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Commonwealth: A Journal of Political Science  Volume 15, Number 2  September 2009

 2009 PPSA/LORL, PA House of Reps. ISSN 0890-2410

The Unlikely Election and Service of
John Inscho Mitchell,

U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, 1881-1887

David R. White1

Francis Marion University

John Inscho Mitchell was a little known progressive
Pennsylvania politician who represented the State in the U.S. House
of Representatives and the U.S. Senate between 1877 and 1887. His
reluctance to continue serving in Washington after fours years in
the House did not prevent the Pennsylvania legislature from
appointing him to the U.S. Senate in 1881 as a compromise
candidate on the thirty-fifth ballot.

ennsylvanian John Inscho Mitchell had a lengthy and varied career of
public service. It began in 1868 when the former teacher, Union

Army captain, and lawyer was elected Tioga County’s district attorney.
After a stint editing a local newspaper in 1871, Mitchell represented
Tioga County in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives between
1872 and 1876. The Republican was then elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives where he served from 1877 to 1881 (National
Cyclopaedia 1954). Deciding not to seek reelection in 1880, he no doubt
looked forward to returning to his Tioga County law practice full time
and leaving politics behind.

That was not to be, however, after Mitchell was elected by the newly
Republican-controlled state legislature to be the new U.S. senator from
Pennsylvania, defeating the incumbent and first-term Democrat William
Wallace. Although his election to the Senate broke a legislative stalemate
in 1881, his six years there were not easy. Philadelphia businessman
Wharton Barker, an Independent Republican who helped engineer James
Garfield’s election to the presidency in 1880, was a natural ally who may
have had a hand in Mitchell’s own election to the Senate (Evans 1960).
Yet, the divided Republican Party and the overshadowing presence of
fellow Pennsylvanians J.D. Cameron, the state’s senior senator, and
Matthew Quay, Mitchell’s ultimate successor in the Senate, may have
undermined Mitchell’s political clout since both Cameron and Quay

P



2 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

were “Stalwart Republicans” and leaders of Pennsylvania’s Republican
Party “machine.” This article focuses on Mitchell’s election to the Senate
in 1881 and his six-year term in office.

Mitchell’s Unlikely Election to the U.S. Senate

Mitchell was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in
1876 to represent Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District located in
the state’s “Northern Tier.” He outpolled Democratic candidate Henry
White by a vote of 13,575 to 12,097, but his bare majority of the total
vote (50.3%) was surprising given that the Republican presidential
candidate, James Garfield, won more than twice as many votes as his
Democratic rival in Mitchell’s home county of Tioga. That slim majority
looked downright impressive in 1878, however, after Mitchell was
reelected with a plurality of just 11,113 votes (41.0%). J.F. Davis of the
Greenback Party was second with 37.4% and Democrat R.B. Smith was
a distant third with 21.6% (Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S.
Elections 2001, 920, 924).

But Mitchell’s two terms representing Pennsylvania’s 16th

Congressional District were time-consuming financial and political
burdens. Announcing his decision not to seek reelection in 1880,
Mitchell wrote:

The salary now paid is sufficient, if there could be any
reasonable certainty of tenure without the necessity of paying heavy
election expenses. But these, with those necessarily incident to the
office and family expenses, leave very little of the salary as a
compensation for time and labor, and practically nothing for support
in after life. If truly devoted to his work, a member of Congress can
find no time for private business. His vacations must be wholly
given to study. He is never without work for a rainy day or a dark
night. The vast field of political science lies ever open before him,
and to succeed well he must never tire of exploring it. . . . It is not a
paying business, except in the knowledge acquired (“A Statesman’s
Qualifications” 1880).

Still, Mitchell thought that serving in Congress would be “the most
inspiring of all professions” if it were “free from electioneering
scrambles and factious squabbles within one’s own party” (“A
Statesman’s Qualifications” 1880). Aware that political power coincided



David R. White 3

with long tenure in office—and that he desired neither—Mitchell also
thought his constituents would be wise to elect someone who actually
wanted to stay in office. “I can only urge the selection of a successor
worthy of long continuance in the public service, with the hope that he
may be retained long enough to make him more useful than any man can
be without such experience. Neither local ambition nor personal
preference should be permitted to interfere with the tenure of such a man,
so long as he remains faithful and efficient in office” (“A Statesman’s
Qualifications” 1880). But as the narrow wins in his two previous House
races suggest, his decision not to seek reelection may have been more
politically realistic than personally altruistic. During the 1880 campaign,
the Democratic and Greenback parties formed a fusion ticket that came
within only one percentage point of defeating Mitchell’s Republican
successor, Robert J.C. Walker, who received 17,850 votes (50.8%)
compared with the fusion ticket’s 17,304 votes (49.2%).

The “squabbles” Mitchell was referring to were within his own
Republican Party. A significant divide had developed in those years, both
nationally and in Pennsylvania, between the old guard political bosses—
better known as the “Stalwarts” or “regular” Republicans—and a less
coherent group opposed to political bossism composed of various
factions referred to as “insurgents” and “Independents,” or “Half-
Breeds,” as the “old guard” derogatorily referred to them. During the
1870s and 1880s, the Pennsylvania old guard was led by senior U.S.
Senator Simon Cameron; Cameron’s son and successor in the Senate,
J.D. Cameron; and Commonwealth Secretary Matthew Quay. These men
strengthened their power and promoted their causes through federal and
state political patronage appointments. As a “reformer,” Mitchell was not
a member of the old guard, so leaving the House of Representatives was
probably not a difficult decision for him.

The infighting within the Republican Party that made Mitchell’s life
as a congressman difficult also complicated the selection of a U.S.
senator in 1881. Prior to the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment in
1913, U.S. senators were chosen by the members of their respective state
legislatures rather than directly by the voting public. Neither the state’s
Stalwarts, nor the Half-Breeds, nor the Democrats had the majority of
votes needed in a joint session of the state legislature to give the U.S.
Senate seat to one of their own.



4 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

The result was a political stalemate that began with the first vote for
U.S. senator on January 18, 1881. Under an 1866 law attempting to
clarify and standardize U.S. Senate election procedures, each house of a
state legislature began the election process by holding separate votes for
senator. If one individual received a majority of votes in each chamber,
that individual was elected senator. If no individual received the
necessary majorities, the law directed the two chambers to meet jointly
beginning the next day and to vote daily (at least once) until a senator
was elected by a majority of the collective gathering. Rather than use
secret balloting, the law required votes to be viva voce (Garrison 1891,
229; Haynes 1906, 23–25).

Republican support was split between the Cameron-backed
candidate, iron and steel magnate Henry Oliver, and the reformist Half-
Breed candidate, former U.S. Congressman Galusha Grow. As days and
votes passed, efforts were made to find a compromise Republican
candidate, but the impasse remained as these discussions would
frequently revert back to the candidacies of Oliver and Grow.
Meanwhile, Democrats continued to push for the reelection of their party
colleague, William Wallace, the first-term incumbent.

A potential breakthrough came on February 9 when the rank-and-file
of each Republican faction publicly supported a new candidate. The
Stalwarts shifted their support from Oliver to Brigadier General James
Beaver; the Half-Breeds moved from Grow to U.S. Representative
Thomas M. Bayne. The result after the twenty-second ballot was still a
deadlock, however, with Democrat Wallace receiving a plurality of the
votes, Beaver and Bayne splitting the majority Republican votes, and 11
other candidates combining for 24 votes.

A more significant change came a week later when Republican
legislators from both sides agreed to a proposal that had been floating
among them: the establishment of a committee of 24 legislators—chosen
equally from members of each faction—that would try to find a
compromise candidate. It was in this committee on February 18, during
its fifth ballot, that Congressman John Mitchell first received votes for
the contested U.S. Senate seat. But as the day progressed through eight
more ballots, Mitchell’s limited support declined to nothing and
remained there through eight more committee votes the following
Monday, February 21.



David R. White 5

On the evening of Tuesday, February 22, for reasons that newspaper
reports do not make entirely clear (it might have been the new support of
Senator J.D. Cameron, the rapidly approaching congressional session, or
legislators’ election fatigue), quiet efforts to end the stalemate finally
came to fruition:

As soon as the committee was called to order, Senator Cooper
moved that a ballot be taken for a candidate for Senator. This was
agreed to, and the Secretary began to call the roll. Mr. Billingsley, a
regular, was the first called, and he responded with the name of
John I. Mitchell. Senator Cooper, also a regular, followed for
Mitchell. Next came Senator Davis, an independent, who also voted
for Mitchell. This was the first ray of light which pierced the gloom
which has so long hung over the political field here in Pennsylvania.
As the names were called, all responded by naming Mitchell, and
when Mr. Wolfe’s name, the last on the list, was reached, and Mr.
Wolfe too voted for Mitchell, making him the unanimous choice of
the committee, a cheer loud and long continued rent the air, and the
most frantic demonstrations of joy were made, the members
grasping each other by the hand and yelling until they were red in
the face (“A Long Dead-Lock Broken” 1881).

The following morning, the 42-year-old Mitchell received by
acclamation the Republican U.S. Senate nomination from his party
caucus, and on the legislature’s thirty-fifth ballot he was elected
Pennsylvania’s junior member of the U.S. Senate, receiving 150 votes to
Wallace’s 92 (two other candidates received one vote apiece).

Reaction to Mitchell’s selection was mixed but generally positive.
As The New York Times reported:

Mr. Mitchell has won a high place in his profession. During his
service in the Legislature he displayed conspi[c]uous ability,
leading that body with a clearness of head and steadiness of hand
unequaled since the days when Thaddeus Stevens occupied a seat
therein. Of fine personal appearance, a speaker of great power and
eloquence, a fine scholar, possessing a large fund of information, is
a stalwart Republican and a sound, safe, legislator (“A Long Dead-
Lock Broken” 1881).

A Washington Post editorial stated that Mitchell “has always
preferred the ways of peace and pleasantness rather than the war-path.
For this reason he may be regarded as a near approximation to a neutral



6 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

in the contest of the Pennsylvania factions” (Editorial 1881). Yet, one of
the two Republican state representatives who refused to vote for Mitchell
did so because he did “not regard that gentleman as a fair representative
of the [independent] principles for which they have been fighting.” The
second explained that he did “not regard Mr. Mitchell as worthy of his
vote” (“Confirming the Choice” 1881). A day later, The New York Times
voiced major disappointment with Mitchell’s election, stating that
Mitchell “is certainly not a brilliant man” and that there were “a very
considerable number of persons who hoped to see the State represented
by a Senator of first-rate abilities, such as would place him in the first
rank at Washington.” Nevertheless, the Times found much to praise in
Mitchell, calling him “a man of intellectual force” who “reads much” and
“the ablest member of the Pennsylvania delegation in the House,” based
upon “the strength of [his] character and unassailable private and public
record which all accord him by common consent” (“Mr. Cameron’s New
Colleague” 1881).

Nor was opinion unanimous regarding which Republican camp
Mitchell favored. As The Washington Post’s editors noted two days after
his election, “It has been demonstrated that he is a Cameron Man. It has
been proven that he is anti-Cameron” (Editorial, 1881). Agreeing with
the latter assessment, The New York Times wrote that “the claim that Mr.
Mitchell is ‘a Cameron man’ is not only not true, but the currency given
to it is both foolish and mischievous” (“Mr. Cameron’s New Colleague”
1881). The Harrisburg Daily Patriot suggested the opposite might be
true. It reported that “Mr. Cameron at Washington has had Mr.
Mitchell’s name under consideration for some time [and] yesterday the
supporters of the machine were informed that it was acceptable to the
boss” (“Mitchell the Man” 1881). Mitchell’s acceptability, however,
probably had less to do with any political kinship between him and
Cameron than with the rapidly approaching Senate session and the desire
of the Republican caucus to regain control of the chamber.

Mitchell’s Burdensome Senate Service

Thanks to the election of Mitchell, when the new Senate convened in
special session in March to organize its officers and confirm presidential
nominations, it consisted of an equal number of Republicans and
Democrats (37), along with two independents (but not independent



David R. White 7

Republicans). This unusual chamber distribution caused a stalemate in
the Senate’s organization and legislative work. The Democrats, whose
majority control of the chamber in the previous Congress had ended a
20-year drought, refused to relinquish easily their control of the
committee and patronage positions that they had just recently earned.
The Republicans, meanwhile, planned on using Vice President Chester
Arthur’s Republican vote in the Senate to break any tie votes and to take
back control of the chamber, something that would not have been
possible without the Republican Mitchell in their ranks. Republicans
temporarily gained the upper hand when they convinced freshman
Virginia Senator William Mahone, a member of the Readjuster Party, to
vote with them on committee organization. The other independent voted
with the Democrats. But a combination of Republican absences and
resignations during the Senate’s session ultimately gave the Democrats a
two-vote majority. Compromise resulted in senators accepting both the
Republican-led committees and the Democratic-appointed staffers (U.S.
Congress, Senate 2001).

During the two special Senate sessions that began his new career
during the 47th Congress, Mitchell was assigned to the Patents
Committee as well as to the Pensions Committee. He was also named
chairman of the Committee on the Improvement of the Mississippi River
and Tributaries, in addition to being placed on a special committee “To
Inquire into all Claims of Citizens of the United States against the
Government of Nicaragua.” Later in the same session of Congress,
Mitchell was assigned to both the Committee on Civil Service and
Retrenchment and a special committee “To investigate the administration
of the collection of internal revenue in the 6th District of North
Carolina.” His chairmanship of the Mississippi River Committee was
important not for the public policy he would oversee, but for the clerk he
was empowered to hire. Not until 1884 did the Senate pass a resolution
allowing all senators, not just those chairing committees, to hire a clerk
at government expense to assist them in their duties (U.S. Congress,
Senate 1893, 147, 208).

Mitchell’s service on the Senate Pensions Committee, which he
chaired during the 48th and 49th Congresses, was a major part of his
Senate workload. “[T]he Pensions Committee takes very much of my
time,” he wrote on December 13, 1882, before even assuming the chair
(Barker). This committee, which oversaw the Interior Department’s



8 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

Pension Commission, which in turn handed out military pensions, was
often the last resort for veterans and their widows and children seeking
pensions that the Commission had denied. Scores of private pension bills
were introduced in each new session of Congress with the sole purpose
of granting single individuals a federal government pension. The
Pensions Committee had the onerous task of investigating and reporting
upon all these claims. In Mitchell’s own Tioga County, 652 residents
received a pension from the U.S. government at the beginning of 1883
(U.S. Congress, Senate 1883). Likely adding to the frustration of
Mitchell and his committee colleagues, President Grover Cleveland
vetoed an enormous number of private pension bills after taking office in
1885. A Senate document from 1886 notes that of the 113 bills President
Cleveland vetoed between March 10 and August 4, 1886, 101 were
vetoes of private pension bills (U.S. Congress, Senate 1886).

Letters Mitchell penned early in his term to Philadelphian Wharton
Barker suggest that dealing with federal patronage appointments for
Pennsylvanians and searching for a middle ground between the
Republican party factions also took up a great deal of Mitchell’s time.
For example, on March 15, 1881, less than a month after he had been
elected senator, Mitchell wrote a letter to Barker citing the efforts of
certain individuals holding or seeking such federal government
appointments as “appraiser in the Custom House,” “Register of the
Treasury,” “Bank Examiner of Western Pennsylvania,” “Surveyor,”
“Minister of Mexico,” “collectorship,” and “postmastership” (Barker).

Mitchell was not alone, of course, in attempting to influence the
government hiring process. Senators new and old were besieged by
office seekers during that era, and as many as a dozen might press their
claims for the same position, be it postal clerk or cabinet member
(Calhoun 1996, 195). This part of their job became so time-consuming
that a Senate report on the subject griped that “strength is exhausted, the
mind is absorbed, and the vital forces of the legislator, mental, as well as
physical, are spent in the never-ending struggle for offices” (U.S.
Congress, Senate, Committee on Civil Service 1882, iii). Nevertheless, it
was the keen ability to control federal (and sometimes state) government
patronage that aided many U.S. senators, including Pennsylvania’s J.D.
Cameron, in running the state political party machines that helped keep
them in office.



David R. White 9

The ultimately fatal shooting in the summer of 1881 of newly-
elected President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker added
to the uniqueness of Senator Mitchell’s first year in the Senate. The
assassination proved to be the catalyst for one of the few notable pieces
of legislation enacted during the highly partisan 47th Congress: the
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. As Mitchell wrote in May of 1883,
“When I left there in August very few if any would entertain the
proposition of civil service reform by act of Congress. When we met in
December all was changed” (Barker).

Early in his term Mitchell was hopeful about bridging the gap
between the Stalwarts and the Independents, but he recognized that doing
so would require compromise on the part of both sides. He seemingly
took great pains to remain neutral in Pennsylvania Republican Party
politics. As he wrote in a letter on March 15, 1881, soon after taking
office:

I think [Senator Cameron] is fully convinced that it is necessary
to the welfare and continued supremacy of our party to defer in such
instances [of presidential appointments] to that independent
sentiment which found expression openly at Harrisburg in the late
contest. How far he will go in the direction remains to be seen, but I
trust that he will act easily and discretely in this direction, and that
the leaders of the independent movement in our State will be
disposed to meet him at least half way. I consider the
encouragement of this spirit on both sides absolutely essential to the
welfare of the party in our State, – and I shall do all within my
power to bring about harmony and unity between these elements
(Barker).

On December 20 of the same year he wrote, “[M]y desire when
elected was, and still is, to do everything possible to have both elements
[of the Republican Party] fairly represented and recognized in
appointments and nominations” (Barker).

Mitchell’s efforts at neutrality and fairness were not always
accepted, even by his natural allies. He seemed particularly wounded
when attacked by Independents who thought he was not working hard
enough for the cause. In that same letter of December 20, Mitchell
lamented:

I have stood I think firmly and fearlessly against many things
that Senator Cameron has been disposed to push, but Mr. Wolfe and



10 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

that class of people appear to give me no credit for so doing, while
on the other hand I have received a cold shoulder from the other
side, and thus my expectation has been largely realized by the
grinding process which still goes on between the two factions. I
have a complaining letter again from Mr. Wolfe, and he appears to
me to be so unjust to me, and so extreme in his views, that it is
already impossible for me to satisfy him” (Barker).

Throughout his career Mitchell was well aware of both his personal
and political limitations. “I assure you that I am more sensible of my
shortcomings than any one else possibly can be,” he wrote on December
13, 1882. “Had I expected what has followed from this conflict, I would
not for one moment have contemplated acceptance of this place”
(Barker). “I do not forget,” he added, “that I am the product of a party
difficulty and that the divisions which made me possible as a senator
have absorbed most of my thought since I came to the Senate” (Barker).
Six months earlier he had confessed that “I do not even want to be a
leader, much less a boss. I have no further political ambition. My only
desire is to see the party’s wrongs righted, and the public since
improved” (Barker).

In a letter dated December 13, 1882, Mitchell revealed that his
frustrations with Republican Party factionalism were matched by his
frustrations with his inability to do adequately the job to which he had
been elected:

Positively I have no time to study anything thoroughly. As I
write, a basket of letters lie unanswered and many unopened. In the
morning I should attend a committee but I must go to see the
Secretary of the Treasury upon an application for appointment to
keep my word given before I had notice of the Committee meeting.
So it goes continually. We adjourned in August and I did not have
one month for rest after that. I did not even have time to read the
evidence taken by the tariff commission. I have not read the
departmental reports in which I am most interested, and I write you
after midnight. My health is anything but good and I very often feel
that I am utterly unfit and unworthy [of] the great place I hold. . . .
[G]entlemen out of public life have far better opportunity to study
public questions than those who have to do for great states and
people within it (Barker).



David R. White 11

As Mitchell’s term progressed, his efforts at neutrality between the
Stalwarts and Independents gave way to both private and public disdain
for political bossism, along with growing skepticism about Senator
Cameron’s actions. “I only want the most careful deliberation and
decision by those who now represent the cause we love and hope to have
triumphant,” he wrote on June 14, 1882. “The danger is that any triumph
which may be achieved by any united action which secures the
cooperation of the boss committee will be heralded as a victory for the
Machine” (Barker). Just a week earlier, however, Mitchell had insisted
that the end of political bossism was at hand. “The bosses no longer run
the people: the people have taken the reins into their own hands, and they
will never in your or my time give them back” (Barker). Whatever his
views at that particular moment, Mitchell left no doubt as to which side
of the debate he ultimately favored when in October 1882 he wrote an
essay for The North American Review titled “Political Bosses” in which
he advocated their abolition.

More than anything else, Mitchell’s letters to Barker reveal his
dislike for hardball politics and his anxiety about his future. On June 7,
1882, while in his second year in the Senate, Mitchell bemoaned the
personal and financial price his Senate term was costing him: “I am
weary of the weight of life, with separation from my family and friends
and from that neighborhood life which is the only true life; and when it is
known that my estate is so limited that I have practically nothing for old
age and little for my family and that six years here will leave me with
nothing to show for them, you will see why I want nothing for myself
from this or any political movement” (Barker).

Conclusion

Given his increasing disenchantment with politics, it is hardly
surprising that Mitchell did not seek reelection to the Senate. He missed
his home and family, his Pensions Committee workload was oppressive,
and Republican factionalism was no less prevalent at the end of his term
than it had been at the beginning of it. In any case, Mitchell never really
had much chance of being reelected. After all, he had been a compromise
U.S. Senate candidate, and his nomination and appointment occurred
only after an exhausting 34 rounds of fruitless legislative balloting. With
no natural political constituency, pleasing the “party faithful” had always



12 THE UNLIKELY ELECTION AND SERVICE OF JOHN INSCHO MITCHELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA, 1881-1887

been an uphill battle for him. Moreover, the ambitious Republican
political boss and recently elected State Treasurer, Matthew Quay, had
his eyes on Mitchell’s seat, as did Barker and other insurgents.

Mitchell’s service to Pennsylvania did not end with his congressional
career. He went on to become Judge Mitchell, a position that seems
better suited to his temperament and his desire to remain close to home.
He served on the Court of Common Pleas of the 4th Pennsylvania
District for 11 years (1888–1899) before briefly becoming a judge of the
Superior Court of Pennsylvania. He died in Wellsboro on August 20,
1907, in the same county where he had been born and in the place where
he had seemed happiest.

Notes
1 I am grateful to Dr. Harold Cox, Professor of History Emeritus and University
Archivist at Wilkes University, and to Nancy Kervin, Senior Reference
Librarian at the U.S. Senate Library, for their help with this article. Financial
support was provided by Francis Marion University and its Professional
Development Committee.

References

“A Long Dead-Lock Broken.” 1881. New York Times, February 23.

“A Statesman’s Qualifications.” 1880. New York Times, June 3.

Barker, Wharton. Papers. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. [No date].

Calhoun, Charles W. 1996. “The Political Culture: Public Life and the Conduct of
Politics.” In The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origin of Modern America, ed. Charles
W. Calhoun. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.

“Confirming the Choice.” 1881. Harrisburg (PA) Daily Patriot, February 24.

Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th ed. 2001. Washington, D.C.: CQ
Press.

Editorial. 1881. Washington Post, February 24.

Evans, Frank B. 1960. “Wharton Barker and the Republican National Convention of
1880.” Pennsylvania History 27 (January): 28–43.

Garrison, Wendell P. 1891. “The Reform of the Senate.” Atlantic Monthly 68 (August):
227–232.

Haynes, George H. 1906. The Election of Senators. New York: Henry Holt.



David R. White 13

Mitchell, John I. 1882. “Political Bosses.” North American Review 135 (October): 363–
373.

“Mitchell the Man.” 1881. Harrisburg (PA) Daily Patriot, February 23.

“Mr. Cameron’s New Colleague.” 1881. New York Times, February 25.

National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 1954. Vol. 39. New York: James T. White
and Company.

U.S. Congress. Senate. 1883. List of Pensioners on the Rolls January 1, 1883. 47th Cong.,
2d sess., S. Ex. Doc. 84–5. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

U.S. Congress. Senate. 1886. Veto Messages of the Presidents of the United States, with
the action of Congress Thereon. 49th Cong., 2d sess., Misc. Doc. 53. Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office.

U.S. Congress. Senate. 1893. Precedents Relating to the Privileges of the Senate of the
United States of America, George P. Furber, compiler. 52d Cong., 2d sess., Misc.
Doc. 52-68. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

U.S. Congress. Senate. 2001. “The Great Senate Deadlock: 1881.” http://www.senate.
gov/learning/brief 23.html. March 18.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment. 1882. Civil
Service of the United States. 47th Cong., 1st sess., S. Rep. 576. Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office.

http://www.senate. gov/learning/brief 23.html
http://www.senate. gov/learning/brief 23.html