T-V: Tourgee through Upham

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

TOURGEE, ALBION WINEGAR (May 2, 1838-May 21, 1905), Carpet-bagger, author, radical republican.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 603-605:

TOURGEE, ALBION WINEGAR (May 2, 1838-May 21, 1905), Carpet-bagger, author, the first and only surviving child of Valentine and Louisa Emma (Winegar) Tourgee, was born in Williamsfield, Ohio. His father was of French Huguenot, his mother of German Palatine descent. At the age of nine he removed with his family to Kingsville, Ohio, and later he lived for two years with a maternal uncle in Lee, Mass. Afterward he attended Kingsville Academy until he entered the sophomore class at the University of Rochester in 1859. He withdrew in January 1861 to teach at Wilson, New York, and on April 19 enlisted in the 27th New York Regiment; in 1862, however, he was awarded the B.A. degree. At the first battle of Bull Run he received a spinal wound from which he never entirely recovered, and he said that he there lost the sight of his left eye, but there is considerable evidence that this misfortune had resulted from an accident in boyhood (Dibble, post, p. 21). He began to read law, but in July 1862 was commissioned a lieutenant in the 105th Ohio Regiment; at the battle of Perryville he was again injured in the spine. In January 1863 he was captured at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and, according to his own account (Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, February 15, 1890), was con fined for four months in Confederate prisons. Exchanged, he returned to Ohio and on May 14, 1863, married Emma Lodoiska, the daughter of Harmon and Mary Corwin Kilbourne, who, with one daughter, survived him. Returning to his regiment, he was present at Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. Twice during his military service he was placed under arrest for virtual -insubordination, and on December 6, 1863, he resigned and returned to the study of law; he was admitted to the bar of Ohio in May 1864. He taught a short time in Erie, Pennsylvania, meanwhile writing for a newspaper, and in the fall of 1865 removed to Greensboro, N. C., where he practised law and organized a nursery company which soon failed.

In 1866 he definitely entered politics. At the Southern Loyalist convention at Philadelphia he attracted widespread attention by a speech notable at once for venom and inaccuracy. In January 1867 he founded the Union Register, devoted to Radical policies with respect to the "poor, misguided, and mismanaged South." This paper was forced to suspend in June. In the proceedings of the so-called "carpet-bag" convention of 1868 in North Carolina he took an active and prominent part. He sought vainly to secure the repudiation of the ante-bellum debt of the state, and was instrumental in securing the insertion in the new constitution of a provision for the codification of the whole law in imitation of New York and Ohio; in 1868, with V. C. Barringer and W. B. Rodman, he prepared The Code of Civil Procedure of North Carolina, to Special Proceedings. In 1868 also he was elected a judge of the superior court; he served for six years.

As a judge Tourgee was a bitter political partisan, seeking at all times the larger financial rewards and opportunities of a place in Congress, and converting the bench into a stump. But with respect to causes that had no political implications, he became one of the best judges of the Carpet-bag regime. He was utterly careless in attendance upon courts and won the enmity of the mass of the white people, who doubted his honesty, but, by his personal courage, he excited admiration. He was one of the larger beneficiaries of the corrupt Littlefield and Swepson "ring” for services never publicly named (Hamilton, Reconstruction, pp. 430-31). He was one of the most brilliant of the Carpet-baggers in the South, but the mature judgment of many of his contemporaries in North Carolina was that he was unstable and unreliable. In public matters he was not so much immoral as unmoral, while his private life was above reproach.

He served without distinction in the convention of 1875, and the following year became pension agent at Raleigh. In 1878 (March 18-May 28, in Greensboro North State) he published anonymously the "C" Letters, which are important in North Carolina political literature, and are marked by a brilliance not often found in his writings. In the same year he was defeated for Congress and the following year he went to New York. In the winter he was for a few months in Denver, and in 1881 he purchased a house in Mayville, New York, which was thenceforth his home.

Tourgee made money in a number of ways during Reconstruction, but lost it in hopeless ventures. Constantly dabbling with journalism, he finally attempted more pretentious literary work. In 1874, Toinette, which had been written some years before, was published under the pseudonym "Henry Churton." It was later published as A Royal Gentleman (1881) under his own name. Other works followed in rapid succession. Besides A Digest of Cited Cases in the North Carolina Reports (1879), these were chiefly novels and collections of contributions, chiefly political, to newspapers and magazines. He was for two years (1882--84) editor and chief contributor of a weekly magazine, Our Continent, which failed, taking all his savings; he was a regular contributor to the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean; he collaborated in an unsuccessful play, based upon the best-known of his novels; and he delivered several hundred public lectures. In 1895 he established in Buffalo, The Basis: A Journal of Citizenship, which died a year later. The sale of his books steadily declined, and his income had almost reached the vanishing point when President McKinley appointed him consul at Bordeaux, where he remained in declining health until his death. In 1903 he was appointed consul general at Halifax but never accepted the post.

In spite of the volume of his published work, Tourgee's reputation as a writer rests largely upon one book, A Fool's Errand (1879), and that, perhaps, more because it was the first literary effort to deal with Reconstruction than because of its inherent merit, though it has undoubtedly a certain power. None of his other works can be compared with it in quality or popularity. Five of his other novels, Figs and Thistles (1879), Bricks Without Straw (1880), A Royal Gentleman (1881), John Eax and Mamelon (1882), and Hot Plowshares (1883), dealt directly or indirectly with Reconstruction. All of his novels are conventionally romantic, show· little originality, and lack literary finish. His political articles, reflecting the author, are dogmatic and egotistical.

[Who's Who in America, 1903-05; four. of the Constitutional Convention of the State of N. C . ... 1868 (1868); North Carolina Standard, 1 86 6-70; The Sentinel (Raleigh, N. C.), 1865-74; R. F. Dibble, Albion W. Tourgee (1 921), containing complete bibliography of writings; J. G. de R. Hamilton, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth (2 volumes, 1909); J. G. de R. Hamilton, Reconstruction. in N. C. (1914); A. W. Tourgee, The Story of a Thousand (1896): Frank Nash, in S. A. Ashe, ed., Biog. History of N. C., IV, 1906, pp. 440- 49; obituary in New York Times, May 22, 1905.]

J.G.de R.H.



TRUMBULL, Lyman, 1813-1896,  lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 19-20; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 21, p. 877; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 19-20:

TRUMBULL, LYMAN (October 12, 1813-June 25, 1896), jurist, United States senator, was born in Colchester, Connecticut, the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Mather) Trumbull, and a grandson of Benjamin Trumbull [q.v.]. He attended Bacon Academy in his native town, and when twenty years old went to Greenville, Georgia, where he taught school for three years. In the meantime he read law and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. The following year he began practice in Belleville, Illinois, and soon entered politics. He was elected to the state legislature as a Democrat in 1840, but resigned in 1841 to accept appointment as secretary of state, in which capacity he served until removed by the governor in 1843. He then practised law and was a candidate for various offices until 1848, when he was elected justice of the state supreme court; in 1852 he was reelected for a term of nine years.

He had served but two years of this term, however, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as an anti-Nebraska Democrat, but before taking his seat a three-cornered legislative contest, in which Lincoln, in order to elect a Free-Soiler, threw his Whig support to Trumbull, resulted in his being sent to the Senate. The three terms that he served (1855-73) were marked by the bitter struggle over slavery and reconstruction, during which he was first a Democrat, next a leading Republican, and ultimately a supporter of the ill-starred Liberal Republican movement. The failure of this movement left him no haven but the long-deserted Democratic fold. This pilgrimage appears opportunistic, but it was fundamentally dictated by convictions determined by considerations of law as well as of politics.

In the Kansas controversy Trumbull and his colleague, Stephen A. Douglas [q.v.], were diametrically opposed in matters of principle. Countering Douglas' proposal to admit Kansas (1856), Trumbull presented a bill uniting Kansas and Nebraska (Congressional Globe, 34 Congress, I Session, p. 1369). Both senators opposed the Lecompton constitution, but on differing grounds. Douglas would have the people settle the question of slavery by vote; Trumbull, now a full-fledged Republican, asserted plenary congressional jurisdiction. When secession became an issue, he opposed the Crittenden compromise and supported a resolution declaring that the Constitution was ample in its scope and needed to be obeyed rather than amended-an earnest of his later war-time defense of that much transgressed document.

During the war he was at once Lincoln's able helper and stanch opponent, his attitude being determined by that of the executive toward the Constitution. An authoritative spokesman of the administration, he often tried to school his master in matters of executive propriety. He opposed legalizing Lincoln's extraordinary acts performed while Congress was in recess, saying: "I am disposed to give the necessary power to the Administration to suppress this rebellion; but [ am not disposed to say that the Administration has unlimited power and can do what it pleases, after Congress meets" (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, I Session, p. 392). In introducing his radical confiscation bill (December 1861) he declared that he wanted "no other authority for putting down even this gigantic rebellion than such as may be derived from the Constitution properly interpreted." He would suppress the "monstrous rebellion according to law, and in no other way" (Ibid., 2 Session, p. 18). He censured the method, but not the motive, of Lincoln's arbitrary arrests and led the movement which, while indemnifying the President for previous suspensions of the writ of habeas corpus, regulated further suspensions. In 1864, as chairman of the judiciary committee, he introduced the resolution which became the basis of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. When the first state sought admission under Lincolnian reconstruction he was the President's agent, but was foiled by Sumner and the Democrats.

Trumbull's powerful personal and committee influence aided the Radicals in the early stages of the fight with Johnson. His bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau failed to pass over the veto. The veto of his civil rights bill, designed to give effect to the thirteenth amendment, alienated him from the Administration after a period of patient tolerance and dignified expostulation. He urged its repassage to offset the actions of the executive, and spoke of "the spirit of this message, of the dangerous doctrines it promulgates, of the inconsistencies and contradictions of its author, of his encroachments upon the constitutional rights of Congress, of his assumption of unwarranted powers, which, if persevered in and not checked by the people, must eventually lead to subversion of the Government and the destruction of liberty" (Ibid., 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1760). These episodes mark an opposition which lasted until the impeachment furor. They also presage his departure from the leadership of radicalism. His decreasing activity in the Stevens-Sumner program was followed, as this group insisted on more and more humble submission of the rebel states, by participation with the moderates who attempted rather ineffectually to check the Radicals. Again, his was a legal criterion; he was one who was "willing to be radical lawfully" rather than one "who would rather be radical than right" (Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1870). This viewpoint drove him to oppose the impeachment proceedings and he was one of the famous seven who saved Johnson from conviction. This heresy, together with his reconstruction attitude, lost him Republican leadership. The excesses of the Grant administration drove him into the Liberal Republican movement. He was among those suggested for the presidential nomination, but loyally stumped several states for Greeley. After the movement collapsed he finished his senatorial term and then retired to Chicago, where he practised law.

His appearance as counsel for the Tilden side in the disputed election of 1876 marked his return to the Democratic fold and he was that party's unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of Illinois in 1880. His last political excursion found him skirting the edges of Populism; in 1894 he drafted a platform which Chicago Populists took to a national conference in St. Louis. His death removed one of the able statesmen of his generation, an unpretentious, scholarly constitutionalist, who failed to scale political heights because of a conscience and a lack of popular appeal. The conscience drove him from party to party seeking a place where he could abide, and his colorless public personality denied him the kind of support on which spectacular careers are built. He was twice married: first, June 21, 1843, to Julia Maria Jayne, who died in August 1868; and second, November 3, 1877, to Mary Ingraham; three sons by his first wife survived him.

[Trumbull Papers, Library of Congress; H race White, The Life of Lyman Trumbull (1913); A. H. Robertson, " The Political Career of Lyman Trumbull" (1910), M. A. thesis, University of Chicago; L. E. Ellis, " A History of the Chicago Delegation in Congress, 1843-1925," Transactions Illinois State Historical Society, 1930; E. D. Ross, The Liberal Republican Movement (1919); Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1896. ]

L. E. E.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 166:

TRUMBULL, Lyman, senator, born in Colchester, Connecticut, 12 October, 1813, began to teach at sixteen years of age, and at twenty was at the head of an academy in Georgia, where he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. He removed to Belleville, Illinois, and in 1841 was secretary of the state of Illinois. In 1848 he was elected one of the justices of the state supreme court. In 1854 he was chosen to represent his district in congress, but before his term began he was elected U. S. senator, and took his seat, 4 March, 1855. Until that time he had affiliated with the Democratic party, but on the question of slavery he took a decided stand against his party and his colleague, Stephen A. Douglas, especially on the question of “popular sovereignty.” In 1860 he was brought forward by some Republicans as a candidate for president. He had no desire to be so considered, and when his friend, Abraham Lincoln, was nominated, he labored with earnestness for his election. In 1861 he was re-elected to the U. S. senate, in which he did good service for the National cause, and was one of the first to propose the amendment to the Federal constitution for the abolition of slavery. He was one of the five Republican senators that voted for acquittal in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, and afterward he acted with the Democratic party, whose candidate for governor of Illinois he was in 1880. Since his retirement from congress he has had a lucrative law practice in Chicago. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 166.


The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. Vol. 1., By William H. Barnes, 1869, p. 165

LYMAN TRUMBULL.

LYMAN TRUMBULL was born in Colchester, Connecticut, October 12th, 1813. He was educated at Bacon Academy, in his native town, which in those times was one of the best institutions of learning in New England. In his sixteenth year he became a teacher in a district school; and at twenty years of age went to Georgia, taking charge of an Academy at Greenville in that State. While engaged in teaching, he employed his leisure time in studying law with a view to preparing himself for the legal profession.

Having been admitted to practice at the bar in Georgia, in 1837 he removed to Illinois and settled in Belleville, St. Clair County. In 1840, he was elected a Representative in the State Legislature from that county; and before he had served out his term, he was, in 1841, appointed Secretary of State of Illinois. After serving in this office for two years, he returned to his profession, and gained an eminence therein second to no other lawyer in the State. In 1848, he was nominated and elected one of the Justices of the State Supreme Court, and, in 1852, was re-elected for nine years. As a Judge on the bench he distinguished himself by great acuteness of discrimination, accuracy of judgment, and familiarity with organic and statute laws. He resigned his place on the bench in 1853, and in the succeeding year was elected to represent the Belleville District, then embracing a wide extent of territory, in Congress; but before taking his seat in the House, the Legislature elected him to the Senate of the United States for the term of six years from March 4,1855.

During the great political contests which attended the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, Mr. Trumbull, both at home and in the halls of Congress, took a bold stand against the policy and doctrines of the old Democratic party, with which he had been actively identified, and espoused the cause of freedom, of which he became one of the strongest of champions. He opposed his colleague, Mr. Douglas, in all questions having reference to slavery, and especially in his celebrated “popular sovereignty” plan of settling that question in the Territories and future States. With such distinguished ability did he contest this question with Mr. Douglas and his friends, that he at once gained a national reputation.

In 1860, he earnestly and ably advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln, his fellow-citizen and friend, to the Presidency. During the early part of the next year, just previous to Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and when the war of the rebellion had already virtually commenced, Mr. Trumbull was one of the leaders of the Union party in the Senate, and favored prompt and decided measures for the maintenance of the Union. In 1861, Mr. Trumbull was re-elected for a second term, and in 1867 for a third term in the Senate of the United States.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, a position which he has held uninterruptedly since 1861, he framed and advocated some of the most important acts which were passed by Congress during and since the war. He was one of the first to propose the amendment of the Constitution abolishing Slavery in the United States, which proposition passed Congress, and was ratified by the requisite votes of two-thirds of the States.

He ably advocated the acts establishing and enlarging the Freedman's Bureau, and eloquently championed the Civil Rights Bill. He voted for the acquittal of President Johnson on the Articles of Impeachment.
Senator Trumbull continued his residence at Belleville until 1849, when he removed to Alton, and subsequently, in 1863, to Chicago, where he now resides. He is of medium stature, with a cast of countenance which marks the man of thought. Lacking the warmth of temperament calculated to win personal friendship, he possesses talents which command universal respect.



UPHAM, Daniel Phillips,  Arkansas politician-soldier who was ruthless in a campaign that would temporarily rid the South of the Ku Klux Klan.

Daniel Phillips Upham (more commonly known as D.P. Upham; December 30, 1832 – November 18, 1882) was an American politician, businessman, plantation owner, and Arkansas State Militia commander following the Civil War. He is best known for his effective and brutal acts as the leader of a successful militia campaign from 1868–1869 against Ku Klux Klan chapters in the state. Upham organized a widespread retaliation after the Klan attempted to assassinate him on October 2, 1868. KKK members were responsible for numerous attacks against Republican officeholders and freedmen. Later that year, Upham was designated a brigadier general and commanded a force that eventually numbered over 1,000 men.

Upham was born on December 30, 1832 in Dudley, Massachusetts
In 1863, Upham served in the Union Army. He left the army in 1865, and opened a building material business in New York City. This business quickly failed, leaving him in debt. In July 1865, Upham reached out to his former commanding officer and business partner, Brigadier General Alexander Shaler, to give him the permits he needed to pay off his debts, a request that Shaler obliged.

Soon after Upham moved to Arkansas. He purchased and re-opened a cotton plantation in Augusta, which thrived. His success, however, caused resentment by the ex-Confederate populace, who considered him a Northern carpetbagger.  As his wealth grew, he became a leading Radical Republican and an ally of Governor Powell Clayton. In 1867, he was elected to a seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives from the votes of freedmen and white Unionists.

Ahead of the 1868 elections, Upham and Clayton pushed the state legislature to ratify the 14th Amendment. The Arkansas Ku Klux Klan  responded with violence killing 12 people in 3 months, including freedmen, Republicans, and a Freedmen's Bureau agent. The amendment was ratified, but the violence prompted Governor Clayton to form state and local militias to quell the Klan.

Upham was appointed by Clayton as the commander of the local Woodruff County militia. On October 2, 1868, Upham and Woodruff County registrar F.A. McLure were ambushed and injured  by insurgents under the command of former Confederate Colonel A.C. Pickett.

In early November 1868, Governor Clayton cancelled all elections and declared martial law, splitting the state into four military districts. Upham was put in charge of the Northeastern district, located within the Arkansas Delta. Its large African-American population was the target of frequent Klan attacks and intimidation. Upham gave his men authority to subdue the Klan.

Enraged by his tactics, a force of about 30 Klansmen rode to Upham's hometown of Augusta and attempted to take over the town. On their way, they pillaged several plantations, including Upham's. They beat the black workers, killing one. Upham and 100 militiamen arrived in time to prevent the Klan from taking the town. Upon learning that Klan reinforcements were on their way, the militia went through Augusta, beating and arresting suspected Klansmen. Four died. In response, 500 Klansmen under Colonel Pickett attempted to destroy Upham's plantation, only to find Upham ready with  militiamen. A fierce battle ensued on Upham's property, which ended in a defeat for the Klan. After several more skirmishes, Upham was credited with suppressing the Klan throughout the entire state of Arkansas.

In 1869, Upham and his family left Woodruff County and settled in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. He invested in real estate and continued to serve in the State Militia. In October 1870, he was appointed brigadier general in command of the Seventh District in central Arkansas.

He also served in a series of battles with Sheriff E.W. Dodson in Pope County, Arkansas in 1872. In May 1873, Republican governor Elisha Baxter dismissed him from the Arkansas State Militia.

In July 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Upham as U.S. Marshal for the Western District Court in Fort Smith. He served there with honor and distinction, winning massive public support despite early opposition. His career came to an end when a Republican senator plotted for him to be removed in 1880. Upham's attempts to stay in office were thwarted by his former friend and ally, Powell Clayton.

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.