JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS, one of the eminent statesmen of America and prominent in the ante-bellum anti-slavery movement, was an honored resident of Jefferson, Ashtabula county. He was a native of Pennsylvania, born at Tioga Point, Bradford county, of Connecticut parents and of remote English ancestry. When he was six weeks old the family moved to Canandaigua, New York, and when, he was ten years of age they settled in the heart of the Connecticut Western Reserve, in Wayne township, Ashtabula county, where their life and experiences were those common to western pioneers; but the members of this family were of broader intellect and more liberal and cosmopolitan views than most of their neighbors.
     Joshua grew up there, as a personal friend described him, u. a tall, raw, shapeless boy, with pleasant face, frolicsome gray eyes and an abundance of light, curly hair that grew dark-hairish till the sun tanned him." Having great ambition and a studious and capacious mind, he attained that extraordinary manhood of which we so often read in the life of great men. He became great in spite of untoward circumstances,—yea, on account of them. He read everything he could get hold of, and thoroughly digested everything he read, no matter how abstruse.
     When, during the war of 1812, Detroit and all Michigan were surrendered by General Hull to the British, Giddings, though only sixteen years of age, joined Colonel Hayes' regiment and marched to the Huron and on to the stockade, later famous under the name of Fort Stephen son. Very soon he volunteered to engage in two attacks upon hostile Indians near Sandusky Bay, in which he behaved gallantly. The Indians left the peninsula never to trouble it again. These two skirmishes were the first engagements fought in Ohio during the war of 1812, and were overlooked by all historians of the war until, in 1843, Mr. Giddings himself contributed an account of them to the public. Five months after enlistment Mr. Giddings was mustered out of the service with his regiment and returned to his home life.
     At the age of nineteen years he taught school in his neighborhood. At the age of twenty-three he made choice of his life work, entering the law office of Elisha Whittlesey, of Canfield, Ohio, as a student. Whittlesey was a good preceptor, and Giddings made the most of this advantage. Admitted to the bar in 1821, he began practice at Jefferson, his home and the county seat, and thus continued until he entered Congress in 1838, never to resume it. To all intents and purposes he abandoned its practice forever. No lawyer could have made better arguments in court than he did in Congress when discussing the legal and constitutional bearings of the slavery question, nor more moving appeals at nisi prius than were his in behalf of the same cause from stump and rostrum: but all those efforts contributed to his reputation as a statesman more than as a lawyer. In those days the courtroom was a place for the display of ready wit and eloquence far more than at the present day, and the practice he had, and the customs he observed at the bar, constituted a school to train and discipline the young man for his day in the American parliament. According to the old maxim, both himself and the times fitted each other, and to a great extent made each other. In the language of one of his biographers: With the first collection of Ohio Statutes, known as the old "Sheepskin Code," and such other books as he could command, and such clients and cases as came, the young lawyer procured a horse and portmanteau, joined his few professional brethren and started with the presiding judge on the common-pleas circuit, through mud and forest, legal lance in rest, stopping at log cabins and settling grave cases in log temples of justice. Those were the days of free manners, free lives and practical jokes, though the Grand River presbytery expressed their disapproval of gathering sap on Sunday." Locally the young lawyer gained a wide fame in having won two remarkable lawsuits with all the odds apparently against him. Within ten years after beginning practice he seemed to be at the head of the local bar. - In 1831 he formed a law partnership with the afterward celebrated Benjamin F. Wade whose sketch is next given; Wade was rather too modest for the rough work of the bar, but he was excellent in the office preparation of cases, while Giddings would present them at the bar, in which work he excelled. Within the short space of five years these gentlemen made money sufficient to enable them to retire from practice, at least temporarily, for money was plentiful and largely invested in the thousand wild-cat enterprises of that day, which all collapsed at once, wrecking many public-spirited men. Giddings was caught in the downward whirl, and had to resort to work again, to earn a livelihood. Forming a partnership with Flavel Sutliffe, a brilliant young man, who two years afterward became insane, Mr. Giddings again prospered and made money. In 1838 he was elected to Congress. Prior to this he had had some legislative experience, as in 1826 he had served in the Ohio House of Representatives. After the close of that legislative term he ran for State Senator, but was defeated,—the only defeat he ever met at the polls.
     Of necessity, in order to appreciate the services of Mr. Giddings upon his entrance into Congress, the reader must call to mind the history of the slavery question up to that time, and its status. The Missouri Compromise had been adopted in 1820, with the hope that that finally and forever settled the vexed slavery controversy; but the so called Abolitionists," with their leaders mostly in New England and New York, began to exert themselves. African slavery in America, like a nauseating mass in the stomach, would not remain down by any dosing. The stomach will continue its efforts at emesis until the work is complete, and thus Mr. Giddings was continually drawn into the vortex of abolition effort.
     On his way to and arrival at Washington, Mr. Giddings made close observation of every politician and of every event that might have a bearing upon his career at the capital. " It is a fact," said he, "which every man of observation must see, by spending a few days in the Representatives' hall, that there is a vast difference in the character of the members from the North and South. During this week every person present must have witnessed the high and important bearing of the Southern men; their self-important airs, their overbearing manners, while the Northern men, even on the subject of slavery, are diffident and forbearing. I have myself come to the honest conclusion that our Northern friends are, in fact, afraid of these Southern bullies. I have bestowed much thought upon the subject; I have made inquiry, and think we have no Northern man who dares boldly and fearlessly declare his abhorrence of slavery and the slave trade. This kind of fear I never experienced; nor shall I submit to it now. When I came here I had no thought of participating in debate at all, but particularly I intended to keep silence this winter; but since I have seen our Northern friends so backward and delicate, I have de­termined to express my own views and declare my own sentiments, and risk the effects. For that purpose I have drawn up a resolution calling for information as to the slave trade in the District of Columbia which, among other things, calls for a statement of the number of slaves who have murdered themselves within that district during the last five years, after being sold for foreign markets, and the number of children who have been murdered by their parents during said time, under the apprehension of immediate separation for sale at a foreign market, and the amount of revenue collected on sale of licenses to deal in human flesh and blood."
     "I showed the resolutions to several friends, who advised me not to present them, on two accounts; first, that it will enrage the South­ern members; secondly, that it will injure me at home. But I have determined to risk both; for I would rather lose my election at home rather than suffer the insolence of these Southerners here."
     In his speeches before Congress on the subject of slavery he was frequently called to order by the Southern members and their Northern sympathizers, but generally his right to the floor, to continue his argument, was recognized by the Speaker. In 1839 he won a signal victory over the opposition in the advocacy of the duty of Congress to respectfully consider the anti-slavery petitions sent in, which made the Southern members mad and their sympathizers from the North disgusted.
     The prominent defections from the Free Soil party in 1848 and the persuasions to enter a course that would elevate him to the United States senatorship, etc., were no temptation to Mr. Giddings to abandon his anti-slavery aggression, and he joined the " Free-Soilers." He had a conscience, not only with reference to the slavery question, but also in regard to the public treasury. Hence it pained him to see the servants of the people at Washington wasting their time with frivolous adjournments, etc., while pressing and important claims received no attention.
     The following anecdote is taken from Mr. Giddings' journal:  "An incident occurred in my view that illustrates the difficulty of obtaining justice from the Government. A man named Nye has claimed about $6,000 from the Government for several years, and has himself personally pressed the matter for some sessions past. During the last session Mr. Whittlesey, chairman of the committee on claims, reported against it. although the Senate had reported in favor of it. Mr. Whittlesey was looked upon as an infallible authority on the subject of claims. Nye was put in jail for want of money and suffered much. Nye himself wrote an able review of Whittlesey's report and pointed out its errors, but many things intervened to prevent the committee from passing on it until today. I agreed with two or three others that we would get together and pass upon this claim, provided that it were possible to get a quorum to the committee room. This we effected, and agreed to report the bill giving him his whole claim. This was done as late as two o'clock p. m. When we left the room I was in front, and Nye was at the door. I told him we had agreed to report his bill for the amount claimed. He attempted to thank me, but tears choked his utterance, and I felt deeply myself,—so much so that I found tears were running down my own cheeks, and, unwill­ing that my weakness should be discovered, I averted my face to disguise my feelings from those passing by me in front.   As I turned my face my eye rested upon. Mr. Chambers, our chairman, who, though a man of rough exterior, and has been through many a bloody battle, was so wrought upon by Mr. Nye's feelings that he wept profusely."
     Mr. Giddings advocated the right of slaves when upon the high seas to free themselves, and he presented to Congress resolutions to the effect that it had no right to compensate the owners of such fugitives; but he was persuaded by his friends to withdraw them. For offering such resolutions he received the censure of the House, but he was not permitted to speak in his own defense. He thereupon resigned, but was soon re-elected to Congress by a greater majority than before. He was opposed to the admission of Texas into the Union, with the constitution offered, as he regarded it as an extension of slave territory. In 1850 he had the fugitive slave law to fight, also the compromise slave measures of that year, and in 1852-56 the Kansas-Nebraska bill of  Stephen A. Douglas, etc. When Nathaniel Banks, an anti-slavery representative, was elected speaker of the House, February 4, 1856, after more than two months' failure to organize that branch of Congress,—which was the first signal victory of the anti-slavery party in Congress—Giddings felt rewarded for his life-long fight.
     For a number of years he was the real editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel. He was a delegate to the famous Republican national convention at Chicago in 1860 which nomi­nated Lincoln for president. He endeavored, but in vain, to induce that convention to incorporate anti-slavery resolutions in its plat­form. In 1861 he accepted a consul generalship to Canada under Lincoln, and while serving in that capacity at Montreal he died, May 27, 1864.
     "Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown Smoother than honey on the lips of men; And thou shalt aye he honorably known As one who bravely used the tongue and pen. As best befits a freeman;—even for those To whom our laws' unblushing front denies A right to plead against the life-long woes Which are the negroes' glimpse of freedom's skies.
     Fear nothing and hope all things, as the right Alone may do securely; every hour The thrones of ignorance and ancient Night Lose somewhat of their long usurped power; And freedom's slightest word can make them shiver With a base dread that clings to them forever."   —Bryant.

(See Note 1 Below)

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