Speech of Maj. Gen'l. C. C. Washburn at the Gayoso House on the Occasion of His Reception
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The Slavery Question: Speech of Hon. C. C. Washburn, of Wisconsin; Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, April 26, 1860 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Slavery Question: Speech of Hon. C. C. W...)
Excerpt from The Slavery Question: Speech of Hon. C. C. Washburn, of Wisconsin; Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, April 26, 1860
Brave words were those, adapted to the lati tude of Wisconsin; but how unlike any lan guage he has uttered here in the hearing Of the slave power.
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Cadwallader Colden Washburn was an American businessman, politician, and soldier.
Background
Cadwallader Colden Washburn was one of the seven sons (an eighth died in infancy) of Israel and Martha (Benjamin) Washburn. His ancestry on both sides went back to early Massachusetts Puritans - on the paternal side to John Washburn who settled in Duxbury in 1632 - and his two grandfathers, Capt. Israel Washburn and Lieut. Samuel Benjamin, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. In 1809 Washburn's father, who had left the ancestral home in Raynham, Massachussets, three years before, bought a farm and a store at Livermore, Androscoggin County, Me. Here he married and brought up his numerous brood of children, which included, besides the boys, three girls. Members of so large a family could not stay for long under the parental rooftree; hence, in 1839, deeply impressed by the advice of Reuel Washburn, a lawyer uncle, Cadwallader borrowed enough money to pay his way to the West, and was soon in Davenport, Iowa.
Education
He equipped with education he could get from the town schools.
Career
Here, and across the Mississippi in Illinois, he taught school, worked in a store, did some surveying, and read law. In 1842 he opened a law office at Mineral Point, Wis. , a small town not far from Galena, Ill. , where his brother Elihu B. Washburne had settled two years before. The foundation of his great fortune was soon laid. In 1844 he formed a partnership with Cyrus Woodman, an experienced land agent, and gradually abandoned the law for the far more lucrative business of entering public lands for settlers. Before long the partners owned in their own right valuable pine, mineral, and agricultural lands, and for a short time they operated the Mineral Point Bank. After 1855, when the partnership was amicably dissolved, Washburn carried on his now extensive operations alone. Even politics and the Civil War did not interfere seriously with the normal growth of this pioneer fortune. Proud of his honesty, and of the record of his bank, which never suspended specie payments and liquidated by meeting every obligation in full, Washburn rarely won the ill will of his neighbors; but his judgment on business matters was sound, and the opportunities for making money in a rapidly developing country were abundant. Washburn's excellent reputation, and his early adherence to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded, brought him an unsolicited nomination and election to Congress in 1854. He sat in three successive congresses, in each of which, by an odd coincidence, his brother Israel represented a Maine district, and his brother Elihu an Illinois district. The three brothers, to the satisfaction of their respective constituencies, lent one another much aid, particularly on local matters, but the representative from Wisconsin achieved no very great national prominence. His outstanding act was to oppose vigorously a House plan to pacifiy the South by so amending the Constitution as to continue slavery indefinitely; but his participation in the Washington Peace Convention of 1861 showed his desire to prevent war. When war came nevertheless, his record was admirable. He raised the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, became its colonel, and by the end of 1862 was a major-general. His command saw hard service in most of the campaigns west of the Mississippi River, and participated in the fighting around Vicksburg. When the war ended, he was in charge of the Department of Western Tennessee, with headquarters at Memphis. After the war, as a rich man and a former major-general of volunteers, Washburn was clearly marked for a political career if he desired it, but politics never absorbed his chief interest. He served two more terms in Congress, 1867-71, as a thoroughly regular Republican, and one term, January 1, 1872, to December 31, 1873, as governor of Wisconsin. He would probably have welcomed a seat in the United States Senate, or a cabinet appointment, but these honors were denied him, and he was content to devote his later years to the operation and expansion of his vast industrial enterprises. His pine lands brought him into the lumber business and his shrewd acquisition of water-power rights at the Falls of St. Anthony (Minneapolis) on the upper Mississippi enabled him to become one of the nation's foremost manufacturers of flour. In 1856 he helped organize the Minneapolis Mill Company, of which his younger brother, William D. Washburn became secretary. Some fifteen years later C. C. Washburn was one of the first to adopt the "New Process" of milling, which created a demand for the spring wheat of the Northwest and completely revolutionized the flour industry in the United States. Like his great rival, Charles A. Pillsbury, he was prompt in substituting rollers for millstones. In 1877 Washburn, Crosby & Company was organized, and two years later reorganized, with Washburn, John Crosby, Charles J. Martin, and William E. Dunwoody, as partners. Naturally Washburn's wealth drew him into many other lines of business. He was, for example, one of the projectors and builders of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad. Perhaps as an outlet to his feelings, Washburn took much satisfaction in his philanthropies, among which were the Washburn Observatory of the University of Wisconsin, the Public Library at La Crosse (his residence after 1859), and an orphan asylum in Minneapolis. He suffered a stroke of paralysis in 1881, and died a year later at Eureka Springs, Ark.
(Excerpt from The Slavery Question: Speech of Hon. C. C. W...)
Connections
His private life was saddened, though not embittered, by the insanity of his wife, Jeannette Garr, a visitor to the West from New York City, whom he married January 1, 1849.