Senators who Voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, Abolishing Slavery, 38th Congress

HALE, John Parker, 1806-1873, New Hampshire, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator.  Member of the anti-slavery Liberty Party.  President of the Free Soil Party, 1852.  Elected to Congress in 1842, he opposed the 21st Rule suppressing anti-slavery petitions to Congress.  Refused to support the annexation of Texas in 1845.  Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1846, he was the first distinctively anti-slavery Senator.  Adamantly opposed slavery for his 16 years in office.  In 1851, served as Counsel in the trial of rescued slave Shadrach.  In 1852, he was nominated for President of the United States, representing the Free Soil Party.  As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. 


HALE, JOHN PARKER, a Representative and a Senator from New Hampshire; born in Rochester, Strafford County, N.H., March 31, 1806; received preparatory education at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.; graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1827; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1830 and commenced practice in Dover, N.H.; member, State house of representatives 1832; appointed by President Andrew Jackson as United States attorney in 1834, and was removed by President John Tyler in 1841; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1845); refused to vote for the annexation of Texas, although instructed to do so by the State legislature, which then revoked his renomination; elected as a Free Soil candidate to the United States Senate in 1846 and served from March 4, 1847, to March 3, 1853; unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States on the Free Soil ticket in 1852; again elected to the Senate in 1855 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Charles G. Atherton; reelected in 1859 and served from July 30, 1855, to March 3, 1865; chairman, Republican Conference (Thirty-sixth Congress); chairman, Committee on Naval Affairs (Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses), Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-eighth Congress); appointed Minister to Spain 1865-1869; returned to Dover, N.H., and died there November 19, 1873; interment in Pine Hill Cemetery. 

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.

HALE, JOHN PARKER (March 31, 1806--November 19, 1873), lawyer, politician, diplomat, was born at Rochester, New Hampshire. He was descended from Robert Hale who settled in Charlestown, in Massachusetts, in 1632. His parents were John Parker and Lydia C. (O'Brien) Hale, the latter the daughter of an Irish refugee who had died in the American service during the Revolution. His father was a successful lawyer but his death in 1819 left the family in straitened circumstances and it was due to the courage and self-sacrifice of his mother that John was enabled to attend Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, graduating from the latter in 1827. He then studied law  at Rochester and Dover, was admitted to the bar in 1830, and began practice at the latter town, maintaining residence there henceforth. When he left college he had gained a reputation for combined brilliance and laziness. In his profession he came to be known not as a learned, but as a "ready lawyer," possessed of tact and oratorical ability, and remarkably skilled in extricating himself from untenable positions (Bell, post, p. 417). He rose rapidly and made a reputation as a successful jury lawyer. It was doubtless due to this fact, as well as to his democratic principles, that he was an advocate of increasing the powers of the jury and making them judges of the Jaw as well as the fact.

Hale's political career began in 1832 with his election to the state legislature. In 1834 he was appointed United States district attorney and held office until removed by President Tyler in 1841. A year later he was elected to Congress. New Hampshire was a Democratic stronghold and Hale followed conventional doctrines. His early speeches have a somewhat demagogic tone, but he showed independence, and shortly before the end of his term, he proposed a limitation of the area open to slavery should Texas be added to the Union. His attitude on the Texas question finally led to a breach with the party when in January 1845 he addressed a letter to his constituent s denouncing annexation as promoting the interests of slavery and "eminently calculated to provoke the scorn of earth and the judgment of heaven" (Exeter News-Letter, January 20, 1845). In a special convention, the Democrats on February 12 revoked his renomination and solemnly read him out of the party. With the backing of some loyal friends, he proceeded to organize an independent movement. As a result, the New Hampshire legislature in 1846 passed under control of a combination of Whigs and independent Democrats, which on June 9 elected the insurgent Hale to the United States Senate for a six-year term commencing March 4, 1847. It was the most notable anti-slavery success hitherto achieved.

For some time, until joined by Chase and Sumner, Hale occupied a most conspicuous place, and if excluded from all party councils and responsibilities, he was at least free to assail slavery without the restraint which party membership imposed. His most notable speech was probably the one delivered in reply to Webster's address of March 7, 1850, on the territorial question (Congressional Globe, 31 Congress, 1 Session, App. pp. 1054-65). His long speeches, however, are in general inferior to his brief extemporaneous utterances in the course of debate. A voiding the excesses of some anti-slavery advocates, good humored, witty, and eloquent, he was personally popular, although his sallies occasionally provoked outbursts of wrath among the Southern members. It was during his first term in the Senate that he secured the abolition of flogging in the navy, a reform which he had urged from the time of his appearance in the lower house. His further argument that discipline should be more intelligent and humane, that the navy should offer advantages to the ordinary seaman which would make service attractive to the best grade of young men, rewarding good conduct with promotion and better opportunities (Ibid., 32 Congress, 1 Session, p. 449), was decidedly in advance of his time. He constantly urged the abolition of the grog ration as well and this was finally brought about in 1862. He himself considered these reforms the outstanding accomplishments of his Senate career, and in deference to his opinion they are recorded on his monument in the State House yard at Concord. In addition to his anti-slavery activity in the Senate, Hale conducted various platform campaigns on the subject and was a well-known lecturer throughout the North. He also appeared as counsel in cases arising under the Fugitive-Slave law, including the famous Anthony Burns case involving Theodore Parker and other eminent Bostonians. His prominence in the anti-slavery cause led to his nomination for the presidency by the Liberty party in 1847, but he withdrew in favor of Van Buren when the Free-Soil party absorbed the Liberty party in 1848. In 1852 he accepted the nomination of the Free-Soilers and polled 150,000 votes.

On the expiration of his first term in the Senate Hale resumed legal practice and for a short time lived in New York. By 1855, however, the anti-slavery coalition again controlled the New Hampshire legislature and after a prolonged contest he was elected to serve out the unexpired term of Charles G. Atherton, deceased. Three years later he was reelected for a full term. He had become one of the most prominent Republicans in the country, although the influence of his earlier Democratic affiliations was still perceptible, and it was reported that the power of the national party leaders was exerted in his behalf, inasmuch as the legislature was reluctant to break the local precedents which favored rotation. This term, however, added little to his fame, although he was active on the floor and prominent in the adoption of the various measures which at last gave slavery its quietus. During the war he held the chairmanship of the committee on naval affairs. The standard of public morals had relaxed, and in naval matters, to quote Secretary Welles, there had developed a "debauched system of personal and party favoritism" (post, I, 482), especially pernicious in the services of construction and supply. There was a navy-yard in New Hampshire, and Hale was admittedly careless, easy going, accommodating, and not over careful as to the character of his professional and political associations. His friends, who have always insisted on his personal honesty, believed that he was imposed upon by unscrupulous and designing parties, and Secretary Welles, that he was trying to use his chairmanship for personal gain and political advantage. Senators Grimes and Foot both expressed disapproval of his conduct and in 1864 when he was a candidate for reelection the impression was abroad that the leaders in Washington would be glad to see his retirement. Late in 1863 an investigation disclosed that he had accepted a fee from one J. M. Hunt, convicted of fraud against the government, and had appeared on his behalf before the secretary of war. Although exonerated by the Senate judiciary committee of any violation of law, the fact that its report included a bill making such practice illegal in future (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, I Session, pp. 420, 460, 555) told heavily against him and undoubtedly contributed to a decisive defeat by the Republican caucus at Concord, June 9, 1864. His speech on the propose d bill (Ibid., pp. 559 ff.) does not indicate a keen sense of moral values and lends color to the comment of the Boston Daily Courier, January 1, 1864, that though he did not mean to be dishonest or dishonorable, "his perceptions were befogged by the atmosphere of fraud, corruption and crime surrounding him in the party to which he is attached."

In March 1865 Hale was appointed minister to Spain although he would have preferred the Paris legation. According to Sumner, "President Lincoln selected Hale out of general kindness and good-will to the ' lame ducks,' " and "wished to break his fall" (E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Volume IV, 1893, p. 25 5). His training and temperament were not suited for such a post, and he was handicapped by ignorance of the language. As far as can be judged by the somewhat meager records in the Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs his services were not especially significant. In 1869 he became embroiled in a singularly bitter quarrel with H. J. Perry, secretary of the legation, and in addition to the personal questions involved, the minister was charged with serious moral delinquencies involving the Queen of Spain and with having abused his importation franchise. Hale admitted signing certain con1promising documents but pleaded that the secretary had laid them before him without explaining their contents which were in Spanish. He was recalled April 5, 1869, and took leave July 29. His strength had already begun to fail, having been seriously impaired by the famous National Hotel epidemic of 1857, and he spent some further time abroad in a vain que st for health. Returning to New Hampshire in June 1870, he suffered a paralytic stroke soon afterward and his la st years were spent in semi-invalidism. His wife was Lucy Lambert of South Berwick, Maine; his daughter, Lucy Lambert Hale, the wife of William Eaton Chandler [q.v.]. As a crusader in a humanitarian cause Hale ranked among the great men of the day, but his qualities were not those best calculated to produce constructive legislation or successful administration.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, p. 105-107:




HARLAN, James, 1820-1899, statesman.  Whig U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Elected Senator in 1855 representing Iowa.  Re-elected, served until 1865, when appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Lincoln.  Re-elected to Senate in 1866, served until 1873.    


HARLAN, JAMES, was a Senator from Iowa; born in Clark County, Illinois, August 26, 1820; at age four, moved with his family to Indiana; attended the rural schools, assisted his father in farming, and taught school until 1841, when he entered college; graduated from Indiana Asbury (now DePauw) University, Greencastle, Ind., in 1845; moved to Iowa City, Iowa, in 1845; superintendent of public instruction in 1847; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced practice in Iowa City; declined the Whig nomination for Governor of Iowa in 1850; president of Iowa Wesleyan University, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 1853-1855; elected as a Free Soiler to the United States Senate in 1855, presented his credentials, and took his seat December 31, 1855; owing to irregularities in the legislative proceedings the Senate declared the seat vacant in January 1857; reelected as a Republican to fill the vacancy thus created; reelected in 1860 and served from January 29, 1857, until May 15, 1865, when he resigned to accept a Cabinet portfolio; chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Thirty-seventh through Thirty-ninth Congresses); Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Andrew Johnson from May 15, 1865, until July 27, 1866, when he resigned; again elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1867, to March 3, 1873; chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia (Fortieth Congress), Committee on Education (Fortieth Congress), Committee on Indian Affairs (Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses); delegate to the peace convention held in Washington, D.C., in 1861, in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; unsuccessful candidate for the Senate and the governorship; presiding judge of the court of commissioners of Alabama claims 1882-1886; died in Mount Pleasant, Henry County, Iowa, on October 5, 1899; interment in Forest Home Cemetery. 

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.

HARLAN, JAMES (August 26, 1820-October 5, 1899), United States senator, secretary of the interior, was a product of the frontier, of its opportunity and of its limitations. He was descended from George Harland, a Quaker, who emigrated from the vicinity of Durham, England, to County Down, Ireland, and thence in 1687 to America, settling finally in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His parents, Silas and Mary (Conley) Harlan, natives of Pennsylvania and Maryland respectively, were married in Ohio and then joined the stream of western migration, locating in Clark County, Illinois, where he was born. Four years later the family removed to the "New Discovery" in Parke County, Ind., a typical clearing settlement. Monotonous toil was relieved chiefly by visits of Methodist circuit riders who made the Harlan home their "preaching place." The frontier youth supplemented his log-school instruction by books secured from a county library. After teaching district school he attended a local "seminary" and entered Indiana Asbury (later DePauw) University in 1841. College life was interspersed by a trip to Iowa and a term of school teaching in Missouri. As a student his interest in politics was already marked; he was an ardent Whig. In 1845, the year that he took his degree, he was married to Ann Eliza Peck.

The young couple, true to type, sought the pioneer life in Iowa where Harlan became principal of the Iowa City College. Almost immediately his long and stormy political career began. In the first state election, in 1847, he was chosen superintendent of public instruction on the Whig ticket, but the election was declared illegal and in the contest to fill the vacancy he was defeated by methods that he regarded as highly irregular. Following this unfortunate experience, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1850 and in the same year declined the Whig nomination for governor. Before full establishment in his new profession, he was called to head the Iowa Conference University (now Iowa Wesleyan), which he served as president from 1853 to 1855. Under most discouraging conditions, both financial and academic, he was laying the foundations of one of the earliest trans-Mississippi colleges when the Free-Soil agitation put an end to his educational activities and career.

From the beginnings of the Free-Soil movement Harlan had been an active promoter. Put forward by friends as the new party's candidate for the United States Senate he was elected, in 1855, by a rump legislature after one house had formally adjourned. This irregularity led to the vacating of his seat in January 1857. He was promptly returned by a sympathetic legislature and in 1860 was the unanimous Republican choice for a second term. During his first senatorial contest he built up a personal organization throughout the state which he utilized effectively in later contests. As senator he concentrated on Western measures, homesteads, college land grants, and especially the Pacific railroad act, which he personally directed. He gave loyal support to the war measures of the administration and was intimate with President Lincoln; his daughter later married Robert Todd Lincoln [q.v.]. At the beginning of Lincoln's second term Harlan became secretary of the interior. This position was the disastrous turning-point of his career. Departmental policies created bitter enmities and led to charges of improper appointments and of corruption in the disposal of Indian and railroad lands. These charges persisted, although, according to one of Harlan's biographers, "each of the accusations was fairly and squarely met by facts which were a matter of record, and proven to be without foundation" (Brigham, post, p. 250). The most notable of his many dismissals in pursuance of his policy of economy was that of Walt Whitman [q.v.] from a clerkship in the Indian Office (Ibid., p. 208). The reconstruction contest caused a break between Harlan and Johnson, and Harlan resigned his portfolio in July 1866.

Before leaving the cabinet he had been making plans for a return to the Senate, and he had so influential a following that he was elected in 1866, but at the cost of the friendship of Samuel J. Kirkwood and James W. Grimes [qq.v.]. Upon returning to the Senate he was definitely aligned with the radical administration group and his most notable acts were his support of Johnson's impeachment and his spirited defense of Grant's Santo Dominican policy. The growing cleavage in the party, which was to culminate in the Liberal Republican movement, was reflected in the Iowa senatorial contest in January 1872 in which Harlan's opponents combined so effectively that he was defeated by William B. Allison [q.v.]. This defeat ended his official career at a comparatively early age. Though candidate for senator and governor at various times, he was never again successful in an election. His only remaining official service was as a member of the second court of Alabama claims, 1882-86. He was an active member of the Methodist Church, and the support that he received from Iowa Methodists occasionally figured in political controversies. He was president of Iowa Wesleyan again for a short time in 1869-70. Tall, dignified, impressive looking, Harlan was strong of body and of will. He was a zealous partisan and a persistent fighter, tenacious of conviction whether based upon reason or prejudice.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, p. 268.



HARRIS, Ira  1802-1875, jurist.  Republican U.S. Senator from New York.  Served as U.S. Senator from 1861-1867.  In 1861 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican. He succeeded William H. Seward, defeating Horace Greeley and William M. Evarts. In the Senate he was a member of important committees and exercised considerable influence. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.   


IRA HARRIS was born in Charleston, New York, May 31, 1802. He graduated at Union College in 1824, and soon after entered upon the practice of law in Albany, and for many years devoted attention exclusively to his profession. In 1844 he was elected to the New York Legislature, and served two terms. In 1846 he was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, and was the same year elected to the State Senate. In 1847 he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court, and held the office twelve years. In 1861 he was elected a Senator in Congress from New York for the term ending in 1867, when he was succeeded by Roscoe Conkling.  

History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868,

HARRIS, IRA (May 31, 1802-December 2, 1875), jurist, was born in Charleston, Montgomery County, New York, the son of Frederic Waterman and Lucy (Hamilton) Harris. His father's ancestors came from England to Rhode Island; his mother was of Scotch descent. The family moved to Cortland County in 1808 and the boy worked on the farm until he was seventeen. He attended Homer Academy, then entered the junior class of Union College in 1822, graduating with honors two years later. He began the study of law at home but later he was received into the office of Ambrose Spencer [q.v.] in Albany and in 1827 he was admitted to the bar. He began his career in Albany, where his success at the bar was immediate. In time he was drawn into politics. He was elected to the Assembly, as a Whig, with Anti-Rent support, for the sessions of 1845 and 1846, was a member of the state constitutional convention in 1846, and in 1847 was a member of the state Senate. Later in 1847 he was elected to the state supreme court for the short term of four years. In 1851 he was reelected for a full term of eight years and in the same year became a member of the first faculty of the Albany Law School. In 1861, after a year in Europe, he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican. He succeeded William H. Seward, defeating Horace Greeley and William M. Evarts. In the Senate he was a member of important committees and exercised considerable influence. Though he generally supported the administration and was a close friend of Charles Sumner, he was never an intense partisan and vigorously opposed the expulsion of Senator Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana, who had given a friend a letter of introduction to Jefferson Davis. While in Washington he lectured in the law school of Columbian College (later George Washington University). At the end of his term he was defeated in the Republican caucus by Roscoe Conkling but was chosen a delegate at large to the state constitutional convention the same year. During Harris' stay in Washington his connection with the Albany Law School had not been entirely broken. On returning to Albany he resumed his place on the faculty and continued to lecture almost up to the time of his death. His interest in education was intense. He was one of the founders of the Albany Medical College (1838), for many years a trustee of Vassar College and Union College, and trustee and chancellor of the University of Rochester (1850-75). Prominent also in Baptist affairs, he was for many years a deacon in Emmanuel Baptist Church in Albany and served as chairman of the American Baptist Missionary Union. He was an eloquent advocate, a graceful orator, and an excellent judge. For almost fifty years he was a prominent figure in Albany and gave lavishly of his time and energy to any movement to advance the intellectual and moral interests of the community. He was twice married: first, to Louisa Tubbs, who died May 17, 1845, and second, to Mrs. Pauline Penny Rathbone, who with two sons and four daughters survived him. His brother, Hamilton Harris (1820-1900), was a prominent lawyer and Republican politician in Albany.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, p. 310.



HENDERSON, John Brooks, 1826-1913, lawyer. U. S. Senator from Missouri.  Appointed Senator in 1863.  Member of the Republican Party.  He opposed President Buchanan's Kansas policy. Henderson strongly opposed the secession of Missouri and was a Union delegate to the convention and one of the most influential forces in preserving the state to the Union. Opposed abolitionist movement. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


JOHN B. HENDERSON was born near Danville, Virginia, November 16, 1826. He removed to Missouri with his parents when a child, spent his boyhood on a farm, and after obtaining an academical education, occupied several years in school teaching. He studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1848, and the same year was a member of the Missouri Legislature, to which he was again elected six years later. In 1856 he was a presidential elector on the Buchanan ticket, and two years after was defeated as a candidate for Congress, by a large majority. In 1860 he was a candidate for presidential elector, pledging himself to vote for either Douglas or Bell, in order to carry the State against Breckinridge, the Secession candidate. At the same time ho was again a candidate for Congress, but was defeated. In the following year he took a prominent part as a Union member of the State Convention, called to determine whether Missouri should secede. In June, 1861, he procured arms and equipped a regiment of loyal State militia, and went into the service with them. He was appointed in January, 1862, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the expulsion of Trusten Polk from the United States Senate, and was elected in 1863 for the term which ended in 1869.

Mr. Henderson was placed on the Committee on Finance and on the Committee on Indian Affairs, of the latter of which he was chairman. He was a diligent and active member of the Senate, and was one of the Republican members who declined to give his vote for the impeachment of President Johnson, and presented, on voting, an elaborate opinion upon the ease. In concluding his opinion, he alleged that his oath compelled him to examine the case from a legal and not a party point of view, and insisted that the question was simply one of guilt under the charges presented by the House.

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

HENDERSON, JOHN BROOKS (November 16, 1826-April 12, 1913), United States senator, was born in Danville, Virginia, the son of James and Jane (Dawson) Henderson. In 1832 the family moved to Lincoln County, Missouri, where a few years later his father was accidentally killed. His mother died soon afterward and he went to live for some years on the farm of a minister where he worked to the advantage of both brain and brawn, acquiring rugged health and obtaining a firm grounding in his studies. From then until the end of his life he was an omnivorous reader and a prodigious worker. At fifteen he began teaching in Pike County and also read law. Admitted to the bar in 1844, he began practice at Louisiana, the county-seat, rapidly built up a large practice, and, fortunate always in investments, accumulated a considerable property which developed ultimately into a large fortune. In politics he was an ardent Democrat and was elected to the legislature in 1848 and again in 1856. In both sessions he was prominent in railroad and banking legislation. During this period he was president of one of the branches of the state bank. He was defeated for Congress in 1850, 1858, and 1860, but he was judge of the court of common pleas for a short time and was offered a seat in the supreme court. In 1856 and in 1860 he was a presidential elector. Independent then as always, he opposed President Buchanan's Kansas policy; and in 1860, supporting Douglas, he was a delegate to the Charleston and Baltimore conventions. He was a state-rights Democrat, or at least so considered himself, but when the issue was drawn in 1861, he strongly opposed the secession of Missouri and was a Union delegate to the convention and one of the most influential forces in preserving the state to the Union. But he was opposed to the coercion of the seceded states. "Has it ever been supposed, by any member of this convention, that any man could be elected President of the United States who could so far disregard his duties under the Constitution and forget the obligation of his oath as to undertake the subjugation of the Southern States by military force? ... If so ... this Government is at an end" (Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri State Convention, post, pt. 2, pp. 91-92). Declaring secession "a damnable heresy," he was bitter against the North and the Abolitionist element of the Republican party which he thought had provoked the trouble and declared that revolution would be the better course for Missouri if Abolitionist doctrines were to prevail. He served on the federal relations committee and its report expressed his views. In the report of the commission appointed to receive the commissioner from Georgia he made a powerful argument for the Union, and his speech, made by request of the convention on March 5, was fiery and eloquent. The fall of Sumter and the call for troops changed his opinion as to coercion, and he raised a brigade of militia of which he became brigadier-general. He saw no active service and on January 17, 1862, was appointed United States senator to replace Trusten Polk. The following year, he was elected for a full term.

In the Senate, where he was next to the youngest member, Henderson quickly became prominent. He served on a number of important committees, including finance, foreign relations, and Indian affairs, and was responsible for much of the financial legislation of the war. He was greatly interested in the purchase of Alaska and aided Seward in arranging the terms. As chairman of the committee on Indian affairs he urged better treatment of the Indians, and in 1867, as chairman of the Indian peace commission, he concluded advantageous treaties, bringing peace with several tribes. He was friendly to Lincoln 's plan for compensated emancipation and voted for the resolution indorsing it. At Lincoln's request he went to Missouri to urge the policy, later introducing a bill to carry it into effect there. Lincoln informed him in the summer of 1862 of the proposed emancipation proclamation, but while approving, he, like Seward, urged its delay. In 1864, believing that an amendment abolishing slavery would pass only if proposed by a border-state member, he introduced the Thirteenth Amendment despite his belief that it meant his political death. He voted for the Wade-Davis bill, but he supported Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. In the session of 1865-66, however, he acted with the radicals, voting for the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills, and in February 1866, while opposing the Fourteenth Amendment as inadequate, he advocated negro suffrage and offered an amendment to the resolution which was almost identical to the wording used later in the Fifteenth Amendment. In the end he voted for the Fourteenth Amendment, but in 1869, when the Fifteenth Amendment was under discussion, he did not s pea k in its behalf and was absent when it was passed. He doubted the wisdom of the provision for military government in the Reconstruction acts but yielded the point. He was a severe critic of Johnson and voted for the Tenure of Office Act, but, alone of the regular Republican senators, voted against the bill forbidding the president to issue military orders except through the general in command of the army. From a sense of decency he would not vote for the resolution declaring Stanton's removal illegal and during the progress of the trial of Johnson he was liberal with respect to the admission of evidence. He found it hard to reach a decision, harder still to vote against his party, and visibly wavered, even offering to resign that his successor might vote guilty. When an insolent telegram of instructions came from Missouri his poise was restored, and he replied: "Say to my friends that I am sworn to do impartial justice according to law and conscience, and I will try to do it like an honest man" (Henderson, post, p. 208). he voted "not guilty," defied the attempt of the managers to fasten corruption upon him, assuring the Senate that he had no appropriate epithets for B. F. Butler's report, and, if he had, could not, in justice to himself or to the Senate, use them, and filed an unanswerable defense on legal grounds for his votes. He was denounced, threatened, and burned in effigy by Missouri radicals, but more than any other of the recalcitrant Republicans he was forgiven by his party. He was, of course, not a candidate for reelection. Returning to the law, he began to practise in St. Louis. In 1870 he supported the Liberals, but in 1872 he was back in the fold and the party candidate for governor and in 1873, candidate for senator. In 1875 he was appointed special federal district attorney to investigate and prosecute the whiskey ring, but he was soon removed for a speech attacking General Babcock, which Grant thought reflected upon him as well. Henderson knew Grant well and had sought in 1867 and 1868 to guide him away from some of his undesirable political associates. He did not approve of Grant's administration and supported him reluctantly in 1872. In 1876 and 1880 he was a determined opponent of the third-term movement. In 1884 he was president of the Republican national convention and was eager for the nomination of his friend and neighbor, General William T. Sherman.

In 1889 Henderson retired from practice and moved to Washington, D. C., where he spent the rest of his life. He was an interested delegate to the Pan-American Congress of 1889 and for many years, 1892-1911, a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. He wrote constantly for magazines and the press, preserved a lively interest in public affairs, entered into the social life of the capital with zest, entertaining a great deal, and grew gracefully to old age. He died after a brief illness and was buried at Arlington Cemetery. Although Henderson was a man of warm and affectionate nature, he had a gusty temper not infrequently aroused. In politics he was courageous and never hesitated to differ with his party. A touch of intellectual uncertainty in him is indicated by his frequently voting for measures he opposed in speech. He married, in 1868, Mary Newton Foote, the daughter of  Elisha Foote of New York, who survived him.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, p. 527



HOWARD, Jacob Merritt, 1805-1871, lawyer.  Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan.  U.S. Congressman 1841-1843.  Founding member of Republican Party in 1854.  Elected in 1862.  Served until March 1871.  As a member of the judiciary committee he drafted the first clause of the Thirteenth Amendment. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


JACOB M. HOWARD was born in Shaftsbury, Vermont, July 10th, 1805. His father was a substantial farmer of Bennington County, and the sixth in descent from William Howard, who settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1635, five years after the town was established.

The subject of this sketch, although frequently in requisition to assist in farm labors, early evinced a taste for study, which he was permitted at intervals to gratify by attendance at the district school. Subsequently pursuing preparatory studies in the academies of Bennington and Brattleboro, he entered Williams College in 1826. His studies were much interrupted, in consequence of his want of means and the necessity of teaching to pay expenses, yet, with characteristic perseverance, he made his way through college, and graduated in 1830. He immediately commenced the study of law in Ware, Massachusetts, and in July, 1832, he removed to Detroit, then the capital of Michigan Territory, where he was admitted to the bar in the following year. In 1835 he was married to Catharine A. Shaw, a young lady whose acquaintance he had formed at Ware.

In his professional career, Mr. Howard was ever faithful to the interests of his clients, bringing to their service great industry, a mind well stored with legal learning, much native sagacity and force of logic.

In 1835 he was a Whig candidate for a seat in the Convention to form a State Constitution, but was not elected.

In the controversy of 1834 and 1835 between the Territory and Ohio, respecting a tier of townships which had ever belonged to Michigan, on her southern border, embracing the present city of Toledo, Mr. Howard took strong ground against the claim of Ohio; and, having employed his pen in repelling it, finally, when Mr. Mason, the territorial governor, thought it necessary to employ military force against a similar force from Ohio, Mr. Howard volunteered, and proceeded with arms to make good the arguments he had advanced. The expedition was, however, productive only of wasteful expenditure to the Territory, and a large slaughter of pigs and poultry.

In 1838, Mr. Howard was a member .of the State Legislature, and took an active part in the enactment of the code known as the Revised Laws of that year; in the railroad legislation of the State; and in examining into the condition of the brood of " free banks," known as "wildcat banks," that had come into pernicious existence under the free-banking system enacted the year before. This examination developed such a scene of fraud and corruption in the local currency of the State, that the paper of those banks soon lost all credit; and the State Supreme Court, as soon as the question was fairly brought before it, adjudged them to be all unconstitutional and void; a decision in which the community most heartily acquiesced.

In the presidential canvass of 1840, which resulted in the election of General Harrison, Mr. Howard was a candidate for Congress, and was elected by 1,500 majority. During the three sessions of the Twenty-seventh Congress he engaged but seldom in debate, but was an attentive observer of the scenes which passed before him. His feeling3 and opinions had ever been against slavery, its influences, its crimes, its power. John Quincy Adams and Joshua E. Giddings, both members of the House, championed the anti-slavery cause. Henry A. Wise, Mr. Gilmer, and Mr. Mallory, of Virginia, and Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, were the leading combatants on the other side. The conflict, which occupied a large portion of that Congress, was fierce and fiery.

With what interest did Mr. Howard, then a new member and a young man, drink in the words of the "old man eloquent," as he unfolded his mighty argument against the "sum of all villainies," and the dangers it menaced to the liberties of our country!

He left that Congress with the full conviction that the final solution of the great question would be in a civil war, though hoping that some measure might be devised less radical and terrible, that should calm the deeply-stirred passions of the people. He remained steadfastly attached to the Whig party, and in the presidential canvasses of 1814, 1848, and 1852, exerted himself to promote the election of Mr. Clay, General Taylor, and General Scott.

In the trial of a slave case, under the fugitive slave act of 1850, in the United States Circuit Court, before Judge McLean, he denounced that act as a defiance, a challenge to the conflict of arms, by the South to the North, and predicted that sooner or later it would be accepted; and characterized its author (Mr. Mason, of Virginia,) as an enemy of his country and a traitor to the Union.

On the defeat of General Scott he resolved to withdraw entirely from politics; but on the passage of the act of 1854, repealing the Missouri compromise, he again entered the political arena in resistance to that flagrant encroachment of the slave power. He was among those who took the earliest steps to effect an organization for the overthrow of the Democratic party of the North, which had become the willing ally of the pro-slavery or secession party of the South. He saw that such a party must embrace all the elements of popular opposition to the principles and aims of the slaveholders. The old Whig party, never as a party having made its influence felt in opposition to those principles and aims, had become powerless as an agency whereby to combat them—or even to move the hearts of the people. Yet by far the greater portion of its members in the free states were in sentiment opposed to the schemes of the slave power, now too manifest to be misapprehended or viewed with indifference. To count upon this portion of the Whig party was obvious. The great end to be obtained was a firm and cordial union of this with two other elements, the old Abolition party proper, and the "Free Soil Democracy." In Michigan, these last two had already coalesced and had put in nomination a State ticket, at the head of which was the name of Hon. Kinsley S. Bingham as their candidate for Governor. A call, numerously signed, was issued, inviting all freemen of the State, opposed to the recent measures of Congress on the subject of slavery, to assemble at Jackson on the 6th of July. The assemblage was numerous, and the utmost harmony and good feeling prevailed. "Whigs," "Abolitionists," "Free Soilers," and " Liberty Men," met and shook hands like a band of brothers. A deep seriousness pervaded the whole, and a prescience of the events soon to develop themselves, seemed to teach them that this was the "beginning of the end" of slavery. Mr. Howard was the sole author of the series of resolutions that were adopted. They strongly denounced slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, as a source of national weakness and endless internal strife; they condemned the repeal of the Missouri compromise and the consequent opening of all the new territories to slavery; they encouraged in no equivocal terms the free settlers of Kansas to resist the tyranny and outrages with which the slave power was seeking to crush them. They went further—they demanded, not the restoration of that compromise, but, as an indemnity for the future, as just and necessary safeguards against the grasping ambition of slaveholders, the banishment of slavery, by law, from all the territories of the United States, from the District of Columbia, and all other places owned by the Government. They invoked the cordial co-operation of all persons and parties for the attainment of these great ends; and gave to the new party there consolidated the name of "REPILICANS," * by which it has since been known.

Mr. Bingham was here again nominated for Governor, and Mr. Howard, against his own earnest remonstrances, put in nomination for Attorney-General of the State. At the ensuing November election, the whole ticket was elected by a large majority, notwithstanding the earnest appeals of General Cass and other speakers from the stump, struggling against the popular current.

Mr. Howard was a member of the committee on the address at the first national Republican convention held at Pittsburgh, February 22d, 1856. He held the office of Attorney-General of Michigan for ix years, and left it January 1st, 1861. While holding that important

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Mr. Greeley suggested the name of "Democratic Republican party," but as the Democratic party had been the authors and abettors of the measures complained of, the new party rejected even any nominal connection with them. ______________________________________________

office, his incessant labors attested his fidelity to his trust; and the published reports of the Supreme Court evince his thoroughness and talents as a lawyer. To him the State is indebted for its excellent law, known as the registration act, by which all voters are required to enter their names on the proper books of townships and wards.

Mr. Bingham was elected to the United States Senate in January, 1859, and died in October, 1861. On the assembling of the Legislature in January following, Mr. Howard was chosen to fill the vacancy. He was an active member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and that on Military Affairs. He gave an earnest support to all the measures for the prosecution of the war to subdue the rebellion, and was among the first to recommend the passage of the Conscription Act of 1863, being convinced that the volunteer system could not safely be relied upon as a means of recruiting and increasing the army. Every measure for supplying men and means found in him a warm supporter. He favored the principle of confiscation of the property of the rebels, and one of his most elaborate and eloquent speeches was made on that subject in April, 1862. A careful observer of the movements of parties, he early came to the conclusion that General McClellan was acting in the interest of the anti-war portion of the Democratic party, and consequently lost all confidence in his efficiency as a commander. Influenced by this feeling, he called on President Lincoln, in company with Senator Lane of Indiana, in March, 1862, and earnestly urged the dismissal of that General from the command of the Army of the Potomac. But Mr. Lincoln thought it best, as he said, " to try Mac a little longer." He added: "Mac is slow, but I still have confidence in him." And thus McClellan was retained in command.

Mr. Howard was among the first to favor an amendment of the Constitution, abolishing slavery throughout the United States, in the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, who reported the amendment as it was finally passed by both houses and ratified by the State Legislatures. He drafted the first and principal clause in the exact words in which it now appears. Some members of the Committee remarked despairingly: "it is undertaking too much; we cannot get it through the Legislatures, or even the houses of Congress." Mr. Howard replied with animation: "We can! Now is the time. None can be more propitious. The people are with us, and if we give them a chance they will demolish slavery at a blow. Let us try!" In January, 1865, Mr. Howard was re-elected to the Senate for the full term commencing on the 4th of March of that year. The successes of our arms in the southwest, and the hope of converting rebels into union men there, had induced President Lincoln to send General Banks with a large force to New Orleans, and by formal instructions to invest him with authority to hold, under his own military orders, elections of members of new State conventions, to result finally in the reconstruction of the State governments. This strange plan of reconstruction required the assent of only one-tenth part of the white voters. The crudest and most unsatisfactory of all plans of reconstruction, it went into operation in Louisiana, and was in truth the suggestion of that stupendous plan of usurpation of the powers of Congress under the pretense of reconstructing the rebel States afterwards, in the summer of 1865, attempted to be carried out b} Andrew Johnson, when he became President by the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. A joint resolution for the recognition of Louisiana, organized under the military orders of General Banks, came before the Senate from the Judiciary Committee, and was the subject of animated and elaborate discussion. Mr. Howard opposed it, and on the 25th of February, 1865, delivered a speech in which he fully and clearly demonstrated, that in the reconstruction of the seceded States the authority of Congress was supreme and exclusive, and that the executive as such was invested with no authority whatever. He insisted that by seceding from the Union, and in making war upon the Government, the rebel States became enemies in the sense of the laws of nations, and thus forfeited their rights and privileges as States; that consequently, when subdued by the arms of the Government, they were " conquered" and lay at the mercy of their conquerors, for exactly the same reason as prevails in cases of international wars; that it pertained to the law-making power of the United States, not to the President, to deal with the subjugated communities, and that Congress in its own discretion was to judge of the time and mode of re-admitting them as States of the Union. And this is the doctrine that has practically and finally prevailed, after a most gigantic struggle between the two branches of the Government.

In the reconstruction legislation of 1867 and 1868, the principles of constitutional law, thus affirmed by Mr. Howard, were fully recognized and put into practice ; for that legislation rests exclusively upon the ground that Congress, and not the President, is vested with the power of reorganizing the rebel States.

During the session of 1865-6, he served on the joint committee on Reconstruction, one of whose duties was to inquire and report upon the condition of the rebel States. For convenience the committee divided them into several districts, and to Mr. Howard was assigned Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The voluminous report of this committee, containing the testimony of the numerous witnesses examined, shows the extent of their labors and the perplexing nature of the subjects committed to them. As the principal result of their labors, they submitted to Congress a proposition to amend the Constitution, now known as the Fourteenth Article: a most important, amendment, which, after thorough discussion, in which Mr. Howard took a leading part, passed both houses of Congress and was submitted to the State legislatures for ratification. Had it been ratified by the State governments of the rebel States, inaugurated by the executive proclamations of Mr. Johnson, all the troubles that followed would have been avoided. But that singular man and a majority of his cabinet strenuously opposed and defeated it in those bodies. The result is known. Forced to vindicate their own authority, and to prevent anarchy in those States, Congress, in March, 1867, enacted the first of that series of statutes known as the reconstruction acts, by which they declared those States without legal governments, and subjected them to a quasi military rule until proper State constitutions could be formed on the principle of impartial suffrage of whites and blacks, and until Congress should formally re-admit them. In the earnest struggle to uphold this legislation, Mr. Howard was ever at his post of duty. He drew the report of the Committee on Military Affairs, on the removal of Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, by President Johnson, strongly condemning that act, and exposing Mr. Johnson's complicity in the “ New Orleans Riots.". When the contest between the two branches of the government resulted in the impeachment of Mr. Johnson by the House of Representatives, Mr. Howard voted the accused guilty of the high crimes and misdemeanors charged in the articles of impeachment. He is a man of medium stature, compact frame, and much power of endurance. He is an eloquent speaker and a formidable antagonist in debate. He is as exemplary in his private life as honorable in his public career.

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



HOWE, Timothy Otis, 1816-1883, lawyer, jurist.  Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.  Elected 1861, served until 1879.  During his long career he served on the committees of finance, commerce, pensions, and claims, was one of the earliest advocates of universal emancipation, and in a speech in the senate on 29 May, 1861, advocated in strong terms the negro-suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


TIMOTHY O. HOWE is a native of Livermore, Maine, and was born on the 24th of February, 1816. Many generations since, his ancestors settled in Massachusetts. His father was a physician, living in a strictly rural district, having a wide practice among the farming community of fifty years ago.

After receiving a good common school education, Mr. Howe studied law, first with Hon. Samuel P. Benson, of Winthrop, and subsequently with Judge Robinson, of Ellsworth. In 1839 he was admitted to the bar, and immediately commenced the practice of his profession, at Readfield. In 1841 he married Miss L. A. Haynes.

In politics, he was an ardent Whig, and a devoted admirer of Henry Clay. Taking a warm interest in political questions, he was elected by the Whigs of his district as a member of the popular branch of the Maine Legislature of 1845. The Hon. William Pitt Fessenden was a member of the same body. In the Legislature he took an active part in discussions, and was recognized as a young man of unusual promise.

In the latter part of that year he removed from Maine to the Territory of Wisconsin, and opened a law office at Green Bay, which, at that time, was a small village, separated from the more thickly settled parts of the Territory by a wide belt of forest, extending for forty or fifty miles to the southward. He soon became known, however, to the people of the Territory, and upon its admission into the Union, in 1848, was nominated by the Whigs for Congress. The district being largely Democratic, he was defeated. In 1850 he was elected Judge of the Circuit Court. At that time the Circuit Judges of the State were also Judges of the Supreme Court, and Judge Howe was, during a part of his term, Chief Justice of the State. In 1854, immediately after the passage of the Nebraska bill, the Whigs, Free Soilers, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats, of Wisconsin, met in mass convention at Madison, the capital, and organized the Republican party in that State. This occurred two years before the national organization of the party. Judge Howe was then on the bench, and took no active part in politics, but published a letter expressing his hearty approbation of the movement. The following year he resigned his office as Judge and resumed the practice of the law. He bore a leading part in the State canvass of that and the following year, as a speaker, in the advocacy of Republican principles and the election of the nominees of the Republican party.

The year 1856 was signalized by one of the most remarkable judicial trials in the history of jurisprudence. At the general election in November, 1855, Hon. Wm. A. Barstow, then the Governor of Wisconsin, was the Democratic candidate for re-election. The candidate of the Republican or opposition party was Hon. Coles Bashford, recently a delegate from the Territory of Arizona in the Fortieth Congress.

The canvassers determined that Mr. Barstow had received the greatest number of votes. In pursuance of that determination a certificate of election was issued to him, signed by the Secretary of State, and authenticated by the great seal of the State, and on the opening of the next political year Mr. Barstow took the oath of office, and was re-inaugurated with imposing ceremonies and much display of military force. Mr. Bashford averred that, in fact, the greater number of legal votes were cast for him, and not for Mr. Barstow. He contended that the canvass was fraudulent and false, and he resolved to try the validity of Mr. Barstow's title by a suit at law. Accordingly he also took the oath of office. On the 15th of January the Attorney-General filed, in the Supreme Court of the State, an information in the nature of quo warranto against the acting Governor. That is supposed to be the only instance in the history of Government, when the people of a State have appealed to the judicial authority to dispossess an incumbent of the executive office. 

Some of the best professional talent in the State was employed in the conduct of the cause, and in its progress party feeling was stirred to its lowest depths. An attempt was made to deter the prosecution by threats that the litigation would be protracted so that no judgment could be obtained during the Gubernatorial term. It was broadly hinted on the argument, and freely asserted by a portion of the press, that, if the court should give judgment for the relator, the respondent, having already the command of the militia of the State, would not submit to the judgment. For the relator appeared, besides Mr. Howe, Mr. E. G. Ryan, Mr. J. H. Knowlton, and the late Postmaster-General, Hon. A. W. Randall, while the defence was managed by Mr. J. E. Arnold, Judge Orton and the present Senator Carpenter. It was expected that Mr. Ryan would lead the prosecution. He was a Democrat in politics, and so was politically opposed to his client; and, moreover, was a lawyer unsurpassed for ripe learning and forensic ability by any member of the profession in the United States. But an unfortunate disagreement between him and the court, in the commencement of the contest, induced his temporary withdrawal from the case, and thereupon the lead was assigned to Mr. Howe.

A sketch of the progress of the case would hardly fail to interest both the professional and the general reader; but space forbids. The prosecution, however, was completely triumphant. In spite of threatened delays, the court unanimously gave judgment for the relator, on the 24th day of March, 1856 — but little more than two months from the commencement of proceedings — and in spite of threatened resistance, the relator was, on the next day, quietly and peaceably installed in the office.

The reputation won by Judge Howe, in the management of that great State trial, gave to his name marked prominence as a candidate for the U. S. Senate in the place of Hon. Henry Dodge, whose term expired on the 4th of March, 1857.

When the Legislature assembled, his election was regarded as almost certain. But no sooner had the canvass for Senator fairly opened, than a novel question was raised in the party, for an explanation of which it is necessary to refer to events that had transpired some years before. In 1854 a fugitive slave from Missouri was arrested at Racine, Wisconsin, taken to Milwaukee, and there thrown into jail for security, while the master was engaged in complying with the legal forms necessary to enable him to reclaim his human property. The fugitive had been treated with great barbarity at the time of his arrest, and popular feeling, inflamed by this circumstance, and by detestation of Slavery and the Fugitive Slave act, became so turbulent that it resulted in the organization of a mob which broke open the jail, released the fugitive, and sent him to Canada. Some of the prominent actors in this proceeding were arrested for violating the provisions of the Fugitive Slave law, but were released upon a writ of habeas corpus, partly upon technical grounds, and partly on the ground that the Fugitive Slave act was unconstitutional. Subsequently the case came before the Supreme Court of the State, and one of the Judges delivered a very elaborate opinion, pronouncing the Fugitive act unconstitutional, and affirming the most ultra doctrines of the State Eights school of Southern politicians, but applying them to the detriment instead of the support of slavery. The decision became at once immensely popular with a great number of radical anti-slavery men in the State, and was thought by them to be an admirable example of capturing the guns of an enemy and turning them against him. This class of Republicans regarded what they termed an anti-State Eights Republican as a little worse than an out and out pro-slavery Democrat. Accordingly, when the senatorial election approached, in the winter of 1857, the friends of other candidates raised the cry of State Eights, and averred that Judge Howe was unsound on that issue. In a caucus of the Republican members of the Legislature a resolution was adopted in substance identical with the first of the celebrated Kentucky resolutions of 1798, declaring the right of each State to be the final judge of the constitutionality of laws of the United States, and in case of infractions upon what it held to be its rights, that it should determine for itself as to the mode and measure of redress. Each of the candidates was requested to declare whether or not he approved of the doctrines of the resolution. Judge Howe alone refused to endorse them. He preferred to remain a private citizen rather than secure a seat in the Senate by endorsing doctrines which he regarded as unsupported by the Constitution, and in practice fatal to the perpetuity of the Union. The result was that he was defeated, and the Hon. James K. Doolittle elected. But his defeat on such grounds attached to him, by the strongest ties of personal esteem and devotion, a large body of influential members of the party who were in harmony with him on the question of State Sovereignty. They agreed with their opponents that the Fugitive Slave law was an infamous statute, and they thought it unconstitutional; but they denied that a State court possessed the right of passing final judgment upon a law of the United States. Upon this question a dangerous division continued among tho Republicans of Wisconsin, until the breaking out of the rebellion. Judge Howe was the leader of the Republicans who repudiated the State Sovereignty theory. At every Republican State Convention the question arose, and the opponents of State Sovereignty, only by dint of the most strenuous efforts, succeeded in fighting off an endorsement of the principle In the Republican platform of the State. On two occasions, once before a Republican State Convention, and again in the Assembly Chamber during the session of the Legislature, Judge Howe met in debate the ablest and most brilliant champions of the State Sovereignty theory, the Hon. Carl Schurz, then a resident of Wisconsin, and Judge A. D. Smith, the author of the opinion pronouncing the Fugitive law null and void, and achieved a signal victory over them in the argument of the question. The next senatorial election in Wisconsin occurred in the winter of 1861. In the pretended secession of the Southern States, justified upon the ground of the sovereignty of each State, the people had a practical illustration of the ultimate consequence of the doctrine. It was the vindication of Judge Howe. The quality of his Republicanism was no longer questioned, and a Republican Legislature elected him to the Senate. From that time to the present ne has borne himself in all the new and perplexing crises, that have occurred in our political history in such a manner as to secure the approbation of his constituents, and the esteem and confidence of his associates. During the war he served on the Senate Committee on Finance, and several minor committees, and in the Fortieth Congress was Chairman of the Committee on Claims, and a member of the Committee on Appropriations, and on the Public Library. He was among the earliest advocates of Emancipation, of Universal Suffrage, and of the right and expediency of establishing Territorial Governments over those districts of country in which Civil Government was overthrown by Rebellion. As a consequence he was among the foremost of those who took issue with the policy of President Johnson—and some of his ablest speeches in the Senate were delivered in the winter of 1865-1866, at the time when the division between the Radical and the Johnson Republicans began to assume the form of an open rupture.

Upon the expiration of his term, in 1867, Senator Howe was reelected. Few representatives have ever received so signal evidence of the esteem and confidence of their constituency as was awarded him on that occasion. Every Republican member of the Legislature favored his re-election. No other candidate was spoken of. He was the unanimous choice of his party. In his senatorial career, he had displayed so much of ability, so much of consistency and steadfast adherence to principle, that the people of his State demanded his re-election with unexampled unanimity. As a consequence, no legislative caucus was held to nominate a candidate for Senator, and Mr. Howe received the unanimous vote of the Republican members when the election occurred.

In politics, as may be gathered from the above, Senator Howe is a Radical. He would abridge no man's rights on account of creed, or race, or complexion. As a speaker, he is deliberate and impressive, with a ready command of language and all the resources of extemporaneous oratory. He appears, indeed, to the best advantage in the sudden exigencies of debate, the excitement of the occasion stimulating his faculties, and rousing them to the fullest action. In private life, he is social and genial, attaching men to him by his cordiality and frankness, and winning their enduring respect by his purity of character and genuine worth.  

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

In 1861, when public opinion had reversed itself to favor his position in support of the rights of the United States government, he was elected to the Senate, to which he was reelected in 1866 and again in 1872, each time without the formality of a caucus. Upon the death of Chief Justice Chase, President Grant offered him the empty post, but Howe declined because he believed it to be a breach of trust to give the Democratic governor of Wisconsin the opportunity to appoint a Democrat to the vacancy. For the same reason, he refused the appointment as minister to Great Britain. He was one of the earliest advocates of universal emancipation, strongly favored the suffrage bill of the District of Columbia, urged the federal government's right to establish territorial government over the seceded states, spoke vigorously against Andrew Johnson's policy and voted in favor of his conviction, supported the silver bill in 1878, advocated the repeal of the law restricting the number of national banks, and was one of the first to urge the redemption of the green-back currency. Perhaps the best expression of his political opinions is in the pamphlet, Political History ... "The Session" by Henry Brooks Adams, Reviewed by Hon. T.O. Howe (1870), reprinted from the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) for October 7, 1870. His wife, Linda Ann Haynes, whom he had married December 21, 1841, died in 1881, leaving two children. In that same year President Garfield appointed him as commissioner to the Paris monetary conference, and at the end of the year President Arthur made him postmaster general, in which capacity he served until his death in Kenosha some months later. During the time he was postmaster general, a reduction of postage was accomplished, postal notes were issued, and reform measures vigorously urged.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, pp. 297-298.



JOHNSON, Reverdy 1796-1876, lawyer, diplomat, statesman, U.S. Senator, opposed annexing territories acquired in the war with Mexico.  Strongly opposed the annexation of Mexican territory, for he feared that it would revive the whole problem of the extension of slavery. Although he thought that slavery was wrong, he believed that its expansion into the territories was a local concern, but, nevertheless, in order to avert the threatened disaster to the Union he urged compromise and suggested that the slavery question be submitted to the Supreme Court. Ardent supporter of the Union.  Believed that African Americans should be recruited into the Union Army and as a result should gain their emancipation.  


REVERDY JOHNSON (D) was born in Annapolis, Maryland, May 21, 1796. He was educated at St. John's College, in his native town, and studied law with his father. The first office which he held was that of State Attorney. In 1817 he removed to Baltimore for the practice of his profession, and was three years after appointed Chief Commissioner of Insolvent Debtors. In 1821 he was elected to the Senate of Maryland, and was re-elected for a second term. In 1845 he was elected a Senator in Congress from Maryland, but resigned in 1849 to accept the position of Attorney General, to which he had been appointed by President Taylor. Subsequently he devoted many years to the uninterrupted practice of his profession. He was a delegate to the Peace Congress of 1861, and was in in the following year elected a United States Senator from Maryland for the term ending in 1869.

History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868, pp. 24, 36, 96, 136, 163, 198, 203, 264, 270, 271, 384, 427, 4.54, 455, 461, 492, 528, 532, 533, 534, 547.

JOHNSON, REVERDY (May 21, 1796-February 10, 1876), lawyer and diplomat, was a native of Annapolis, Maryland. His mother, Deborah Ghieselen, was a daughter of Reverdy Ghieselen, of Huguenot descent, who was for a time commissioner of the land office of Maryland. His father, John Johnson, whose ancestors had emigrated from England, served his state as a member of both houses of the legislature, as judge of the court of appeals, and as chancellor. The boy received his general education in St. John's College at Annapolis, graduating in 1811. After reading law, first with his father and .hen with Judge Stephen, he was admitted to the bar in 1815. Four years later, on November 16, he married Mary Mackall  Bowie, whose mother's father was Governor. Robert Bowie [q.v.]. Johnson's law practice began in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, but in 1817 he removed to Baltimore, where for almost sixty years he continued active in his profession, becoming one of the greatest lawyers of his day. He had an unusual memory, which served him especially well in the latter half of his life, when he became partially blind. His mental alertness made him a rare cross-examiner. He possessed a deep, oratorical voice that immediately commanded attention and was an important professional asset, as were also his tact, good nature, and unusual courtesy. During his early law practice, in cooperation with Thomas Harris, clerk of the Maryland court of appeals, he compiled the reports of cases decided in that court (1-7 Harris and Johnson Reports, 1800-27).

His chief legal fame rested upon his ability as a constitutional lawyer. He appeared as counsel in a number of very important suits and had as associates or opponents many of the most famous men of his time. In 1854 he and Thaddeus Stevens obtained for Cyrus McCormick a decision upholding the validity of the reaper patent (Seymour vs. McCormick, 16 Howard, 480). Two years later, in a second suit between the same parties he was associated with Edward M. Dickerson in opposition to Edwin M. Stanton (19 Howard, 96). The most famous case with which he was connected was Dred Scott vs. Sanford (19 Howard, 393) in which he represented the defense and was credited by George Ticknor Curtis, one of Scott's attorneys, with being the major influence in bringing about the decision against the bondman (Proceedings, post, p. 12).

Johnson was an ardent Whig during the life of that party and later affiliated with the Democrats but never felt at home with them. In 1821 he was elected state senator from Baltimore and was returned to office in 1826 but resigned two years later because of the increasing demands of his profession. In 1845, when the Oregon and Texas questions were under discussion, he began his national career as a member of the United States Senate. On the Oregon question he attacked the administration and favored a boundary line following the forty-ninth parallel; in the matter of Texas, on the other hand, he deserted the Whigs to uphold Polk in prosecuting the war with Mexico. Yet he opposed the annexation of Mexican territory, for he feared that it would revive the whole problem of the extension of slavery. Although he thought that slavery was wrong, he believed that its expansion into the territories was a local concern, but, nevertheless, in order to avert the threatened disaster to the Union he urged compromise and suggested that the slavery question be submitted to the Supreme Court. In March 1849, he resigned from the Senate to become attorney-general under President Taylor, but his activities in this capacity were of little importance. He was soon under a cloud owing to an opinion he rendered on the Galphin claim in which Secretary of War Crawford had been attorney for the claimant. Before his death, Taylor was considering the dismissal of Johnson for his connection with the scandal, as well as that of Crawford, and of Meredith, the secretary of the treasury.

After Taylor's death Johnson resigned with the rest of the cabinet and soon became allied with the Democrats. He had much sympathy for the South, urged conciliation, and was a member of the futile peace congress held in Washington early in 1861. Secession, however, he looked on as treason and stood for the preservation of the Union. Hence he upheld Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, though he frequently urged leniency or acquittal for those charged with disloyalty. When he was chosen a member of the Maryland house of delegates in 1861 he worked hard to keep the state from seceding from the Union. The next year he was again elected United States senator but did not take his seat until 1863 because Lincoln soon sent him to New Orleans to investigate complaints of foreign consuls that General Benjamin Butler [q.v.] had seized their property. In the Senate he continued his moderate and conciliatory policy, championing the Constitution but occasionally giving way to expediency. He held that slaves who had enlisted in the army should be granted their freedom but was opposed to emancipating their families on this ground. In 1864 he supported McClellan for the presidency since he felt that the Emancipation Proclamation was unwise and resented Lincoln's interference in the Maryland and Kentucky elections. Though he had hoped that emancipation might come gradually, he voted for the Thirteenth Amendment.

In his attitude towards the South he stood out in strong opposition to Sumner's conquered province theory, for he held the Union to be indestructible. He favored the Wade-Davis plan of reconstruction, which Lincoln vetoed and, after Lincoln's assassination, generally supported Johnson in his policy towards the South. He was a member of the committee of fifteen on reconstruction and also sat on the later joint congressional committee. He fought the bill creating the Freedmen's Bureau, chiefly on account of the provision for trial by courts martial, and repeatedly he used his eloquence against arbitrary imprisonment and other violations of personal liberty. While he opposed negro suffrage because he felt that the blacks were unprepared for the responsibility, he finally voted for the Fourteenth Amendment as a means of ending military domination in the South. Yet, later, he voted for the bill dividing that region into military districts. For his various inconsistencies he was called a "trimmer" by his opponents, a term that was not entirely undeserved, 'though some of his shifts can be explained by his open-mindedness and natural lack of strong prejudices. In the quarrel between Congress and President Johnson, he gave the executive considerable support 'and obtained an amendment to the Tenure of Office Act permitting the president to continue making recess appointments. In the impeachment of Johnson he was a member of the committee on rules for the Senate acting as a court, and filed an opinion that Johnson was not guilty. He seems to have been largely responsible for the acquittal through convincing a number of wavering senators that Johnson would enforce congressional reconstruction.

In 1868 he was appointed to succeed Charles Francis Adams as minister to Great Britain, where he was well received, for he was known to favor the maintenance of friendship with the British, but, at home, he was severely criticized for his cordiality towards individuals whose actions had not been friendly to the Union. There were three questions entrusted to Johnson for settlement, the alienability of allegiance, the jurisdiction over the San Juan islands in Puget Sound, and the claims for damages done by the Alabama and other vessels built in Great Britain for the Confederacy. Agreements were promptly signed whereby the British government recognized the right of expatriation for British subjects and pledged itself to submit the San Juan question to arbitration. Johnson also negotiated a treaty for the settlement, by means of arbitral commission, of all financial claims arising between the two countries after July 26, 1853. The most important of the American claims were those for damages done by the Alabama and similar vessels. None of these agreements was ratified, chiefly owing to the fact that they were the work of a supporter of Andrew Johnson, but they did form the bases for later treaties.

After the election of Grant, Reverdy Johnson returned to the United States in the summer of 1869, and resumed his law practice. He defended many Southerners charged with disloyalty to the Union and was attorney for Allen Crosby, Sherod Childers, and others in the Ku Klux trials of South Carolina (Official Report of the Proceedings before the U. S. Circuit Court, Held at Columbia, South Carolina, November Term, 1871, 1872). In 1875 with David Dudley Field he obtained the acquittal of Cruikshank (United States vs. Cruikshank, 92 U. S., 542) who had been charged with fraud and violence in elections and indicted for conspiracy under the enforcement act of May 30, 1870. Still in active practice he died from an accidental fall while in Annapolis to argue a case before the court of appeals.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 112-114.



LANE, Henry Smith,  1811-1881, U.S. Senator.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Early in his life, he recognized that slavery was out of harmony with the spirit of the age, but he opposed the methods of the active abolitionists. However, when the Republican party was founded upon the principle of opposition to slavery in the territories, he became one of its leaders in Indiana. He presided over the national convention of 1856.


HENRY S. LANE was born in Montgomery County, Kentucky, February 24, 1811. After having obtained an academical education, he studied law, and removed to Indiana, where he engaged in the practice of his profession. In 1837 he was elected to the Indiana Legislature. In 1840 he was elected a Representative in Congress from Indiana. He served under General Taylor in the Mexican War as Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers. He was President of the first Republican National Convention which met in Philadelphia, July 4, 1856. In 1861 he was elected Governor of Indiana, but resigned the office two days after his inauguration to accept the position of Senator in Congress, to which he was elected for the term ending in 1867. He was succeeded by Oliver P. Morton.

History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868, pp. 213, 38t, 383, 499, 532.

LANE, HENRY SMITH (February 24, 1811 June 18, 1881), representative and senator from Indiana, was born on a farm near Sharpsburg, Bath County, Kentucky, the son of James H. Lane, a colonel of militia and Indian fighter. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, in 1832, at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. In 1834 he moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he practised his profession until he became a banker there, in 1854, with his father-in-law, Isaac C. Elston: He was a Whig member of the state House of Representatives (1838-39) and took an active part in the campaign of 1840. Elected to the twenty-sixth federal House of Representatives to fill a vacancy caused by resignation and reelected to the next Congress, he served from August 3, 1840, to March 3, 1843. When Tyler succeeded Harrison and vetoed bills to charter a new federal bank Lane, like most of his party, broke with the President and denounced him in bitter terms. He greatly admired Henry Clay and campaigned ardently for him in 1844; the defeat of his idol was one of the great disappointments of his life. Unlike many northern Whigs he strongly supported the Mexican War, raised a company of volunteers, became its captain, and subsequently rose to be major and then lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Indiana Regiment. He went to Mexico but was mainly engaged in guarding supply trains and in garrison duty, and he did not participate in any battles. After his return home he again ran for Congress but was defeated by one of the leading Indiana Democrats, Joseph E. McDonald.

Early in his life, he recognized that slavery was out of harmony with the spirit of the age, but he opposed the methods of the active abolitionists. However, when the Republican party was founded upon the principle of opposition to slavery in the territories, he became one of its leaders in Indiana. He presided over the national convention of 1856 and made an impassioned speech that gave him a national reputation. In 1859, holding that the election of Bright and Fitch in 1857 had been irregular, the Republicans and "Americans" or old Whigs, who now controlled both houses of the state legislature, chose Lane and Monroe McCarty for the United States Senate, but they were not allowed to take the seats because the Democratic majority in that body supported Bright and Fitch. In the Republican National Convention of 1860 he energetically opposed the candidacy of Seward and played a large part in bringing about Lincoln's nomination. He was nominated for governor by the Indiana Republicans, with Oliver P. Morton as the candidate for lieutenant-governor. The two campaigned vigorously and were elected. Two days after his inauguration, in accordance with a previous understanding, he was elected United States senator and resigned the governorship in favor of Morton. In the Senate he was a member of the committee on military affairs and of the committee on pensions, of which latter he became chairman. He gave zealous support to the Union cause and, later, to the congressional plan of reconstruction, but he originated few measures and rarely spoke at any length, his talents "being better suited to the hustings than to a legislative body" (Woolen, post, p. 124). His influence was, however, much greater than the record of his activities in the Congressional Globe indicates.

He declined to be a candidate for reelection and upon the expiration of his term in 1867 returned to Crawfordsville to take up again his banking interests. In 1869 he became special Indian commissioner and, in 1872, served as commissioner for the improvement of the Mississippi River. He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1868 and 1872 and for many years a trustee of Asbury College (now De Pauw University). He was fond of telling how in the days of attending court in Fountain County before the war, he approached a group that included Abraham Lincoln. "Here," said Lincoln, "comes an uglier man than I am." As a stump speaker he had few equals, but his oratory was of the impassioned type, and he was not a logical speaker nor a good debater. Unlike his fellow partisan, Oliver P. Morton, he made few enemies, being popular even with most of his political opponents. He was twice married, first, to Pamelia Bledsoe Jameson of Kentucky, who died in 1842, and, second, on February II, 1845, to Jonna Elston, of Crawfordsville, a sister of the wife of Lew Wallace [q.v.].  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 574.



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.


JAMES H. LANE was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, June 22, 1814. He served as a soldier through the Mexican War, and soon after his return in 1849 was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Indiana. He was an active Democratic politician, and as such was elected a Representative in Congress from Indiana in 1853. Soon after the close of his Congressional term, he went to Kansas, where he actively aided in the work of erecting a Free-State Government. He was President of the Topeka and the Leavenworth Constitutional Conventions, and was elected by the people Major General of the Free-State Troops. On the admission of Kansas into the Union, he was elected a Senator in Congress from that State. Soon after the breaking out of the Rebellion, he was appointed by President Lincoln a Brigadier General of Volunteers. He was a member of the Baltimore Convention of 1864. In 1865 he was re-elected by the Legislature of Kansas a Senator in Congress. On the 1st of July, 1866, while at Fort Leavenworth on leave of absence from the Senate on account of ill-health, he committed suicide.

History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868, pp. 171, 201, 279, 284, 285, 457, 569.

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."

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


Sources:
History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volumes 1-2, 1869.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.