George Hunt Pendleton was an American polician and lawyer. He represented Ohio in both houses of Congress and was also minister to Germany.
Background
George Hunt Pendleton was born on July 29, 1825 in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. He was the eldest child of Nathaniel Greene and Jane Frances (Hunt) Pendleton, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the great-grandson of Nathaniel Greene Pendleton, a brother of Edmund Pendleton, and through all the rough and tumble of political life in the Middle West, he bore the nickname "Gentleman George" on account of the dignity and manner he inherited from a great Virginia family.
Education
Heorge Hunt Pendleton attended the local schools, where he was taught by Ormsby M. Mitchel, and he was a student in Cincinnati College until 1841. The next three years he studied under private tutors. In 1844 he went abroad and for two years traveled in the principal countries of Europe, studied for a time at the University of Heidelberg, and, making portions of the tour on foot, went to the Holy Land and Egypt.
Career
In 1846 George Hunt Pendleton returned from Europe. He studied law in the office of Stephen Fales in Cincinnati, was admitted to the bar in 1847, and until 1852 was a partner of George E. Pugh. In 1853 he was nominated and elected by a large majority to the state Senate on the Democratic ticket. The energy and ability Pendleton displayed in the work of adapting the state laws to the new constitution caused his friends to nominate him for Congress in 1854 before his term in the state legislature was finished. Unsuccessful in that year he was again nominated in 1856 and was elected. He was a member of Congress from March 4, 1857, to March 3, 1865. He supported Stephen A. Douglas in his attack upon President Buchanan over the question of the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution.
George Hunt Pendleton was a Douglas supporter in 1860 and during the Civil War was recognized as one of the leaders of the peace wing of the Democratic party. He believed the war could have been averted and favored the Crittenden Compromise. If secession were necessary, he insisted that it should be peaceable; but if the North insisted on war he warned the House to "prepare to wage it to the last extremity". He differed widely, however, from the policy of the Lincoln administration during the conflict. He opposed the suspension of the habeas corpus and every attempt to make the military arm of the government superior to the civil. He opposed the passage of the legal tender act upon constitutional grounds and quoted with approval Webster's statement that "gold and silver currency is the law of the land at home, the law of the land abroad: there can, in the present condition of the world, be no other currency".
Nevertheless, his tact and ability earned for George Hunt Pendleton the respect of his political opponents. He was a member of the judiciary committee, of the ways and means committee, and was one of the committee of managers in the impeachment of Judge West H. Humphreys. He was nominated for vice-president on the National Democratic ticket with McClellan in 1864. The year following his retirement from Congress he was again nominated for membership in that body but was defeated. After the war he was a Greenbacker. If he did not originate the "Ohio idea" of paying the 5-20 bonds in Greenbacks instead of coin, he, at all events, early in 1867 sponsored the proposal. This made his name anathema to the eastern Democracy; and in the Democratic convention of 1868, although the platform adopted committed the party unreservedly to his doctrines, he was deprived of the nomination for the presidency owing to the opposition of the New York delegation and the existence of the two-thirds rule.
In 1869 the Democrats nominated him for governor of Ohio, but he was defeated by Rutherford B. Hayes. The same year he was chosen president of the Kentucky Central Railroad, which office he held for ten years. In 1878 he was elected by the Ohio legislature to the United States Senate and served in that body from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1885. In 1883, as chairman of the Senate committee on civil service, he obtained the passage of a bill drafted by Dorman B. Eaton, providing for the creation of a federal civil service commission and the introduction of competitive examinations. Nevertheless, he was severely abused by the spoilsmen in his party for advocating such a measure as the Democrats had been victorious in the congressional elections of 1882. In 1884 he was defeated for renomination to the Senate. President Cleveland appointed him minister to Germany on March 23, 1885, and he served in this capacity until his death.
George Hunt Pendleton died on November 24, 1889.
Achievements
Connections
In 1846 George Hunt Pendleton married Alice Key, the daughter of Francis Scott Key and niece of Roger B. Taney. They had four children.