responsibility of directing a state lacking in financial strength and divided by the political issue of the day. Before the end of his first term the nation was plunged in civil war. Rising to the situation, Kirkwood called a special session of the legislature, pledged his personal fortune, and borrowed from his friends to equip volunteers in the Union cause with the necessary arms and supplies. During his second term the pro-slavery element, or "Copperheads," gained great strength and at several times threatened insurrection, but the Governor's prompt dispatch of home-guard troops so successfully quelled internal dissension that the seriousness of the situation in Iowa at that time has often been overlooked. Kirkwood's vigor and promptness in action won him a place of prominence among the Northern war governors. In March 1863 he was appointed minister to Denmark, but fearing that it was a move to keep him from the United States Senate, he declined the appointment. With his term as governor completed, he returned to private life and the practice of law; but he was soon called to fill the unexpired term (1866-67) of James Harlan [q.v.], who left the Senate to become secretary of the interior.

Against his wishes, Kirkwood was again nominated in 1875 for governor, and in an uneventful campaign was returned to office for a third term by an overwhelming majority. In the following year, however, he was elected to the Senate, and consequently relinquished the governor's office in 1877. In 1881 he was appointed secretary of the interior. He held the office commendably but not brilliantly until some months after the death of Garfield, resigning April 17, 1882. His last political adventure was unsuccessful; in 1886 he was Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives and was defeated by Walter I. Hayes, who won his victory through a split in the Republican party that even the old War Governor could not mend. This was the last political activity of the now aging man, who spent the remaining years of his life at his home in Iowa City, where he died.

[Dan E. Clark, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood (1917); H. W. Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood (1893); B. F. Shambaugh, The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of Iowa, volumes II, IV (1903); Civil War letters of Kirkwood in Iowa History Record, July, October 1886, January 1887, October 1890, January 1891; Biographical sketch, Ibid., October 1894; Annals of Iowa, October 1873, October 1894, January 1898, October 1900; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).]

F. E. H-k.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 557:

KIRKWOOD, Samuel Jordan, senator, born in Harford county, Maryland, 20 December, 1813; died in Iowa city, Iowa, 1 September, 1894. His only schooling was received in Washington, D. C., and ended when he was fourteen. He removed to Ohio in 1835, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1843. From 1845 till 1849 he was prosecuting attorney of Richland county, and in 1850-'1 was a member of the State constitutional convention. He removed to Iowa in 1855, engaged in milling and farming, and in 1 856 served in the state senate. He was elected governor of Iowa in 1859, and re-elected in 1861. He placed in the field nearly or quite fifty regiments of infantry and cavalry, all but the first being enlisted for three years, and throughout the war there was no draft in Iowa, as her quota was always filled by volunteers. He was offered in 1862 the appointment of U. S. minister to Denmark, and, in the hope of his acceptance, Mr. Lincoln held the appointment open until the expiration of Mr. Kirkwood's term as governor, but he then made his refusal final. In 1866 he was elected U. S. senator as a Republican, to fill the unexpired term of James Harlan. In 1875 he was for a third time governor of the state, and the next year was re-elected U. S. senator, serving till 1881, when he resigned to enter the cabinet of President Garfield as secretary of the interior. After 1882 he held no public office. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.



LANE, James Henry, 1814-1866, lawyer, soldier.  Union General.  U.S. Senator from Kansas, 1861-1866.  Elected Senator in 1861 and in 1865.  Active in the abolitionist movement in Kansas in the 1850’s.  A leader in the Jay Hawkers and Free Soil militant groups.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 606; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 576-578; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 13, p. 121; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 576-578:

LANE, JAMES HENRY (June 22, 1814- July II, 1866), soldier and Kansas political leader, was the son of Amos and Mary (Foote) Howes Lane. His father, a native of New York, emigrated to Indiana in 1808, became an itinerant attorney, a member of the legislature (speaker- in 1817), and congressman from the fourth Indiana district during Jackson's second term. His mother was born in Connecticut, acquired a good education, and imparted the fundamentals of learning to her son. Lane's birthplace was probably Lawrenceburg, Indiana, although when it gave him political advantage he claimed Kentucky as his native state. He was a product of the frontier, and like his father, a Democrat of the Jackson school. He studied law in his father's office, was admitted to the bar, and practised his profession occasionally. In 1841 he married Mary E. Baldridge of Youngstown, Pennsylvania, a grand-daughter of General Arthur St. Clair; they were divorced some fifteen years later and remarried in 1857. In the Mexican War he served as colonel of the 3rd Indiana Regiment, and as a volunteer commander without previous military experience acquitted himself creditably at Buena Vista. Later he commanded the 5th Indiana, which he led to Mexico City. Military achievement brought political advancement: he served as lieutenant-governor, 1849-53, and as member of Congress, 1853-55, where he voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Refusing to stand for. reelection, he emigrated to Kansas Territory in April 1855 and soon attempted to organize the Democratic party there. Failing in this endeavor, he joined the Free-State movement, and as chairman of the platform committee of the Big Springs convention, in September 1855, he advocated a broad and constructive program designed to unite antislavery factions in the Territory. At the "People's Convention" two weeks later he was made chairman of the "Executive Committee of Kansas Territory," and as such directed the activities of the party in its quest for statehood. Posing as the spokesman of Stephen A. Douglas

 [q.v.], he assured Free-State men that they had only to frame a constitution and it would command. the support of the Illinois Senator ... In October he was elected president of a convention assembled at Topeka which framed and adopted a constitution ratified a month later by the voters of the party. The "Topeka Movement" was interrupted by the Wakarusa War in December, during which Lane fortified Lawrence again st pro-slavery Missourians and, had it not been for the cautious Robinson (Charles Robinson [q.v.], leader of the anti-slavery forces), might have taken the offensive. This crisis was a turning point in Lane's career. He was essentially a conservative until the hysteria of exciting events produced the proper background for radical leadership. A "state" government was organized in March 1856, and Lane and Andrew H. Reeder [q.v.] were elected to the Senate by the would be legislature.

Lane immediately went to Washington to labor for the admission of Kansas, armed with a memorial framed by the "Senators and Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of Kansas." It was favorably received in the House but was rejected by the Senate, where Douglas and other Administration leaders pronounced it a fraud and a forgery, largely upon technical grounds. Douglas refused to be drawn into a duel, and Lane toured the Northwest to lay the cause of Kansas before the people. Since the Missouri River had been closed to emigrants from the Northern states he opened a new rout e via Iowa and Nebraska, and through this channel "Lane's Army of the North" invaded Kansas. Arriving in August 1856 he attacked proslavery strongholds, and his men committed depredations fully as atrocious as those of the "border ruffians." Peace was restored upon the arrival of Governor John W. Geary [q.v.] in September.

After spending the following winter in the East, Lane returned to the Territory in March 1857. He opposed participation in the Lecompton movement but favored contesting the October election for members of the territorial legislature. This policy was adopted, and the Free-State party gained control of the General Assembly, which immediately elected Lane major-general of militia. Following the homicide of Gaius Jenkins, June 3, 1858, Lane retired from politics, but emerged in 18s 9 to become a Republican candidate for the Senate, and when the state was admitted in 1861 he reached the goal of his ambition.

Arriving in Washington in April 1861, he immediately raised a "Frontier Guard" which bivouacked in the East Room of the Executive Mansion for a few days. This episode marked the beginning of an intimate friendship with Lincoln which gave Lane influence and prestige in the management of Kansas affairs in Washington. In June 1861 Lincoln appointed him brigadier-general of volunteers with authority to raise two regiments. During September and October this "Kansas Brigade" operated against Confederate forces under General Sterling Price in western Missouri and "jayhawked" property of both Union and Confederate sympathizers. Returning to the Senate in December, Lane demanded an aggressive winter campaign. The President, who admired his tireless activity and infectious enthusiasm, tendered him the command of an expedition from the department of Kansas into Arkansas and the Indian country, but a controversy with General David Hunter, the departmental commander, prevented the "Great Southern Expedition" from materializing.

Although Lane had expressed anti-slavery convictions as a member of Congress from Indiana, he went to Kansas declaring that his attitude toward the institution there would depend upon the suitability of the soil and climate for hemp production. In 1857, however, he announced himself a "crusader for freedom." At the outbreak of war he asserted that "slavery would not survive the march of the Union Army," and his brigade assisted many blacks in escaping from Arkansas and Missouri. As recruiting commissioner for Kansas he assembled a regiment of negroes which was mustered January 13, 1863, perhaps the second to be officially received into Union service.

The Lane-Robinson feud which began in the territorial period continued with credit to neither of the principals. In the Kansas election of 1862 indorsement of Lane became the chief issue, and dissatisfied Republicans, supported by Democrats, bolted the regular ticket. He was denounced as an "infamous demagogue" with "an insatiable thirst for power," but the result of the election was regarded as a Lane triumph. His enemies increased and in the legislative session of 1864 they sought to end his political career by electing Governor Thomas Carney [q.v.] to the Senate. Since Lane's term would not expire for over a year the premature election was branded "a fraud upon the people." Lane stumped the state the following summer and, aided by opportune military events. secured the election of a friendly legislature which returned him to the Senate by an almost unanimous vote. As early as December 1863 Lane advocated the reelection of Lincoln, and his Cooper Institute speech a few months later was a timely review of the Administration's successes. He was a delegate to the Baltimore convention, and in the Grand Council of the Union League which assembled the evening before, he defended the President's record. In the campaign which followed he represented Kansas on the National Committee, and as chairman of the "National Union Committee for the West," he urged northwestern radicals to support Lincoln. He was a strong advocate of western expansion and gave the Homestead and Pacific Railroad bills his undivided support. He secured a grant of land to Kansas to aid the construction of the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Fort Gibson, and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. In the reconstruction of seceded states he deserted the radicals and reverted to conservatism. Accepting the perdurance theory, he advocated a "Topeka Movement" for Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee as the best method of combating "bogus authority." His support of President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Bill caused almost universal condemnation in Kansas as "misrepresenting a radical constituency." Depressed by his cold reception at home, overworked, mentally deranged, charged with financial irregularities connected with Indian contracts, he shot himself on July 1, 1866, but lingered ten days, dying July 11.

Lane's great service to Kansas in the territorial period lay in his organization of various anti-slavery factions into a compact Free-State party. Albeit the movement which he led for statehood was destined to fail, it gave the members of that party a common purpose which united them until the pro-slavery legislature was overthrown. Furthermore, Northern men in Kansas had implicit faith in Lane's military capacity which gave them confidence in contests with "border ruffians." After the beginning of the Civil War, he was a pioneer in advocating emancipation and enlistment of negroes. Indigent, ambitious, provocative, magnetic, he was primarily an agitator. His "demoralized wardrobe," his unkempt hair and beard, his "lean, haggard, and sinewy figure," all contributed to his success in a frontier political canvass. His use of sarcasm and invective, his crude gestures and his long, bony fore-finger, his harsh and raspy voice made him an effective stump orator. "That he loved Kansas, and that Kansas loved him, is undeniable."

[John Speer, Life of General James H. Lane (1896), is eulogistic; Wm. E . Connelley, James Henry Lane (1899) is fragmentary; W. H. Stephenson, "The Political Career of General James H. Lane" (Kansas State Historical Society Publications, volume III, 1930), emphasizes his political activities but devotes some attention to this military background. See also R. G. Elliott,  "The Big Springs Convention," Trans. Kansas State Historical Society, volume VIII (1904); L. W. Spring, "The Career of a Kansas Politician," American Historical Review, October 1898; W. O. Stoddard, "The story of a Nomination," North American Review, March 1884; Jacob Stringfellow (N. V. Smith), "Jim Lane," Lippincott’s Magazine, March 1870; Kansas State Historical Society Collections, volume XIII (1915); D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas (1886); W. H. Stephenson, "Amos Lane, Advocate of Western Democracy," Ind. Magazine of History, September 1930; Congressional Globe, 1853-66; War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, II, III; Leavenworth Daily Conservative, July 12, 1866. The "Webb Scrap Book" (17 volumes), preserved in the Kansas State Historical Library, contains copious clippings from a wide range of newspapers, May 1854-September 1856.]

W.H.S.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 606:

LANE, James Henry, soldier, born in Lawrenceburg, Ind., 22 June, 1814; died near Leavenworth, Kansas, 1 July, 1866, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1840, and elected to the city council of Lawrenceburg. In May, 1846, he enlisted as a private in the 3d Indiana volunteer regiment, organizing for the Mexican war, was chosen colonel, and commanded a brigade at Buena Vista. He became colonel of the 5th Indiana regiment in 1847, and in 1848 was chosen lieutenant-governor of Indiana. From 1853 till 1855 he was a representative in congress, having been chosen as a Democrat, and voted for the repeal of the Missouri compromise. In 1855 he went to Kansas, where he took an active part in politics as a leader of the Free-state party, and was made chairman of the executive committee of the Topeka constitutional convention. He was elected by the people major-general of the free-state troops, and was active in driving out the Missouri invaders. In 1856 he was elected to the U. S. senate by the legislature that met under the Topeka constitution; but the election was not recognized by congress, and he was indicted in Douglas county for high treason and forced to flee from the territory. In 1857 he was president of the Leavenworth constitutional convention, and again made major-general of the territorial troops. In 1858 he shot a neighbor named Jenkins in a quarrel about a well, for which he was tried and acquitted. On the admission of Kansas to the Union in 1861, he was elected to the U. S. senate, serving on the committees of Indian affairs and agriculture. In May, 1861, he commanded the frontier guards that were organized for the defence of Washington, and on 18 December he was made brigadier-general of volunteers; but the appointment was cancelled, 21 March, 1862. He commanded the Kansas brigade in the field for four months, rendering good service in western Missouri. He narrowly escaped from the Lawrence massacre in August, 1863, and was an aide to General Curtis during General Sterling Price's raid in October, 1864. He was a delegate to the Baltimore convention of 1864. He was re-elected to the United States senate in 1865, but in the following year, while on his way home, he was attacked with paralysis, his mind became unsettled, and he committed suicide. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 606.



LOAN, Benjamin F., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. He was subsequently re-elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses.

BENJAMIN F. LOAN was born in Hardinsburg, Breckinridge County, Kentucky, October 4, 1819. He received an academical education, studied law, and removed to Missouri in 1838, settling in St. Joseph for the practise of his profession. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he actively espoused the cause of the Union, and entering the army did active service as a brigadier-general. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Missouri to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and after his admission he was reported against by the Committee on Elections, but the action of the Committee was not sustained by the House, and he retained his seat. He was subsequently re-elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, receiving in the last election 10,942 votes against 3,980 for the opposing candidate. In the course of his three terms in Congress he served on the Committees on Military Affairs, the Pacific Railroad, Freedmen's Affairs, and the Debts of the Loyal States; and in the Fortieth Congress as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions. Mr. Loan gave expression to radical views on most of the great questions which came before Congress. In a speech on the Supplementary Reconstruction bill, he maintained that" no reconstruction can be successful that contemplates a union of authority of loyalists and traitors." He opposed the bill for the admission of Alabama, asserting that he was "not willing to release the grasp of the Federal Government placed upon the rebel States so long as the rebel spirit shall rule in those States." He pronounced boldly and decidedly against the purchase of Alaska, declaring that "when Russia comes in the character of a ' Jeremy Diddler,' claiming the fruits of the confidence game which he has been playing, I respectfully ask to be excused from acceding to his unjust demands."

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 2, 1869.

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



LOGAN, JOHN ALEXANDER (February 9, 1826-December 26, 1886), Union soldier, United States senator, radical republican.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 363-365:

LOGAN, JOHN ALEXANDER (February 9, 1826-December 26, 1886), Union soldier, United States senator, was born on a farm in Jackson County, Ill. His father, Dr. John Logan, was of Scotch descent, an immigrant from the north of Ireland who settled first in Maryland, then in Missouri, and finally in Jacks on County, III., near the present Murphysboro. His second wife, Elizabeth Jenkins, also of Scotch ancestry, was the mother of his eleven children. John, the eldest, received a broken education which included some study of law. After service as a lieutenant in the Mexican War, he continued his legal studies under his uncle, Lieut.-Governor Alexander M. Jenkins, began practice, served in local offices and in the Illinois legislature, and married, on November 27, 1855, Mary Simmerson Cunningham, the daughter of a comrade in the war. In 1858 he was elected to Congress from the eleventh Illinois district, as an anti-Lecompton Democrat.

Logan's spread-eagle oratory and contentious spirit, together with the abundant black hair that suggested Indian ancestry, made him a noticeable spokesman of the "Egyptian" counties constituting his district. He was sent to the Charleston convention of 1860 as a Douglas supporter, and was again elected to Congress that autumn. At intervals for the rest of his life he was forced to repel the calumny of having been at heart a Southern sympathizer; but he was able to bring to his vindication the testimony of Lucius Q. C. Lamar and the words of his numerous Union speeches in Congress (Congressional Record, 49 Congress, Special Session of the Senate, pp. 132, 330, March 30, April 19, 1881). When his Democratic associates from the South went home in the winter of 1861, he repeatedly avowed his determination to stand by the Union. In the spring he seized a musket and marched with a Michigan regiment to the battle of Bull Run; and when the special war session came to an end he hurried back to "Egypt" and raised the 31st Illinois Regiment, of which he was at once made colonel.

His military career was distinguished. He took his regiment into early action, had a horse shot under him at Belmont, was twice wounded, was made a brigadier-general after Fort Donelson, and a major-general after Vicksburg. In the fighting around Atlanta he commanded the XV Corps of the Army of the Tennessee; and upon the death of McPherson, July 22, 1864, he took command of that army. It was a matter of deep chagrin to him, and to his Illinois supporters, that, upon the recommendation of Sherman, Lincoln relieved him of this command. Logan believed that the discrimination against him was due to the West Point prejudice against a volunteer; but the fact was that Sherman mistrusted Logan's active political interests, which often took him from the field, and furthermore, as he later explained, although he considered Logan "perfect in combat," the latter "entertained and expressed a species of contempt" for the laborious preparations in logistics that a commander, to be successful, must carry on (Report of the Proceedings of the 19th Annual Meeting, Society of the Army of the Tennessee, 1887, p. 57).

Logan declined a permanent commission in the regular army and was discharged in 1865. He helped organize the Society of the ' Army of the Tennessee and the Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was three times president (Proceedings of the First to Tenth Meetings ... Of the National Encampment, Grand . L Army of the Republic, 1877, pp. 23, 29, 74); and he went back to Congress as a Republican, elected in 1866 as representative-at-large from Illinois. The Democratic counties of his old district now gave him a substantial majority as a Republican. He was reelected in 1868 and 1870, and in 1871 was chosen senator from Illinois. He lost this seat in 1877, because of a coalition of Democrats and independents that gave it to David Davis [q.v.]; but he obtained the other seat by ousting R. J. Oglesby in 1879; and was chosen for a third term after a prolonged deadlock in 1885 (D. W. Lusk, History of the Contest fo r U. S. Senator before the 34th General Assembly of Illinois, 1885).

In the Senate Logan was a stalwart Republican who associated himself with all matters of veteran relief. His dislike for West Point and its graduates was never far beneath the surface. He clung to his job, for he had no other means of support; and when his defeat in 1877 threw him into poverty his wife was bitter because President Hayes did not provide him with an appointment (Reminiscences of a Soldier's Wife, p. 360). He was naturally a worker for the nomination of Grant in 1880, making every effort to establish the right of the Illinois convention to name the district delegates and to bind them to the unit rule; but he accepted Garfield and organized the we stern canvass. In 1884 he had some local support for the presidency, but was obliged to take the second place on the Republican ticket. He fought a vigorous campaign, knowing it to be a losing one, and in the outcome derived his mortification less from Cleveland's victory than from that of Hendricks, whom he believed to have been disloyal. The last months of his life were devoted to the compilation of his war book, The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History (1886), which is unimportant save as an expression of his views, and to the preparation of a ponderous manuscript published after his death under the title: The Volunteer Soldier of America, With Memoir of the Author and Military Reminiscences from General Logans Private Journal (1887).

Logan was described as "clearly the most eminent and distinguished of the volunteer soldiers" of the Civil War (Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, volume IV, 1925, p. 302). He had conceived the idea of Memorial Day and inaugurated it on May 30, 1868; his last public utterance was a plea for every disabled "Union soldier who served in the army and has an honorable discharge" and for "Every Union soldier over sixty-two years old" (Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1886). He died in Washington, D. C., survived by two children, and by his wife, whose intelligence and charm had always been valuable assets in his campaigns.

[G. F. Dawson, Life and Services of General John A. Logan as Soldier and Statesman (1887), a revamped campaign biography, provided the basis for most of the material of the elaborate obituary in the Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1886. Mary S. C. Logan, Reminiscences of a Soldiers Wife; an Autobiography. (1913), is affectionate and personal. Memorial addresses in Congress were printed as Senate Misc. Document No. 93, 49 Congress, 2 Session See also: History of Jackson Co1tnty, Ill. (1878); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Memoirs of General Wm. T. Sherman (2 volumes, 1875); J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress (2 volumes, 1884-86); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (2 volumes, 1885- 86); Autobiography. of Oliver Otis Howard (2 volumes, 1907).] F. L. P.



LOVEJOY, Owen, 1811-1864, clergyman, abolitionist, U.S. Congressman.  Member and Manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society and  Illinois Anti-Slavery Society.  Active in Underground Railroad.  Member, Illinois State Legislature.  Brother of anti-slavery newspaper publisher, Elijah Parrish Lovejoy.  Like his brother, Owen Lovejoy was a strong supporter of William Lloyd Garrison.  He was elected to Congress in 1856 and actively supported the abolition of slavery in Congress until his death in 1864. 

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 6, 11, 13, 90-116, 265-270; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4, 48, 91, 131, 188; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 141, 196; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, p. 435; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 14, p. 6; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 435-436:

LOVEJOY, OWEN.  Elijah Lovejoy had just begun active abolition propaganda and Owen speedily enlisted in the anti-slavery cause. In the growing excitement in Alton he stood steadfastly by his brother, and on the final tragic night after Elijah had been killed, Owen knelt beside his body and vowed "never to forsake the cause that had been sprinkled with his brother's blood." After completing his theological studies, he served as minister of the Congregational church at Princeton, Illinois, for seventeen years. In January 1843 he married a widow, Eunice (Storrs) Dunham, who bore him seven children. He was a popular and devoted minister, but persistently kept his vow, never losing an opportunity to testify to the wrong of slavery. During the decade from 1840 to 1850 he spoke fearlessly for the cause wherever he could find a hearing, despite the Illinois state law prohibiting abolition meetings. Frequently he encountered violence, but his unflinching boldness and the memorable name he bore saved him from injury. His colleague in the Illinois agitation, Ichabod Codding, was an abler orator, but Lovejoy, more than any other man, advanced abolition sentiment in the state.

During the next decade, Lovejoy became increasingly influential; and in 1854, when the Republican organization began, he was elected to the state legislature to lead the forces of freedom. In Illinois the new party embraced antiforeign "Know-Nothings" and Germans representing the hundred thousand foreign-born in Illinois, disgruntled Democrats and their enemies- old-line Whigs, and, feared by all, the Abolitionists. Lovejoy believed that only one man in Illinois could discipline this "rag-tag and bob-tail gang" into party organization, and that man was Abraham Lincoln. He urged Lincoln to lead the new movement, but Lincoln replied that the time was not yet ripe. He even tried to force Lincoln's hand by placing his name at the head of the state central committee for the Republican party. However, when Lincoln came to the Bloomington convention in 1856, it was Lovejoy who compelled the radicals to relinquish their abolition program and to accept Lincoln's conservative leadership. The same year Lovejoy was elected to Congress. There and in the Republican conventions at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia he was a radical leader; but in Illinois he was still Lincoln's henchman. When Lincoln stood for the Senate, Lovejoy put all his influence at his disposal. It was a dangerous gift. If Lincoln's opponents could "make Lincoln hang on Lovejoy's coat tails for Republican strength," the semblance of a bargain with Lovejoy would "choke Lincoln to death." Only Lovejoy's self-effacement prevented this catastrophe. Though he stumped the state in Lincoln's interest, he suffered Lincoln's repudiation of abolitionism gladly. While his contest with Douglas was lost, Lincoln thereby captured radical support, without losing his name for conservatism, for the presidential contest two years later.

In Congress Lovejoy assailed slavery and the South with a violence equaled only by Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner; but when Lincoln came to Washington, Lovejoy once more became his loyal supporter. To William Lloyd Garrison's attacks on Lincoln in 1862 he made fierce rejoinder, and to Thaddeus Stevens' proposals to treat the defeated South as a conquered province, he replied in the spirit of Lincoln's magnanimous reconstruction program. To him fell the honor of proposing the bill by which slavery in all the territories of the United States was abolished forever. He heard at last the Emancipation Proclamation, and died the next year. Lincoln wrote (J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, II, p. 527): "My personal acquaintance with him ... has been one of increasing respect and esteem, ending, with his life, in no less than affection on my part. ... To the day of his death, it would scarcely wrong any other to say he was my most generous friend."

[See the Liberator, 1862-63; the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1840-58; the Philanthropist, 1836-42; Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln (1928); J.C. and Owen Lovejoy, Memoir of the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy (1838); T. C. Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest (1897); C. E. Lovejoy, The Lovejoy Genealogy (1930); Addresses on the Death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives, on Monday, March 28, I864 (1864); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe, 35 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 752-54, 36 Congress, 1 Session, App., pp. 202-07, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 194; New York Tribune, Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), March 28, 1864.]

G. H.B.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35:

LOVEJOY, Owen, abolitionist, born in Albion, Maine, 6 January, 1811; died in Brooklyn, New York, 25 March, 1864, worked on his father's farm till he was eighteen years old, and then entered Bowdoin, but left before graduation, emigrated to Alton, Illinois, and studied theology. He was present when his brother was murdered, and was moved by that event to devote himself to the overthrow of slavery. He became pastor of a Congregational church at Princeton, Illinois, in 1838. Although anti-slavery meetings were forbidden by the laws of Illinois, he openly held them in all parts of the state, announcing at each one the time and place for the next meeting. This course subjected him to frequent fines and to violence and intimidation; but by his eloquence and persistency he won many adherents, and eventually the repressive laws were repealed. He resigned his pastoral charge in 1854 on being elected a member of the legislature. In 1856 he was sent to congress, and was continued there by re-election until his death. At the beginning of the civil war he delivered in the house of representatives a remarkable speech against slavery, in which he recounted the circumstances of his brother's death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35.

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

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