USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 68
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At the end of that memorable contest for a seat in Congress, William Allen was declared elected by one vote, when he had scarce attained the constitutional age to occupy it. Five hundred men are yet living who claim the honor of having, by lucky accident, cast that vote. Although the youngest member, he at once took rank among the foremost men in the House of the Twenty-third Congress, and took a leading part in its most important discussions.
An election for United States Senator was soon to occur, and the two parties struggled for a majority in the General Assembly. Ross County was Whig, but the Democrats nominated a strong man for representative. Allen labored for his success, and he was elected by one vote, which gave the Democrats a small majority in the Legislature. There were a number of candidates for senator, An eighth of January supper, with speeches, came off, at which all the candi- dates were present and delivered addresses. That of William Allen took the Assembly by storm, and he was nominated and elected over Thomas Ewing, who was in the Senate at the time. He reached Washington City on the evening of the 3d of March, 1837, to witness the inauguration of President Van Buren, and to take his seat in the Senate the next day. Late at night, he went to the White House, where he was cordially welcomed, and congratulated by Andrew Jackson, the retiring President, who was his friend and admirer. Before the end of his first term, he was reelected by a very handsome majority; and he remained in the United States Senate until the 4th of March, 1849, being then at his retirement one of the youngest members of that body.
During the twelve eventful years that he represented the State of Ohio in the Senate of the United States, he took a prominent and leading part in all the discussions upon the great questions that Congress had to deal with. Most of the time, and until he voluntarily retired, he was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, being entitled to that position on account of his eminent abilities. He had just reached the meridian of his splendid powers ; tall, of a
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majestic and commanding figure, with a magnificent voice, an opulence of dic- tion seldom equaled, a vigorous and bold imagination, with much fervor of feeling, and graceful and dignified action withal, he combined all the qualities of a great orator in that memorable era when the Senate was full of great ora- tors-in the day of its greatest intellectual magnificence. And in all the years he was there he never uttered a word or gave a vote that he would now recall or change.
While William Allen was a member of the Senate, he married Mrs. Effie McArthur Coons, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of General Duncan McArthur - his early, true, and only love. She chose him from among a host of distinguished suitors from several States. She inherited the old homestead and farm, where Allen, having added many acres to the latter, still - with his daughter, Mrs. Scott, her husband, and their children and his grand-children - resides. Prior to her first marriage, she and Allen were devoted to each other ; and while her father, Governor McArthur, was not personally unfriendly to him, yet their opposition in politics and strong positive qualities caused him to think that their marriage would cause them to antagonize and ultimately to produce discord between them, and he, therefore, disapproved of their union.
Mrs. Allen died shortly after the birth of their daughter and only child, Mrs. Scott. In health and in sickness, William Allen was a most devoted, affectionate and exemplary husband ; and after the death of his wife, he rode on horseback, with the remains, from Washington to Chillicothe. He has never thought of marrying again, and it is almost certain that if he had not married her, his only love, he never would have married at all.
Governor Allen has always possessed unyielding integrity, and has ever strongly set his face against corruption and extravagance in every form. When he entered public life, he had the Postmaster General certify in miles the short- est mail route between Chillicothe and Washington City ; and he always drew pay for mileage according to that certificate. He refused constructive mileage ; and after his retirement from the Senate, the Whig Congressman from his dis- trict offered to procure and forward to him $6,000 due him on that score ; but he would receive none of it. William Allen and John A. Dix alone re- fused it.
No man was ever more true and faithful in his friendships than William Allen ; and few public men have gone as far as he to maintain a straightforward consistency in this respect. He virtually declined the Presidency of the United States rather than seem to be untrue and unfaithful to an illustrious statesman whom he loved and supported.
Since his retirement from public life at Washington, he has greatly improved by study. He is a more profound man than he was at any time during his career in the Senate. He is a great historian, is deeply versed in philosophy and the sciences, and is better acquainted with rare books than almost any scholar one can meet. His home is the home of hospitality, and to visit him there is to receive a hearty welcome and a rare intellectual treat. His farm is not sur- passed by any other farm in the magnificent Valley of the Scioto; and as a thrifty and successful farmer, no man in the State is his superior. Younger by several years than the great statesmen and generals who to-day shape and
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control the destiny of the Old World, his most illustrious public services will undoubtedly crown the years that are to come of his noble and useful life.
In August, 1873, William Allen consented to take the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio. He became satisfied that it was a duty he owed his party, and the people without distinction of party ; and when it became a public duty, he promptly accepted the situation, and came forth from his retirement to make what everybody (but himself and the writer and compiler of this sketch) deemed a hopeless race. He made an able and effective canvass, and was elected by nearly one thousand majority, being the only candidate on his ticket who was successful.
His inauguration occurred on the 12th of January, 1874, in the presence of the largest assemblage of people that was ever before at the Capital of Ohio. His inaugural address was everywhere regarded as a magnificent State paper. The New York Tribune pronounced it "a very model of a public document for compactness and brevity, devoted to a single topic-the necessity for reducing taxes and enforcing the most rigid economy in all matters of State expenditures." Upon this point the Governor said : "I do not mean that vague and mere verbal economy which public men are so ready to profess with regard to public expen- ditures ; I mean that earnest and inexorable economy which proclaims its exist- ence by accomplished facts."
His appointments, and all the other acts of his administration, so far, give general satisfaction, and are commended by the people without distinction of party. His inauguration was the herald of a new era -" the era of good feeling" in Ohio. Colonel John W. Forney, in his Philadelphia Press, but states a universally recognized truth, when he says: "Governor Allen, of Ohio, is winning golden opinions from all parties by the excellence of his administra- tion of the affairs of the State."
The general and spontaneous uprising of the people to do honor to this illus- trious statesman is a hopeful indication for the republic. He is the embodiment and representative of purity, honesty, and fidelity in public affairs, as in private life. The invitations that daily pour in upon him from all parts of the country, to be present at public and private assemblages of the people, to deliver addresses and orations before them, are among the grand manifestations of his great pop- . ularity ; and wherever he goes, he is enthusiastically received with expressions of popular homage, and is attended by magnificent ovations.
CHAPTER XLIV.
MISCELLANEOUS BIOGRAPHIES.
JOHN SHERMAN, MORRISON R. WAITE, WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.
HON. JOHN SHERMAN. [See page 721.]
The ancestors of Mr. John Sherman were among the earliest settlers of Massa- chusetts. In 1665, but about thirty-five years after the little shivering band of pilgrims landed upon Plymouth Rock, Samuel Sherman, then the head of the family, moved from the settlements scattered through the forests which darkened the shores of Massachusetts, far back into the almost unexplored regions of the West, where the silent and solitary waters of the Connecticut flowed. The journey then occupied a fortnight, as the little band of emigrants toiled through the tangled and pathless wilderness.
Mr. Sherman took up his residence near the spot where the Housatonic River empties its waters into Long Island Sound. The region then belonged to the Indians, and the place now called Stratford was then known as Capheag. Here, amidst the sublime gloom of the wilderness, he passed the remainder of his days.
The family in England was one of note. The following is the heraldic description of its coat-of-arms : Sherman, or a lion rampant ; sa. betw. three oak leaves vert. ; on the shoulder, an amulet, for diff. Crest- A sea lion sejeant, per pale or an arguettee de poix, finned of the first ; on the shoulder, a crescent for diff. Motto -"Conquer death by virtue."
Mr. Samuel Sherman took a deep interest in the settlement of the town of Woodbury, Connecticut. He is represented as the most distinguished man con- nected with the enterprise. He owned a large tract of land there, which at his death was divided between his sons, Matthew and John, The latter attained much distinction, and became one of the most influential men in the state.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, who conducted the army of the Union through the most brilliant campaign of the great war of the rebellion, and whose name will ever be pronounced with veneration by the citizens of the United States, is a brother of John Sherman, a brief history of whose life we are now giving. While William was so effectually serving his country amidst all the perils of the
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field of battle, John was rendering not less efficient service in the Senate of the United States.
General William T. Sherman, at a New England dinner, gave the following playful account of his ancestry : " I learned from books alone that in 1634, four- teen years after the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, three persons by the name of Sherman reached the Boston coast - the Rev. John Sherman, his cousin John Sherman, who was styled the captain, and his brother Samuel Sher- man. The Rev. John Sherman and the other cousin settled at Watertown, Massa- chusetts, and it is related of the Rev. John Sherman that he preached a sermon under a tree there.
"Samuel Sherman, a young man, about fourteen years of age and adventur- ous, emigrated to Connecticut. Samuel was the ancestor of my branch of the family, and settled at Stratford, Conn. ; and lived there fifty years after reaching his home. He married and had children, and his second son, John Sherman, adopted the legal profession. That John Sherman had another son John, who had a son Daniel Sherman, a man of note in his day, a contemporary of Roger Sherman, and a member of the Council of Safety and the Legislative Assembly. His youngest child Taylor Sherman, settled at Norwalk, Connecticut, was Judge of the Probate Court, and was one of those who lost property by Arnold's descent upon the coast of Connecticut.
" He also was one of those who inherited part of the land which the State of Connecticut donated in the Western Reserve, and was one of those who went to the West to arrange a treaty with the Indians. In 1808 he returned to Con- necticut. He went out again in 1808 and made a partition of the Fire lands. His son, my father, then a young man of twenty years, married Mary Hoyt, at Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1810, and their families still live there. My father went to Lancaster, Ohio, followed by my mother and her child on horseback. That child was my brother Judge Charles Sherman, of Ohio. I was the sixth child.
"Our father died and left us all very bare. But friends came up and assisted us, and we all reached maturity, and we all married, and the number of children we had I really cannot keep on counting. The Shermans are a numerous family. And I may safely assert that they all obeyed the Divine command- ment,-they went forth, increased and multiplied, and I hope they have done their share towards replenishing the earth."
John Sherman was born at Lancaster, the Ioth of May, 1823. Upon the death of his father, eleven orphan children were left to be reared and educated by the grief-stricken mother. Until John was fourteen years of age he enjoyed the advantages of the common school and the academy at Lancaster. He then, at that early age, commenced the duties of an active life as junior rodman in an engineer corps, surveying lands on the Muskingum Improvement, under Colonel Curtis.
In this employment he continued, with ever-increasing developments of man- hood and native strength of mind, for about two years. In the year 1840, he commenced the study of law in the office of his elder brother, Judge Sherman, of Mansfield. In the Autumn of 1844 he was admitted to the bar, and entered into partnership with his brother Charles, who was then engaged in an exten-
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sive and lucrative practice. Here, in Mansfield, for ten years he devoted him- self with untiring diligence to the labors of his profession. During this time he was continually rising in public esteem as a man of integrity and ability. Unambitious of political distinction he devoted but little attention to politics, though quite earnestly attached to the principles of the Whig party.
The portion of the state in which Mr. Sherman resided was strongly Demo- cratic. But, notwithstanding this, he had so secured the confidence of the community that he was elected to represent his district in the United States Congress. Regardless of popularity, he had persistently avowed his abhorrence of slavery and his opposition to the perfidious repeal of the Missouri Com- promise.
The course which many of the leaders of the Democratic party seemed in favor of pursuing, by yielding to the claims of the slaveholders, alienated many from the party, and secured quite a political revolution. Mr. Sherman was the candidate of those who desired that Freedom should be inscribed upon our National banner. The majority of the intelligent men who peopled his district, regardless of the shackles of party, rallied around Freedom's banner, and thus Mr. Sherman was elected. Both of the old parties melted away before the indignant opposition of the people to the proposition to make slavery the corner-stone of our Republic.
This event opened to Mr. Sherman a new career, and changed the whole cur- rent of his life. The next year, 1855, he was President of the first Republican State Convention, which nominated Salmon P. Chase, one of the most devoted sons of freedom, as Governor of Ohio. When Congress met in December, of that year, there was a protracted and intensely exciting conflict between the friends of freedom and the partisans of slavery, in the choice of a Speaker for the House of Representatives. Mr. Sherman ardently supported General Banks, freedom's candidate.
Outrages had been perpetrated, in Kansas and Nebraska, which roused the indignation of the North. Mr. Sherman was appointed a member of a com- mittee formed to investigate those outrages. Three months were employed in Kansas in taking testimony, amidst all the fierce forays, burnings and murders of what proved to be but the incipient stage of our civil war. He wrote the. report presented by the Committee. It was so admirably composed in its boldness, its candor, its enlarged patriotism, that it at once conferred upon Mr. Sherman national reputation.
During three successive Congresses, those of 1856, 1858 and 1860, Mr. Sher- man was re-elected almost without opposition. He actively participated in the debates, and served faithfully on many important committees. In the Thirty- sixth Congress, whose session commenced in December, 1858, there was a very fierce controversy over the election of a Speaker. There were three parties in the House, the Republican, the Democratic, and the so-called American. The Democrats had a large minority. The Americans, about thirty in number, held the balance of power. For nine weeks this almost unprecedented struggle con- tinued. During this time Congress presented a scene of the most intense excitement, with, occasional disgraceful outbreaks of violence.
Mr. Sherman was the candidate of the Republican party. Mr. Helper, of
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A. G. THURMAN U. S. Senator.
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North Carolina, had written a book earnestly commending the substitution of freedom for slavery in the state. Mr. Sherman had recommended this book. This excited the ire of the pro-slavery party. He was nominated for Speaker by the friends of freedom. The only charge brought against him by the pro- slavery party was that he had recommended Helper's book. None of those who affiliated with the pro-slavery party dared vote for him.
On many successive ballots Mr. Sherman was within three votes of an elec- tion. The lines were so distinctly drawn that it at length became manifest that he could not be elected. There was also imminent danger that a coalition would be formed between the Democratic and the American parties, which would place an advocate of national slavery in the chair. This, at the time, would have been regarded by all the friends of freedom as a great disaster.
Mr. Sherman ascertained that three members, who would not vote for him, were willing to vote for Mr. Pennington, of New Jersey. He, therefore, urged that Mr. Pennington should be nominated in his stead. This was done, and Mr. Pennington was elected. During this Congress, Mr. Sherman acted as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. This introduced him to the financial branch of legislation. To this most important and difficult depart- ment of political economy Mr. Sherman has since devoted his untiring energies. It has become the chief employment of his official life.
In March, 1861, upon the appointment of Governor Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, and his consequent resignation of his seat in the United States Senate, Mr. Sherman was elected to represent Ohio for the full term of six years. He took his seat at the extra session in March. It then became evident that the Southern States would carry out their threats to attempt the dissolution of the Union. There was a lingering hesitation, even in the Republican party, to submit the question to the awful arbitrament of war.
But Mr. Sherman, from the first, held firmly to the sentiment that the Union must be preserved, peaceably if we could, forcibly if we must. He urged immediate preparation for war. He supported every measure to give the army strength and security. He was placed on the Committee of Finance, with Sen- ator Fessenden, of Maine, as Chairman. He took a leading part in all the financial legislation during the war, and has so continued to act until the present time, 1874.
In the year 1864 Mr. Fessenden was Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Sherman, Chairman of the Committee. Since the year 1866 he has continu- ously occupied that post. In this most important office, which very few in our nation are qualified to fill, he has largely participated in forming and passing every measure of finance, banking and currency that has become the law.
On the slavery question he ever occupied what may be called a conservative position. He regarded the abolition of slavery and its inevitable results, the full citizenship of the emancipated, as a necessary incident and consequence of the war, to be asserted and maintained as rapidly as public policy would allow, but not to be pressed so as to jeopard the main issue - the preservation of the Union. In that respect he was in cordial sympathy with President Lincoln.
Mr. Sherman was re-elected to the Senate in 1866 and in 1872. His present term expires in 1879. If he survives his term, this will make a period of con-
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secutive service in Congress of twenty-four years. There is not a legislative body on this globe which contains a larger proportion of truly noble men,- men of the purest character and the most exalted attainments,-than the Senate of the United States. But among them all there is no name which is now pro- nounced, or probably ever will be pronounced, with more veneration than that of John Sherman.
CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE.
[See page 735.]
Morrison Remick Waite was born in Lyme, Connecticut, on the 29th of Nov., 1816. His father, Henry Matson Waite, occupied the distinguished post of Chief Justice of Connecticut. With such parentage, his early advantages of education were of a high order.
In the year 1837 he graduated at Yale College. He commenced the study of law in his father's office. Intending to make the West his home, he closed his studies in Maumee City, in the extreme northwestern portion of Ohio. Here he entered upon the practice of the law in partnership with Mr. Samuel M. Young. In 1850 the firm removed to the flourishing City of Toledo, where soon after Mr. Waite entered into partnership with a younger brother, which has continued to the present time, 1874. The following discriminating sketch of his character is abbreviated from an article in Zion's Herald, written by one who had taken great pains to obtain accurate information respecting his char- acter and career :
Mr. Waite has quietly and unostentatiously pursued his professional labors, growing in influence and power both as a lawyer and as a citizen. He has been generally regarded in the law circles of Ohio for some years as the lead- ing counselor and advocate in the northwestern part of that state, and as one of the ablest lawyers in that section of the Union. His practice has been very large and lucrative, and has brought with it an ample and honestly-acquired fortune. He has steadily refused to embark in any of the numerous speculative enterprises of recent years, no matter how alluring they might be, which have generally resulted in enriching a few men at the expense of the many.
He is a man of kind heart and genial nature, of fine social qualities .r. reasonably free in the dispensation of his bounties. He has not only kept I .....- . self free from personal and social vices, but he is also a man of religious princ .- ples and associations.
It is conceded by all who know him that he is a man of strict probity and in- tegrity of character, of decided convictions, and of courteous and conciliatory manners. It is also conceded that he is a man of strong and solid abilities, and of more than average acquirements as compared with other members of the legal profession in the class to which he belongs. It is, moreover, claimed by his friends that he is profoundly versed in several of the most important branches of the law, and that he is a constant and thorough student. It is also stated by one who has opportunities of ascertaining the facts in the case, that Judge Waite is well informed in history, literature, philosophy, and the sciences,
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and that he is a close student of the social, political, and financial questions of the day.
In politics be was a Whig until the formation of the present Republican party, with which he has uniformly voted. At the same time he is quite free from mere partisan feelings. He has never held any political office, excepting as a member of the State Legislature in the years 1849 and 1850, although often urged to permit the use of his name as a candidate for the Federal Legislature and for other offices. In 1862 he consented, at the request of a large and in- fluential portion of his party, to run for Congress against James M. Ashley, the regular nominee of his party in his district. The votes cast were nearly equally divided between the two Republican and the one Democratic candidates-Mr. Waite receiving in Toledo 2,500 votes, which was 1,500 in excess of the usual vote of his party in that city. It has always been claimed that he was defeated by dishonorable means on the part of Ashley's friends.
Mr. Waite has several times received the tender of a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, but he has preferred hitherto to remain at the bar. His popularity, gained by the qualities of mind and habits of life which he has illustrated among his acquaintances, is shown not only by the number of votes he received in his canvass for Congress, but in his election by the unanimous votes of the electors of Toledo as a member of the late Constitutional Convention of Ohio, and of which he was the President.
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