USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 8
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family and by society. An act of some importance during his ministry at the Court of St. James was his organization of the Ostend Conference, which included the American Ministers to European countries, and at which was discussed the question of the propriety of the acquisition of Cuba by the United States, a policy which Mr. Buchanan warmly and zcalously advocated. He remained in England until April, 1856, when he returned to New York, to be met by a public reception on the part of the municipal authorities and the public. At the meet- ing of the National Democratic Convention in June, 1856, the candidates for the nomination for the Presidency were President Pierce, Senator Douglas of Illinois, and Mr. Buchanan, the latter receiving the nomination. This year, 1856, saw the organi- zation of the Republican party on the ruins of the old Whig party, which had gone to pieces four years before. Really anti-slavery, the nomination by this party of Gen. John C. Fremont made the political issue before the country that of slavery or non-slavery in the territories. The election of Mr. Buchanan was brought about by his receiving the electoral votes of the five free States of Pennsyl- vania, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana and California. On the ticket with Mr. Buchanan was Mr. John C. Breckenridge, a strong pro-slavery Democrat. Fre- mont hailed from California, and the candidate for Vice-President on his ticket was Mr. Dayton of New Jersey, a non-slaveholding State. The line of demarkation was therefore strongly and firmly drawn, and it could not have been difficult to pre- dict the actual issue as the necessary outcome of the clection of the Democratic candidates. The popular vote at this election stood : Buchanan, 1,838,169, Fremont, 1,341,264, Fillmore, (Native American), 874,534. Majority against Buchanan, 377,629 ; plurality for him, 496,905. In the Elec- toral College the vote stood, for Buchanan, 174; for Fremont, 114; for Fillmore, 8. Buchanan had the votes of every slaveholding State except Maryland, which went for Fillmore. Mr. Buchanan was in- augurated President March 4, 1857. Two days after his Cabinet was confirmed by the Senate, con- sisting of Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of State; Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury ; John B. Floyd of Virginia, Secretary of War; Isaac Touccy of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy ; Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee, Postmas- ter-General; Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, Sec- retary of the Interior, and Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General. The internal af- fairs of the United States during the next four years have naturally attracted so much attention that the foreign policy of Mr. Buchanan's administration
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lias received very little attention, yet his supervi- sion of our foreign affairs was greatly to his credit, displaying that wisdom and judgment which long experience as a diplomatist had given him to a dc- gree probably shared at the time by no other Amer- ican citizen. A number of questions existed at this time between Great Britain and the United States, any one of which might by inattention or injudi- cious management have become the cause of serious dissension, if not war. Such were the Central American question, and that with regard to the right of scarch, both of which were so delicately and wisely handled that no trouble resulted from their consideration. Our relations with Mexico at this time were also threatening, and Mr. Buchanan's recommendations to Congress, had they been fol- lowed out, would very likely have prevented the interference of Louis Napoleon and the establish- ment of the so-called Empire under Maximilian. With Spain, the administration succeeded in con- cluding a convention which rectified existing diffi- culties between the two countries, and the settle- ment of the claims against the Government of Para- guay was brought about by the firm policy of the President. Meanwhile, a very important treaty was negotiated with China under Mr. Buchanan's instructions, through the immediate efforts of William B. Reed, who was Minister to that country. The internal affairs of the country were, at the time of Mr. Buchanan's accession to the Presidency, in a most discouraging condition so far as political rela- tions were concerned. The most important and the most unsatisfactory bequest of Mr. Pierce's admin- istration to the country consisted in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and its following of law- lessness and outrage in Kansas. In fact, on the Kansas and Nebraska border was struck the first blow as between slavery and anti-slavery which was to result in the great Civil War. The pro-slavery party sustained the territorial government of Kan- sas, and obtained control of its Legislature, while the anti-slavery party held a convention at Topeka and organized what was called the Topeka Government. The territorial government having been recognized by Congress, Mr. Buchanan was obliged by his official duty to recognize and uphold it also. He followed this course, and became, as he doubtless antici- pated, the object of the severest attacks on the part of the anti-slavery party, and the press and pulpit in the North which sustained it. It does not ap- pear, however, on a calm review of the circum- stances, that up to this period the President had done anything or taken any stand which should have rendered him so bitterly obnoxious to the Abolitionists. 1860 saw the political culmina-
tion of this exciting period in the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency on a strict anti-slavery platform. This election was chosen by South Car- olina as an excuse for a fresh outbreak of her old- time doctrine of secession, and on December 20, 1860, she passed her secession ordinance and sent Commissioners to Washington in the following month to treat with President Buchanan as with a foreign power. But Mr. Buchanan had never for a moment admitted that a State had the power to secede from the Union. In the present instance he held that South Carolina, having once adopted and ratified the Constitution of the United States, was forever bound by that instrument, meanwhile by this very act resigning eertain powers to the Federal Government, which powers could not be resumed and thus declare her independent without the con- sent of the other States. He therefore, refused to receive the South Carolina Commissioners. It is a part of the history of this period, that as early as October, and before the election, General Scott had placed in the hands of President Buchanan a written document in which he set forth what was to him the imminent danger of the moment, recom- mending a reinforcement of certain forts in the Southern territory, on the basis of a suspicion of sccession which he had formed and against which he desired to warn the administration. The Presi- dent paid no attention to this expression of General Scott's views for two reasons : one being that he was unwilling to take any action which should sug- gest the possibility of secession, and the other his practical inability to comply with the suggestions made, owing to the fact that almost the entire army was engaged on the frontier, and only about four hundred men accessible as troops to garrison nine fortifications in six wildly excited Southern States. In connection with this latter reason for inaction, it has been alleged that the Secretary of War, Mr. John B. Floyd, had purposely distributed the small regular army at such distant points as to render them inaccessible in such an emergency as had now occurred. In his annual message to Congress, December 5, 1860, Mr. Buchanan put on record his denial of the right of secession, with, however, the expression of the conviction that the adoption by a State of such a measure, however unconstitu- tional, left the Federal Government without the con- stitutional right to coerce such a State back into the Union. It is easy to see that the adoption of this anomalous conclusion by Mr. Buchanan was the cause of a policy on his part during the remain- ing months of his Presidency, which was severely criticised throughout the Northern States as tempo- rizing and vacillating, if nothing worse. It was,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
indeed, charged against him by many, that so strong was his predilection in favor of the South, that it practically interfered with the patriotic exe- cution on his part of such measures as he might have taken with a view to preventing the absolute outbreak which so speedily occurred. It was held also, that by himself and through the members of his Cabinet, Mr. Buchanan could have, had he so chosen, exercised such an influence over the Southern States as to prevent secession on the part of those who attempted it. As to all of these sus- picions, charges and complaints, Mr. Buchanan was the author of his own reply and defence in his pub- lished work entitled " Buchanan's Administration," (New York, 1866). But while Mr. Buchanan ex- pressed himself differently in his message with re- gard to the relations of the States as individual members of the Union under the Constitution, he did not hesitate to endorse to the fullest the Federal right to use force against individual States, without regard to the question of secession, in enforcing the execution of Federal laws and in the preservation of Federal property. The enunciation of this doc- trine is held to absolve Mr. Buchanan from any in- tention of dereliction of duty, since he claimed that a State ordinance of secession could not possibly absolve the people of the State thus seceding from obedience to the laws of the United States. In pur- suance of his well-defined policy Mr. Buchanan recommended to Congress the adoption of an amend- ment to the Constitution designed to secure to slave- holders all their rights under that instrument. Un- fortunately for the success of this proposition, it had to be considered by a Congress divided into two sectional parties bitterly antagonistic on the very question raised. Still another attempt was made by the President in the interest of a peaceful solution of the difficulty by sending Caleb Cushing to Charleston, furnished with a letter to Governor Pickens, which urged the people of South Carolina to await the action of Congress. The secession of that State rendered this act nugatory, and Mr. Buchanan's next endeavor was to confine the area of secession to the Cotton States, and to induce Congress to prepare for possible hostilities. Being without the necessary powers to enforce the col- lection of the revenues, he also called for these, but unsuccessfully. A profound feeling of opposition to himself and his administration was abroad in the North, and the Republican Representatives were both unwilling and unable to do anything which should aid him in the carrying out of plans whose wisdom they doubted and whose honesty they dis- puted. Meanwhile, Mr. Crittendeu of Kentucky introduced in the Senate a measure known as the
"Crittenden Compromise," which provided, in fact, for a restoration of the old Missouri Compromise, on the line of 36° and 30'", proposing that the ques- tion should be put to a direct vote of the people of the several States. This measure was strongly recommended by Mr. Buchanan in a special mes- sage to Congress in January, 1861, but without effect. In the meantime important changes had occurred in the Cabinet. Mr. Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, resigned December 8, 1860, and was succeeded by Mr. Thomas, who resigned a month later, to be followed in that office by General John A. Dix. The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Thomp- son, resigned on January 8, and the duties of his office fell to the chief clerk of the department, Moses Kelly. General Cass, Secretary of State, and Governor Floyd, Secretary of War, resigned in December, when Judge Black was transferred from the Attorney-Generalship to the State Department, and Edwin M. Stanton entered the Cabinet as At- torney-General, Joseph Holt succeediug Secretary Floyd in the War Department. The Confederate Government had been set up at Montgomery, Ala., and Mr. Crawford was sent as a Commissioner from that body to Washington, but Mr. Buchanan re- fused to receive him, as he had refused to receive the South Carolina Commissioners. The questiou of re-enforcing Fort Sumter was referred to Major Anderson in command, with instructions to report to the Government whatever he might need as as- sistance, while an expedition was fitted out at New York under orders to be ready to sail at an hour's uotice. Major Anderson reported himself strong enough to resist the attack, and was opposed to any movement of troops which might be construed by the South as a menace and thus provoke hostilities. It is thus seen that Mr. Buchanan's policy, so far as he had a policy, was purely defensive. His answer to complaints against him for uot calling upon the North for volunteers and means to prevent the secession of the Southern States, was simply that no laws existed under which he could take such action, while Congress refused to pass any acts of that nature. So far as Fort Sumter was concerned, the fact remained that Major Auderson held it at the time of the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and believed at that time that he could continue to inaintain his position. Mr. Lincoln assumed the Presidency on March 4, 1861, and Mr. Buchanau retired to his home at Wheatland, where he was warmly received by his neighbors and the citizens of Laneaster. Here he continued to live quietly until his death in 1868, and it is to be conceded with regard to him that during the continuance of the Rebellion, he supported by his iufluence as a private
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citizen the war for the restoration of the Union. Up to this period his health had always been re- markably good, but shortly after his retirement from public life he was attacked with rheumatic gout, which caused his death in his seventy-eighth year. His remains were interred in a cemetery near Lan- caster. It is to be said of Mr. Buchanan, that half a century of his long life was occupied in the per- formance of duties exercised in behalf of his coun- try in official positions of importance and eminence. In all those positions, his actions were satisfactory to the great body of his countrymen until the extraor- dinary events of liis Presidential term aroused such powerful feelings as to perhaps blur the judgment of many of those who most severely criticised him. Nothing, however, was ever proven, even during the hottest period of popular antagonism to Mr. Buchanan, that gave evidence of the existence on his part of any but loyal and patriotic feelings towards the country and the interests in his charge.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES.
HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES, of Pitts- burgh, Pa., a prominent citizen, representative mau- ufacturer, President of the American Iron and Stecl Association, and ex-Chairman of the Republican Na- tional Committee, was born iu Washington County, Pa., August 8, 1826. His ancestors for two genera- tions were born in Pennsylvania. His father, Jacob A. Jones, was born in Philadelphia in the year of the Declaration of Independence, and was by pro- fession a surveyor. He died at the age of 96. His mother was Elizabeth Goshorn Jones, born in Franklin County, Pa., and married there in 1813. Benjamin F. Jones removed to New Brightou, Beaver County, in 1837, and there pursued an aca- demic education until 1843, when he gave up his studies to make his start in business life. He was then seventeen years old, full of ambition, grit, and confidence in liis owu strength and ability to suc- ceed. Settling, with a creditable discrimination, in the busy industrial city of Pittsburgh, lie found employment " at no salary " as shipping clerk, with the Mechanics' Line of boats that rau between that city and Philadelphia, on the canal. At this time, the problem of transportation, perhaps the greatest subject of cousideration and anxiety the statesmen and business men of Pennsylvania had had brought before them, was being gradually solved through the instrumentality and stimulus of the State gov- ernment. The chief owuer of the Mechanics' Line was Mr. Samuel M. Kier, of Pittsburgh, who took
an early interest in the young clerk, and encouraged him in supplementing the study of his shipping du- ties with that of the general industrial condition of Pittsburghı. He was thus led to investigate by him- self and with Mr. Kier the various schemes that were projected for pushing the development of the ma- terial resources of the State, for enlarging the facili- ties of transportation, and particularly for enabling Pittsburglı to maintain its position as the great iron market of the country. The patient labor and un- hesitating risk of capital that the great Keystone State gave to the building of her canals and their connecting links of pioneer railroads, found prompt appreciation among the live and active business meu of the day. Many very able young men were then engaged in the forwarding business on the canals, and on the advent of the competing rail- roads it was an open question for some time whether they would drive the canals from the field or meet them in close competition. The railroads made a remarkable showing from the start, owing in a great measure to the fact that the canals had already trained a great army of forwarders and managers, who soon gave to the iron lines the ex- perience and skill they had gained on the water line. Mr. Kier, instead of becoming alarmed at the progress of railroad construction and the possible consequential injury to his canal interests, set about devising plans for utilizing both methods of internal communication. His experiments resulted in the establishment of an independent line of sec- tion boats, so constructed as to be adapted to both rail and canal. Through Mr. Kier's influence, Mr. Jones became manager of both lines of boats within three years of his first appointment, and before he was twenty-one years old. Mr. Jones' connection with the great industry to which he has given the larger portion of his life began, in a small way, about this time, (1847). While exercising the sole management of the two boat lines, he purchased, in company with Mr. Kier, an iron furnace and forges in the Allegheny Mountains, near Armaugh, in Westmoreland County. In manufacturing of all sorts, Pittsburgh was then practically monopolizing the trade of the West and of a great portion of the lakes. There were eleven rolling mills in and about the city, of which eight were capable of producing 4,000 tons each of manufactured iron. The iron was of a superior quality and used for boilers, axles, wire, sheets and the like. Nail factories were also carried on there on a large scale; a single one had a capacity of 2,000 kegs a week, and there were others nearly as large. The demand was greater than the supply, and the orders extended from Buf- falo to New Orleans. There were, in addition, some
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twenty or twenty-five foundries in successful opera- tion, in the manufacture of cotton-presses, cannon,
sugar mills, ploughs and similar implements. In 1852 Mr. Jones extended his operations in the iron line, and in connection with Mr. Bernard Lauth, established the American Iron Works in Pittsburgh, the firm name being Jones, Lauth & Co. There were then thirteen rolling mills in the city, with an aggregate capital of $5,000,000, employing 2,500 hands, consuming 60,000 tons of pig metal, and pro- ducing bar iron and nails to the value of $4,000,000 annually ; and three large foundries and many small ones, with a joint capital of $2,000,000, 2,500 employees, consuming 20,000 tons of pig metal and yielding annually articles to the value of $2,000,000 .* To these might be added a long list of estab- lishments engaged in otlier lines of iron manu- facture. Within a year after opening their Ameri- can works, Mr. Jones' firm purchased the Monon- gahela Iron Works at Brownsville. They ran these for a year and then dismantled them, removing a part of the machinery to their works at Pittsburgh. In 1854 Mr. James Lauglilin became a member of the firm, Mr. Lauth retiring, and its name was changed to Jones & Laughlin, and under that form it exists at the present day, the junior partner's place, since his death, having been occupied by his sons. The works and business connections were enlarged from time to time as opportunity allowed, until the present result is the largest establishment in Pittsburgh, and one of the largest in the country and the world. Soon after becoming associated with Mr. Kier in the purchase of the Armaugli fur- nace and forges, Mr. Jones was admitted into part- nership relations with him in the ownership of the Independent Line of section boats, and under the name of Kier & Jones they ran the boats between Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and also carried on the commission and forwarding business until 1854, when the Pennsylvania Railroad super- seded the old system of State canals and railroads. By the year 1857 the progress of iron manufacture in the Western States had attained wonderful pro- portions. The consumption of pig iron was then estimated at over 300,000 tons, of which amount Pittsburgh was credited with more than one-half. From that year forward, the growth of the city and of its chief industry was remarkably rapid. Penn- sylvania made, in 1870, a fraction over fifty per cent. of all the iron manufactured in this country,
and in 1880 a fraction under fifty per cent. From 1870 until 1880 it increased its production ninety- seven per cent., or from 1,836,808 tons to 3,616,668 tons. Of tons of pig iron and direct castings, the State made in 1880 fifty-one per cent .; of rolled iron, forty-six per cent. ; of Bessemer steel, fifty- six per cent .; of open hearth steel, forty-four per cent .; of crucible steel, seventy-nine per cent. ; blooms and bar iron from ore, less than one per cent. ; and of blooms from pig and scrap iron, sev- enty per cent. She also produced 569,912 tons of rails of all descriptions, which was forty-seven per cent. of the total production. For Allegheny County, of which Pittsburgh is the main portion and the headquarters, the following totals are given for the year 1886: number of iron rolling mills, 30; product of iron rails, bar, angle, bolt, rod and hoop, tons 414,116; product of iron sheet and plate, except nail plate, tons 125,633; product of iron nails, kegs of 100 pounds, 73,691; total rolled iron, including nails, net tons, 543,434; number of blast furnaces, 18; of steel works, 26; make of pig iron, net tons, 737,124; crucible steel ingots, net tons, 58,208; net tons all other steel, 561,550; and total make of steel, net tons, 619,758. In this grand development the firm of Jones & Laughlin occupied an unusually conspicuous position, from a variety of causes. In 1857 they extended their operations into Ohio, pur- chasing the Falcon furnace at Youngstown, and running it in connection with their mill. They erected two blast furnaces in Pittsburgh in 1861, and were among the first to make use of iron ore from the Lake Superior beds ; being also among the first, if not the actual pioneers, in buying coal lands and making coke in the Connellsville region. Their coal works are in the rear of the mills, in Lower St. Clair Township, adjoining the city limits, and are connected with a tram road, the mines and road all being the property of the firm. At their Tyrone Coke Works they manufacture enough to supply all their furnaces. Their iron works are situated in the twenty-fourth ward of Pittsburgh and their fur- naces in the twenty-first. They use many of their own products, making merchant iron, boiler iron, nails, bolts, rivets, rails and sheet iron. Their cold- rolled iron is one of the most valuable commodities in the realm of iron, and finds a ready market in all quarters of the globe. In a word, from the mines to the rolls, the raw material used is chiefly from their own mines and works. Their machine shops and foundries are among the best appointed in the entire country. In all of their enterprises, employ- ment is given to some 4,000 persons, and there are no industrial or manufacturing works that are run with greater regularity. As early as 1856 they es-
*The aggregate capital of Jones & Laughlin alone is now over $5,000,000, or more than the combined capital employed in those enterprises in the city of Pittsburgh at that time, while their annual product in pig iron is upwards. of 110,000 tons, and the finished production of their mills is over 100,000 tons annually.
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tablished in connection with their business a large warehouse in Chicago, and as jobbers of heavy iron and hardware, the firm are among the most exten- sive and best known in the Northwest. Their latest enterprise is the creation of a plant for making steel, for which they erected two seven-ton con- verter Bessemer plants complete, and also one ten- ton Siemens-Martin plant. To all of his vast inter- ests Mr. Jones has devoted himself with the close- ness of an enthusiast. In business, as in private life, an uuswerving line of honesty and fair dealing has marked his course; his competitors have ouly commendation for his business methods, and he has always held the respect and confidence of his vast army of employees. From the day he became ship- ping clerk on the line of canal boats, he has taken the largest pride iu the city of his adoption. Any measure tending to advance any of the business, social, or philanthropic interests of Pittsburgh is sure to receive from him a prompt and generous consideration. This loyalty has led him to identify himself with most of the railroads touching the city, while his sound judgment has so impressed itself upou the minds of his business acquaintances as to impel them to seek his co-operation in the directories of various railroads and of several of the most prom- inent banks. In the varying lines of charitable and philanthropic labor, he has been a large-hcarted coadjutor. During the war he was a member of the Pittsburgh Subsistence Committee, and much of the practical usefulness of that organization was due to his euergy, his earnest work and his excep- tional knowledge of meu. In like manuer, he has been au official member of a great mnauy of the benevolent organizations of the city, and an exem- plary friend of its cducational institutions. He is still actively engaged in many of these works, and is making a noble use of the means that have beeu accumulated by the strength of his brain, the iu- dustry of his hands aud the steady clearness of his vision. Where a man has shown the possession of such sterling qualities and has achieved so full a success by the mere force of business instinct aud application, it is but natural to expect that he would be singled out for some of the honors of political life. Being a Pennsylvanian and an iron man are almost tautamount to being a politician ; and in the sense of being a practical student aud expositor of the science of government he is an admirably equipped one. He has been sent frequently to Washington as a representative of Pittsburg in com- mittees charged with the advocacy of tariff legisla- tion, and has made himself au acknowledged power in that direction. He is, and has always been, a protectionist, uot, as he says, because he is a manu-
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