USA > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 29
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 29
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sides being a member of the Maryland Historical Society and Maryland Academy of Sciences, is a member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and Southern Historical Society ; an honorary member of the Georgia Historical Society ; corresponding member of the historical societies of New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Carolina, Vir- ginia, and of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, etc. Having accepted, in 1877, a nomination for the Leg- islature by the Democratic party, to whose principles he has always been attached, he was elected a member of the House of Delegates from the Second Legislative District of Baltimore city by an overwhelming majority. After serving one term in that body, Colonel Scharf declined a renomination, preferring to devote himself to journalism, In the Legislature he was active in committee work, and was Chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, to which the now historic Blair resolutions, instructing the Maryland representatives in the Congress to offer a bill tending to unseat President Hayes, were referred. Ilis familiarity with the history of many matters upon which legislation was proposed stood him in great service. Ilis speeches in the House of Delegates, at the session of 1878, on the " Blair Resolutions," " The Eastern Shore Sena- torial Law," and his report on the " Bland Silver Bill," and other subjects, attracted much attention at the time they were delivered. He tried most faithfully to serve his constituents, and had much influence. Upright in principle, able in service, and courteous in manner, he merited and received the approbation of the Second Legislative Dis- trict. In June, 1874, Colonel Scharf became the city editor of the Baltimore Evening News, and continued as . such until August following, when he assumed the editorial management of the Baltimore Sunday Telegram, which had been vacated by Mr. James R. Brewer, now one of the owners and editor of the Evening News. Colonel Scharf continued as managing editor of the Sunday Telegram, until he was about to be admitted to the bar, in December, 1874, when he resigned his position, and began the prae- tice of law. He continued, however, to contribute liberally to the press, and on September 23, 1878, he was appointed the managing editor of the Morning Herald, the only daily penny paper printed in Baltimore, and having an extensive circulation in the city. Under his able manage- ment the Morning Herald has steadily grown into popular favor, and largely increased its circulation, and has given evidence of augmenting prosperity by an increase in size. On December 2, 1869, Colonel Scharf married Mary Mc- Dougall, the eldest daughter of James McDougall, Esq., a wholesale lumber and commission merchant of Baltimore, and has three children, a son and two daughters.
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ABER, PETER J., Pastor of the First German New Jerusalem Society of Baltimore, was born at Co- logne, the capital of Rhenish Prussia, July 21, 18.17. From catliest childhood he felt a peculiar predilection for the clerical profession, which was gratified through the influence of his pious mother and sev- eral priests, who occasionally visited the family. When twelve years of age, he attended the Jesuit Gymnasium of his native eity, and went several years later to Munsterei- fel as Seminarist of the Archiepiscopal Josephinum to con- tinue his studies. In the meantime his father died, and Mr. Faber now came to the determination to act as mis- sionary of the Roman Catholic Church. In the twentieth year of his age he became a member of the Franciscan Order, and after the conclusion of his novitiate, took the solemn monastical vows. The early impressions of the novitiate soon became modified by the worldlly life of many of the older members of his Order, with whom he now had intercourse, and soon repented the step taken. Ile re- solved, at all hazards, to break the chains into which he had fallen ; in the meantime, the study of philosophy, to which he gave his whole heart, was his only consolation. In the year 1870, the war between Germany and France began, and Mr. Faber, with some other young members of the Order, made voluntary application for admittance to the ambulance corps. Ile followed the Prussian army in its triumphal march to the Loire, and after the war was ended, returned to Germany, where, after some time, he found sufficient assistance to enable him to carry out his intention of making a voyage to America. On April 8, 1872, he arrived in New York, and having exhausted all his means in his journey through Belgium, France and England, and across the ocean, Mr. Faber was compelled to seek immediate employment. He soon made the ac- quaintance of a gentleman of Fort Hunter, a village on the Mohawk River. This gentleman desiring the services of several workmen, Mr. Faber went with him to Fort Hunter, where, for two years, he supported himself as a la- borer. Although Mr. Faber's belief in God and the Bible was firm, his opinions regarding the Church and Chris- tendom had undergone considerable change. He had come to the conclusion that among his former fellow-believers there was less love for the noble ideas and teachings of true Christianity than for a most violent party-spirit, which constantly inclines to absolute rule ; and as he had been tanght from his earliest childhood to look upon all who are not Catholic as irreligious people, and still believed the Roman Catholie Church to have been founded by Christ, although it had become unfaithful to its mission, he deter- mined to be independent of every denomination, and to cherish his own religions ideas. The German Church So- ciety at Fort Hunter, at the time Mr. Faber resided there, consisted of Latheraus, and the service was conducted by a Methodist preacher. Through the influence of his ett- ployer, Mr. Faber became the organist of the church, and
was made superintendent of the Sunday-school, and al- though his ideas of religion were the same as when he left the convent, he was soon taken upon the list as a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Two weeks after unit- ing with this church, he was licensed to preach, and after preaching on several oceasions, at Fort Hunter and Tribe's Hill, was engaged by one of the presiding elders for Phila- delphia, to fill the position of missionary. On his way to Philadelphia he learned that the position as missionary had not yet been arranged, and he therefore went to New York, to enter upon his duties as missionary in that city. In 1874, while confined to his room during a protracted illness, he read a controversial writing of a New Church minister against a Lutheran minister, which excited his curiosity, and created a desire to become acquainted with the views of the great Swedish philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg, lle therefore commenced a thorough perusal of his works. After zealous and persevering search in Swedenborg's " True Christian Religion," a decided change took place in his religious belief. Believing in the spiritual mission of Swedenborg, and astonished at the shining light of the Holy Word, he resigned his office, in which he felt he could be no longer useful, and supported himself as teacher of the ancient languages. In the summer of 1875, he became acquainted with Rev. A. O. Brickman, the first German Minister of the New Church in America. At his request, Mr. Faber undertook the charge of the German New Jerusalem Society of Baltimore. He was licensed by the Maryland Association, October 8, 1875, and was ordained by the General Convention, June 11, 1876.
CATHCART, ROBERT, was born in Baltimore, No- vember 15, 1814. He is the eldest son of Robert and Annie Cathcart, both of Scotch descent. Ilis mother was a member of the old Maxwell fam- ily. His father was one of the defenders of Balti- more in the war of 1812-15. He died seven days after the battle of North Point, from a fever contracted in the service. Robert's early education was received in a com- mon school in Baltimore. In 1826, he was apprenticed to the business of block and pump making. After attaining his majority, he conducted the business for the widow of his late employer for two years, when he formed a copart- nership with his brother William, for carrying on the same business. This partnership has been continued until the present time (1879). Mr. Cathcart is emmently a public- spirited man, always giving countenance and support to every enterprise looking to the prosperity of his native city. He was one of the corporatars of the first Street Railway in Baltimore, and also one of the contractors that built the roads. In 1859, he was appointed General Su- perintendent of the Baltimore City Passenger Railway
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Company, serving in that capacity for more than four years; two years of which time he was, also, Treasurer of the Company. In May, 1863, he resigned that position to as. , some the duties of Provost Marshal of the Second Con gressioual District of Maryland, to which he was appointed by President Lincoln. He served in that capacity until the last day of December, 1866, when he was mustered out of service, having completed the work of closing up the records and accounts of the five Districts of Maryland. Ile was deputy Surveyor of the Port of Baltimore from 1867 to 1869. Mr. Cathcart has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church since 1832. He is at present an officer in the church of that denomination in South Broadway, Baltimore. Ile was married to Martha A. Cooper, November 24, 1836; nine children being the fruit of that union, six of whom are now living-three sons and three daughters. He is of most genial nature and of ex- cellent social qualities. He has a fine physique, and al- though in his sixty-fifth year is to all appearance in the very prime of life, attributable in great part to a strictly temperate mode of life.
BANEY, ROGER BROOKE, LL.D., was descended from an English Catholic family that emigrated $ to America about the middle of the seventeenth century. lle was the second son of Michael Taney and Monica, the daughter of Roger Brooke, and was born March 17, 1777, in Calvert County, Mary- land, on the paternal estate, which had been in the family for generations. His paternal ancestor, who was of good position and acknowledged worth, came to America in 1656 and settled on the Patuxent. Ilis maternal ancestor, Robert Brooke, with his wife and ten children, had come over, in 1650, and settled at Delabrook, on the Patuxent, twenty miles from its mouth. He was a man of distinc- tion and was appointed Commander of Charles County by Lord Baltimore, and Governor of Maryland, by Crom- well's Commissioners for Reducing the Plantations. The school which young Roger attended in his early youth was of the most elementary character, but his home supple- mented what was wanting in the school, for his father was a man of culture, having studied at St. Omer and Bruges, in France, and his mother, though of limited education, possessed sound judgment, much intelligence, and all the virtues that adorn the female character. Hler conver- sation, early precepts, and pious example, made an im- pression upon him that influenced all his after-life. Leav- ing the little country school, he was place.l under private tutors to be fitted for college. Ilis last tutor, David En- glish, was subsequently for many years cashier of a bank in Georgetown, D. C. In 1792, he entered Dickinson College, then under the presidency of Dr. Nisbet, where
he pursued his studies diligently, and graduated, in 1795, at the head of his class. Fox-hunting and other sports, during the following winter, afforded the relaxation and amusement that were necessary after his severe college studies, and in the spring of 1796 he entered upon the study of law, at Annapolis, in the office of Jeremiah Townley Chase, one of the Judges of the General Court of Maryland. Secluding himself from society, he devoted himself earnestly to study during the day, and at night, with his friend, William Carmichael, a student in a different office, who was reading the same books, talked over the readings of the day, the principles which they estab- lished, and the distinctions and qualifications to which they were subject. While thus studying his profession, and attending the sessions of the General Court, the dig- nified appearance of the judges, and the pleadings of the distinguished barristers, Luther Martin, John Thompson Mason, Philip Barton Key, John Johnson, Arthur Shaaf, and others, made a deep impression upon him, and stimu- lated his ambition. After three years' study he was ad- mitted to the bar, in 1799, and made, with considerable embarrassment, but with success, his first forensic effort in the Mayor's Court, at Annapolis, before Recorder Duvall. Returning to Calvert County, he commenced the practice of law, where he received a liberal share of patronage, and the same ycar was elected a member of the General Assembly of Maryland. During the session, besides attending to business, he took part in the discussions of the House, and mixed in the cultured and refined society of the place, by which his natural timidity and morbid sensi- bility were in a measure overcome, and he felt more at ease in company and in debate. In 1801, Mr. Taney re- moved to Frederick as a field of more profitable practice than his native county. IFere he met with increased suc- cess in his profession, while his high moral qualities, as well as his eminent legal abilities, made him popular with all the citizens. He was elected a Director in the Fred- erick County Bank, a visitor of Frederick College, and, in 1816, a State Senator. In 1806, he married Anne Phoebe Charlton Key, daughter of John Ross Key, and sister of Francis Scott Key, the author of " The Star- spangled Banner," who had been Mr. Taney's fellow law student at Annapolis. She was a lady of great personal beauty, bright intellect, and many womanly graces. Besides Frederick Court, he practiced in the other county courts, the Court of Chancery, and the Court of Appeals, in all of which he achieved distinguished success. In 1823, he re- moved to Baltimore, and was soon the acknowledged head of the bar in that city. In 1827, on the recommendation of all the members, he was appointed Attorney-General of Maryland, by Governor Kent and his Council, who were warm supporters of the administration of Mr. Adams. On the dissolution of his first cabinet, in 1831, General Jack- son, impressed by Mr. Taney's eminent legal ability, his sound views on public measures, and his lofty patriotism,
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tendered him a place in his cabinet as Attorney-General of the United States, which he accepted. Mr. Tancy was known to be a decided opponent of the centralizing policy of the administration of. Mr. Adams, under the lead of Mr. Clay, Known as the American System, -a high tariff, internal improvements by the Federal Government, and the influence of the moneyed power through the Bank of the United States. The inaugural address of Presi- dent Jackson, March 4, 1829, foreshadowed his dissent to these cardinal principles in the policy of the former ad- ministration, and his first annual message to Congress, December 8, 1829, distinctly avowed his opposition to them, especially to the Bank of the United States. In consequence of this the bank, in 1831, entered the political arena to influence the measures of the government by con- trolling the election of President of the United States and representatives in the national legislature. In the winter of 1832, the bank petitioned Congress for a renewal of its charter, which it had made sure by extravagant loans, and by subsidies to partisans and partisan papers. In 1831, its loans and discounts had been increased fifty per cent., and while the bill was pending for the renewal of its charter, in 1832, made a further increase of seven millions of loans, from January to May of that year. Mr. Taney, who had been a director in a bank for years, and had made finance and banking a study, understood the character, tendency, and much of the actual condition of the great moneyed corporations, and, as the constitutional adviser of the President, June 27, wrote to him from Annapolis, while engaged there in court, that if the bill was passed, it was his duty to interpose his constitutional objection to it, and, on his return to Washington, assisted the President in preparing the message which embodied his veto. The bill was thus defeated. The people of the country sus- tained the action of the President and Mr. Taney, and re- elected General Jackson in the fall over his opponent, Mr. Clay, by a vote of two hundred and thirty-nine electoral votes to forty-nine. In his first annual message to Con- gress, after his re-election, President Jackson suggested to that body the propriety of a thorough investigation of the affairs of the bank, so as to determine whether it might be safely continued as the depository of the money of the government. The message recommended that the seven millions of stock in the bank, held by the United States, be sold, and also, all other stock held by the United States in other joint stock companies. The House refused the appointment of a select committee to investigate the con- dition of the bank, and referred the subject to the Com- mittee of Ways and Means. This committee, acting upon the report of the treasury agent, founded on statements furnished by the bank, reported a resolution, " That the government deposits may, in the opinion of the House, be safely continued in the Bank of the United States." The resolution was adopted by a vote of 109 to 46. Of those who favored the resolution fifty were borrowers of the
bank, and many of them on the list of its retained attorneys. Satisfied that the bank, by its transactions, had violated its charter, and that it was in a bankrupt condition, from its evading the payment of five millions of the public debt, which had been required to be paid out of the public money on deposit, Mr. Taney, in a letter from Washington, August 5, 1833, addressed to General Jackson, at the Rip Raps, urged upon him, as his constitutional adviser, the removal of the deposits. We give the following extracts : " In my official communications I have already expressed my convictions that the deposits ought to be withdrawn by order of the Executive, provided a safe and convenient arrangement can be made with the State banks for the col- lection and distribution of the revenue. And I have advised that the step should be taken before the meeting of Congress, because it is desirable that the members should be among their constituents when the measure is" announced, and should bring with them, when they come here, the feelings and 'sentiments of the people. The obstacles which have recently come in the way of such a proceeding, without doubt, have greatly strengthened the hands of the bank, and increased the difficulties to be sur- mounted by the Executive. They have not, however, changed my opinion of the course to be taken. My mind has been for some time made up that the continued exist- ence of that powerful and corrupt monopoly will be fatal to the liberties of the people, and that no man but yourself is strong enough to meet and destroy it, and that if your administration closes without having established and car- ried into operation some other plan for the collection and distribution of the revenue, the bank will be too strong to be resisted by any one who may succeed you." It is here shown that Mr. Taney was not " the pliant instrument of the President," in the removal of the deposits, as charged by Mr. Webster, but his adviser. Mr. Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, was known to General Jackson as an oppo- nent of the bank, and was supposed to coneur in the con- templated measures against it. But, unexpectedly, he opposed the removal of the deposits and employing State banks as the fiscal agents of the government. Ile was, therefore, removed from office, September 23, 1833, and Mr. Taney appointed in his place. He entered upon his duties the next day, and, on the 26th of the month, issued an order, to take effect, October 1, that the revenue there- after should be deposited in the selected State banks. The deposits already in the United States Bank were to be drawn out as the government needed them. For corrupt purposes the bank had increased its loans to over seventy millions; it now sought to control public opinion by an unnatural and unnecessary contraction, the consequence of which was widespread ruin over all the country. Com- merce was embarrassed, manufactures were paralyzed, thousands were thrown out of employment, property was unsalable, produce and labor were at the lowest price, men of wealth were reduced to poverty, and all this, the
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bank asserted, was in consequence of the removal of the deposits. The. partisan press assailed the President and his Secretary in the most virulent manner, and on the meeting of Congress, in December, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, in the Senate, and Binney, MeDuffie, and Adams, in the House, denounced their financial policy with great acrimony. But the House of Representatives, just elected, sustained both the President and Mr. Taney, and declared against a renewal of the charter of the bank, The session was now drawing to a close, and the President, June 23, 1834, sent to the Senate the nomination of Mr. Taney as Secretary of the Treasury. lle was rejected the next day. Ile immediately resigned and returned to Baltimore, where he was received by the citizens with an ovation. Resolu- tions approving his course 'were passed by primary meet- ings all over the country, and public dinners tendered him. Of these, however, he only accepted that offered by Balti- more, and the one by Frederick, his former residence. After events proved the wise policy of the President and Mr. Taney in opposing the bank. Having obtained a charter from the State of Pennsylvania the bank was con- tinued under Nicholas Biddle, the President, and the other officers. It soon ran its career, and, as its true condition could no longer be concealed, it collapsed. The bank sued its President, Mr. Biddle, for $1,018,000, paid out during his administration, for which no vouchers could be found, and the stockholders demanded an assignment of
all the property, credits, etc., of the institution. Finally, when its affairs were settled up, it was found that the bank had not only sunk its $35,000,000 of stock, but had carried down other institutions and companies, with a loss of $21,000,000, making a loss of $56,000,000, besides injuries to individuals, and Mr. Biddle and others indieted for a conspiracy to defraud the stockholders, and imprisoned, evaded the bringing out of faets against them by jury trial, by means of habeas corpus, one of the three judges not concur- ring in their discharge. Never was there a more clear vindi- eation than that of President Jackson and his Secretary. Judge Duval, before whom Mr. Taney argued his first canse, having, in January, 1835, resigned his seat upon the bench of the United States Supreme Court, to which he had been appointed in aSt, General Jackson immediately nominated Mr. Taney for the vacancy. But the Senate still retained its former prejudices, and the nomination was indefinitely postponed. Chief Justice Marshall, however, though opposed to Jackson's administration, endeavored to secure the confirmation of Mr. Taney by a private letter to B. Watkins Leigh, a Senator from Virginia. During the summer of 1835, Chief Justice Marshall died, and, De- cember 28, President Jackson nominated Mr. Tancy to fill his place. Believing that the nomination was intended as a reward of political services, and not of conscientious duty, Clay and Webster led the opposition with much viru- lence, but the political complexion of the Senate had now changed, and the nomination was confirmed, on March 15,
1836, by a majority of fourteen votes. If it be true that Mr. Taney owed his elevation mainly to the aid he had rendered his chief, on the bank question, the same must be admitted in relation to his predecessor, Chief Justice Marshall, who was nominated on account of defending, while he was a member of Congress, the administration of Mr. Adams, in the matter of Jonathan Robbins, a British deserter. Chief Justice Taney first took his seat on the bench at a Circuit Court, held in Baltimore, for the District of Maryland, in April, 1836. In the January Term, 1837, he took his seat for the first time on the bench of the Supreme Court. Of comprehensive intellect and sound judgment, profoundly acquainted with law and precedent, unswayed by passion, uninfluenced by interest, and un- moved by the fear or favor of party, he pronounced his decisions upon all subjects that came before him, calmly, yet firmly. Chief Justice Taney was of tall stature and slender frame. His constitution was delicate, and, besides this bodily infirmity, he had a natural infirmity of temper. The former was strengthened by temperance and the vigor of a lofty spirit ; the latter was subdued and chastened by religion and charity. And thus sustained he lived beyond the period allotted to human life. He died, October 12, 1864, in the eighty-eiglith year of his age, and was buried in Frederick by the side of his mother, as he had requested, near forty years before. The bar of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court itself, and the Circuit Court at Boston, paid fitting tributes to his memory, and the Legislature of Maryland, in 1867, honored him by voting a monument to her distinguished son. It is in bronze, of colossal size, from a design by W. H. Reinhart, and represents the Chief Justice in his robes of office, seated upon the bench. At its unveiling it was formally presented to the State in a beautiful address by S. Teackle Wallis, Esq. As a citizen, as a jurist, as a statesman, as Chief Justice, and as a Chris- tian, he was every way worthy the distinguished honors paid to his memory.
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