Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for the defendants, in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Peter M. Garner and others, for an ... Court of Virginia, at its December term
(Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for the def...)
Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for the defendants, in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Peter M. Garner and others, for an alleged abduction of certain slaves : delivered before the General Court of Virginia, at its December term
Samuel Finley Vinton was an American lawyer and congressman.
Background
Samuel Finley Vinton was a descendant of John Vinton whose name appears in the records of Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1648, and the eldest of seven children of Abiathar and Sarah (Day) Vinton, was born on September 25, 1792, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. His father was a farmer; his grandfather, also named Abiathar, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
Education
Young Vinton prepared for college with the aid of his local pastor, entered Williams in 1808, taught school at intervals to meet expenses, and graduated with the class of 1814.
Career
Vinton read law under the direction of Stephen Titus Hosmer, subsequently, chief justice of the supreme court of Connecticut was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1816, and a few months later commenced practice in Gallipolis, Ohio, a village of French emigrants. He rose rapidly in public esteem as an advocate. In 1822, he was elected to Congress and continued to serve until March 3, 1837. At this time, he had declined to be a candidate for reelection, but in 1842, he yielded to the demands of the Whigs and served again as a congressman from 1843 to 1851.
He was at various times a member of the committees on public lands, roads and canals, and the judiciary; he was made the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means during the war with Mexico after he had declined the nomination for speaker of the House. Vinton's first speech in Congress, in May 1824, was on a resolution which he offered with a view to the protection of the lives of passengers on steamboats navigating the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
As a remedy for the unprofitable management of the school lands in Ohio, he introduced and successfully promoted the passage of a bill to authorize that state to sell those lands and invest the proceeds in a trust fund, a precedent which was subsequently followed in other states. On February 12, 1849, he reported from the Committee of Ways and Means the bill providing for the establishment of the Department of the Interior, which became a law nineteen days later. Vinton was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for election as governor of Ohio in 1851.
He served for one year, 1853-54, as president of the Cleveland & Toledo Railroad, and then returned permanently to Washington, D. C. In April 1862, he was appointed by President Lincoln as one of three commissioners to appraise emancipated slaves within the District, but he died less than a month later.
(Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for the def...)
Views
When in February 1828, a bill for the appropriation of funds for the Indian service, and particularly for the removal of Indians from lands east of the Mississippi to a reservation west of that river, was before Congress, Vinton, for the purpose of preventing any disadvantage to either slave states or free states, moved and made a memorable speech in support of an amendment which provided that no Indians living north of 36 30' should be aided in removing south of that line, nor any Indians living south of it be aided in removing north of it.
Vinton spoke frequently, but usually briefly and effectively, on such subjects as the survey and sale of public lands so as to prevent speculation, the Cumberland Road and other internal improvements, the tariff (favoring protection), and the apportionment of representatives. He opposed the annexation of Texas and opposed a direct tax for the prosecution of the war with Mexico.
Connections
In 1824, Vinton married Romaine Madeleine Bureau, who died in 1831, having borne him two children.