Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/132

This page needs to be proofread.
108
THURMAN
THURSBY

the civil war he entered the volunteer service as brigadier-general, and served in guarding the Bal- timore and Ohio railroad till April, 1862, when he resigned. — Buckner's grandson, dates Phillips, soldier, b. in Dayton, Ohio, 11 June, 1835, was graduated at Miami university in 1855, studied law, and began practice in Dayton, where he en- tered the volunteer service at the beginning of the civil war as a captain in the 1st Ohio infantry. He was promoted major and assistant adjutant-general on 4 Sept., 1863, and subsequently lieutenant-colo- nel, for special acts of gallantry at Shiloh and Stone River, and was brevetted colonel and briga- dier-general of volunteers for gallantry at Chicka- mauga. Since the war he has followed his profes- sion at Xashville, Tenn. He is corresponding sec- retary of the Tennessee historical society, has con- tributed articles on military history and other subjects to northern and southern magazines, and has in preparation an illustrated work on the mound-builders, describing recent discoveries in the vicinity of Xashville and elsewhere.


THURMAN, Allen Granbery, statesman, b. in Lynchburg, Va., 13 Xov., 1813. His father was the Rev. Pleasant Thurman, a minister of the Methodist church, and his mother the only daugh- ter of Col. Xathan- iel Allen, nephew and adopted son of Joseph Hewes, one of the signers of the Declaration of In- dependence. His parents removed to Chillicothe in 1819, and he made that Elace his home until e settled in Colum- bus, in 1853, where he has since resided. His education was in the Chillicothe academy, and at the hands of his mother. At the age of eight- een he assisted in

land-surveying and

at twenty-one he was private secretary* to Gov. Lucas, studied law with his uncle, Gov. William Allen, afterward was admitted to the bar in 1835, and in a few years was employed in almost every litigated case in Ross county. In 1844 he was elected by the Democrats to congress, and he en- tered that body, 1 Dec, 1845, as its youngest mem- ber. Preferring the practice of the law, he de- clined a renomination to congress, and remained at the bar until 1851, when he was elected to the supreme bench in Ohio. From December, 1854, till February, 1856, he served as chief justice, and on the expiration of his term he refused a re- nomination. His opinions, contained in the first five volumes of the state reports, are remarkable for the clear and forcible expression of his views and the accuracy of his statements of the law. In 1867 he was the choice of his party for gov- ernor of Ohio. Rutherford B. Hayes, his oppo- nent, was elected by a majority of fewer than 3,000 votes, though the Republican majority in 1866 was more than 43,000. Mr. Thurman was then elected to the senate to succeed Benjamin F. Wade. He took his seat, 4 March, 1869, and from the first was recognized as the leader of the Demo- cratic minority. He was a member of the commit- tee on the judiciary and on the accession of his party to power, in the 46th congress, he was made its chairman, and also chosen president, pro tem- pore, of the senate, owing to the illness of Vice- President Wheeler. In 1874 he was elected to the senate for a second term, and in his twelve years of service, ending 4 March, 1881, he won a reputa- tion for judicial fairness and readiness, dignity and power in debate, especially upon questions of con- stitutional law. Besides" his labor in the judi- ciary committee he rendered valuable service in the committee on private land claims. He was the author of the act to compel the Pacific rail- road corporations to fulfil their obligations to the government, since known as the " Thurman act," the passage of which he forced in spite of the combined influence of those companies. His ar- guments against the constitutionality of the civil- rights bills have since been sustained by the U. S. supreme court in language that is almost identical with that of his speeches. Efforts to secure for the rebellious states the most favorable recon- struction legislation, in which he vigorously per- sisted while in the senate, led to a charge that he had disapproved the war for the integrity of the Union. His true position he thus defined in a letter to a friend : " I did all I could to help to preserve the Union without a war, but after it be- gan I thought there was but one thing to do, and that was to fight it out. I therefore sustained all constitutional measures that tended, in my judg- ment, to put down the rebellion. I never believed in the doctrine of secession." Mr. Thurman re- tired from the senate not alone with the high re- spect of his partisan associates, but also with that of senators of opposite political views, one of whom, James O. Blaine, with whom he often con- tended in debate, says, in his " Twenty Years of Congress " : " Mr. Thurman's rank in the senate was established from the day he took his seat, and was never lowered during the period of his service. He was an admirably disciplined debater, was fair in his method of statement, logical in his argument, honest in his conclusions. He had no tricks in discussion, no catch-phrases to secure attention, but was always direct and manly. . . . His retire- ment from the senate was a serious loss to his par- ty — a loss, indeed, to the body." Gen. Garfield, before his election to the presidency, had been chosen to succeed Mr. Thurman in the senate; but the contest had not interrupted friendly rela- tions of many years' standing, and, as a mark of his regard, the new president, soon after his inau- guration, associated Mr. Thurman with William M. Evarts, of Xew York, and Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin, on the commission to the Interna- tional monetary conference to be held in Paris. In the Democratic national convention of 1876 Mr. Thurman received some votes as a presidential candidate. In 1880 the first ballot gave him the entire vote of the Ohio delegation, with consider- able support from other states. In 1884 he was a delegate-at-large to the Xational convention, was again put in nomination for the presidency, and stood next to Cleveland and Bayard upon the first ballot. In the convention of 1888 he was nominat- ed for vice-president by acclamation. See " Lives and Public Services of Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman," by W. U. Hensel and George F. Parker (Xew York, 1888).


THURSBY, Emma Cecilia, singer, b. in Brooklyn, X. Y.. 21 Feb., 1857. She had her first instruction of Julius Meyer, and subsequently studied with Achille Errani and Erminia Rudersdorff. In 1873 she went to Italy, where she studied for a short time under Francesco Lamperti and San Giovanni. On her return she sang in the Broad-