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James Guthrie (Kentucky politician)

For other persons named James Guthrie, seeJames Guthrie.

James Guthrie(December 5, 1792 – March 13, 1869) was an American lawyer, plantation owner, railroad president andDemocratic Partypolitician inKentucky.He served as the 21stUnited States Secretary of the Treasuryunder PresidentsFranklin PierceandJames Buchanan,and then became president of theLouisville and Nashville Railroad.After serving, part-time, in both houses of the Kentucky legislature as well as Louisville's City Council before theAmerican Civil War(and failing to win his party's nomination in thepresidential election of 1860), Guthrie became one of Kentucky'sUnited States senatorsin 1865 (until resigning for health reasons in 1868 shortly before his death). Guthrie strongly opposed proposals for Kentucky to secede from the United States and attended thePeace Conference of 1861.Although he sided with theUnionduring the Civil War, he declined PresidentAbraham Lincoln's offer to become theSecretary of War.As one of Kentucky's senators after the war, Guthrie supported PresidentAndrew Johnsonand opposedCongressional Reconstruction.

James Guthrie
United States Senator
fromKentucky
In office
March 5, 1865 – February 7, 1868
Preceded byLazarus W. Powell
Succeeded byThomas C. McCreery
21stUnited States Secretary of the Treasury
In office
March 7, 1853 – March 6, 1857
PresidentFranklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Preceded byThomas Corwin
Succeeded byHowell Cobb
Personal details
Born(1792-12-05)December 5, 1792
Bardstown, Kentucky,U.S.
DiedMarch 13, 1869(1869-03-13)(aged 76)
Louisville, Kentucky,U.S.
Resting placeCave Hill Cemetery
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Elizabeth Churchill Prather
​
​
(m.1821; died 1836)​
Children3
RelativesJ. Lawrence Smith(Son-in-law)
Signature

Guthrie also was a director of theLouisville and Portland CanalCompany, the first president of theUniversity of Louisville,and presided over the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1849 (which explicitly ratified slavery in the state until its abolition after the Civil War). During the Civil War, Guthrie resisted federal pressure to nationalize the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, but allowed the Union to use it to move troops and supplies.

Early and family life

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James Guthrie was born on December 5, 1792, inBardstown,Nelson County, Kentucky,to General Adam Guthrie (1762–1826) and his wife, the Pennsylvania-born Hannah Polk (1765–1842).[1]Though his grandparents emigrated fromIreland,Guthrie was ofScottishdescent.[2]and his ancestorJames Guthriewas a Scottish clergyman executed in 1661 after the Restoration of King Charles I (although the Scottish parliament in 1690 posthumously reversed the bill of attainder that led to his execution).[2]

Adam Guthrie moved fromVirginiaacross theAppalachian Mountainsinto Kentucky and married Hannah Polk in 1788. They had three sons and five daughters who survived to adulthood. Having fought Native peoples until they left the area after the American Revolutionary War, the senior Guthrie developed a large plantation in Nelson County, and twice won election to theKentucky General Assembly(serving from 1800 to 1805, and again in 1808).[3]James Guthrie received some of his early education in a log schoolhouse.[1]During his father's military campaigns, Guthrie studied at McAllister's Military Academy in Bardstown.[4]

In 1812, young James Guthrie took a job on aflatboattransporting goods (and slaves) down theOhioandMississippi RiverstoNew Orleans, Louisiana.[1][3]After three such trips, he decided to change careers, and began to study law under JudgeJohn Rowan,along with Ben Hardin andCharles A. Wickliffe.[5]

In 1821, Guthrie married Eliza Churchill Prather. The couple had three daughters—Mary Elizabeth, Ann Augusta, and Sarah Julia—before Eliza Prather Guthrie died in 1836.[6][7][8]Sarah Julia Guthrie marriedchemistJ. Lawrence Smith,after whom theJ. Lawrence Smith Medalis named.[9]

Career

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Admitted to the Kentuckybarin 1817, Guthrie began his private legal practice in Bardstown.[10]

In 1820,GovernorJohn Adairappointed Guthrie asCommonwealth's AttorneyforJefferson County, Kentucky,whereupon Guthrie relocated to what was then the town ofLouisville.[1]In 1824, he served on a committee which sought to have Louisville recognized by the state legislature as a city (the state's first).[11]The effort failed, but Guthrie was elected to the town's board of trustees, and later became its chair.[11]

The following year, Guthrie became a director of the newly formedLouisville and Portland Canal Company.[6]He helped secure federal funding for a bypass around theFalls of the Ohio.However, although Kentucky's long-time SenatorHenry Claysupported such internal improvements, his political opponentAndrew Jacksonwhen elected president, cut off these funds shortly after taking office in 1829. Guthrie then secured private funds and the canal was completed in late 1830. Within a few years, however, steamboats became too wide for the canal, and their increasingly high smokestacks interfedered with bridges, so it became more an impediment than an aid.[12]

Kentucky politician

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Jefferson Countyvoters elected Guthrie, who ran as aDemocrat,to theKentucky House of Representativesin 1827.[13]In his first year, he chaired theInternal ImprovementsCommittee.[14]In this capacity, he promoted construction of a number of roads and canals, as well as arailroadconnecting Louisville toFrankfort.[15]During his service in the House, Guthrie came to chair the Committee on the Courts of Justice.[14]

In 1828, Guthrie mustered enough support to secure city status for Louisville.[11]He was elected to the new city council, and quickly became chair of its most powerful committee, the finance committee.[11]

Guthrie also served in the House (a part-time position) until 1831, when he was elected to theKentucky Senate.[10]Fellow legislators twice chose himPresident Pro Tempore.[15]He served on the Finance and Education Committees.[16]In 1834, Guthrie helped found the State Bank of Kentucky, and served as one of its directors.[3]He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1835.[10]

Back in Louisville, Guthrie advocated constructing a new building to house both city and county government offices. Secretly, he hoped Kentucky's capital would be moved to Louisville and that building would become the state's capitol. However, thePanic of 1837halted the courthouse's construction, as well as the water works and a bridge over the Ohio River connecting Louisville toIndiana.Some called the unfinished courthouse "Guthrie's Folly", but it was still touted as Louisville sought to become the state's capitol in 1842. All three projects were eventually completed, and Guthrie's Folly became theJefferson County Courthouse.[17]

In 1836, a dispute arose among the medical faculty atTransylvania University.Guthrie encouraged some of the disgruntled faculty members to relocate to Louisville and start theLouisville Medical Institute,a precursor to theUniversity of Louisville.In 1843, Guthrie became the third president of Louisville Medical Institute.[18]In 1846, the Kentucky General Assembly chartered theUniversity of Louisville,which subsumed the Louisville Medical Institute.[19]Guthrie became president of the university on December 7, 1847, and served until his death.[6][16]Working with the Trustees of the Common Schools, Guthrie established a high school that met in the university's academic building; this school becameLouisville Male High School.[16]

Guthrie also promoted creating a Board of Health, as well as free public schools in Louisville. He encouraged the city to purchase theturnpikebetween Louisville andPortland(a town now absorbed by the city of Louisville) as well as to purchase stock in the Louisville and Ohio Railroad. He also convinced the city to buy the land that would becomeCave Hill Cemetery,and his final resting place. Guthrie served on the Louisville City Council until 1839.[16]In 1845, he was a delegate to a convention oninternal improvementsheld inMemphis, Tennessee,and chaired byJohn C. Calhoun.[20]

Guthrie represented Louisville at the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1849.[16]The delegates chose him president overWhigArchibald Dixon.[21]The major question the convention addressed was slavery. Guthrie owned enslaved persons,[22]and believed that, if freed, the slaves would become vicious and ungovernable.[16]TheKentucky Constitutionof 1850 included explicit protections for slave property, and stipulated that no amendments could be proposed for a period of eight years.[16]

National service and politics

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Bureau of Engraving and Printingportrait of Guthrie as Secretary of the Treasury.

PresidentFranklin Piercerecognized Guthrie's financial acumen and appointed himSecretary of the Treasuryin 1853.[6]Soon, Guthrie became the most influential member of Pierce's cabinet.[6]Ahard moneyDemocrat, Guthrie opposed a national bank, as well as small distinctive notes issued by free and charter banks.[23]Instead, Guthrie advocated adoption of a universal currency that would be convertible togoldon demand.[23]In his first report, he criticized his predecessor,Thomas Corwin,for making private arrangements for debt repurchases.[23]He also accused Corwin of conspiring with aNew Yorkport master to under-reportdutiescollected and deposit them into a trust.[15]Guthrie caused a brief public uproar by removing the port master from his post.[15]

During Guthrie's tenure, the treasury had large budget surpluses due to the discovery of gold inCalifornia.[15]He used much of these surpluses to pay down the national debt, which shrank from $63 million in 1853 to $25 million in 1857.[15]He also purchasedsilverbullionfor coinage which aided struggling banks by returning money to circulation and increasing their depleted reserves.[24]He encouraged more efficient processes in the Treasury Department as a whole, and required monthly, rather than quarterly, reports fromcustomsagents.[24]In 1853, Guthrie employed CaptainAlexander Bowmanof theU.S. Army Corps of Engineersto begin construction of an extension to theTreasury Building's south wing.[24]Many considered Guthrie to be the ablest Secretary of the Treasury sinceAlexander Hamilton.[6]

As President Pierce's term ended, Guthrie returned to Louisville and became vice-president of the strugglingLouisville & Nashville Railroad.[1]The railroad link between the two cities was completed in 1859, and in 1860, Guthrie succeededJohn L. Helmas the railroad's president.[25]He continued as the railroad's president through the Civil War, and after he became incapacitated in 1868 advocated the board's electing former Union GeneralWilliam Tecumseh Shermanas his successor, although the board selectedRussell Houstonin 1869.[26]

Meanwhile, Kentucky, delegates to the1860 Democratic National ConventioninCharleston, South Carolina,favored Guthrie for the office of President.[3]Atwo-thirds majorityof delegates was required to secure the nomination.[27]On the first of many ballots, Guthrie received 35.5 votes; by the thirty-ninth, he was up to 66.5, but still trailed the leading vote-getterStephen Douglas,by 85 votes.[27]With no candidate able to secure the needed votes, the meeting adjourned and reconvened inBaltimore, Maryland,a month later.[27]

At the Baltimore meeting, Guthrie garnered 9 votes on the first ballot.[28]He received 5.5 on the second ballot, which finally saw Douglas attain the necessary majority.[28]Douglas was defeated byAbraham Lincolnin thepresidential election.Guthrie was offered the job ofSecretary of Warby President Lincoln, but he declined because of age and failing health.[3]

Civil War

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Though a slave holder and states' rights advocate, Guthrie ardently opposed secession.[29]On this topic, he stated "I hate that word secession, because it is a cheat! Call things by their right names! The Southern States have... originated a revolution."[1]He was not convinced that Lincoln's election was an inescapable harbinger of war. He believed the Southern states, if they did not secede, would control Congress and the judiciary, and render Lincoln powerless to impose his agenda upon them.[30]

At age 70, Guthrie was elected as one of Kentucky's six delegates to thePeace Conference of 1861in Washington, D.C., to devise means to prevent the impendingCivil War.[1]He was chosen to chair the conference's Compromise Committee.[30]He failed in his attempt to re-work and re-introduce theCrittenden Compromiseearlier proposed in Congress by fellow KentuckianJohn J. Crittenden.[30]

The Compromise Committee proposed a plan that included seven constitutional amendments and relied onHenry Clay'sMissouri Compromiseas a framework. Under the committee's proposal,36°30' north latitudewould continue to divide slave and free territory in the United States, and no more territory would be annexed except with the consent of equal representation from both slave and free states. The delegates to the convention presented this idea to Congress on February 27, 1861, and asked them to call a national convention to consider the question, but Congress rejected this report.[30]

Guthrie personally appealed to President Lincoln to consider the convention's report, but to no avail. Still convinced that war could be averted, he participated in a convention ofborder statesheld at Frankfort in May 1861. This convention also failed to avert the war.[30]

During the war, Guthrie's Louisville and Nashville railroad was of vital importance. It was the only rail line originating in theUnionand terminating in theConfederacy.Early in the war, the line was used to transport supplies to theConfederatesinTennessee,but after 1861, it was used primarily to benefit the Union. Despite pressure to relinquish control to the federal government, Guthrie remained president of the railroad, which became a frequent target forguerrillaattacks. Combining earnings from both passenger and military rates, Guthrie ensured that the line's infrastructure at the close of the war was superior to what it had been before the war started.[30]

Guthrie was a delegate to the1864 Democratic National ConventioninChicago.[3]He voted for the ticket of GeneralGeorge B. McClellanand former Kentucky governorThomas Bramlettefor president and vice-president, respectively.[16]At the convention, he also opposed theWade–Davis Bill.[16]

Later life

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The Kentucky Senate narrowly chose Guthrie over fellow Louisvillian and Union generalLovell H. Rousseaufor a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1865.[30]Senator Guthrie opposed theRepublican Party'sReconstructionefforts.[31]Guthrie supported PresidentAndrew Johnson,opposed theFreedmen's Bureauand the passage of theFourteenth Amendment.[30]

Death and legacy

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James Guthrie United States Internal Revenue $50 Documentary (tax) stamp 1940 Series

On February 7, 1868, Guthrie resigned his position due to ill health.[10]He suffered a stroke on April 8, 1868, which left him paralyzed and bedridden for the rest of his life.[16][32]On June 11, 1868, he resigned as president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, recommending GeneralWilliam Tecumseh Shermanto be his successor.[6][8]

Guthrie died in Louisville on March 13, 1869, and was buried inCave Hill Cemetery.[10]The city ofGuthrie, Kentucky,and Guthrie Street inDowntown Louisvilleare named in his honor.[33]

TheUnited States Revenue Cutter Service,a branch of the Treasury, named small patrol vessels after Guthrie, in 1868, 1888 and 1895.[34][35]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abcdefgBussey, p. 396
  2. ^abJohnson, p. 980
  3. ^abcdefKerr, p. 20
  4. ^Wells, p. 182
  5. ^Baber, p. 9
  6. ^abcdefgKleber, p. 363
  7. ^The names on the headstones in Cave Hill Cemetery are given as Eliza Churchill Prather, Mary Elizabeth Guthrie, Ann Augusta Guthrie, and Sarah "Sister Jule" Julia Guthrie.
  8. ^abHeidler, p. 903
  9. ^Kerr, p. 21
  10. ^abcdeCongressional Biography
  11. ^abcdKleber, p. 362
  12. ^Kleber, p. xvii–xviii
  13. ^Cotterill, p. 290
  14. ^abCotterill, p. 291
  15. ^abcdefWells, p. 183
  16. ^abcdefghijJames Guthrie: Mr. Louisville
  17. ^Kleber, pp. 362–363
  18. ^Cox, p. 19
  19. ^Cox, p. 23
  20. ^Cotterill, p. 292
  21. ^Baber, p. 11
  22. ^According to the 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedules for Louisville District 2, Jefferson County Kentucky, Guthrie owned two elderly black women, aged 60 and 90 years old. Although this record appears at the bottom of a page, the next microfilmed page begins with another slaveowner. However the 1860 Federal Census slave schedule for Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, showed Guthrie as owning five adult male slaves (aged 60, 44, 40, 35 and 25 years old) and two female slaves aged 12 and 15. The 1840 Federal census used a very different form; James Guthrie there appears to have owned no slaves, but his six-person household included and elderly white man and an elderly white woman in addition to Guthrie, his wife and three daughters. Kentucky state slave schedules are not available for viewing online at ancestry.com, but records do indicate a man or men of the same name at two Jefferson County addresses in 1850, one in Louisville district 2, and the other in district 4 on the road to Frankfurt. Guthrie may have changed his slaveowning habits, or some of his adult male slaves may have been leased out in the prior census, Guthrie's name being fairly common and sometimes misspelt.
  23. ^abcWells, p. 184
  24. ^abcTreasury Department bio
  25. ^Kleber, pp. 363, 530
  26. ^Herr, Kincaid A. (2009) [2000].The Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 1850–1963(paperback ed.). University Press of Kentucky. p. 50.ISBN978-0-8131-9318-2.
  27. ^abcThe American Conflict,p. 317
  28. ^abThe American Conflict,p. 318
  29. ^Cox, p. 28
  30. ^abcdefghHeidler, p. 904
  31. ^Wells, p. 185
  32. ^Cotterill, p. 295
  33. ^Encyclopedia of Kentucky,p. 244
  34. ^ "Guthrie (James), 1895"(PDF).United States Coast Guard.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on September 24, 2008.RetrievedFebruary 13,2019.James Guthrie (1792–1869) was appointed to be the 21st Secretary of the Treasury by President Franklin Pierce. He began his term in office on 7 March 1853, and served until 6 March 1857.
  35. ^United States Coast Guard Historian's Office."Ships and aircraft".USCG.Archivedfrom the original on April 21, 2019.RetrievedFebruary 13,2019.

Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toJames Guthrie.
Political offices
Preceded by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Served under:Franklin Pierce
March 7, 1853 – March 6, 1857 		Succeeded by
U.S. Senate
Preceded by U.S. senator (Class 2) from Kentucky
March 4, 1865 – February 7, 1868
Served alongside:Garrett Davis 		Succeeded by
Business positions
Preceded by President ofLouisville and Nashville Railroad
1860–1869 		Succeeded by
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