Edwards Pierrepont (March 4, 1817 – March 6, 1892) was an American attorney, reformer, jurist, traveler, New York U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Minister to England, and orator. Having graduated from Yale in 1837, Pierrepont studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840. During the American Civil War, Pierrepont was a Democrat, although he supported President Abraham Lincoln. Pierrepont initially supported President Andrew Johnson's conservative Reconstruction efforts having opposed the Radical Republicans. In both 1868 and 1872, Pierrepont supported Ulysses S. Grant for president. For his support, President Grant appointed Pierrepont United States Attorney in 1869. In 1871, Pierrepont gained the reputation as a solid reformer, having joined New York's Committee of Seventy that shut down Boss Tweed's corrupt Tammany Hall. In 1872, Pierrepont modified his views on Reconstruction and stated that African American freedman's rights needed to be protected.
In April 1875, Pierrepont was appointed U.S. Attorney General by President Grant, who, having teamed up with Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, vigorously prosecuted the notorious Whiskey Ring, a national tax evasion swindle that involved whiskey distillers, brokers, and government officials, including President Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock. Upon his appointment, Pierrepont quickly cleaned up corruption in Southern U.S. districts. Pierrepont had continued former Attorney General George H. Williams moratorium on prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had been previously prosecuted by President Grant's Attorneys General Amos T. Akerman and Williams from 1871 to 1873, prosecuting civil rights violations of whites against African Americans. Pierrepont ruled that a naturalized Prussian immigrant's son born in the U.S. was not obligated to serve in the Prussian military as an adult. In his ruling of the Chorpenning Claim, Pierrepont cited the Supreme Court case Gorden v United States, having agreed that the Postmaster General, as well as the Secretary of War, served as ministers rather than legally binding arbitrators for a monetary claim by a private citizen. After serving as Attorney General, Pierrepont was appointed Minister to Great Britain by President Grant serving from 1876 to 1877. After many visits to France, Pierrepont became an advocate for bimetalism. Having returned from England, Pierrepont resumed his law practice until his death in 1892.
Early life and ancestry
thumb |180px |right |[[James Pierpont (Yale founder)|James Pierepont<br>Oil portrait, Pierpont Limner, 1711]]
Edwards Pierrepont was born in North Haven, Connecticut, on March 4, 1817. He was the son of Giles Pierepont and Eunice Munson Pierepont. Giles Pierepont was a New England descendant of James Pierepont, a cofounder of Yale University. Their marriage produced two children, one son, Edwin, and one daughter, Margaretta. Edwin died in Rome in 1885 while serving as Chargé d'Affaires, having replaced Mr. William Astor, the U.S. Envoy, who had retired. Pierrepont's daughter married Leanord F. Beckwith who lived at 48 West Seventy-second Street in New York.
Political career
Upon moving to New York, Pierrepont became active in politics, having joined the Democratic Party in 1846. In 1862, during the Civil War Pierrepont was appointed by President Lincoln a member of the military commission to try the cases of state prisoners in the custody of the federal military authorities.
Prosecuted Surratt trial
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In 1867 Pierrepont conducted the case for the government against John H. Surratt, indicted as an accomplice in the murder of President Lincoln. After Lincoln's assassination, Surratt fled the United States to Montreal, Liverpool, Rome, and was finally caught in Egypt on December 2, 1866, where he was indicted and returned to the United States to face U.S. military trial. Pierrepont argued that the military trial was suited for Surratt's case and quoted Bible verses that he viewed supported government was created by God for the express purpose of finding the guilty. Pierrepont argued that because Surratt had assumed an alias name, John Harrison, in staying at a hotel, and had fled the country that this proved his guilt. The trial lasted until August 10, 1867 and ended with the jury unable to make any decision after a seventy-hour deliberation. The Constitutional Convention turned out to be a long drawn-out process of deliberation that lasted into June 1867 whose purpose was to root out any constitutional defects from the previous 1846 New York Constitution. On Tuesday June 15, 1869, U.S. Attorney Pierrepont arrested and indicted members of the Cuban Junta, an organization to aid the Cuban Rebellion. Allegations of corruption rapidly grew as rumors spread that Boss Tweed and associates of Tammany Hall were laundering tax payers money in real estate and bribing New York State legislatures for favorable legislation. Pierrepont stated that Grant's opponent Horace Greeley had pointed out that Grant had made a better President than expected and that his second term would be better than his first. Pierrepont stated that President Grant had been unjustly slandered by the press, and that he believed "security, confidence, development and unexampled prosperity" would take place during President Grant's second term in office. Pierrepont had observed that southern whites in poverty supported Greeley, while African Americans were loyal to President Grant.
On October 11, 1872 Edwards Pierrepont spoke in Ithaca, New York supporting President Grant and the Republican ticket. Pierrepont related a story of President Grant unworried he would not win North Carolina. Although there was concern that Grant would not win North Carolina, Pierrepont stated that Grant had said to a friend when wolves howl at night the sound is greater than the actual number of wolves. Pierrepont, who practiced phrenology, believed that having a wide head was a sign of intelligence. Pierrepont was an admirer of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle and he wanted his head to be wide as theirs were. Pierrepont turned out to be a demanding patron as he insisted Saint-Gaudens make his head larger on the bust. Although Saint-Gaudens complied, he was upset at Pierrepont for having to make his head larger. The culmination of these reforms took place in June 1875. Attorney General Pierrepont had given specific reform orders to U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals in the South that were vigorously enforced. Steinkoanler was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1854. Steinkoanler returned to Prussia with his son, born in the United States, who was four years old. The naturalization case concerned whether Steinkoanler's son, who was then 20 years old, had to serve in the Prussian military, an obligation for all Prussian male children. Pierrepont ruled that Steinkoanler's son, had both United States and Prussian citizenship, and was only obligated to serve in the Prussian military while under his father's care. Chorpenning had petitioned the post office in 1857 for payment of mail delivery in San Pedro and Carson's Valley. During later Reconstruction white supremacists known as white liners in both the North and the South put pressure on the Grant Administration to limit the use of deployed troops in the South that protected African American citizens under the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Previously President Grant had destroyed the Ku Klux Klan under the Enforcement Acts in 1871. Resistance continued and resurged as white liners violently attacked Mississippi blacks in 1875. Republican Governor Adelbert Ames requested troops to protect black voters. In order to avoid violence, Attorney General Pierrepont sent George K. Chase to Mississippi who met with white liner leaders to hold them to their previous pledge not to use violence during the election. President Grant and Att. Gen. Pierrepont told Governor Ames to use federal troops only if the white liners used violence on election day. No violence took place on election day, however, the intimidation tactics of the white liners prior to the election kept blacks and Republican voters from the polls.
Whiskey Ring (1875–1876)
right|180px |thumb |A cartoon that lampooned the Whiskey Ring.
After the American Civil War, whiskey distillers in St. Louis developed a tax evasion ring that depleted the U.S. Treasury. By 1875, the Whiskey Ring had grown into a nationwide criminal syndicate that included whiskey distillers, brokers, and government officials; making enormous profits from the sale of untaxed whiskey. Also rumored, was that in 1872 the Ring had secretly funded the Republican Presidential campaign. In an effort of reform and to clean up corruption, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Benjamin Bristow, as U.S. Secretary of Treasury in 1874, who immediately discovered millions of dollars were being depleted from the U.S. Treasury. Under orders from President Grant, in May 1875, Sec. Bristow struck hard at the Ring, nationally shutting down distilleries, arresting hundreds involved in the ring having obtained over 350 indictments. The Ring through Bristow's vigorous raids had been effectively shut down. In April 1875, President Grant appointed Pierrepont Attorney General and teamed him up with Bristow to prosecute the Ring and clean up corruption. Pierrepont and the Justice Department created by Grant prosecuted the Whiskey Ring. Under orders from Grant, Pierrepont controversially sent circular letters to district attorneys in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis denying immunity to offenders who would testify against the ring. Pierrepont's prosecution of the ring however was viewed satisfactory by the public.
During the Summer of 1875, both Bristow and Pierrepont obtained President Grant's order to "let know guilty man escape". During the Fall of 1875, evidence was discovered that Grant's private secretary, Orville Babcock had been involved in the Ring. Bristow and Pierrepont, stayed behind after a cabinet meeting with President Grant and showed him correspondence between Babcock and William Joyce in St. Louis, indicted in the Ring, cryptic telegram messages as evidence of Babcock's involvement in the Ring. Babcock was summoned to the Oval Office for an explanation and was told to send a telegram to bring Wilson to Washington, D.C. After Babcock did not return to the Oval Office, Pierrepont discovered Babcock was in the process of writing a letter warning Wilson to be on his guard. This angered Attorney General Pierrepont, who spilled ink over Babcock's letter and shouted, "You don't want to send your argument; send the fact, and go there and make your explanation. I do not understand it." Babcock was indicted and later acquitted in a trial in St. Louis, after an oral deposition from President Grant defending Babcock was given to the jury. The Justice Department obtained 110 convictions of persons involved in the Whiskey Ring.
In March 1876, a rumor spread throughout Washington, D.C., that Attorney General Pierrepont had given information to aid the defense counsel of Orville Babcock in St. Louis. Pierrepont publicly denied the allegation in a letter to Scott Lord and stated the rumor was "an infamous falsehood". Pierrepont suspected that Gen. Babcock himself was the source of the rumor. Babcock was dismissed as Grant's personal secretary after Babcock's acquittal in St. Louis. While serving as minister to Britain, Pierrepont became interested in bimetalism, frequently traveling to France, a bimetalist country.
On June 5, 1877 Pierrepont gave a reception for former President Ulysses S. Grant at his elaborate house on Cavendish Square. The Prince of Wales Edward Albert, Foreign Secretary Lord Derby Edward Stanley, William Gladstone and his wife Catherine, and American journalist Kate Field attended the formal affair. Although Grant was well received by the British public, a diplomatic controversy was caused when British officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli told Pierrepont that as a former head of state, Grant was nothing more than a "commoner", and could not be recognized by the government. Lord Derby, minister of foreign affairs, told Pierrepont that since Grant had no formal rank in the United States, he had none in Britain. Pierrepont countered Derby saying that first Napoleon had been elected ruler, not by hereditary lineage, and yet the succeeding Bonaparte emperors were recognized by England: "Once an Emperor always an Emperor." Therefore, the same precedent applied to an elected head of state: "Once a President always a President." Grant's diplomatic recognition, although informal, came when Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle. The Grants accepted, and on June 26, 1877 Pierrepont introduced the former president to the Queen. She received them in an appropriate setting, the castle's magnificent 520 feet quadrangle.
After his tenure as Minister Plenipotentiary ended, Pierrepont returned to the United States and resumed his private legal practice in New York.
Retirement
Transcontinental trip to Alaska
thumb|220px |right |Wrangell Harbor, Alaska 1897
In 1883, at the age of 66, Pierrepont and his son Edwin Willoughby Pierrepont took a transcontinental trip to the far reaches of Alaska starting from New York. On July 25 Pierrepont and Edwin visited Fort Wrangell, having sailed by ship into Wrangell Harbor. Edwin was impressed by the mirror reflection of the snow-capped mountains in the harbor waters.