149thBucktails Online Catalog

JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS

Joshua Reed Giddings. He was born, October 6th, 1795, at Athens, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. In infancy his parents removed to Canandaigua, New York, where they remained until he was ten years old, when they immigrated to Ashtabula County, Ohio, among the first settlers in that part of the Western Reserve. In 1812, when less than seventeen years old, he enlisted as a soldier for active service being accepted as a substitute for an older brother. He was one of the expedition sent to the peninsula north of Sandusky bay, where, in two battles on one day with a superior force of Indians, it lost nearly one-fifth of its number in killed and wounded. At the close of his short term of service as a soldier, he commenced teaching school. In 1817 he began the study of law with Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, and was admitted to the bar in 1820. In 1826 he was chosen a Representative to the State Legislature, and after serving one term, declined a re-election, and devoted himself to his profession until 1838, when he was elected to Congress as the successor of his instructor, Hon. E. Whittlesey. Having been for some years an active abolitionist, and entering the House at a time of great excitement on the subject of slavery, he not only took his stand by the side of John Quincy Adams as a supporter of the right of petition, but became at once a prominent champion of the abolition of slavery. On March 21st, 1842, Mr. Giddings brought the subject before Congress in a series of resolutions, in which it was declared that, as slavery was an abridgment of natural right, it could have no force beyond the territorial jurisdiction that created it; that when a ship left the waters of any State, the persons on board ceased to be subject to the slave laws of such State, and thenceforth came under the jurisdiction of the United States, which had no constitutional authority to hold slaves; that the persons on board the "Creole," in resuming their natural rights of personal liberty, violated no law of the United States, incurred no legal penalty, and were justly liable to no punishment; and that any attempt to re-enslave them was unauthorized by the constitution, and incompatible with the national honor. These resolutions created so intense an excitement that, yielding to the importunities of some of his party friends, who thought the time unfavorable for their consideration, he withdrew them, declaring his intention to present them on a future occasion. Whereupon John Minor Bolts, of Virginia, introduced a resolution declaring that the conduct of Joshua R. Giddings in offering the resolutions to be " altogether unwarranted and unwarrantable, and deserving the severe condemnation of the people of this country, and of this body in particular." The previous question being moved, he was thus denied the right of self-defense, and the resolution was adopted by 125 yeas to 69 nays. He instantly resigned his seat, and called upon his constituents to pronounce their judgment in the case, which they did by re-electing him by a large majority. He resumed his seat May 5th, after an absence of six weeks, and held the post by successive re-elections until March 3d, 1861, making his whole period of service twenty-two years. In 1849 he made an elaborate speech, in which he maintained that man could not be property, and that to treat him as such is a crime. In the celebrated case of the "Armistad," he maintained the right of the negroes to take their freedom, and zealously opposed the effort to induce Congress to indemnify the Spanish claimants. In 1850 he took a prominent part in opposing the enactment of the " compromise measures," so termed, especially the fugitive slave law. In July 1850, he was distinctly charged with the abstraction of important papers from the general post-office. A committee composed chiefly of his political opponents, after a rigid examination, exonerated him entirely, it being conclusively shown that the charge was the result of a conspiracy against him. On May 8th, 1856, while addressing the House, he suddenly fell to the floor in a state of unconsciousness, from which, however, he soon revived, though in a condition of great weakness. On January l7th, 1858, the same accident occurred, and for some moments he was supposed to be dead. He slowly returned to consciousness, but was compelled for a time to be absent from his post; his disease was an affection of the nervous system acting upon the heart. Having declined a re-nomination by his constituents, he was appointed, by President Lincoln, Consul-General for Canada, the duties of which office he discharged at Montreal until his death. In 1843 he wrote a series of political essays, signed " Pacificus," which attracted considerable attention. A volume of his speeches in Congress was published in Boston in 1853; and an interesting narrative of the oppression exercised by the slaveholders of Florida over the Negroes, Indians, and mixed races of the peninsula, under the title of " The Exiles of Florida," was published in 1858, at Columbus, Ohio. "A History of the Rebellion, its Authors and Causes," which is mainly a history of the anti-slavery struggle of the last twenty-five years - antecedent to the civil war - in Congress, was published just after his death, which occurred at Montreal, Canada East, May 27th, 1864.

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