Lyman Trumbull (October 12, 1813 – June 25, 1896) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician who represented the state of Illinois in the United States Senate from 1855 to 1873. Trumbull was a leading abolitionist attorney and key political ally to Abraham Lincoln and authored several landmark pieces of reform as chair of the Judiciary Committee during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, including the Confiscation Acts, which created the legal basis for the Emancipation Proclamation; the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished chattel slavery; and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which led to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Born in Colchester, Connecticut to a prominent political family, Trumbull studied law in Greenville, Georgia, before moving to Illinois to establish a practice and enter politics. He served as the Illinois Secretary of State from 1841 to 1843 and as a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court from 1848 to 1853. As an attorney, Trumbull successfully argued the case Jarrot v. Jarrot, which de facto banned slavery in the state.

In 1855, Trumbull was elected to the Senate as the choice of the anti-slavery faction of the Illinois legislature, defeating Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln endorsed Trumbull for the election; the two soon became leading members of the new Republican Party. After the American Civil War, Trumbull was a leading moderate Republican, favoring both civil rights for freed slaves and reconciliation with the South.

In the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, Trumbull voted to acquit Johnson despite heavy pressure from other Republican senators. He broke with the Republicans in 1870 and was a candidate for the presidency at the 1872 Liberal Republican convention. After returning to the Democratic Party, Trumbull left the Senate in 1873 to establish a legal practice in Chicago. Before his death in 1896, he became a member of the Populist Party and represented Eugene V. Debs before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Education and early life

Lyman Trumbull was born in Colchester, Connecticut on October 12, 1813, to Connecticut's leading political family, which included three Governors and had arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1639. His father, Benjamin Trumbull Jr., was an attorney, farmer, state representative, and the son of the historian Benjamin Trumbull. His mother, Elizabeth Mather, was a member of the Mather family of prominent New England Congregationalist clergymen including Increase Mather and Cotton Mather. Lyman was the seventh of eleven children, eight of whom survived into adulthood.thumb|250px|As a young man, Trumbull relocated from Connecticut to Illinois, where [[Lyman Trumbull House|his home in Alton is now a National Historic Site.|left]]

Trumbull attended Bacon Academy in Colchester, where he studied a traditional course in math, Latin, and Greek. Parallel to the debate over its passage, Congress debated a constitutional amendment to ensure citizenship and civil rights against discrimination on the basis of race. A concurrent resolution requesting the President to transmit the proposed amendment to the governors of the states was passed by both houses of Congress on June 18, 1866. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868, after ratification was made a precondition for readmission by the seceded states.thumb|Illustration of Senator Trumbull motioning on May 6, 1868, for the [[arrest of disorderly spectators at the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson]]

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

During President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial, Trumbull was one of seven Republican senators disturbed by their belief that Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade and those of similar position had manipulated the proceedings against Johnson in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. Trumbull in particular noted:<blockquote>

Once set the example of impeaching a President for what, when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, will be regarded as insufficient causes, as several of those now alleged against the President were decided to be by the House of Representatives only a few months since, and no future President will be safe who happens to differ with a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate on any measure deemed by them important, particularly if of a political character. Blinded by partisan zeal, with such an example before them, they will not scruple to remove out of the way any obstacle to the accomplishment of their purposes, and what then becomes of the checks and balances of the Constitution, so carefully devised and so vital to its perpetuity? They are all gone.

</blockquote>

All seven senators, resisting the pressure imposed on them, broke party ranks and defied public opinion, voting for acquittal, although they knew their decision would be unpopular. In addition, they were joined by three other Republican senators (James Dixon, James Rood Doolittle, Daniel Sheldon Norton) and all nine Democrats in voting against conviction. None of the Republicans who voted against conviction were reelected (though it should be pointed out that Senators at that time were not subject to popular vote but rather were chosen by the state Legislatures prior to ratification of the 17th Amendment - and thus the whim of the Party in power in said Legislatures). After the trial, Congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts conducted hearings in the House on widespread reports that Republican senators had been bribed to vote for Johnson's acquittal. Butler's hearings and subsequent inquiries revealed evidence that some acquittal votes were acquired by promises of patronage jobs and cash cards.

Post-Senate career

thumb|right|150px|Trumbull's grave at Oak Woods Cemetery

After leaving the Senate in 1873, Trumbull set up a law practice in Chicago. He worked in private practice except for a brief period when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor (as a Democrat) in 1880. In January 1883, Trumbull was given a seat of honor at the dedication of the Pullman Arcade Theatre in George Pullman's company town.

He became a Populist in 1894. According to Almont Lindsey's 1942 book, The Pullman Strike, Trumbull took part in defending Eugene Debs and other labor leaders of the American Railway Union, who had been convicted for violating a federal court injunction during the 1894 Pullman railroad strike. Trumbull was part of the three-member legal team, which included Clarence Darrow, when their habeas corpus case In re Debs was heard by the US Supreme Court in 1895.

Trumbull died at his home in Chicago on June 25, 1896, and was buried at Oak Woods Cemetery.

Personal life

Trumbull married Julia M. Jayne on June 21, 1843. Jayne, the daughter of a prominent Springfield physician, had been a bridesmaid in the wedding of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln the prior November. At the Trumbull wedding, Norman B. Judd served as groomsman. Their marriage lasted twenty-four years.

Their son, Walter Trumbull, was a member of the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to survey what is now Yellowstone National Park. In 1871, Senator Trumbull spoke in favor of the establishment of the Park and in favor of the preservation of natural beauty against the threat of private ownership.

Memorials

During his explorations in the west John Wesley Powell named Mt. Trumbull (and now the Mt. Trumbull Wilderness) in northwestern Arizona after the Senator. His house in Alton, the Lyman Trumbull House, is a National Historic Landmark. Trumbull has a street named after him in the city of Chicago; Lyman Trumbull Elementary School in Chicago was named after the Senator. Trumbull Park and adjacent Trumbull Park Homes in Chicago are named after the Senator.

See also

  • List of American politicians who switched parties in office
  • List of United States representatives-elect who never took their seats

References

Bibliography

Biographies

Correspondence

Scholarly articles

Further reading

  • Remarks of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on seizure of arsenals at Harper's Ferry, Va., and Liberty, Mo., and in vindication of the Republican party and its creed, in response to Senators Chesnut, Yulee, Saulsbury, Clay and Pugh. Delivered in the United States Senate December, 6, 7, and 8 1859
  • Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on introducing a bill to confiscate the property of rebels and free their slaves : delivered in the Senate of the United States, December 5, 1861
  • Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on amending the Constitution to prohibit slavery. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 28, 1864
  • Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on the Freedmen's bureau--veto message; delivered in the Senate of the United States, February 20, 1866
  • Trumbull at OurCampaigns.com

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