Orville
Browning
was born in Kentucky in 1806. After attending Augusta College he studied
law and was admitted to the bar in 1831. That year he moved to Quincy,
Illinois, where he worked as a lawyer.
Browning joined the Whig Party and was elected
to the Illinois Senate in 1836. Eight years later he was elected to
the House of Representatives but was defeated by Stephen
A. Douglas in 1844. Attempts in 1850 and 1852 also ended in failure.
Browning opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act
and in 1854 joined the Republican Party.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War
Browning supported an aggressive policy towards the Confederacy. He
clashed with Abraham Lincoln over his
treatment of Major General John C. Fremont.
On 30th August, 1861, Fremont, the commander of the Union Army in
St. Louis, proclaimed that all slaves
owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln asked Fremont
to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively
working for the South. When Fremont refused, he was sacked and replaced
by the conservative General Henry Halleck.
In a letter to the president Browning argued that Fremont's proclamation
"does not deal with citizens at all but with public enemies."
Browning was keen to be appointed to the Supreme
Court. This might explain Browning's increasing conservatism during
the American Civil War. He became a
government loyalist defending its policy of arbitrary arrests and
he made a series of speeches attacking the Radical
Republicans. Despite this new approach, Abraham
Lincoln refused to nominate Browning. In the 1864 Browning refused
to campaign for Lincoln but it not known how he voted.
In 1866 President Andrew Johnson appointed
Browning as his Secretary of the Interior. He remained in office until
Johnson lost power in 1869. Later that year Browning became a special
attorney for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. Orville
Browning died in 1881.
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