USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 33
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and helping to secure the location of the New York, Pitts- burg and Chicago Railroad through Mt. Gilead, which project has been maturing for the past two years, he having been chosen secretary of the citizen's committee, and attend- ing to the general correspondence in the interests of the town. Mr. Levering is an active member of the Masonic Fraternity, and has received all the degrees of the Scottish Rite to 33°, also York Rite. He has been chairman of his County Central Democratic Committee, and a member of the town council. In April, 1883, he assisted in the organization of the "Morrow County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monumental Association," and is one of the trustees. July 12th, 1883, at the State Senatorial Convention held in Mt. Gilead for the seventeenth and twenty-eighth joint districts, composed of Holmes, Wayne, Knox, and Morrow Counties, he received, on the first ballot, the nomination for State Senator on the Democratic ticket, and in October was elected by a ma- jority of over 2,700 votes. He served on several important committees, and was chairman of the Committee on In- surance. As a Democrat, he has ever been faithful, true, and steadfast; and when the standard has been raised by the party leaders he has ever been found rallying around it and manfully struggling for the victory. One of the most popular men in Morrow County, from childhood he has grown to an honest manhood, clothed in the vestures of. a spotless reputation. Mr. Levering has a bright future be- fore him. In every position of trust, so far, he has proven himself worthy of the highest confidence, and we predict for him a more extended reputation.
COURTRIGHT, SAMUEL W., lawyer and judge, of Circleville, Ohio, was born on the 9th day of December, 1842, in Pickaway County, Ohio. His grandfather, John Court- right, was a native of Pennsylvania, and emigrated with his family to Ohio in the year 1803. His son, Jesse D. Court- right, and the father of Samuel, was a large landowner, served in the State Legislature, and filled other important local positions. He moved to Walnut Township in the year 1833, soon after his marriage, and there the subject of this present memoir was born. The early life of young Samuel was spent upon the farm upon which he was born, and at the age of seventeen, having attained a good common-school education he entered the South Salem Academy. Here he pursued an academical course until, early in April, 1861, he entered the law office of the late David M. Jones, of Circle- ville, where he remained, diligently pursuing the study of the law, until in October, 1862, when he entered the Law College at Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating there in April, 1863, at the head of his class. He was admitted to the bar by the Dis- trict Court of Hamilton County, Ohio, within a few days after. Returning home, he, on the 15th day of May, 1863, opened a law office in his native city, and commenced the practice of his profession. In April, 1864, he was elected City Solicitor, and was re-elected in 1866, serving the whole of the two terms. In October, 1867, he was elected Prose- cuting Attorney of his county by the then largest majority ever given a candidate in the county, and re-elected in 1869. In 1870 he was elected a member of the Board of Education of the Circleville Union Schools, and was at once chosen President of the Board, which position he held by successive re-elections for nearly four years. In April, 1875, he was elected one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the Fifth Judicial District of Ohio, without opposition, having
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been nominated to the place unanimously. He entered upon the discharge of his judicial functions in May, 1875, and un- til May, 1880, faithfully and ably discharged his duties, with credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. At the time he entered upon the term of office he was in years the youngest judge in the State of Ohio. A prominent member of the Masonic Fraternity, he was three times elected Grand Master of the Grand Council of his State. As a lawyer, Mr. Courtright stands in the front rank of the profession, and devotes all his abilities to the interest of his clients, with whom he always identifies himself. He is a careful, prudent adviser, and well read in the principles of law, while in social life he is a courteous gentleman, a genial companion, and a warm friend. In December, 1865, he married Miss Jennie R. Martin, of Circleville, and to them have been born two daughters.
DAWSON, WILLIAM W., M. D. and surgeon, of Cincinnati, was born in Berkely county, Virginia, December 19th, 1828. He was the son of John Dawson, a manufac- turer and farmer, and a man "strong in sense, integrity and determination." The family was among the early settlers of Maryland and Virginia. His father, who was born in Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania, removed from there to Darkesville, West Virginia, and thence to Greene county, about 1830. Dr. Dawson received a good classical education, and while a student acquired considerable proficiency in scientific studies and reputation as a young lecturer of meritorious promise- chiefly on geology and natural history. He pursued a thor- ough course of study under his brother, the eminent physi- cian, Dr. John Dawson, of Columbus; and, after passing through the usual course at the Ohio Medical College, grad- uated from that institution in 1850. He devoted some time to special studies in the Cincinnati Hospital, and then en- gaged in the practice of medicine. Within three years of his graduation he was appointed professor of anatomy in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, which position he held for three years. From 1860 to 1864 he filled the chair of professor of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio. From 1864 to 1870 he lectured upon clinical surgery in the Cincinnati hospitals. He was then elected to the chair of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, and still held that position in 1876. In 1871, also, he was appointed surgeon to the Good Samaritan Hospital, and among other official posi- tions he was elected president of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine in 1869, and president of the State Medical Society in 1871. In the various positions filled by him he achieved a popularity only less in degree than his professional reputa- tion, which ranked him among the first surgeons of the coun- try. His popularity was especially great among his students, and was referable as much to the deep and generous interest he evinced in their professional progress and personal wel- fare, as to the respect and admiration he commanded by rea- son of his talents and skill. He owes his success to large brain capacity, nervous power and persistent hard work. The literature of the medical profession was enriched by many able papers from his pen, which gave proof of talent for au- thorship, needing only time and application to obtain recog- nition equal to that he had secured in the clinical theater. Among his contributions to the medical journals and socie- ties were elaborate papers on "Abdominal Tumors," "Her- nia," "Graves's Disease," "Excision of Joints," and "Re- moval of Entire Clavicle." These articles, based chiefly
upon operations performed by him, furnished the profession with considerable original and important information. He was author of the pamphlet on "Chloroform Deaths," published in 1871, which attracted so much attention throughout Eu- rope and America, and to a favorable review of which the Edinburgh Medical Journal devoted unusual space and marked prominence. His treatise entitled "Nephrotomy"- extraction of calculus from the kidney-was a remarkable paper, published in 1873, and widely quoted in European journals. This also found its subject in the operation which he was among the first to perform-that of systematically cutting into the kidney for stone. As a statistician and an investigator of methods in all branches promotive of the progress of medical and surgical science, he was a reliable and industrious authority. In the field of surgery, as an op- erator, Dr. Dawson has probably performed as great a num- ber of operations as any surgeon in the western country, and there are but few operations known to surgical science which he has not successfully performed. As an operator, he is no- ted for nerve, rapidity, and self-reliance. An enthusiast in the science of surgery, he is very strict and punctilious re- garding the etiquette and esprit du corps of the medical pro- fession generally. Although a wealthy man when at the height of his reputation, he has continued to labor as faith- fully and unceasingly as though he had name and fortune yet to achieve. His riches not only did not deprive the poor and the community of his services, but they enabled him to practice charity to the extent which became a shining virtue in his life. To the widow and orphan and the poor he was kind and charitable, without ostentation, employing liberally for their relief. Thoroughly democratic in personal inter- course, he possesses a fund of genial humor which sparkles throughout his conversation, and at once places even stran- gers at ease in his company. He married Margaret Yates Hand, daughter of Dr. Jasper Hand, of Hillsboro, and granddaughter of General Edward Hand, a distinguished revolutionary officer, who was in the boat with George Wash- ington at the "crossing of the Delaware."
BINGHAM, JOHN A., United States Minister to Japan, and resident in the city of Tokio, in that empire, was born in the borough of Mercer, Pennsylvania, January 21st, 1815. Having resided in Ohio during four years of his childhood and early youth, he returned to his native place in 1831, and was employed some two and a half years in a printing office, acquiring a knowledge of the art preservative of all arts ; spending, however, his leisure hours in reading, and in the study of the Latin grammar and language, and reciting to the principal of the Mercer Academy daily in the early morning before school or business hours. He then entered the classical department of the Mercer Academy, and devoted himself for several years chiefly to the Greek and Latin lan- guages. He entered Franklin College in 1835 as a student, and remained until the last session of his senior year, when, by reason of illness he was constrained to quit the college in 1837. He taught school for a term, and in February, 1838, he entered upon the study of law, in Mercer, with Hon. John J. Pearson and Hon. William Stewart, and was, upon their certificate, after two years of close reading, examined and admitted to the practice of the law in the courts of Penn- sylvania in March, 1840. In May of that year (1840,) he returned to Ohio, and there has continued to reside, having been admitted to the practice of his profession in the courts
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of that State, and also in the United States circuit and dis- trict courts in Ohio in the year 1841. He practiced his pro- fession with success. In 1840, being a whig, he was drawn into the great canvass of that year in Ohio, and took an active part in that memorable campaign for General William H. Harrison, and against Martin Van Buren, the democratic candidate. He addressed large meetings during that can- vass, in Ohio, and several other States. Mr. Bingham, hav- ing been challenged, held two public discussions in Jefferson county, Ohio, with Edwin M. Stanton, afterwards the war secretary of the United States, the latter representing Mr. Van Buren and the democratic party-Mr. Bingham repre- senting the whig party and General Harrison. In 1848, Mr. Bingham was a delegate to the national whig convention at Philadelphia, in which he proposed a resolution which con- tained the following declaration ; "No more slave States ; no more slave territories ; the maintenance of freedom where freedom is, and the protection of American industry." His resolution was received by the convention and entered upon its journals, and published in the public press, but no vote was taken upon it in the convention, doubtless, because it was thought dangerous to pass it, in view of the general sentiment at that time of the slave States. Mr. Bing- ham, satisfied with the character of General Taylor, sup- ported him most heartily in the contest of 1848. He neither sought nor desired any national office. In 1852, he was an elector in Ohio for President. In 1854, he was elected to Congress from the 21st Ohio district, composed of Harrison, Jefferson, Carroll and Columbiana counties, which district was at that time democratic, and had been for many years. He was elected by about 4,800 majority over the then dem- ocratic representative in Congress. Mr. Bingham having continued to represent this district until March 4th, 1863, he was then legislated out of it-Harrison county, the place of his residence, having been assigned to the 16th district, composed of Harrison, Tuscarawas, Belmont, Guernsey and Noble counties. This district was largely democratic in 1862, and Mr. Bingham consequently was not returned to the Thirty- eighth Congress. In 1864, he was elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress by the sixteenth district, and continued to repre- sent it for eight years, and until 1873. In June, 1873, he was appointed by President Grant to be envoy extra- ordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America in Japan, which position he still holds. The record of his congressional service of sixteen years, shows how persistently he adhered to his convictions as expressed in the resolution of 1848, above mentioned. During all his congressional service he gave constant attention to his duties, and largely participated in the debates and legislation of the House of Representatives. A reference to the reports of committees on which he served, to the legislation which he initiated or aided in maturing for the consideration of the House, and to his many arguments and speeches therein, made on all the most important meas- ures of the entire period of his services, and in every session thereof, will bear witness to his constant endeavor to dis- charge faithfully and well the duties of his trust. He served on the committee on elections, the committee on military affairs, the committee on claims, and for eight years upon the judiciary committee, of which committee, during the last four years of his service, he was chairman. By the vote of the House he was twice chosen to be chairman of the man- agers on behalf of the House of Representatives on impeach-
ment trials before the Senate, to-wit : The trial of Mr. Hum- phreys, United States district judge in the district of Ten- nessee, and of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. On each of these trials Mr. Bingham appeared and acted before the Senate of the United States as chairman of the members. He was also a member of the House com- mittee on reconstruction and' of the joint committee on reconstruction of the House and Senate. He was the author of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment of the constitution of the United States, as reported by the joint committee to the House and Senate, save the introductory clause thereof, which declares who are citizens of the United States and of the several States. The following extracts from his speech, delivered in the House of Repre- sentatives of the United States, on the 31st of March, 1871, in support of House Bill, No. 320, to enforce the pro- visions of the fourteenth amendment, etc., are inserted here as a history of that section, and also as the expression of Mr. Bingham's opinions in relation to it. In reply to an inter- rogatory from Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, Mr. Bingham spoke as follows :
" Mr. Speaker, the honorable gentleman from Illinois, (Mr. Farnsworth), did me, unwittingly, great service, when he ventured to ask me why I changed the form of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment from the form in which I reported it to the House in February, 1866, from the committee on reconstruction. I will answer the gentleman, sir, and answer truthfully. I had the honor to frame the amendment as reported in February, 1866, and also, the first section, as it now stands, letter for letter and syllable for syllable, in the fourteenth article of the amendments to the constitution of the United States, save the introductory clause defining citizens. The clause defining citizens never came from the joint committee on reconstruction, but the resi- due of the first section of the fourteenth amendment did come from that committee precisely as I wrote it and offered it in the committee on reconstruction, and precisely as it now stands in the constitution, to-wit : 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immu- nities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty. or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. - The gentleman ventured upon saying that this amendment does not embrace all of the amendment prepared and reported by me with the consent of the committee in February, 1866. The amend- ment reported in February, and to which the gentleman refers, is as follows: 'The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property.' That is the amendment, and the whole of it, as reported in February, 1866. That amendment never was rejected by the House or Senate. A motion was made to lay it on the table, which was a test vote on the merits of it, and the motion failed-only forty-one votes for the motion, and one hundred and ten against it. I consented to and voted for the motion to postpone it till the second Tuesday of April. Afterward in the joint committee on reconstruction, I introduced this amendment, in the precise form, as I have stated, in which it was reported, and as it now stands in the constitution of my country. It contains the words, among others : 'Nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' The gentleman enquires, what does this mean ? It ought to have occurred to the gentleman that it means that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the constitution of the United States, as that constitution is the supreme law of the land; and, of course, that no State should deny to any such person any of the rights it guaranties to all men, nor should any State deny to any such person any such right secured to
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him either by the laws or treaties of the United States or of such State. The gentleman, if he had consulted Magna Charta, which England's brilliant and profound constitu- tional historian, Hallam, has well said, 'is the keystone of English liberty,' would have found, in the forty-sixth clause, these words : 'We will sell to no man-we will not deny or delay to any man right or justice.' After all the past, is it needful to say what it means to deny right or justice to any man ? The words in the first section of the fourteenth amend- ment are quite as comprehensive as these words of Magna Charta, to-wit: 'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' These are the words of Magna Charta, 'we will not deny to any man right or justice,' the great words of England's constitution, out of which has come all that grand system of English law and growth and development which has made the elder branch of our house, only second to America, her child, in the family of nations. I affirm that by the equal justice of her laws, by the strength, maturity and splendor of her intellect, by the purity of her life, by her inventive genius, by her power on land and sea, by her tri- umphs in production, greater in proportion to population than that of any other people now or at any time upon this globe, England is foremost of the nations of the Old World. It was her Magna Charta, sir, which, when faith- fully enforced, made it impossible for a slave to breathe in England, and by force of it it came to be that the moment a slave set foot upon her soil his fetters turned to dust and he was free. A people to be great must be just. . Mr.
Speaker, allow me to say, further, that by the text of the con- stitution as you remember it, and as all thoughtful represen- tatives remember it, there are negative limitations upon the power of States ; as, for example, that no State shall make an ex post facto law ; that no State shall pass any law impair- ing the obligation of contracts ; that no State shall grant any title of nobility ; that no State shall make any- thing a legal tender but gold and silver coin; that no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, nor any compact or agreement with another State, or with a foreign power, etc. These are the negative limitations on the power of the States in the original text of the constitu- tion. Does the gentleman undertake to tell me that they have not always been enforced against State constitutions and State statutes, and the judgment of the highest courts of the States, in the supreme court of the United States, under the twenty-fifth section of the act of 1789? Why, sir, if I were to read the decisions that have been made in the exer- cise of this very power, under that law, enforcing these neg- ative prohibitions upon States, the sun would go down before I had read even a syllabus of the cases. Is not the gentle- man answered now? But, says the gentleman to me, why did you change the amendment of February, 1866? Sir, 1 sat at the feet of one who, though departed this life, still lives among us in his immortal spirit, and still speaks to us from the reports of the highest judicial tribunal on earth, which he so long adorned as the chief justice of the supreme court of the United States. I took counsel, sir, of that great man, John Marshall, foremost of all the judges, in the hope that by his guidance, the amendment might be so framed that in all the hereafter, it might be accepted by the historian of the American constitution, our Magna Charta, as the keystone of American liberty. I answer the gentleman, how I came to change the form of February to the words now in the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment, as they stand, and I trust will forever stand, in the constitution of my coun- try. I had read-and that is what induced me to attempt to impose by constitutional amendments new limitations upon the power of the States-the great decision of Marshall in Barron vs. the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, where- in the Chief Justice said, in obedience to his official oath and the constitution as it then was: 'The amendments [to the constitution] contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments. This court cannot so apply them .- 7 Peters, p. 250. In this case the city had
taken private property for public use, without compensation as alleged, and there was no redress for the wrong in the supreme court of the United States ; and only for this reason, the first eight amendments were not limitations on the power of the States. And so afterward, in the case of the Lessee of Livingston vs. Moore and others, (7 Peters, 552, ) the court ruled, 'it is now settled that the amendments [to the consti- tution] do not extend to the States.' They were but limita- tions upon Congress. Jefferson well said of the first eight articles of amendments to the constitution of the United States, 'they constitute the American bill of rights.' Those amendments secured the citizens against any deprivation of any essential rights of person by any act of Congress, and among other things thereby they were secured in their per- sons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, in the inviolability of their homes in times of peace, by declaring that no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner. They secured trial by jury ; they secured the right to be informed of the nature and cause of accusations which might in any case be made against them ; they secured compulsory process for witnesses, and to be heard in defense by counsel. They secured, in short, all the rights dear to the American citizen. And yet it was decided, and rightfully, that these amendments, defining and protecting the rights of men and citizens, were only limitations on the power of Congress, not on the power of the States. In reexamining that case of Barron, Mr. Speaker, after my struggle in the House in Feb- ruary, 1866, to which the gentleman has alluded, I noted and apprehended as I never did before, certain words in that opinion of Marshall. Referring to the first eight articles of amendments to the constitution of the United States, the Chief Justice said : 'Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the State governments they would have imitated the framers of the original constitution, and have expressed that intention.' (Barron vs. the Mayor, etc., 7 Peters, 250.) Acting upon this suggestion I did imitate the framers of the original constitu- tion. As they had said 'no State shall emit bills of credit, pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligations of contracts ;' imitating their example and imi- tating it to the letter, I prepared the provision of the first sec- tion of the fourteenth amendment as it stands in the consti . tution, as follows : 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protec- tion of the law.' I hope the gentlemen now knows why I changed the form of the amendment of February, 1866."
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