P-R: Phillips through Reed

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

PHILLIPS, Wendell, 1811-1884, lawyer, orator, reformer, abolitionist leader, Native American advocate.  Officer in the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Member of the Executive Committee, 1842-1864, and Recording Secretary, 1845-1864, of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Called “abolition’s golden trumpet.”  Member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  Advocate of Free Produce movement. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 182, 186, 273, 340; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 39, 42, 45, 59, 80, 94, 130, 138, 140, 183, 204, 206, 214, 275; Hofstadter, 1948; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 72, 86, 105, 109, 116, 123, 124, 136, 165, 169, 173, 180, 193, 200, 243, 248, 261, 262, 269, 271, 278, 279, 286, 289, 295, 301, 309, 316, 337, 364, 369; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 339, 459-479; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 50, 54, 56, 169, 309, 399, 476, 602-605; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, 1994, pp. 35, 82, 86, 260, 306, 308n, 309-311, 311n, 333; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 546-547; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 454; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 314-315; Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961; Sherwin, Oscar. Profit of Liberty: The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips. New York: Bookman, 1958). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 546-547:

PHILLIPS, WENDELL (November 29, 1811 February 2, 1884), orator and reformer, was the eighth child and fifth son of John and Sarah (Walley) Phillips, and traced his ancestry back to Reverend George Phillips [q.v.], who landed at Salem on the Arbella in June 1630. He inherited not only a superb physique and family traditions of a high order, but also ample wealth and an excellent social standing in Boston. At the Boston Latin School, to which he was sent in 1822, he won distinction in declamation; and later, at Harvard, where he graduated in the class of 1831, he showed ability as a debater and a student of history. He was obviously a patrician, animated by chivalric ideals and a spirit of noblesse oblige. After three years at the Harvard Law School, he was admitted to the Suffolk County bar and at once opened an office in Boston. Although he was never enthusiastic about his profession, he was able during his first two years of practice to pay his expenses, and he later enjoyed a fair clientage. He married, October 12, 1837, Ann Terry Greene, orphan daughter of Benjamin Greene, a wealthy Boston merchant. She soon became a nervous invalid, confined usually to her room and often to her bed, but their domestic life was very happy. They had no children.

Even before his marriage, Phillips had become identified with the anti-slavery movement, and his wife encouraged him in his abolitionist views. On March 26, 1837, at a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Lynn, he spoke for twenty minutes announcing his allegiance to the cause, but he at first took no part in the work of the organization. His real opportunity presented itself on December 8, 1837, at a public meeting held in Faneuil Hall to protest against the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy [q.v.], the abolitionist editor, at Alton, Illinois. Phillips listened in the audience while James T. Austin [q.v.], attorney general of the commonwealth, compared the assassins of Lovejoy to the Revolutionary patriots; then, urged by friends, he responded with a stirring indictment of the outrage. His personality and passionate eloquence caught the imaginations of the audience, and his impromptu address was received with cheers. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, he took his place in the front rank of the leaders of the anti-slavery protest.

Possessing an adequate private income which made it unnecessary for him to rely on his profession, he now became a lecturer on the lyceum platform, speaking mainly on the slavery question. His relatives thought him fanatical, but his wife's encouragement counteracted their influence. His ability and family prestige, as well as his charm and persuasive power, made him invaluable as a champion. Broadly speaking, he followed William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.] in his refusal to link abolitionism with the program of any political party and like Garrison he condemned the Constitution of the United States because of its compromise with the slave power, but he was never a non-resistant, and he and Garrison occasionally differed on this point. Phillips contributed frequently to Garrison's Liberator and, in 1840, went to London as a delegate from Massachusetts to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, where he supported Garrison in the latter's insistence that women should have the same rights on the floor as men. On October 30, 1842, speaking in Faneuil Hall on the fugitive-slave issue, he said, "My curse be on the Constitution of these United States" (Sears, post, p. ro2). As time went on, he became more denunciatory in his language, arousing such hostility that on several occasions he was almost mobbed. He opposed the acquisition of Texas and the war with Mexico; and he condemned Webster bitterly for his "Seventh of March" speech, in 1850. Ultimately Phillips, like Garrison, demanded the division of the Union. During the Civil War, he was frequently a severe critic of the Lincoln administration, but the Emancipation Proclamation met with his approval as marking a victory for freedom. When, in 1865, Garrison urged the dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Phillips successfully maintained that it should not be disbanded, and was himself chosen president.

Regarding his mission as one of education, he devoted himself after the Civil War to advocating other moral causes, including prohibition, a reform in penal methods, concessions to the Indians, votes for women, and the labor movement. He was nominated in 1870 by the Labor Reform Party and the Prohibitionists for the governorship of Massachusetts and polled 20,000 votes; the following year he presided over the Labor Reform convention at Worcester and drew up its platform, which contained these words: "We affirm ... that labor, the creator of wealth, is entitled to all it creates ... we avow ourselves willing to accept ... the overthrow of the whole profit-making system .... We declare war with the wages system ... with the present system of finance" (The Labor Question, 1884, p. 4; Austin, post, p. 264). In this same year (1871) he supported General B. F. Butler [q. v. ] for the governorship. His denunciation of the moneyed corporations and his urging that the laboring class organize to further its own interests were regarded by some of his contemporaries as marking aberrations of a noble mind. Actually he seems to have had an unusually clear perception of national trends, but he was even further ahead of his time in his labor agitation than he had been when he championed abolition in 1837. In his seventieth year, he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa Centennial Oration at Harvard College, and showed himself to be still uncompromising by denouncing the timidity of academic conservatives. His last public address was delivered at the unveiling of a statue of Harriet Martineau on December 26, 1883. He died after a week's suffering from angina pectoris, and after lying in state in Faneuil Hall his body was interred in the Granary Burying Ground.

Phillips was an aristocratic-looking man, with a rich, persuasive voice and a graceful, self-assured manner. Although famous as an orator, he was seldom rhetorical, and he was amazingly free from verbosity and pomposity. His subjects were many, among the most popular being "The Lost Arts," on which he spoke more than two thousand times; "Street Life in Europe"; "Daniel O'Connell"; "The Scholar in a Republic"; and "Toussaint L'Ouverture." He spoke before all kinds of audiences, large and small, sympathetic and hostile, and, in his prime, he seemed untiring. An omnivorous reader and a thorough scholar, he knew how to impart his knowledge in an easy and appealing way. His mission was that of an agita tor, aiming to stir his countrymen to eliminate the evils in their midst. Like all extremists, he was frequently sharp of tongue and unfair to his opponents, but he was courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous, and lofty in his ideals, and has been rightly called the "Knight-Errant of unfriended Truth."

[Two volumes of Phillips' Speeches, Lectures, and Letters were published, the first in 1863 and the second, after his death. in 1891. The best biographies are Lorenzo Sears, Wendell Phillips (1909); G. L. Austin, The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips (1884); and C. E. Russell, The Story of Wendell Phillips (1914). See also T. W. Higginson, Contemporaries (1900), reprinting a paper first published in the Nation (New York), February 7, 1884; G. E. Woodberry, "Wendell Phillips," in his Heart of Man and Other Papers (1920); and Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips (1890).]

C. M. F.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762:

PHILLIPS, Wendell, orator, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 29 November, 1811; died there, 2 February, 1884, entered the Boston Latin-school in 1822, and was graduated at Harvard in 1831, in the same class with the historian J. Lothrop Motley. As a student he showed no particular interest in reforms; indeed, he bore the reputation of having defeated the first attempt to form a temperance society at Harvard. Handsome in person, cultivated in manners, and of a kindly and generous disposition, he was popular among his fellow-students, and was noted for his fine elocution and his skill in debate. His heart had responded to Webster's fiery denunciation at Plymouth in 1820 of that “work of hell, foul and dark,” the slave-trade. “If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.” He had taken a boy's part in honoring Lafayette, and in the midst of such associations he was unconsciously fitted for his career. In college his favorite study was history. He gave a year to the story of the English revolution of 1630, reading everything concerning it that he could find. With equal care he studied the period of George III., and Dutch history also so far as English literature enabled him to do so. His parents were of the Evangelical faith, and in one of the revivals of religion that followed the settlement of Dr. Lyman Beecher in Boston he became a convert, and he did not at any subsequent time depart from the faith of his fathers. While he denounced the churches for their complicity with slavery, he made no war upon their creeds. A fellow-student remembers well his earnest religiousness in college, and his “devoutness during morning and evening prayers which so many others attended only to save their credit with the government.” Though orthodox himself, he welcomed those of other faiths, and even of no faith, to the anti-slavery platform, resisting every attempt to divide the host upon sectarian or theological grounds. He entered the Harvard law-school for a term of three years, and in 1834 was admitted to the bar. He was well equipped for his profession in every respect save one, viz., that he appears to have had no special love for it and small ambition for success therein. “If,” he said to a friend, “clients do not come, I will throw myself heart and soul into some good cause and devote my life to it.” The clients would doubtless have come in no long time if he had chosen to wait for them, but the “good cause” presented its claims first, and was so fortunate as to win the devotion of his life. “The Liberator,” founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, had already forced the slavery question upon public attention and created an agitation that the leaders of society were vainly endeavoring to suppress. It has been said, probably with truth, that the first person to interest Mr. Phillips in this subject was the lady—Miss Anne Terry Greene—who afterward became his wife and, as he himself has said, “his counsel, his guide, his inspiration,” during his whole subsequent life. Of all the young men of Boston at that period, there was hardly one whose social relations, education, and personal character better fitted him for success as an aspirant for such public honors as Massachusetts was accustomed to bestow upon the most gifted of her sons. But if ambitions or aspirations of this sort were ever indulged, he had the courage and the moral power to resist their appeals and devote himself to what he felt to be a righteous though popularly odious cause. The poet James Russell Lowell has embalmed the memory of his early self-abnegation in a sonnet, of which these lines form a part:

“He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide
     The din of battle and of slaughter rose;
  He saw God stand upon the weaker side
     That sunk in seeming loss before its foes.
      .       .       .      .        . Therefore he went
     And joined him to the weaker part,
  Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
    So he could be nearer to God's heart,
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good.”


Looking from his office-window on 21 October, 1835, he saw the crowd of “gentlemen of property and standing” gathered in Washington and State streets to break up a meeting of anti-slavery ladies and “snake out that infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson,” and “bring him to the tar-kettle before dark”—the same Thompson of whom Lord Brougham said in the house of lords at the time of the passage of the British emancipation act: “I rise to take the crown of this most glorious victory from every other head and place it upon his. He has done more than any other man to achieve it”; and of whom John Bright said: “I have always considered him the liberator of the slaves in the English colonies; for, without his commanding eloquence, made irresistible by the blessedness of his cause, I do not think all the other agencies then at work would have procured their freedom.” The mob, disappointed in its expectation of getting possession of the eloquent Englishman, “snaked out” Garrison instead, and Phillips saw him dragged through the streets, his person well-nigh denuded of clothing, and a rope around his waist ready to strangle him withal, from which fate he was rescued only by a desperate ruse of the mayor, who locked him up in the jail for safety. This spectacle deeply moved the young lawyer, who from that hour was an avowed Abolitionist, though he was not widely known as such until the martyrdom of Elijah P. Lovejoy (q. v.) in 1837 brought him into sudden prominence and revealed him to the country as an orator of the rarest gifts. The men then at the head of affairs in Boston were not disposed to make any open protest against this outrage upon the freedom of the press; but William Ellery Channing, the eminent preacher and writer, was resolved that the freedom-loving people of the city should have an opportunity to express their sentiments in an hour so fraught with danger to the cause of American liberty, and through his persistent efforts preparations were made for a public meeting, which assembled in Faneuil hall on 8 December, 1837. It was the custom to hold such meetings in the evening, but there were threats of a mob, and this one on that account was appointed for a daylight hour.

The hall was well filled, Jonathan Phillips was called to the chair, Dr. Channing made an impressive address, and resolutions written by him, fitly characterizing the outrage at Alton, were introduced. George S. Hillard, a popular young lawyer, followed in a serious and well-considered address. Thus far everything had gone smoothly; but now uprose James T. Austin, attorney-general of the state, a member of Dr. Channing's congregation, but known to be bitterly opposed to his anti-slavery course. He eulogized the Alton murderers, comparing them with the patriots of the Revolution, and declared that Lovejoy had “died as the fool dieth.” Mr. Phillips was present, but with no expectation of speaking. There were those in the hall, however, who thought him the man best fitted to reply to Austin, and some of these urged the managers to call upon him, which they consented to do. As he stepped upon the platform, his manly beauty, dignity, and perfect self-possession won instant admiration. His opening sentences, uttered calmly but with deep feeling, revealed his power and raised expectation to the highest pitch. “When,” said he, “I heard the gentleman [Mr. Austin] lay down principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.”

These stinging words were greeted with applause, which showed that the young orator had but expressed the conviction and the feeling of the vast majority of the assembly, and that it was not in the power of the dissidents to defeat the purpose for which it had been convened. Freedom of speech was vindicated and mobocracy and assassination were rebuked in Faneuil hall, while the hated Abolitionists rejoiced that they had found a champion fitted to maintain their cause in any presence or emergency. From that hour to the end of the anti-slavery conflict the name of Wendell Phillips was everywhere, and among all classes, the accepted synonym of the highest type of American eloquence. In no half-way fashion did he espouse the anti-slavery cause. He accepted without reservation the doctrines that Garrison had formulated—viz.: slavery under all circumstances a sin; immediate emancipation a fundamental right and duty; colonization a delusion and a snare; the blood-guiltiness of the church in seeking apologies for slavery in the Bible, and the spuriousness of the statesmanship that sought to suppress agitation and held that liberty and slavery could be at peace under one and the same government. He did the work of a lecturing agent, obeying every call so far as his strength permitted, without any pecuniary reward. When he could command fifty or one hundred dollars for a lecture on any other subject, he would speak on slavery for nothing if the people consented to hear him. It is hardly possible to estimate the value to the anti-slavery cause of services so freely rendered by a man of such gifts and attainments, in the years when that cause was struggling under a weight of odium which not even his eloquence sufficed to overcome. As a speaker he was above all others the popular favorite, and his tact in gaining a hearing in spite of mob turbulence was extraordinary. His courage lifted him above fear of personal violence, while his wit illuminated his argument as the lightning illumines the heavens. The Abolitionists were proud of a defender who could disarm if he could not wholly conquer popular hostility, who might be safely pitted against any antagonist, and whose character could in no way be impeached. In every emergency of the cause he led the charge against its enemies, and never did he surrender a principle or consent to a compromise. His fidelity, no less than his eloquence, endeared him to his associates, while his winning manners charmed all who met him in social life. The strongest opponents of the anti-slavery cause felt the spell of his power and respected him for his shining example of integrity and devotion.

In the divisions among the Abolitionists, which took place in 1839-'40, he stood with Garrison in favor of recognizing the equal rights of women as members of the anti-slavery societies, in stern opposition to the organization by Abolitionists, as such, of a political party, and in resistance to the attempt to discredit and proscribe men upon the anti-slavery platform on account of their religious belief. In 1840 he represented the Massachusetts Abolitionists in the World's anti-slavery convention in London, where he pleaded in vain for the admission of the woman delegates sent from this country. He took a prominent part in discussing the provisions of the constitution of the United States relating to slavery, and after mature reflection came with Garrison to the conclusion that what were popularly called the “compromises” of that instrument were immoral and in no way binding upon the conscience; and in 1843-'4 he was conspicuous among those who led the anti-slavery societies in openly declaring this doctrine as thenceforth fundamental in their agitation. This was done, not upon the ground of non-resistance, or on account of any objection to government by force, but solely because it was held to be immoral to wield the power of civil government in any manner or degree for the support of slavery. There was no objection to political action, as such, but only to such political action as made voters and officers responsible for executing the provisions that made the national government the defender of slavery. Of course, those who took this ground were constrained to forego the ballot until the constitution could be amended, but there remained to them the moral power by which prophets and apostles “subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness”— the power of truth, of an unfettered press, and a free platform. And these instrumentalities they employed unflinchingly to expose the character of slavery, to show that the national government was its main support, and to expose the sin and folly, as they thought, of maintaining a Union so hampered and defiled. They accepted this as their clearly revealed duty, in spite of the odium thereby involved; and they went on in this course until the secession of the slave states brought them relief by investing the president with power to emancipate the slaves, under the rules of war.

Thenceforth Mr. Phillips devoted himself to the task of persuading the people of the loyal states that they were honorably released from every obligation, implied or supposed, to respect the “compromises” of the constitution, and that it was their right and duty to emancipate the slaves as a measure of war, and as a means of forming a regenerated and disenthralled Union. In this he was sustained not only by the whole body of Abolitionists of whatever school, but by a great multitude of people who had long stood aloof from their cause, and the effort was crowned with success in the president's proclamation of 1 January, 1863. From that moment the civil war became an anti-slavery war as well as a war for national unity, and thousands of Abolitionists who had followed the lead of Phillips hastened to enter the ranks.

In all these conflicts Phillips stood shoulder to shoulder with Garrison, and was followed by a body of people, not indeed very numerous, but of wide moral influence. In 1864 Mr. Phillips opposed, while Garrison favored, the re-election of President Lincoln. In the spring of 1865, when Garrison advocated the dissolution of the American anti-slavery society, on the ground that, slavery being abolished, there was no further need of such an association, Mr. Phillips successfully opposed him, contending that it should not disband until the negro had gained the ballot. This division led to some unpleasant controversy of no long continuance. Mr. Phillips became president of the society in place of Mr. Garrison, and it was continued under his direction until 1870.

In the popular discussion of the measures for reconstructing the Union he took a prominent part, mainly for the purpose of guarding the rights of the negro population, to whom he thus greatly endeared himself. He had previously won their gratitude by his zealous efforts in behalf of fugitive slaves, and to abolish distinctions of color in schools, in public conveyances, and in places of popular resort. He was at all times an earnest champion of temperance, and in later years the advocate of prohibition. He was also foremost among those claiming the ballot for woman. He advocated the rights of the Indians, and labored to reform the penal institutions of the country after the slavery question was settled. He espoused the cause of the labor reformers, and in 1870 accepted from them and from the Prohibitionists a nomination as candidate for governor. He advocated what has been called the “greenback” theory of finance. “The wages system,” he said, “demoralizes alike the hirer and the hired, cheats both, and enslaves the workingman,” while “the present system of finance robs labor, gorges capital, makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, and turns a republic into an aristocracy of capital.” He lent his aid to the agitation for the redress of the wrongs of Ireland. In 1881 he delivered an address at the centennial anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard college, which was pronounced, on very high authority, “an oration of great power and beauty, full of strong thoughts and happy illustrations, not unworthy of any university platform or academic scholar,” though containing some sentiments from which a portion of his audience strongly dissented. As an avowed critic of public men and measures, speaking year after year, almost always extemporaneously, and often amidst scenes of the greatest excitement, nothing less than a miracle could have prevented him from sometimes falling into mistakes and doing injustice to opponents; but it is believed that there is nothing in his record to cast a shadow upon his reputation as one who consecrated great gifts and attainments to the welfare of his country. His last public address was delivered on 26 December, 1883, at the unveiling of Miss Whitney's statúe of Harriet Martineau, at the Old South church, in Boston. A little more than a month after this the great orator passed from earth. The event was followed by a memorial meeting in Faneuil hall, and by appropriate action on the part of the legislature and the city government. After the funeral the remains were taken from the church to Faneuil hall, whither they were followed by a vast multitude. Mr. Phillips published “The Constitution a Pro-Slavery Contract” (Boston, 1840) and “Review of Webster's 7th of March Speech” (1850). A collection of his speeches, letters, and lectures, revised by himself, was published in 1863 in Boston. Among his lectures on other than anti-slavery topics were “The Lost Arts,” “Toussaint l'Ouverture,” and “Daniel O'Connell.” His life has been written by George Lowell Austin (Boston, 1888). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762.



PIKE, James Shepard, 1811-1882, journalist, diplomat, anti-slavery activist.  Washington correspondent and associate editor of the New York Tribune. He was as an uncompromising anti-slavery whig, and later as an ardent Republican.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 18; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 595-596; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 512). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 595-596:

PIKE, JAMES SHEPHERD (September 8, 1811 November 29, 1882), journalist, author, was born in Calais, Maine, the son of William and Hannah (Shepherd) Pike, and died in that town in his seventy-second year while en route from his home at Robbinston, Maine, to the South for the winter months. He was a descendant of John Pike and his son Robert [q.v.], who came to Massachusetts from England in 1635. His parents were among the early settlers of Calais, where his father was conspicuous in town affairs and was instrumental in establishing the first schools (1810). In these, maintained with difficulty through the War of 1812, young Pike received his only formal education, which he later described as "not worth mentioning." The sudden death of his father in 1818 left the family in straitened circumstances; and, at the age of fourteen, James entered upon a series of business ventures in his native town, first as a clerk, later in a grain and shipping business, and in 1836, as cashier of the short-lived St. Croix Bank.

By 1840 his success in business was such as to permit him to devote himself to the more congenial work of journalism, in which he had already shown an interest by editing the Boundary Gazette and Calais Advertiser (April 12, 1835-July 28, 1836), distinguished for its Whig sympathies and its early advocacy of Harrison for the presidency. Despite his limited education, he had acquired literary taste, a vigorous and picturesque diction, and forceful style. After 1840 he lived during the winter months in Boston, New York, and Washington, becoming actively associated with newspaper work. As correspondent for the Portland Advertiser, and especially for the Boston Courier, he became familiarly known through letters signed "J. S. P." As Washington correspondent for the Courier he described with characteristic vigor and effectiveness the persons and events in Washington during the debates on
the compromise measures of 1850. Of Henry Clay; on the occasion of the Compromise speech, he said, ''he was neither profound, brilliant, nor soul stirring," and he characterized Robert Toombs as "burly, choleric, and determined, "while Foote was described as "the coltsfoot of the bed of senatorial eloquence." The embarrassed editor of the Currier was moved to explain that "we do not look singly at the dark side, which he presents in his letter" (Boston Courier, April 10, 1850, p. 2). In 1850 he was the Whig candidate for Congress from the seventh district of the state of Maine in opposition to T. J. D. Fuller. Although this district had been strongly Democratic, the seat was closely contested and it was not until ten days after the election that Fuller's victory was assured (Portland Advertiser, Sept 11-13, 1850). In April of that year Pike was. invited by Horace Greeley to become a regular correspondent of the New York Tribune, and in 1852 he was made an associate editor. Most of the time between 1850 and 1860 he was Washington correspondent for the Tribune. His letters during that period, together with the earlier letters to the Boston Courier, are the most interesting of his journalistic achievements, a vivid and colorful description of official Washington during the decade preceding the Civil War. Widely quoted, bitterly attacked or enthusiastically praised, they exerted a profound influence upon public opinion and gave to their author national prominence, first as an uncompromising anti-slavery whig, and later as an ardent Republican.

When Lincoln was elected to the presidency he named Pike as minister resident to The Hague, and on March 28, 1861, the Senate confirmed his appointment. He arrived at The Hague on June 1, 1861. His diplomatic correspondence reveals him chiefly as an observer of the economic effects of the Civil War upon Europe. The relatively quiet life in a country which offered but few diplomatic problems proved uncongenial, and he returned to the United States on May 17, 1866, although his recall was not presented to the King of the Netherlands until December 1, The remaining years of his life were devoted chiefly to writing, to collecting and publishing his earlier correspondence, and to the attractions of his summer home in Robbinston, Maine. He was twice married: first, in 1837, to Charlotte Grosvenor of Pomfret, Connecticut; second, in 1855, to Elizabeth Ellicott of Avondale, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He published successively The Financial Crisis: Its Evils and Their Remedy (1867); The Restoration of the Currency (1868); and Horace Greeley in 1872 (1873). All of these works were based upon what he had previously written for the New York Tribune. In 1873 he published his Chief Justice Chase, and in the following year, The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government, the result of his observation of the working of the reconstruction government in South Carolina, also published in a Dutch translation in 1875. In 1875 his Contributions to the Financial Discussion, 1874-1875, appeared, and was followed in 1879 by The New Puritan, a study of seventeenth century New England, based primarily upon the career of Robert Pike, and by First Blows of the Civil War, a contemporaneous exposition of the ten years of preliminary conflict in the United States from 1850 to 1860.

[G. F. Talbot, "James Shepherd Pike," Colls. a11d Proceedings Maine Historical Society, 2 series I (1890); New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, April 1883; C. W. Evans, Biographical and Historical Accounts of the Fox, Ellicott, and Evans Families (1882). Joseph Griffin, History of the Press of Maine (1872); I. C. Knowlton, Annals of Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick (1875); Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1861-67 (1861- 68); Portland Advertiser, April 10-20, 1850, November 29, 1882; Boston Courier, esp. April 10, 1850, and November 30, 1882; New York Tribune, March 29, 1861; Sun (New York), November 30, 1882.]

T. C. V-C.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 18: 

PIKE, James Shepherd, journalist, born in Calais, Maine, 8 September, 1811; died there, 24 November, 1882. He was educated in the schools of his native town, entered mercantile life in his fifteenth year, and subsequently became a journalist. He was the Washington correspondent and associate editor of the New York “Tribune” in 1850-'60, and was an able and aggressive writer. He was several times a candidate for important offices in Maine, and a potent influence in uniting the anti-slavery sentiment in that state. In 1861-'6 he was U. S. minister to the Netherlands. He supported Horace Greeley for the presidency in 1872, and about that time visited South Carolina and collected materials for his principal work, “A Prostrate State” (New York, 1876). He also published “The Restoration of the Currency” (1868); “The Financial Crisis, its Evils, and their Remedy” (1869); “Horace Greeley in 1872” (1873); “The New Puritan” (1878); and “The First Blows of the Civil War” (1879). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 18. 



POMEROY, Samuel Clarke, 1816-1891, Republican U.S. Senator from Kansas.  Appointed financial agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1854, he accompanied the second party of settlers to Kansas Territory in the fall of that year. Active in Kansas “Free State” convention of 1859.  U.S. Senator 1861-1873.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 60; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, p. 54; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 649; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, p. 54:

POMEROY, SAMUEL CLARKE (January 3, 1816-August 27, 1891), Kansas Free-State advocate and United States senator, was born at Southampton, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel and Dorcas (Burt) Pomeroy, and a descendant of Eltweed Pomeroy who emigrated from England to Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1630. Samuel entered Amherst College in 1836 but withdrew shortly afterward. Later he spent four years in Onondaga County, New York, where he taught school and engaged in business. Returning to Southampton in 1842, he joined the Liberty party, filled several local offices, and served in the General Court in 1852. Appointed financial agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1854, he accompanied the second party of settlers to Kansas Territory in the fall of that year. During the Wakarusa War of November-December 1855 he started for Boston to secure aid, but was captured and detained until the crisis was over. When Sheriff Jones assembled "border ruffians" before Lawrence in May 1856, Pomeroy was chosen chairman of a committee of public safety, but he failed to prevent the destruction of the town. He was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention and received eight votes for vice-president. In a sensational speech he declared that freedom for Kansas must be accompanied by reparation and atonement by the South for depredations committed and lives destroyed. The following year he settled at Atchison, where he served as mayor, 1858-59. During the drought and famine in Kansas, 1860-61, he headed a relief committee which distributed eight million pounds of provisions and seeds, besides clothing and medicine.

When Kansas was admitted into the Union, Pomeroy was elected to the United States Senate. He joined the radicals in opposition to Lincoln's administration, and in 1864 became chairman of a committee to promote the candidacy of Salmon P. Chase [q.v.] for president. The "Pomeroy Circular," a campaign document widely distributed, asserted that the reelection of Lincoln was neither possible nor desirable, and that Chase was an able administrator who possessed just those qualifications which would be needed by a president during the next four years. In a speech before the Senate he declared that old political alignments were dead and recommended the creation of a new party with a vigorous program (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, l Session, pt. 2, pp. 1025-27). The movement, however, met with little popular response. Pomeroy's unexpected election to the Senate in 1861 was not free from charges of bargain; his reelection in 1867 was investigated by a committee of the legislature which reported unanimously that he had bribed members of the General Assembly. He was slated for a third term in 1873, but when the legislature convened in joint session Senator A. M. York announced dramatically that Pomeroy had bargained for his vote for $8,000. The belief in Kansas was almost unanimous that he was guilty, and both houses demanded his resignation. Pomeroy asserted before a select committee of the United States Senate that the money was intended to assist in establishing a bank, and the committee concluded after hearing voluminous testimony that the affair was a plot to defeat him for reelection. Nevertheless, the incident ended his political career, although he was nominated for president in 1884 by the American Prohibition National Convention. After his failure to secure reelection in 1873, he continued to live in Washington for several years, hut eventually returned to Massachusetts, making his home at Whitinsville, where he died. He was married three times. His first wife was Annie Pomeroy, who died in 1843. On April 23, 1846, he married Lucy Ann Gaylord, who died July 30, 1863. His third wife was Mrs. Martha Whitin of Whitinsville.

[Pamphlets relating to Pomeroy in the Kansas State Historical Library, Topeka, include Political Affairs in Kansas, a Review of the Official Acts of Our Delegates in Congress (1870); E. H. Grant, Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate: A Brief Sketch of the Senatorial Record of Hon. S. C. Pomeroy of Kansas . . . from Official Records (1872); S. C. Knight, The Truth at Last: or What I Know About Pomeroy ... Thrilling Disclosures Concerning A. H. Horton and S. C. Pomeroy (1874); several letters of Pomeroy are preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society; for bribery testimony see Senate Report, No. 523, 42 Congress, 3 Session; consult also D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas (1886); Trans. Kansas State Historical Society, esp. volumes IV (1890), VIII (1904), IX (1906); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); A. A. Pomeroy, History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family (1912); Springfield Daily Republican, August 28, 1891.]

W. H. S.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 60:

POMEROY, Samuel Clarke, senator, born in Southampton, Massachusetts, 3 January, 1816. He was educated at Amherst, and then spent some time in New York. Subsequently he returned to Southampton, and, besides holding various local offices, was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1852-'3. He was active in organizing the New England emigrant aid company, of which he was financial agent. In 1854 he conducted a colony to Kansas, and located in Lawrence, making the first settlement for that territory. Afterward he removed to Atchison, where he was mayor in 1859. He was conspicuous in the organization of the territorial government, and participated in the Free-state convention that met in Lawrence in 1859. During the famine in Kansas in 1860-'1 he was president of the relief committee. Mr. Pomeroy was a delegate to the National Republican conventions of 1856 and 1860. He was elected as a Republican to the U. S. senate in 1861, and re-elected in 1867. He was candidate for a third term in 1873, but charges of bribery were suddenly presented before the Kansas legislature, and in consequence he failed of election. A committee chosen by the legislature reported the matter to the U, S. senate, which investigated the case, and a majority report found the charges not sustained. The matter then came before the courts of Kansas, and after some months' delay the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi, stating to the court that he had no evidence upon which he could secure conviction. Mr. Pomeroy then made Washington his place of residence. He is the author of numerous speeches and political pamphlets. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 60.


The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 1., By William H. Barnes, 1869, pp. 69:

SAMUEL C. POMEROY.

SAMUEL C. POMEROY was born in South Hampton, Massachusetts, January 3, 1816, and his boyhood was spent upon his father's farm. In 1836, he entered Amherst College; but at the end of two years, leaving college, he went to reside in Monroe County, New York, where he continued about four years. He then returned to his native town of South Hampton. In 1840, during the time of his residence in the State of New York, he heard that remarkable man, Alvan Stewart, on the subject of slavery, was deeply impressed with his eloquence, became a ready convert to anti-slavery principles, and began at once to labor zealously to promote them.

His first effort seemed rather discouraging. Proposing to organize a county liberty party, he issued a call for a meeting to be held at the county seat. On arriving at the place of meeting on the day appointed, after a ride of twenty miles in his own wagon, he found an audience of just two persons beside himself. After waiting an hour for other arrivals, and waiting in vain, nothing daunted, he called the meeting to order, one of the audience taking the chair, and the other acting as secretary. Mr. Pomeroy then delivered his speech, after which resolutions were presented and adopted, and a county ticket formed, which received at the election eleven votes in a population of twenty thousand. In six years afterwards, however, the liberty party ticket of this same county carried the election. Returning to South Hampton, as we have seen, in 1842, Mr. Pomeroy, by his zealous efforts, had the satisfaction of seeing constantly increasing members added to the new party. He lectured in school houses-preached from house to house—met objections-answered arguments—softened down prejudices, and made converts everywhere. Year by year the work prospered, and though slow, it was sure; for victory, at last, crowned his efforts. Annually, for eight years, he was on the anti-slavery ticket for the Massachusetts legislature, but was unsuccessful until 1852, when he was elected over both Whigs and Democrats. His characteristic anti-slavery zeal he boldly carried with him into the legislature. On the occasion of the rendition of the slave Burns to his assumed owner, he gave utterence to the following burst of eloquence:

“Sir,” said he, addressing the Speaker, “when you have another man to enslave, do it as you did before, in the gray of the early morning. Don't let in the light of the brighter day upon the scene, for the sun would blush, if you did not, and turn his face away to weep. What! return a man to hopeless slavery ! to a condition darker than death, and more damning than perdition! Death and the grave are not without their hope ; light from the hill-tops of immortality cross the darkness and bid the sleepers awake, and live, and hope; and perdition with its unyielding grasp has no claims upon a man's posterity. But remorseless slavery swallows up not the man alone, but his hapless offspring through unending generations, for ever and for evermore! ”

About the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854, Mr. Pomeroy was in Washington, and his call upon President Pierce happened to be at the very hour of his signing it. It is said, in fact, that the ink was not yet dry upon the parchment when Mr. Pomeroy addressed the President in these prophetic words:

“Sir, this measure which has passed is not the triumph you suppose. It does not end, but only commences hostilities. Slavery is victorious in Congress, but it has not yet triumphed among the people. Your victory is but an adjournment of the question from the halls of legislation at Washington to the open prairies of the freedom-loving West; and there, Sir, we shall beat you, depend upon it!”

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act at once “fired the heart” of the North. “Emigration to Kansas !” became a sort of watchword far and near. Freedom-loving men and women everywhere realized, for the first time, how much they were individually capable of doing. Organized emigration was at once initiated by the genius of Eli Thayer, who, under a charter obtained from the Massachusetts legislature, organized the “New England Emigrant Aid Company.” In this enterprise, Mr. Thayer was ably seconded by Mr. Pomeroy, who discerned at a glance the value and practical nature of the idea. Of this company he immediately became the financial and general agent, taking an active part in procuring and distributing all necessary information relating to the history, soil, climate, distance, etc., of Kansas, together with rents, time of passage, and expense for reaching there. Moreover, he lectured extensively, and by word and deed stimulated all who could make the sacrifice to emigrate to Kansas, and offered himself to be their Moses to conduct them to the promised land.

It was on the 27th of August, 1854, that the first band of emigrants, under the leadership of Mr. Pomeroy, and numbering two hundred, started from Boston for the far West. At various points on their way, they received the greetings and sympathies of warmhearted and earnest men and women, like themselves, who bade them God-speed with many prayers, tears, and benedictions. On the 6th of September they came to Kansas City, Missouri, on the borders of the great land whither they were destined; and passing up the Kansas River, they pitched their tents at the end of three days' journey, and gave the name of Lawrence to the place of their sojourn. Another colony soon followed, whom Mr. Pomeroy met at St. Louis, and conducted them forward ; and in November another still came on, and were likewise met and guided by him into the Territory. Meanwhile, Governor Reed and other appointed officials came on to administer the government of the new Territory, and, in behalf of the emigrants, were welcomed by Mr. Pomeroy in such words as these :

“We welcome you to these rude homes of ours in the wilderness, which we have journeyed many weary miles to make, not because we look for better or for happier ones than we have left behind, but because we intend, in good faith, to meet the issues of the hour. In the spirit of the act which reclaims these territories from savage haunts, and organizes them into homes for civilized men, we came to do our share in the work necessary to accomplish it. In pursuance of this object, and in imitation of those who sought liberty with the Mayflower, we came bringing with us, as they did with them, the institutions of our faith and our freedom-our churches and our schools. With the Bible in one hand, and the school-book in the other, we propose to make this ó wilderness to bud and blossom as the rose.' This Bible we lay upon the altar of a free church—this primer upon the desk of a free school, and may the God of our Pilgrim Fathers aid us in the work !”

The limits of this sketch do not permit us to tell of the inroads of Southern banditti that followed this emigration of their guns, bowie-knives, and whiskey-of how slavery sought eagerly to gain possession of the fair land of Kansas—how, for this purpose, and under the auspices of a weak and wicked administration of the General Government, it promptly introduced its hideous machinery of outrages, murders, house-breakings, and robberies.

Amid the disturbance and violence of this stormy year of 1856, Mr. Pomeroy was called upon to prove his fidelity to truth, and his courage in maintaining principle. Beaten, arrested, and twice imprisoned, threatened with death, and sentenced by a mob to be hung, he still escaped to complete the work yet remaining to be done. We find him in Washington conferring with the prospective Governor of Kansas—lecturing in various places in the East in its behalf-rallying and shipping Sharpe's rifles—forwarding ammunition, and thus variously preparing for the worst. But peace came soon, and 1857 opened auspiciously for the new Territory.

Thus far the career of Mr. Pomeroy had been that of a philanthropist. His political career now commences, and it commences with his righteous opposition to the infamous “ Lecompton Constitution.” Against this he fought day and night, and by addresses and public lectures, not only throughout Kansas, but the Northern States, until in 1858 Congress sent the swindle to the “ tomb of the Capulets."

Along this period we have Mr. Pomeroy as Mayor of Atchison-as establishing the first free school of that town--building with his own private means a brick church, and presenting it to the Congregationalists—and entering heartily into plans for the relief of Kansas amid the terrible drought and famine of 1860.

It was in connection with this last-named effort that the noble disinterestedness of Mr. Pomeroy's character shone forth as conspicuously as in any other of his labors and sacrifices. Said he, at this time, to an intimate friend: “You know I intend to be a candidate for the United States Senate, and if I go into this relief business, it is certain to kill me ; for every dollar that passes through my hands is sure to make an enemy of somebody. Some who don't need, will grumble because I refuse them; others who are helped, will be dissatisfied because I do not give them more; and my political enemies will make every mistake tell against me, whether it be mine or the fault of somebody else. They will lie about me in every way they can, and the result of the whole business will be, so far as the United States Senatorship is concerned, that I shall be killed as dead as Julius Cæsar. But still, if this people are in danger of suffering again, I mean to go in and help them anyhow, and let my political prospects go, and trust to God for the result ;” and Mr. Pomeroy proved by the result of his confidence, that “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” Accordingly, after aiding most efficiently in ministering the ample relief that flowed into Kansas from ten thousand benevolent hands, so well satisfied with him were the people, that they placed him, forthwith, in the United States Senate, where he took his seat at the extra session, which met July 4, 1861. In 1867 Mr. Pomeroy was re-elected for the Senatorial term ending 1873.

It seems quite unnecessary to write that Mr. Pomeroy's entire career in the Senate has been what might be expected from the antecedents of the man. The very first measure introduced by him was precisely characteristic, and was a “Bill to suppress the Slaveholders' Rebellion.” The very wording of the title evinces the intention of the author, which was to place the Rebellion directly at the door of the guilty party. His entire Congressional record, we believe, bas been correspondent—all his speeches and votes have been eminently patriotic—and the true interests of the country have ever lain near his heart.

On the 5th of March, 1866, Mr. Pomeroy, advocating universal suffrage by Congressional enactment, which he maintained was “nothing less than throwing about all men the essential safeguards of the Constitution,” used the following language : “Let us not take counsel of our fears, but of our hopes; not of our enemies, but of our friends. By all the memories which cluster about the pathway in which we have been led; by all the sacrifices, blood, and tears of the conflict; by all the hopes of a freed country and a disenthralled race; yea, as a legacy for mankind, let us now secure a free representative republic, based upon impartial suffrage and that human equality made clear in the Declaration of Independence. To this entertainment let us invite our countrymen and all nations, committing our work, when done, to the verdict of posterity and the blessing of Almighty God.”

One of Mr. Pomeroy's friends has graphically said: “True to principle, true to his convictions, true to his country, and terribly true to his country's foes, he occupies to-day, as Senator of the United States, a proud position among his peers—a position that honors both representative and the represented. As a patriot, he is earnest; as a statesman, logical; as a politician, consistent; and as a man, genial generous, and just.”



REED, Harrison,  Governor of Florida in 1868–1873.

Harrison Reed (August 26, 1813 – May 25, 1899) was an American editor and politician who had most of his political career in Florida. He was elected in 1868  serving until 1873 during the Reconstruction era.

Born in Littleton, Massachusetts, he moved as a youth with his family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he had a grocery store and started farming. He also owned and edited the Milwaukee Sentinel for several years.

Reed became active in the Republican Party and in 1861 he began his political career, moving to Washington, DC for a patronage job in the Treasury Department. In 1863 he was appointed as the Tax Commissioner of Florida, to oversee confiscation and sales of Confederate properties in Union-occupied areas.

In 1865 he was appointed as Postal Agent for the state. In 1868 he was elected as Governor under the new constitution, which enfranchised freedmen. He served one term, with challenges by factions of the Republican Party resulting in two attempts in the state senate at impeachment. He strongly supported public education, where the growth in new schools served one-quarter of the children by 1872.

He also became an early owner and editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel in the city, publishing it from December 1837 until May 1842.

After joining the Republican Party in 1861, Reed moved to Washington, D.C., for a job that he had obtained at the Treasury Department. While they were living in Washington, his wife Amanda died on October 13, 1862.

In 1863, Reed was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the Tax Commissioner in Florida to deal with sales and disposition of confiscated Confederate property. While working as Tax Commissioner, Reed traveled to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, which was occupied by Union forces, to oversee use of Confederate properties.

In 1865, President Andrew Johnson appointed Reed as the Postal Agent for Florida.

During the Reconstruction era, in 1868 Florida enacted a new constitution, which extended the franchise to freedmen. Most joined the Republican Party, which had emancipated them. Reed was elected governor under the new constitution. He assumed office on June 8, 1868. The results were disputed by the Democrats. It was not until July 4, 1868, that the federal commander of military forces in Florida for Reconstruction recognized the constitution and the election as valid. Florida was readmitted to the Union at that time.

Reed appointed Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs as Florida's first African-American Secretary of State, and also commissioned Gibbs as a lieutenant colonel in the Florida State Militia. He had a tumultuous tenure, with opposition from factions of the Republican Party. They made two attempts to pass impeachment resolutions in the state senate against him.

Reed served as governor until January 7, 1873.  He is believed to have been influenced by his wife's interest in education and alleviating poverty. After their marriage, he supported founding a state university, and gave strong support to public education. It was established for the first time in the state by the Reconstruction legislature.

After holding office, Reed acquired a farm south of Jacksonville, along the St. Johns River. He returned to journalism, editing a local magazine, The Semi-Tropical. Although he struggled financially, he and Chloe Merrick Reed were active in civic affairs. In 1889 Reed was appointed as US Postmaster of Tallahassee by President Benjamin Harrison, serving for the remainder of his administration.

Reed's final public service was to represent Duval County in Florida’s House of Representatives until his death in Jacksonville on May 25, 1899.

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.