USA > Illinois > Brown County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 7
USA > Illinois > Cass County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 7
USA > Illinois > Schuyler County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 7
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Upon his accession to office, President Polk appointed Mr. Pierce Attorney-Gen- eral of the United States, but the offer was declined in consequence of numerous pro- fessional engagements at home and the precarious state of Mrs. Pierce's health. About the same time he also declined the nomination for Governor by the Demo- cratic party.
The war with Mexico called Mr. Pierce into the army. Receiving the appointment of Brigadier-General, he embarked with a portion of his troops at Newport, Rhode Island, May 27, 1847. He served during this war, and distinguished himself by his bravery, skill and excellent judgment. When he reached his home in his native State he was enthusiastically received by
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the advocates of the war, and coldly by its opponents. He resumed the practice of his profession, frequently taking an active part in political questions, and giving his sup- port to the pro-slavery wing of the Demo- eratic party.
June 12, 1852, the Democratie convention mnet in Baltimore to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. For four days they continued in session, and in thirty-five bal- lotings no one had received the requisite two-thirds vote. Not a vote had been thrown thus far for General Pierce. Then the Virginia delegation brought forward his name. There were fourteen more bal- lotings, during which General Pierce gained strength, until, at the forty-ninth ballot, he received 282 votes, and all other candidates eleven. General Winfield Scott was the Whig candidate. General Pieree was elected with great unanimity. Only four States-Vermont, Massachusetts, Ken- tucky and Tennessee-east their electoral votes against him. Mareh 4, 1853, he was inaugurated President of the United States, and William R. King, Vice-President.
President Pierce's cabinet consisted of William S. Marcy, James Guthrie, Jefferson Davis, James C. Dobbin, Robert McClel- land, James Campbell and Caleb Cushing.
At the demand of slavery the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and all the Ter- ritories of the Union were thrown open to slavery. The Territory of Kansas, west of Missouri, was settled by emigrants mainly from the North. According to law, they were about to mect and decide whether slavery or freedom should be the law of that realm. Slavery in Missouri and other Southern States rallied her armed legions, marched them into Kansas, took possession of the polls, drove away the citizens, deposited their own votes by handfuls, went through the faree of count- ing them, and then declared that, by an overwhelming majority, slavery was estab-
lished in Kansas. These faets nobody denied, and yet President Pieree's adminis- tration felt bound to respect the decision obtained by such votes. The citizens of Kansas, the majority of whom were free- State men, met in convention and adopted the following resolve :
"Resolved, That the body of men who, for the past two months, have been passing laws for the people of our Territory, moved, counseled and dietated to by the demagogues of other States, are to us a foreign body, representing only the lawless invaders who elected them, and not the people of this Territory ; that we repudiate their action as the monstrous consummation of an act of violence, usurpation and fraud unparalleled in the history of the Union."
The free-State people of Kansas also sent a petition to the General Government, im- ploring its protection. In reply the Presi- dent issued a proclamation, declaring that Legislature thus created must be recog -. nized as the legitimate Legislature of Kan- sas, and that its laws were binding upon the people, and that, if necessary, the whole force of the Governmental arm would be put forth to inforce those laws.
James Buchanan succeeded him in the Presideney, and, Mareh 4, 1857, President Pieree retired to his home in Concord, New Hampshire. When the Rebellion burst forth Mr. Pierce remained steadfast to the principles he had always eherished, and gave his sympathies to the pro-slavery party, with which he had ever been allied. He declined to do anything, either by voiee or pen, to strengthen the hands of the National Government. He resided in Coneord until his death, which occurred in October, 1869. He was one of the most genial and social of men, generous to a fault, and contributed liberally of his moderate means for the alleviation of suf- fering and want. He was an honored communicant of the Episcopal church.
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
JAMES BUCH
AN.
AMES BUCHANAN, the fifteenth President of the United States, 1857-'61, was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, April 23, 1791. The place where his father's cabin stood was called Stony Batter, and it was situated in a wild, romantic spot, in a gorge of mount- ains, with towering sum- mits rising all around. He was of Irish ancestry, his father having emigrated in- 1783, with very little prop- erty, save his own strong arms.
James remained in his secluded home for eight years enjoying very few social or intellectual advantages. His parents were industrious, frugal, prosperous and intelli- gent. In 1799 his father removed to Mer -. cersburg, where James was placed in school and commenced a course in English, Greek and Latin. His progress was rapid and in 1801 he entered Dickinson College at Carlisle. Here he took his stand among the first scholars in the institution, and was able to master the most abstruse subjects with facility. In 1809 he graduated with the highest honors in his class.
He was then eighteen years of age, tall,
graceful and in vigorous health, fond of athletic sports, an unerring shot and en- livened with an exuberant flow of animal spirits. He immediately commenced the study of law in the city of Lancaster, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He rose very rapidly in his profession and at once took undisputed stand with the ablest law- yers of the State. When but twenty-six years of age, unaided by counsel, he suc- cessfully defended before the State Senate one of the Judges of the State, who was tried upon articles of impeachment At the age of thirty it was generally admitted that he stood at the head of the bar, and there was no lawyer in the State who had a more extensive or lucrative practice.
In 1812, just after Mr. Buchanan had entered upon the practice of the law, our second war with England occurred. With all his powers he sustained the Govern- ment, eloquently urging the rigorous pros- ecution of the war; and even enlisting as a private soldier to assist in repelling the British, who had sacked Washington and were threatening Baltimore. He was at that time a Federalist, but when the Con- stitution was adopted by both parties, Jefferson truly said, "We are all Federal- ists; we are all Republicans."
The opposition of the Federalists to the war with England, and the alien and sedi-
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tion laws of John Adams, brought the party into dispute, and the name of Federalist became a reproach. Mr. Buchanan almost immediately upon entering Congress began to incline more and more to the Repub- licans. In the stormy Presidential election of 1824, in which Jackson, Clay, Crawford and John Quincy Adams were candidates, Mr. Buchanan espoused the cause of Gen- eral Jackson and unrelentingly opposed the administration of Mr. Adams.
Upon his elevation to the Presidency, General Jackson appointed Mr. Buchanan, minister to Russia. Upon his return in 1833 he was elected to a seat in the United States Senate. He there met as his associates, Webster, Clay, Wright and Calhoun. He advocated the measures proposed by Presi- dent Jackson of making reprisals against France, and defended the course of the Pres- ident in his unprecedented and wholesale removals from office of those who were not the supporters of his administration. Upon this question he was brought into direct col- lision with Henry Clay. In the discussion of the question respecting the admission of Michigan and Arkansas into the Union, Mr. Buchanan defined his position by saying:
" The older I grow, the more I am in- clined to be what is called a State-rights man."
M. de Tocqueville, in his renowned work upon "Democracy in America," foresaw the trouble which was inevitable from the doctrine of State sovereignty as held by Calhoun and Buchanan. He was con- vinced that the National Government was losing that strength which was essential to its own existence, and that the States were assuming powers which threatened the perpetuity of the Union. Mr. Buchanan received the book in the Senate and de- clared the fears of- De Tocqueville to be groundless, and yet he lived to sit in the Presidential chair and see State after State, in accordance with his own views of State
rights, breaking from the Union, thus crumbling our Republic into ruins; while the unhappy old man folded his arms in despair, declaring that the National Consti- tution invested him with no power to arrest the destruction.
Upon Mr. Polk's accession to the Presi- dency, Mr. Buchanan became Secretary of State, and as such took his share of the responsibility in the conduct of the Mexi- can war. At the close of Mr. Polk's ad- ministration, Mr. Buchanan retired to pri- vate life; but his intelligence, and his great ability as a statesman, enabled him to exert a powerful influence in National affairs.
Mr. Pierce, upon his election to the Presidency, honored Mr. Buchanan with the mission to England. In the year 1856 the National Democratic convention nomi- nated Mr. Buchanan for the Presidency. The political conflict was one of the most severe in which our country has ever en- gaged. On the 4th of March, 1857, Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated President. His cabinet were Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, J. B. Floyd, Isaac Toucey, Jacob Thomp- son, A. V. Brown and J. S. Black.
The disruption of the Democratic party, in consequence of the manner in which the issue of the nationality of slavery was pressed by the Southern wing, occurred at the National convention, held at Charleston in April, 1860, for the nomination of Mr. Buchanan's successor, when the majority of Southern delegates withdrew upon the passage of a resolution declaring that the constitutional status of slavery should be determined by the Supreme Court.
In the next Presidential canvass Abra- ham Lincoln was nominated by the oppo- nents of Mr. Buchanan's administration. Mr. Buchanan remained in Washington long enough to see his successor installed and then retired to his home in Wheatland. He died June 1, 1868, aged seventy seven years.
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PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BRAHAM LIN- COLN, the sixteenth President of the United States, 1861-'5, was born February 12, 1809, in Larue (then Hardin) County, Kentucky, in a cabin on Nolan Creek, three miles west of Hudgensville. His parents were Thomas and Nancy (Hanks) Lincoln. Of his an- cestry and early years the little that is known may best be given in his own language : " My parents were both born in Virginia, of un- distinguished families-second families, per- haps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now remain in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abra- ham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockbridge County, Virginia, to Kentucky in 1781 or 1782, where, 'a year or two later, he was killed by Indians-not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to iden-
tify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more defi- nite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mor- decai, Solomon, Abraham and the like. My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up, liter- ally, without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew to manhood.
" There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond ' readin', writin', and cipher- in' to the rule of three.' If a straggler, sup- posed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write and cipher to the rule of three, and that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. I was raised to farm-work, which
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I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois and passed the first year in Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.
" Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a Captain of volunteers-a suc- cess which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated; ran for the Legislature the same year (1832) and was beaten, the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the Legislature, and was never a candidate afterward.
- " During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to , practice it. In 1846 I was elected to the Lower House of Congress; was not a can- didate-for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, inclusive, I practiced the law more assid- uously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig elec- toral tickets, making active can vasses, I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise roused me again. What I have done since is pretty well known."
The early residence of Lincoln in Indi- ana was sixteen miles north of the Ohio River, on Little Pigeon Creek, one and a half miles east of . Gentryville, within the present township of Carter. Here his mother died October 5, 1818, and the next year his father married Mrs. Sally (Bush) Johnston, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She was an affectionate foster-parent, to whom Abraham was indebted for his first encour- agement to study. He became an eager reader, and the few books owned in the vicinity were many times perused. He worked frequently for the neighbors as a farm laborer; was for some time clerk in a store at Gentryville; and became famous throughout that region for his athletic
powers, his fondness for argument, his in- exhaustible fund of humerous anecdote, as well as for mock oratory and the composi- tion of rude satirical. verses. In 1828 he made a trading voyage to New Orleans as " bow-hand" on a flatboat; removed to Illinois in 1830; helped his father build a log house and clear a farm on the north fork of Sangamon River, ten miles west of Decatur, and was for some time employed in splitting rails for the fences-a fact which was prominently brought forward for a political purpose thirty years later.
In the spring of 1851 he, with two of his relatives, was hired to build a flatboat on the Sangamon River and navigate it to New Orleans. The boat "stuck " on a mill-dam, and was got off with great labor through an ingenious mechanical device which some years later led to Lincoln's taking out a patent for "an improved method for lifting vessels over shoals." This voyage was memorable for another reason -- the sight of slaves chained, mal- treated and flogged at New Orleans was the origin of his deep convictions upon the slavery question.
Returning from this voyage he became a resident for several years at New Salem, a recently settled village on the Sangamon, where he was successively a clerk, grocer, surveyor and postmaster, and acted as pilot to the first steamboat that ascended the Sangamon. Here he studied law, inter- ested himself in local politics after his return from the Black Hawk war, and became known as an effective "stump speaker." The subject of his first political speech was the improvement of the channel of the Sangamon, and the chief ground on which he announced himself (1832) a candi- date for the Legislature was his advocacy of this popular measure, on which subject his practical experience made him the high- est authority.
Elected to the Legislature in 1834 as a
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" Henry Clay Whig," he rapidly acquired that command of language and that homely but forcible rhetoric which, added to his intimate knowledge of the people from which he sprang, made him more than a match in debate for his few well-educated opponents.
Admitted to the bar in 1837 he soon established himself at Springfield, where the State capital was located in 1839, largely through his influence; became a successful pleader in the State, Circuit and District Courts ; married in 1842 a lady be- longing to a prominent family in Lexington, Kentucky; took an active part in the Pres- idential campaigns of 1840 and 1844 as candidate for elector on the Harrison and Clay tickets, and in 1846 was elected to the United States House of Representatives · over the celebrated Peter Cartwright. During his single term in Congress he did not attain any prominence.
He voted for the reception of anti-slavery petitions for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia and for the Wilmot proviso; but was chiefly remem- bered for the stand he took against the Mexican war. For several years there- after he took comparatively little interest in politics, but gained a leading position at the Springfield bar. Two or three non- political lectures and an eulogy on Henry Clay (1852) added nothing to his reputation.
In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the Kansas-Nebraska act aroused Lincoln from his indifference, and in attacking that measure he had the im- mense advantage of knowing perfectly well the motives and the record of its author, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, then popu- larly designated as the " Little Giant." The latter came to Springfield in October, 1854, on the occasion of the State Fair, to vindi- cate his policy in the Senate, and the " Anti- Nebraska" Whigs, remembering that Lin- coln had often measured his strength with
Douglas in the Illinois Legislature and be- fore the Springfield Courts, engaged him to improvise a reply. This speech, in the opinion of those who heard it, was one of the greatest efforts of Lincoln's life; cer- tainly the most effective in his whole career. It took the audience by storm, and from that moment it was felt that Douglas had met his match. Lincoln was accordingly selected as the Anti-Nebraska candidate for the United States Senate in place of General Shields, whose term expired March 4, 1855, and led to several ballots; but Trumbull was ultimately chosen.
The second conflict on the soil of Kan- sas, which Lincoln had predicted, soon be- gan. The result was the disruption of the Whig and the formation of the Republican party. At the Bloomington State Conven- tion in 1856, where the new party first assumed form in Illinois, Lincoln made an impressive address, in which for the first time he took distinctive ground against slavery in itself.
At the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia, June 17, after the nomi- nation of Fremont, Lincoln was put for- ward by the Illinois delegation for the Vice-Presidency, and received on the first ballot 110 votes against 259 for William L. Dayton. He took a prominent part in the canvass, being on the electoral ticket.
In 1858 Lincoln was unanimously nomi- nated by the Republican State Convention as its candidate for the United States Senate in place of Douglas, and in his speech of acceptance used the celebrated illustration of a "house divided against itself" on the slavery question, which was, perhaps, the cause of his defeat. The great debate car- ried on at all the principal towns of Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas as rival Sena- torial candidates resulted at the time in the election of the latter ; but being widely cir- culated as a campaign document, it fixed the attention of the country upon the
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former, as the clearest and most convinc- ing exponent of Republican doctrine.
Early in 1859 he began to be named in Illinois as a suitable Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of the ensu- ing year, and a political address delivered at the Cooper Institute, New York, Febru- ary 27, 1860, followed by similar speeches at New Haven, Hartford and elsewhere in New England, first made him known to the Eastern States in the light by which he had long been regarded at home. By the Re- publican State Convention, which met at Decatur, Illinois, May 9 and 10, Lincoln was unanimously endorsed for the Presi- dency. It was on this occasion that two rails, said to have been split by his hands thirty years before, were brought into the convention, and the incident contributed much to his popularity. The National Republican Convention at Chicago, after spirited efforts made in favor of Seward, Chase and Bates, nominated Lincoln for the Presidency, with Hannibal Hamlin for Vice-President, at the same time adopt- ing a vigorous anti-slavery platform.
The Democratic party having been dis- organized and presenting two candidates, Douglas and Breckenridge, and the rem- nant of the "American" party having put forward John Bell, of Tennessee, the Re- publican victory was an easy one, Lincoln being elected November 6 by a large plu- rality, comprehending nearly all the North- ern States, but none of the Southern. The secession of South Carolina and the Gulf States was the immediate result, followed a few months later by that of the border slave States and the outbreak of the great civil war.
The life of Abraham Lincoln became thenceforth merged in the history of his country. None of the details of the vast conflict which filled the remainder of Lin- coln's life can here be given. Narrowly escaping assassination by avoiding Balti-
more on his way to the capital, he reached Washington February 23, and was inaugu- rated President of the United States March 4, 1861.
In his inaugural address he said: " I hold, that in contemplation of universal law and the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied if not ex- pressed in the fundamental laws of all na- tional governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a pro- vision in its organic law for its own termi- nation. I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution en- joins upon me, that the laws of the United States be extended in all the States. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or vio- lence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power conferred to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to col- lect the duties and imports, but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-country- men, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being your- selves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Gov- ernment, while I shall have the most sol- emn one to preserve, protect and defend it."
He called to his cabinet his principal rivals for the Presidential nomination - Seward, Chase, Cameron and Bates; se- cured the co-operation of the Union Demo- crats, headed by Douglas ; called out 75.000 militia froin the several States upon the first tidings of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, April 15; proclaimed a blockade of the Southern posts April 19; called an extra
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session of Congress for July 4, from which he asked and obtained 400,000 men and $400,000,000 for the war; placed McClellan at the head of the Federal army on General Scott's resignation, October 31; appointed Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War, Jan- uary 14, 1862, and September 22, 1862, issued a proclamation declaring the free- dom of all slaves in the States and parts of States then in rebellion from and after January 1, 1863. This was the crowning act of Lincoln's career-the act by which he will be chiefly known through all future time-and it decided the war.
October 16, 1863, President Lincoln called for 300,000 volunteers to replace those whose term of enlistment had expired ; made a celebrated and touching, though brief, address at the dedication of the Gettysburg military cemetery, November 19, 1863; commissioned Ulysses S. Grant Lieutenant-General and Commander-in- Chief of the armies of the United States, March 9, 1864; was re-elected President in November of the same year, by a large majority over General McClellan, with Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, as Vice- President; delivered a very remarkable ad- dress at his second inauguration, March 4, 1865; visited the army before Richmond the same month; entered the capital of the Con- federacy the day after its fall, and upon the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's army, April 9, was actively engaged in devising generous plans for the reconstruction of the Union, when, on the evening of Good Fri- day, April 14, he was shot in his box at Ford's Theatre, Washington, by John Wilkes Booth, a fanatical actor, and expired early on the following morning, April 15. Al- most simultaneously a murderous attack was made upon William H. Seward, Secre- tary of State.
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