Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/574

This page has been validated.
544
FRELINGHUYSEN
FRELINGHUYSEN

the lists of officers of all the rest with scarcely an exception. For sixteen years he was president of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. From April, 1846, till his death he was president of the American Bible society; from 1842 till 1848, of the American tract society; from 1826 till near the close of his life, vice president of the American Sunday School union; and for many years vice president of the American colonization society. In the work of all these institutions he took an active part. His remains were buried in the grounds of the 1st Reformed Dutch church in New Brunswick, N.J. See a memoir of him by Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D. (1863). —

Frederick Theodore, son of General Frederick's third son, Frederick, lawyer, b. in Millstone, New Jersey, 4 August 1817, d. in Newark, New Jersey, 20 May 1885, was but three years of age when his father died and was at once adopted by his uncle, Theodore. He was graduated at Rutgers in 1836, studied law with his uncle, Theodore, at Newark, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. In this year his uncle was called to the chancellorship of the University of New York, and the young attorney succeeded to his practice. He was chosen City attorney in 1849, and in the following year was also elected City counsel. Not long afterward he became the retained counsel of the New Jersey central railroad company, and of the Morris canal and banking company, and became generally known throughout the state. His name was mentioned as a candidate for attorney general of New Jersey in 1857, and in 1861 was appointed to that office. In this same year Mr Frelinghuysen was a member of the peace congress in Washington, where he was a conspicuous figure. On the expiration of his term as attorney general, in 1866, he was reappointed by Governor Marcus L. Ward, but in the same year was appointed by the governor to the U. S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Wright. He took his seat in the senate in December 1866, and was elected in the winter of 1867 to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Wright, which would end on 4 March 1869. He now resigned the office of attorney general to occupy one that, it is said, had long been the summit of his ambition. At the expiration of his term in 1869 the majority of the legislature of New Jersey was opposed to him in politics, and, as a matter of course, his re-election was impossible. In 1870 President Grant nominated him as minister to England, and the senate promptly confirmed the nomination without the usual reference to the committee. Mr. Frelinghuysen, however, declined the appointment; why he did so was a question that was variously answered by political friends and foes. Years afterward it became known that it was at the request of his wife, who was unwilling to expose her children to the various influences to be encountered during a residence at a foreign court. On 25 July 1871, he was again elected U. S. senator for the full term of six years. During his service in the senate he was a member of the judiciary committee, and of those on the finance, naval affairs, claims, and railroads, and was chairman of the committee on agriculture. He was also a member of the committee on foreign relations, and acting chairman of the same during the negotiation of the Alabama claims by the joint high commission. When he came into the senate the civil war had ended, but he brought with him the feelings that had governed him throughout its progress, and took an active part in the work of restoring the Union. In the impeachment trial of President Johnson he voted for conviction. He was always prominent in the debates of the senate, and introduced into that body several measures of great importance. In the matter of the Washington treaty, in the French arms controversy, in the currency question, he was especially active. A bill was introduced by him to restore a gold currency, and so well sustained by argument that a measure similar to his own was subsequently adopted. A tariff for protection always received his support, and he left nothing undone to promote the industries of his own state. The civil rights bill, introduced by Charles Sumner, was personally entrusted to him by that gentleman, and was advocated by Mr. Frelinghuysen until it passed the senate. He introduced a bill against polygamy, and secured its passage in the senate; also a bill to return to Japan what is known as the Japanese indemnity fund, which also passed. The soundness of his argument in the Sue Murphy case was at first doubted, but it was afterward conceded that he was right in denying the claims of even loyal persons at the south for damages resulting from the war, insisting that they must suffer as did loyal persons at the north, and that the results of the war must rest where they fall. He succeeded in defeating this bill, and thus saved the country from innumerable claims of a similar character, which would have exhausted the national treasury. The trouble that arose in 1877 in regard to counting the electoral vote seems to have been anticipated by Mr. Frelinghuysen in the summer of the previous year, and, to avoid it, he introduced a bill referring the decision of any such controversy to the president of the senate, the speaker of the house, and the chief justice. The senate adjourned before the bill could be acted upon. When, in 1877, his anticipations were realized, he was one of the joint committee of the senate and house that reported a bill creating the electoral commission, and he was appointed a member of that commission. In 1877, a majority of the legislature of New Jersey being again Democratic, he was succeeded by John R. McPherson. On 12 December 1881, President Arthur invited Mr. Frelinghuysen to a seat in the cabinet as secretary of state, and the senate promptly confirmed this appointment. Peaceful and prosperous as was the administration of President Arthur, yet the labors of Mr. Frelinghuysen were nonetheless arduous, and, though always regarded as a man of great physical vigor, he retired from them thoroughly exhausted. Surrendering his seat to his successor in the cabinet on 4 March 1885, he went at once to his home in Newark, New Jersey, where, on his arrival, he found himself too ill to receive the citizens and friends who had filled his house to welcome him. For many weeks he lay in a lethargic condition, which continued until the end. Like all his ancestors, Mr. Frelinghuysen was the possessor of a strong religious sentiment. He was a close student of the Bible, and an active member of that