US Congressman. Educated in literature at Hartwick Seminary, in Oneonta, New York he taught school in Otsego County, New York, studied law, was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1835 and commenced to practice law in Cooperstown, New York. Moving to Chicago, Illinois, in 1836, he continued the practice of law and was elected as city clerk of Chicago in 1837. He was a delegate to the Democratic Illinois convention in 1842 and member of the Illinois State Legislature. Becoming an ardent proponent of the abolition of slavery, he joined the Free Soil Party in 1848, and the newly formed Republican Party in 1860. On the eve of the Civil War he was elected to represent Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. When the Civil War began, he attached himself to the Union Army gathering in Washington, DC, and served as an unofficial aide to Colonel David S. Hunter during the July 21, 1861 First Battle of Bull Run. During his time in Congress during the war he introduced a number of measures banning slavery, including a bill to abolish slavery in United States Territories that passed, and a resolution to abolish slavery in all of the United States that failed (it was, however, the first resolution ever introduced to Congress advocating total abolition). Re-elected in 1862 to represent Illinois’ 1st Congressional District, he had a large part in the passing of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment that permanently abolished slavery. He declined to run for a third term, and left Congress when his time there expired in March 1865. He then accepted an appointment from President Abraham Lincoln as the Sixth Auditor of the United States Treasury, Washington, D.C., which he served as from 1865 to 1866). A close friend of President Lincoln, he published “The History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery” (1867) and the biography, “The Life of Lincoln” (1884). He continued to practice law and literary pursuits until his death at age 68.