The Greenback Party was an American political party organized in a Greenback Convention at Indianapolis, on November the 25th, 1874, which assembled to adopt resolutions opposing the Specie resumption bill proposed at that time in Congress and passed on January the14th, 1875. The Greenback party platform advocated the withdrawal of all national and State bank currency, and the substitution therefore of paper currency issued by the Government, and that coin should only be used in payment of interest on the national debt. The Greenback Presidential candidate in 1876, Peter Cooper, of New York, received 81,740 votes, chiefly from the Western States. Research Greenback Party
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky and died in 1865 when he was assassinated at a theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Both in Kentucky and in Indiana, to which in 1816 the family removed, as well as in Illinois, whither they went in 1830, Abraham Lincoln had the privations and also the training of a backwoodsman's life.
In his youth he earned money to educate himself by splitting rails for a neighbour, and so earned the nickname 'rail-splitter'. About this time he also made a flat-boat voyage to New Orleans.
In the Black Hawk War of 1832 he served as captain and private. He tried keeping store and failed, studied law, was postmaster of New Salem in Illinois, and deputy surveyor of the county. As a politician he had better success, and after one defeat served in the Legislature from 1834 to 1842. Meanwhile he removed to Springfield and built up a law practice. From 1847 to 1849 he was a Whig Congressman, but was not notably prominent.
His importance dates from the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. In its progress he became the Republican State leader, and in 1858 he took part with Stephen A Douglas in a series of joint debates in canvassing for the US Senatorship. Abraham Lincoln was defeated, but the discussion had aroused great interest, and his utterances, e.g.: 'a house divided against itself cannot stand', brought him into national prominence. In February, 1860, he delivered a remarkable political speech at the Cooper Institute, New York.
He was pressed for the Presidency by many Western Republicans in the Chicago Convention in May, though Seward was in the lead at the outset. Amid great excitement Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, and elected, by 180 electoral votes, over Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell. This first victory of the Republicans decided the Secessionists, and when the new President delivered his conciliatory inaugural address the country was drifting toward civil war.
In the Cabinet Seward had the Department of State, Chase the Treasury, Cameron, and soon afterward Stanton, War, Welles the Navy, Caleb B. Smith the Interior, Edward Bates was Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair Postmaster-General. Immediately on the fall of Port Sumter the President, on April the 15th, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Rebellion. He soon issued a call for additional troops, instituted a blockade, and summoned Congress to meet in extra session on July the 4th.
As the 'War President' Abraham Lincoln is identified with a great part of the history of the struggle. Foreign complications, military and naval movements, domestic politics, as well as routine administrative duties, all claimed his attention; to the people and the armies he was endeared as 'Father Abraham' innumerable anecdotes are related bearing on his humour, strong common sense and sympathy.
On September the 22nd, 1862, profiting by the partial success of Antietam, he issued a preliminary proclamation fixing the coming January the 1st as the date for freeing slaves in insurgent States. The Emancipation Proclamation to that effect accordingly appeared at the opening of 1863. On the nineteenth of November 1863, he pronounced on the battlefield of Gettysburg his short but famous eulogy.
He was renominated by the Republicans on June the 8th, 1864, and elected over McClellan, receiving 212 electoral votes. 'Malice toward none, charity for all' was the burden of his second inaugural. He had visited Richmond after its fall, and was pondering the questions of reconstruction, when on the night of April the 14th he was shot in Ford's Theatre at the capital, and died the next morning. Research Abraham Lincoln
Anthony Ashley Cooper (Earl of Shaftesbury) was an English colonist. He was born in 1621 and died in 1683. He was one of the nine proprietors who received a grant of Carolina in 1663, extending from the Virginiafrontier to the river St Mathias in Florida. He was prominent in the management of the colony, and secured for it the constitution drafted by Locke in 1667. It established a territorial aristocracy with the proprietors at the head, granting religious toleration. Shaftesbury was a famous party-leader in England, and was LordChancellor from 1672 to 1673.
Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury) was an English philanthropist. He was born in 1801 and died in 1885. He was member of parliament for Woodstock from 1826 to 1830, for Dorchester from 1830 to 1831, for Dorset from 1831 to 1846, for Bath from 1847 to 1851 and a lord of the Admiralty from 1834 to 1845 and a commissioner in lunacy from 1831 to 1885, affecting a complete reform of the Lunacy Acts. He also got the Factory acts amended and extended; obtaining the passing of an act in 1842 abolishing apprenticeships in collieries and mines and excluding women, and boys under thirteen, from employment underground. Research Anthony Cooper
Sir Astley Paston Cooper was an English surgeon and the author of medical text books. He was born in 1768 at Norfolk and died in 1841. He studied medicine in London, and attended the lectures of John Hunter. After visiting Paris in 1794 he was appointed professor of anatomy at Surgeon's Hall, and in 1800 head surgeon at Guy's Hospital. In 1822 his great work on Dislocations and Fractures was published. Shortly afterwards he became president of the Royal College of Surgeons. Research Astley Cooper
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson was an English doctor. He was born in 1828 at Somerby, and died in 1896. He graduated in medicine at St Andrews University in 1854 and in 1855 founded the Journal of Health. He gained the Astley Cooper prize for his treatise on the cause of the Coagulation of the Blood and the Fothergillian gold medal for a disquisition on the Diseases of the Foetus in Utero. He originated the use of ether spray for the local abolition of pain in surgical operations, and introduced methylene bichloride as a general anaesthetic. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1893. He published works on medicine and hygiene, and was an earnest sanitary and temperance reformer. Research Benjamin Richardson
Cyrus West Field was an American paper merchant. He was born in 1819 at Massachusetts and died in 1892. Having made a fortune in paper in New York he conceived the idea of a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable linking the USA with Britain, and formed the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, consisting of Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall Roberts and Chandler White. The necessary rights for fifty years were obtained, and communication was secured in 1858, but the cable proved worthless after a few weeks. The Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed and attempts were made with the Great Eastern in 1865 and 1866, the last of which was completely successful. For this great achievement he was honoured both at home and abroad. After this success he was active in improving the rapid transit system of New York. Research Cyrus West Field
Henry Cooper is a British former boxer. He was born in 1934 at London. He was Amateur Boxing Association light-heavyweight champion in 1952 and 1953 before turning professional. In 1959 he won the British heavyweight title, beating Brian London, which he subsequently held apart from a brief spell until 1971 when he lost it to Joe Bugner in a controversial decision, and subsequently announced his retirement. In 1963 he floored Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali), though he didn't go on to win the fight. In 1966 he again fought Cassius Clay for the World Heavyweight title, and lost again. Since retiring from boxing he has been a popular figure in advertising and as a guest on television shows in the UK. Research Henry Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer. He was born in 1789 at Burlington, New Jersey and died in 1851. Educated at Tyale College, he entered the American navy as a midshipman at the age of nineteen. In 1820 appeared the novel of Precaution, the first production of his pen. Though successful it gave no scope for his peculiar powers, and it was not until the production of The Spy in 1821 and The Pioneers that he began to take a high place amongst contemporary novelists. After that came a steady flow of novels dealing with life on the sea and in the backwoods, most of which, like the Pilot, Red Rover, Waterwitch, Pathfinder, Deer-slayer, and Last of the Mohicans, are familiar names to the novel-reading public. After visiting Europe and serving as Consul for the United States at Lyons for three years, James Cooper returned to America, where he died at Cooperstown, New York in 1851. Besides his novels he wrote a history of the US navy, and some volumes descriptive of his travels. Research James Cooper
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Abbreviations
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