USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Centennial history of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 31
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Thurman was so intensely democratic and so firm in his political con- victions that a compatriot spoke of his as the type of Roman firmness. A witty newspaper writer aptly interjected the phrase. "Why, he is the noblest Roman of them all." Thurman was democratic in all things, affable, com- panionable and easily approached. He had thousands of what the classic writers called "lovers," men who loved him as brothers love one another and who took as personal insults every slight put upon him.
Sherman was austere, reserved and dignified and was not approached easily. Early in his public career he was dubbed "The Iceberg." His friends were friends under all circumstances but far from enthusiastic. And yet Sherman was not an iceberg to them who knew him but a genial warm- hearted man, and Thurman was a fierce and relentless hater of those who be- trayed him. The worst enemies of each were in his own party-men of nar- row ambitions and powerful leverage in the manipulation of party affairs. But for these enemies both would have reached the presidency, on which they had fixed their ambitions at different periods.
These two men were contemporaneous during that period of our national history when Ohio was the nerve center of the mentality, conscience and mil- itary prowess of the Union. They did more for their respective parties than is yet appreciated. Sherman was the real pilot in the senate, who steered the republican party between the Scylla of centralization and the Charybdis of reconstruction excesses in a most critical period. His strong conservatism, joined to his party rectitude, kept his party within the line of discretion and safety.
Thurman in the senate saved the democratic party from final dissolu- tion after it had begun to recover from the awful cataclysm of 1860. He entered the senate in 1869, when the party lacked an efficient leader and a definite policy. There were barely enough democratic senators to demand a roll call when he entered the body, but before he left it, twelve years later, he had been chosen its president pro tempore. Strongly combating the re- publican party on all political issues, Judge Thurman evolved a modern dem- ocratic policy, which gave the party coherence in every section of the Union, and exercised a most beneficial influence upon the national legislation at a time when prejudice and partisan ambition threatened the direct injury to the highest public interests, emphasizing the fact that an intelligently con-
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trolled minority is the great and necessary conserving factor in a popular government.
Hence, it may be said, without reflecting upon their compeers, that these two men rendered the highest possible service to their respective parties, and to the country at the same time, in a most critical period, by so guiding and molding them that neither fell into irretrievable error.
Allen G. Thurman was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, November 13, 1813. He died in Columbus, Ohio, December 12, 1896. A few years after his birth, his parents moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, bringing with them not only a future United States senator in the person of their son, but a future United States senator and governor in the person of William Allen, Mrs. Thurman's nephew. Upon her devolved mostly the education of the two youths. Mrs. Thurman educated her son in both English and French, and superintended his further education in the Chillicothe Academy, a private educational institution. While it was intended to send him to college, that he might enjoy a more thorough educational course, the circumstances of his parents were such that this was an impossibility.
He was naturally inclined to the legal profession and fitted himself for it while earning a subsistence by any honorable occupation which offered. Teaching and civil engineering were the principal means of supporting him- self and his parents, while pursuing his legal studies. He was admitted to the practice in 1835 and rapidly rose to the head of his profession.
In 1844 he was elected a representative in the Twenty-ninth congress and served but a single term in that body. When the supreme court of Ohio was reorganized under the constitution of 1851 he became one of the mem- bers of that tribunal, his associates being Thomas W. Bartly, John A. Corwin, Rufus P. Ranney and William B. Caldwell. He served on the supreme bench until 1855, and his decisions were noted for their clearness and comprehensive- ness. In 1868 he was elected United States senator over Benjamin F. Wade, the election being held on the 14th of January, and formally declared on the succeeding day at the joint session of the two houses. At the preceding elec- tion in October, 1867, he was the democratic candidate for governor, being defeated by Rutherford B. Hayes, who received 243,605 votes to 240,622 for Thurman. He lost the governorship, but the legislature being democratic in both houses he won the senatorship. He was re-elected to the senate on the 13th of January, 1874, over Edward F. Noyes. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the senatorship in January, 1880; December, 1880; and Jan- uary, 1886.
He was a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876, when Sam- uel J. Tilden was nominated; in 1880, when the nomination went to General Winfield S. Hancock; in 1884, when Grover Cleveland was made the demo- cratic standard bearer; and in 1888 was unanimously nominated for vice president on the ticket with President Cleveland. He served with distinc- tion on the Paris monetary commission, being one of the leading champions of the equal coinage of both gold and silver as the primary money of the commercial nations of the world and continued to advocate that policy dur- ing the remainder of his life.
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Early in 1868 a conference of the leading democrats of Ohio was called to consider party affairs, and Judge Thurman was invited to be present. At the conference it was proposed to dissolve the party and organize a new one. Several of the conferees spoke in favor of the proposition and the Judge, who sat as a silent spectator, was called on for his views. Taking an etra pinch of snuff and stretching to his full attitude, he said: "Gentlemen, this is a very small room in which to decree the death of the great democratic party. More- over, I doubt the jurisdiction of this tribunal in the premises. With your permission, I will withdraw from your deliberations." Flourishing his famous red bandana handkerchief and blowing his nose with a bugle blast, he left the hall, and the conference broke up without the formality of a mo- tion to adjourn.
Attorney General Henry Stanbery.
One of the most elegantly, courtly men known to the legal profession in Ohio was Henry Stanbery. He was in stature about six feet, erect, with dig- nified bearing and a very pleasant face. His features were large and strongly marked, and when suffused with the light of his genial spirit nothing could be more captivating. Indeed he was grace itself and seemed as a prince among men. The memory of his fine presence is to many living a valued lifetime possession. And he was deserving of the regard which his presence inspired, for he was the soul of honor and integrity; scorned to mislead a court or jury, or to deceive an opponent by any misstatement of law or fact.
He was kindness itself, never lost his control nor indulged in petulance nor passion. He was one of the first lawyers in the United States and entitled to the highest veneration and regard. He was a member of the Episcopal communion and in all his deportment and career showed his love for justice, truth and beauty.
Henry Stanbery was born in New York city and in 1814, when a lad of eleven years, came with his father, a physician, to Zanesville. He was cdu- cated at Washington College, Pennsylvania, studied law at Zanesville, and was admitted to the bar in 1821, when he was invited by Hon. Thomas Ewing to begin the practice at Lancaster and ride the circuit with him, which offer he accepted and for many years resided there.
When, in 1846, the office of attorney-general of Ohio was created, he was elected by the general assembly to be its first occupant. He then re- moved to Columbus, where he resided during his entire term of five years. In 1850 he was a member of the constitutional convention from Franklin county and was conspicuous in its debates.
On leaving Columbus he for several years practiced law in Cincinnati. In 1866 he was appointed attorney-general of the United States by President Johnson, which office he accepted from a desire to assist in carrying the gov- ernment safely through the perilous times following the war. He resigned this office to become one of the counsel of the president upon his impeach- ment. His health at that time was so delicate that most of his arguments on that trial were submitted on paper. He died in New York in 1883, aged eighty years.
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Governor William Dennison, Jr.
William Dennison, the first of Ohio's trio of war governors, was born at Cincinnati, November 23, 1815. His father was the proprietor of the highly popular and widely known "Dennison House" in that city, and a grand specimen of the old style of western landlords. He graduated from Miami university, and entered upon the study of law in Cincinnati in the office of Nathaniel G. Pendleton and Stephen Fales. In 1840 he was ad- mitted to the bar. Shortly afterward he married a daughter of William Neil, of Columbus, the famous stage proprietor in the days of stages, and removed to that city.
He practiced law until 1848, when he was elected to the Ohio senate by the whig party. About this time he became interested in banking and railroads and was made president of the Exchange bank and also of the Columbus & Xenia Railroad Company. In 1856 he was a delegate to the convention which inaugurated the republican party, and the same year took a prominent part in the convention which nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency. In 1860 he was elected governor of Ohio by the repub- licans. He was elected chairman of the republican convention at Baltimore, which in 1864 renominated President Lincoln and was by him appointed postmaster general, holding that position until 1866, when President John- son began to sail the union party and he resigned his portfolio. In 1880 he was a leader of the friends of Senator John Sherman in the effort to secure his nomination in the national republican convention of that year. Governor Dennison accumulated a handsome fortune in his private business and contributed largely to the Dennison College at Granville, Ohio. He died at his home in Columbus, June 15, 1882.
Governor Dennison was a man of fine social connections, tall, courtly and elegant in manner, with a foresight and ability unsuspected by those not intimately associated with him, but which was fully demonstrated during his administration as governor of Ohio, during which the true, pure metal of the man rang out with a resonance that should have left no doubt as to its composition. Notwithstanding that in his political debates he had given evidence of ability and unexpected reserve power, the general public with singular pertinacity held to the opinion that he was superficial and of mediocre ability, and even after he had clearly shown by the valuable re- sults of his measures that he had been misunderstood and his ability under- estimated, the Ohio public were slow to acknowledge his merits and give him due credit for his valuable services to the state and nation.
In the confusion and excitement at the outbreak of the war almost every citizen felt that he knew just what ought to be done. Troops should be raised and sent to the front at once. Such matters as equipment, organ- ization, etc., did not enter into their calculations and because this was not done by the saying of it, the governor must be inefficient. The critics, hav- ing prejudiced Governor Dennison, said so and it seemed as though each citizen had received a special commission to join the critics and malign him.
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Every step he took brought down senseless abuse from every quarter. Dennison bore it nobly, not a word of reproach escaped him, and when for some months the newspapers of the state were abusing him for misman- agement at Camp Dennison he uttered no complaint, but generously kept silence, when in truth he had at that time no more to do with the manage- ment of Camp Dennison than any private citizen of the state, it being under the control of the national government. A word from the officer in com- mand at Camp Dennison would have shown the injustice of this abuse. Whitelaw Reid, in his comprehensive and valuable work on "Ohio in the War," says in reference to this unjust criticism: "To a man of his sensitive temper and desire for the good opinion of others, the unjust and measureless abuse to which his earnest efforts had subjected him was agonizing. But he suffered no sign to escape him, and with a single-hearted devotion and an ability for which the state had not credited him, he proceeded to the measures most necessary in the crisis."
He succeeded in favorably placing the loan authorized by the million war bill. Having secured money, the "sinews of war," he then looked around for arms, of which Ohio had a very meagre supply, and learning that Illinois had a considerable number, he secured five thousand muskets from that state and proposed a measure uniting all the troops of the Missis- sippi valley under one major general.
It was through governor Dennison that West Virginia was saved to the Union. He assured the unionists of that state that if they would break off from old Virginia and adhere to the Union, Ohio would send the neces- sary military force to protect him. And when afterward it became neces- sary to redeem this pledge Governor Dennison sent Ohio militiamen (Not mustered into the service at all) who, uniting with the loyal citizens, drove the rebels out of West Virginia.
Chief Justice Joseph R. Swan.
Joseph R. Swan, jurist, was born in Westerville, Oneida county, New York, in 1802, and in 1824, after studying law with his uncle, Gustavus Swan, in Columbus, he was admitted to the bar. In 1854 the opponents of the repeal of the Missouri compromise elected him supreme judge by over 77,000 majority, and he eventually became chief justice. His prom- inent characteristic on the bench was great conscientiousness, so that neither personal interest or sympathy could in any manner influence his judgment of right or law. He prepared a number of elementary law books which stand very high wtih the profession and have been of wide-spread utility. as "Swan's Treatise," an indispensable companion for every justice of the peace; "Guide for Executors and Administrators," "Swan's Revised Statue." "Pleading and Practice," etc. He died December 18, 1884.
Associate Justice Noah H. Swayne.
The late Noah H. Swayne, judge of the supreme court of the United States, was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1804, of Quaker parent-
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age. When nineteen years of age, he was admitted to the bar and, dislik- ing slavery came to Ohio. At the age of twenty-one he was appointed by General Jackson United States attorney for Ohio, when he removed from Coshocton, where he was located, to Columbus. In 1839 President Van Buren appointed him United States district attorney. He soon acquired high reputation as a jury lawyer, his peculiar forte being the examination of witnesses and in skillful analysis of testimoney. On retiring from this office, he took no part in politics until 1856, when in the Fremont campaign he made speeches against the extension of slavery.
In February, 1862, after the decease of Justice McLean, of the supreme court, he was appointed by President Lincoln his successor. This was by the unanimous recommendation of the Ohio delegation in congress and in accordance with the oft-repeated expressed desire of Justice McLean, in his lifetime, that in the event of his decease he would be the best person for his successor. This opinion of Judge McLean was coincided in by the leading members of the bar in Washington City, who had witnessed his dis- play of eminent ability in some cases which he had argued before the su- preme court and which also had a like effect upon the judges before whom he had appeared. He left several sons, the oldest of whom is the eminent General Wager Swayne, now of New York city, whose first name was the family name of his mother, a Virginia lady. Wager Swayne was at one time a partner with his father in the practice of the law. Another son, F. B. Swayne, is now a law partner with a son of ex-President Hayes in Toledo.
Alfred Kelly.
Of all the men of his times in Ohio, from 1810 to 1850, Alfred Kelly was the best all-around man of the many virile and versatile men who made their indelible impress on the state's pioneer and subsequent history. He was born in Connecticut, November 7, 1789, attending the schools at Middletown, until his ninth year, when his father, Daniel Kelly, re- moved with his family to Lowville, New York. Here Alfred received a thorough training and later an academic education in the Fairfield (N. Y.) Academy, and being, boy and man, possessed of wonderful perceptive and receptive, as well as retentive, faculties, was no doubt the best educated young man as well as the most versatile and widely informed and instructed one in all this section of the Empire state, as well as in northern Ohio.
This presumption is strongly supported by his subsequent wonderful practical achievements in whatever sphere of activity he appeared. In whatever field of effort he entered he achieved a clear-cut victory, and each of which find a fittingly conspicuous place in the history of his adopted state. After completing his academic course, he entered the office of Jonas Platt, one of the supreme judges of the state of New York, where he took a thorough course in the reading and study of the priciples of law.
He removed from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, when nearing twenty- one years of age, in 1810. On his twenty-first birthday, when he was eli-
BOAT LANDING, OLENTANGY PARK, A Most Delightful Resort for Young People.
VIEW OF OLENTANGY PARK AND VALLEY.
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gible, he was admitted to the practice of the law, and on the same day was appointed by the court as prosecuting attorney, which office he held for many years. His abilities as a lawyer were quickly recognized, and yet his sub- sequent fame does not rest on his great legal achievements. He was learned in many things and was master of all of them. Wherever he moved, he was at the head of the procession; in whatever council hall he was seated, he was at the head of the table; whenever an obstacle was to be removed, his was the first blow, and he did not look back to see whether his workmates were loitering, or where the debris was falling. He wrought by his own design, and to him, of absolute verity, there was no such word as "failure"; no such condition as weariness; no such bugbears as defeat and discourage- ment.
Notwithstanding his connection with the vast work of initiating and pushing to speedy completion the canal system of the state, he performed long and arduous and valuable services as a legislator, serving in the house of representatives of the general assembly in 1814-15-16-17-18-19-20-36-37- 38-39 and in the senate in 1821-22-23-44-45-46-47. His first work in the legislature was to introduce a measure abolishing law cumbersome system of common law pleadings, in suits at law, as well as in chancery proceed- ings, modifying where not wholly superseding, and substituting therefore sub- stantially the present forms of pleadings at law under the code.
The present generation of lawyers, to say nothing of the laymen, can hardly realize the immense amount of legal rubbish thus cast into limbo, simplifying the practice and making more speedy and more certain the operation of law, as well as conducting to the administration of justice, intelligence as well as rapidity.
The bill originally offered by Mr. Kelly was the prophet and fore-runner of our present state code and the procedure thereunder. Justice betweeen man and man no longer travels at the snail's pace because of legal rubbish, but both truth and candor compels the statement that the system of retard- ation and unjust and unjustifiable delay, practiced by the attorneys of wealthy corporations and individuals until the weak are wearied out and emaciated by the strong, imposes unjust and unnecessary burdens apon litigants, as did the system that the young lawyer annihilated and which appeals as loudly and as insistently to the courts themselves as did the cry of similar litigants appeal to the legislature almost a century ago, and is no less entitled to consideration.
Connected with the reform, which led to the eventual foundation of the civil and criminal codes, was the equally significant one of abolishing imprisonment for debt. This relic of barbarism was adopted into the laws of Ohio from a Pennsylvania statute during the territorial period, and which, while not as rigidly enforced as in the older states, was none the less a disgrace to nineteenth century civilization.
Even legislators were not immune from arrest for debts no matter how honestly contracted nor their inability to pay on demand. Representative Joseph Kerr, of Ross, who had previously been a United States senator and a general officer in the war of 1812, was arrested for debt in 1820, when on
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the eve of setting out to Columbus to attend to his legislative duties. So also, Senator Andrew F. Mack, of Hamilton, was imprisoned by the United States bank for a debt, at the date of the assembling of the legislators in December, 1828. In both instances the two houses overrode the alleged right of imprisonment and compelled the release of the prisoners. These and similar cases hastened the repeal of the odious law. The attack upon the principle of it by Mr. Kelly in the Ohio legislature was the first step taken in any law-making body in the world to stamp it out. But unfortunately for the full glory of Ohio, while her annual legislatures dallied with the question, New York took up the measure and passed it, thus honoring her own son while he was trying to confer the crown of honor on his adopted state-Ohio.
But Mr. Kelly's greater work was the prominent part he took in the construction of the canal system from the beginning to the end. He was a greater engineer than all the experts hired by the state to do that work. He had a perfect comprehension of the work at every stage. He was not graduated as an engineer. In fact, he had but studied the science casually, as a very young man. Yet he was able to point out the errors of judgment of the state's engineers in the solution of the telegraphical problems they encountered and was able to do it in such a way that they put professional pride aside and by following his advice hastened the work, saved vast sums of money to the state, and gave the people all they paid for.
Of course, an estimate of the cost of the work had been made in ad- vance and the financial demands met. Many able individuals, engineers, financiers and business men took part in making the estimates. Mr. Kelly was the smallest of all, but so firmly did he maintain that the work could be done within that estimate, running at that time into a terrifying number of millions, that the others resented it. The work was done within the esti- mate-the only instance of the kind in the world's history, in so great a relative undertaking up to that time or since. His detailed and sectional estimates were as accurate as the general one-hence it did not "happen" to come out on the right side of the ledger.
He was a powerful factor also in negotiating loans that were deemed impossible to negotiate by even a majority of the friends of the canal. He had a way of making others see a thing as he saw it, and when he did, he had won his battle. Firm as adamant, he was yet gentle, so firmly gentle that he inspired ninety-nine per cent of the day laborers on the hundreds of miles of work with his own invincible spirit of optimism, that he cut the time calculations between the Alpha and Omega of the work in half.
He was a devoted son of his step-mother state. Her interests were his first and greatest concern. There was no blare of trumpets about him in the days of his activity. All who knew him, spoke of him with respect, admiration and enthusiasm. And yet there was no ostentation about him. He was the idealization of common sense in all that he said or did. A vol- ume, rather than a sketch could be written of him, without exhausting the subject. All the stories about him are entertaining to generations who knew
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