Lyman
Trumbull was born in
Colchester, Connecticut on 12th October, 1813. After attending Bacon
Academy he worked as a school teacher in Connecticut (1829-1833).
Trumbull studied law and after being admitted to the bar worked as
a lawyer in Belleville, Illinois. A member of the Democratic
Party, Trumbull served in the state legislature
(1840-41), secretary of State of Illinois (1841-43) and a justice
of the supreme court of Illinois (1848-53).
An opponent of slavery
Trumbull joined the Republican
Party before being elected
to Congress in 1854. During the presidency of Andrew
Johnson Trumbull was associated with the Radical
Republicans.
After the outbreak of the American Civil
War Trumbull introduced a Confiscation
Act that was passed by Congress that enabled
the Union Army to free slaves in Confederate
territory. However, the law provided no enforcement mechanism and
was ineffective.
In
July, 1861, Trumbull was a member of a group of politicians, including
Benjamin
Wade,
James Grimes, and Zachariah
Chandler,
who witnessed the Battle of Bull Run.
The battle was a disaster for the Union forces and at one
stage Trumbull came close to being captured by the Confederate
Army. After arriving
back in Washington, Trumbull was one
of those who led the attack on the incompetence of the leadership
of the Union
Army.
Trumbull was a leading supporter of the Civil
Rights Bill
that was designed to protect freed slaves from Southern Black
Codes (laws that placed severe
restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote,
forbidding them to sit on juries, limiting their right to testify
against white men, carrying weapons in public places and working in
certain occupations).
When Andrew
Johnson vetoed the Civil
Rights Bill
in March, 1866, Trumbull made an impassioned speech against the president.
However, he doubted the legality of trying to impeach Johnson and
voted against the measure.
In 1872 Trumbull supported the more radical Horace
Greeley against
the official Republican
Party
candidate, Ulysses
S. Grant. After
leaving the Senate in March, 1873 Trumbull returned to work as a lawyer
in Chicago. He remained active in politics
and in 1880 was unsuccessful bid for the post of Governor of Illinois.
Lyman Trumbull
died in Chicago on 25th June, 1896.
(1)
Lyman Trumbull, letter to Zachariah
Chandler
(9th November, 1862)
Hundreds of Republicans
who believed that their sons and relatives were being sacrificed to
the incompetency, indisposition or treason of pro-slavery Democratic
generals, were unwilling to sustain the administration which allowed
this. I felt myself that it was an uphill business to attempt to sustain
the administration.
(2)
On 27th March, 1866, Andrew
Johnson vetoed the Civil
Rights Bill that had been passed by Congress.
The bill in effect proposes
a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and
patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long
years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just
now been suddenly opened. He must, of necessity, from his previous
unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed as to the nature
and character of our institutions than he who, coming from abroad,
has to some extent at least, familiarized himself with the principles
of a government to which he voluntarily entrusts "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness."
(3)
Lyman Trumbull of Illinois led the attack on Andrew
Johnson after he vetoed the Civil Rights Bill in March, 1866.
The bill neither confers
nor abridges the rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil
rights there shall be equality among all classes of citizens and that
all alike shall be subject to the same punishment. Each state, so
that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under
the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil
rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect,
its laws shall be impartial. And yet this is the bill now returned
with the President's objections.
Whatever may have been the opinion of the President at one time as
to "good faith requiring the security of the freemen in their
liberty and their property," it is now manifest from the character
of his objections to this bill that he will approve no measures that
will accomplish the object.
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