Background
John Cochrane was born on August 27, 1813 in Palatine, New York, United States. He was the son of Walter Livingston Cochrane and Cornelia Wynchie (Smith) Cochrane and grandson of John Cochran, surgeon-general in the Revolutionary War.
John Cochrane was born on August 27, 1813 in Palatine, New York, United States. He was the son of Walter Livingston Cochrane and Cornelia Wynchie (Smith) Cochrane and grandson of John Cochran, surgeon-general in the Revolutionary War.
John was educated in the New York schools, and in Union and Hamilton Colleges, graduating from the latter in 1831. He was admitted to the bar in 1834.
After 1846 Cochrane practised law in New York City. Beginning his political life as a Democrat, he belonged to the Barnburner wing of New York Democracy and with that faction favored the Free-Soil movement in the late 1840’s. Within the next few years, however, he returned to the regular Democratic ranks, campaigning in 1852 for the election of Pierce. For this service he was appointed surveyor of the port of New York.
As a state- rights Democrat he was elected to the House of Representatives of the Thirty-fifth and Thirty- sixth Congresses (March 4, 1857 - March 3, 1861). Here he was at one time chairman of the Democratic Caucus. In 1860, he was a delegate to the Charleston-Baltimore Convention of the Democratic party, a member of the Cagger-Cassidy Delegation which that convention seated. Though personally opposed to the nomination of Douglas, Cochrane voted for him, forced to do so by the unit rule governing the delegation. After the nomination, as a loyal Democrat he promised to support the nominee, hoping, he said, to “compensate the reluctance of the past by the cordiality of the future. ”
In 1861 Cochrane joined the army, raising a regiment of which he was made colonel. In 1862 he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers but was forced by ill health to retire on February 25, 1863. Shortly after this, a war Democrat, he was elected attorney-general of New York on the ticket of the Republican-Union party, whose platform indorsed the administration of Lincoln. But he became dissatisfied with many of Lincoln’s policies, and in 1864 joined some equally dissatisfied Republicans in the movement that resulted in the Cleveland Convention of May 31, 1864. By this convention he was nominated for vice-president with John C. Fremont for president. Their nomination and platform met with little response from the country, so in September both withdrew. Cochrane immediately campaigned for Lincoln, speaking in Philadelphia and attacking the Chicago platform.
In 1872, he joined the Liberal Republican party and went as a delegate to the Cincinnati Convention. Cochrane held city offices, and in 1869 was collector of Internal Revenue in the sixth New York district. He was a member of Tammany Hall and in 1889 its Sachem.
At the start of his political career Cochrane was a member of the Democratic Party. He joined the Liberal Republican party in 1872. He spoke frequently on matters of public interest, was especially concerned with the burning questions of slavery, and national versus state sovereignty, and on these issues always upheld the Southern view-point. Believing that the North was responsible for the discontent of the South, he favored conciliatory measures to heal the breach between the two sections of the country. As late as March 14, 1861, while speaking in Richmond, Virginia, he promised that if Virginia “would present her ultimatum to New York” that state would “sustain her”. He did not favor secession, however, and when the war came he supported the Union. At the great Union Square meeting on April 20, 1861, he stated his views in words that gave great offense to his Southern admirers.
Cochrane belonged to various patriotic societies, among them the Society of the Cincinnati of which he was president at the time of his death.