Background

John Bingham was born on January 21, 1815, in Mercer, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Hugh Bingham, a carpenter.

Education

After securing such elementary education as his neighborhood offered, John spent two years in a printing office, a like period at Franklin College, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar.

Career

Bingham began practise at Cadiz, Ohio, in 1840. He soon became prominent as a stump speaker in Harrison's campaign. In 1854 he was elected to Congress, and served continuously until 1873, except for the Thirty-eighth Congress, when, failing of reelection, he was appointed judge-advocate in January 1864, and solicitor of the court of claims the following August. When political fortunes failed him again in 1873 he was solaced by the appointment as minister to Japan, a position he held for twelve uneventful years.

In two of the most dramatic episodes of the immediate post-war period - the trial of the assassins of Lincoln, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson - Bingham played a leading role. In the conspiracy trial his part as special judge-advocate was to bully the defense witnesses and to assert in his summary of the evidence that the rebellion was "simply a criminal conspiracy and a gigantic assassination" in which "Jefferson Davis is as clearly proven guilty as is John Wilkes Booth, by whose hand Jefferson Davis inflicted the mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln. " In defending the legality of the military court set up by President Johnson, he argued that the executive could exercise all sorts of extra-constitutional powers, even to "string up the culprits without any court" - an argument which was somewhat embarrassing when he was selected by the House as one of seven managers to conduct the impeachment of President Johnson. He had voted against the first attempt at impeachment and had opposed the second, holding the President guilty of no impeachable offense, but he finally yielded to party pressure and voted for impeachment after the Senate had declared the President's removal of Secretary Stanton illegal. It fell to him to make the closing speech at the trial. For three days (May 4-6) he rang the changes on the plea of the defense that the President might suspend the laws and test them in the courts. His confident manner carried conviction to the galleries, who pronounced it one of his greatest speeches.

In the work of reconstruction, Bingham's chief contribution was the framing of that part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment which forbade any state by law to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or to deny the equal protection of the laws. He died at his home in Cadiz, Ohio. He did not introduce the resolution at the Whig national convention of 1848 containing the spirited antislavery apothegm carved on his monument at Cadiz, the resolution ascribed to him having been introduced by Lewis D. Campbell.

Achievements

• John bingham achieved success as the 7th United States Ambassador to Japan, which position he held from 1873 to 1885. Bingham most distinguished himself from other Western diplomats by fighting against the unequal treaties imposed upon Japan by Britain, particularly provisions for extraterritoriality and tariff control by Westerners. He also supported Japan's right to restrict hunting by foreigners to certain times and places and later its right to regulate incoming ships via quarantines to restrict the spread of cholera. Bingham later negotiated return of the Shimonoseki indemnity in 1877 as well as a revision of Japan's treaty with the United States in 1879, which restored some tariff autonomy to Japan, conditioned upon other treaties with Westerners.

Works

More photos

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  • State of the Union

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Trial of the Conspirators, for the Assassination of President Lincoln, &c: Argument of John A. Bingham, Special Judge Advocate, in Reply to the ... Lewis Payne, George A. Atzerodt, Michael

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Speeches of John A. Bingham, of Ohio: delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives, January 13th and 14th, 1868 : on the Judiciary and reconstruction bills.

    (Originally published in 1868. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)

  • Shall the government surrender to the rebellion?: speech of Hon. John A. Bingham, of Ohio, in reply to Hon. C. L. Vallandigham : delivered in the House of Representatives, Jan. 14, 1863.

    (Originally published in 1863. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)

Politics

John Bingham was a member of the Republican party; the U. S. House of Representatives

from Ohio's 21st district from 1855 to 1863; the U. S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 16th district from 1865 to 1873.

Personality

Bingham was a clever and forceful speaker, overflowing with invective, rhetorical phrases, and historical allusions of varying degrees of accuracy.

Connections

Bingham was married to Amanda Bingham, a cousin, by whom he had three children.

Father:

Hugh Bingham

Spouse:

Amanda Bingham

Daughter:

Lucinda Stuart Bingham

References

• American Founding Son: John Bingham and the Invention of the Fourteenth Amendment