87 Facts About Simon Cameron

Simon Cameron was an American businessman and politician who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate and served as United States Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War.

Simon Cameron was elected to the United States Senate as a member of the Democratic Party in 1845.

Simon Cameron won election to another term in the Senate in 1857 and provided pivotal support to Abraham Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention.

Simon Cameron made a political comeback after the Civil War, winning a third election to the Senate in 1867 and building the powerful Simon Cameron machine, which would dominate Pennsylvania politics for the next 70 years.

On Martha Cameron's side, Simon was the great-grandson of Hans Michel Pfoutz, one of the first Palatine Germans to emigrate to the Thirteen Colonies, and was the third of eight children born to Charles and Martha Cameron.

Simon Cameron died in January 1811, and his children then boarded with other families.

Simon Cameron was sent to live with the family of Dr Peter Grahl, a Jewish physician in Sunbury.

Involvement with a Harrisburg newspaper meant involvement in Pennsylvania politics; in 1842, Simon Cameron said he had attended almost every session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the state legislature, since 1817.

Simon Cameron met Samuel D Ingham, the Secretary of the Commonwealth and proprietor of the Doylestown Messenger.

Simon Cameron held this position throughout the year, but the newspaper was not profitable and merged with another local paper, ultimately costing Simon Cameron his job.

Simon Cameron next worked as a compositor for the Congressional Globe, a periodical that reported on the Congress.

In 1822, Simon Cameron returned to Harrisburg as a partner in the Pennsylvania Intelligencer.

Simon Cameron then purchased the Republican, and merged it with the Intelligencer.

In that capacity, Clay was responsible for selecting three printers in each state to print the laws and resolutions of Congress, and since Simon Cameron was not known as an ardent Jacksonian, his firm became one of the official printers.

Simon Cameron corresponded extensively with Clay, offering him political advice on Pennsylvania affairs.

In doing so, Simon Cameron followed a new political ally, Pennsylvania Congressman James Buchanan.

Jackson found Simon Cameron to be a useful lieutenant in Pennsylvania.

The president had originally pledged to serve only one term, in changing his mind he enlisted Simon Cameron to get the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a resolution urging him to change his mind and run again in 1832.

Pennsylvania politicians preferred one of their own to run with Jackson, but Simon Cameron arranged a delegation that would back Van Buren, and he was elected along with Jackson.

Simon Cameron was not successful, but the following year, Cameron prevailed on Jackson to give Pennsylvania's senior senator, William Wilkins, a diplomatic post, opening a seat that Buchanan might fill.

Nevertheless, when Simon Cameron sought appointment by Jackson in 1835 as governor of Michigan Territory, he did not get it.

Simon Cameron was named as one of the two commissioners, and in August 1838, journeyed to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin Territory.

Somewhat shunned after the Winnebago affair, Simon Cameron continued to support Buchanan.

Shunk was elected, but former Muhlenberg supporters, including Simon Cameron, feared they would not receive patronage.

Simon Cameron wrote to Buchanan in December 1844, hinting at his interest in the seat, but both factions had candidates in mind.

Simon Cameron worked to unite the minority of the Democratic Party with the Whigs and Native American Party to gain a majority in the legislature and elect himself.

Simon Cameron began his first term in the Senate with little long-term support in the legislature, since he was alienated from many of the Democrats and was viewed by the Whigs as the lesser evil to Woodward, to be replaced in better times.

Immediately after being elected senator, Simon Cameron went to Washington, where on March 15,1845, his credentials were laid before the Senate, which was in special session, by Vice President Dallas.

Angered, Simon Cameron struck back, defeating the nomination of Henry Horn to the lucrative position of Collector of Customs for the Port of Philadelphia, which Polk pressed repeatedly.

Simon Cameron defeated the nomination of Woodward to the Supreme Court, the latter likely with Buchanan's help.

Simon Cameron felt free to oppose it as he owed no debts to Polk and the Pennsylvania legislature had passed a resolution asking the state's congressional delegation to oppose the legislation.

Simon Cameron gave a lengthy speech against the tariff in July 1846 opining that it would harm Pennsylvania's iron foundries, and opining that no native of the state could support the bill.

Simon Cameron expected that in due course, Southern states would themselves abolish slavery.

Simon Cameron was a delegate from Pennsylvania to the 1848 Democratic National Convention and in common with the state's other delegates, supported Buchanan on each ballot.

The nomination went to Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, and Simon Cameron was accused of working behind the scenes to defeat Buchanan.

Simon Cameron apparently had no supporters in the Democratic caucus; he received no votes in the legislature's balloting for senator, in which Whig James Cooper was elected.

Once his term in the Senate expired in March 1849, Simon Cameron returned to Pennsylvania and devoted his time to his business enterprises.

The Democrats recaptured the state legislature in 1850, and Simon Cameron hoped to succeed Sturgeon in the election the following January, but failed to gain enough votes.

In 1850, trying to diminish any southern support the former secretary might get, Simon Cameron sent Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis a thirty-year-old news article showing that Buchanan had signed an anti-slavery petition.

Pennsylvania's delegation to the 1852 Democratic National Convention, which included Simon Cameron, was instructed to vote for Buchanan; nevertheless, Simon Cameron worked for the nomination of Cass and the evident dissension in his home state's ranks hurt Buchanan's chances.

Once elected, Pierce declined to return Buchanan to the cabinet, and Simon Cameron was successful in getting a number of his allies federal positions.

Pennsylvania's next Senate election was in 1855; in the 1854 legislative elections, the Whigs won a majority, which would ordinarily make it very difficult for Simon Cameron to regain the seat.

Many members of both the Whig and Democratic Parties were Know Nothings, who sought restrictions on immigration and immigrants, but who, in the North, opposed the spread of slavery, an issue on which Simon Cameron might find common ground with them.

Simon Cameron was aligned with many of the new party's views and saw an opportunity to return to the Senate.

Simon Cameron was prominent at many of the meetings that shaped the new party.

Simon Cameron attended the 1856 Republican National Convention that nominated former California senator John C Fremont for president.

Simon Cameron had the support of Representatives David Wilmot and Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, who were convinced Simon Cameron could win.

Simon Cameron was informed of his election by his son, Donald Simon Cameron, who leapt out of a window at the rear of the legislative chamber, and raced to his father's hotel.

The election of Simon Cameron, given the Democratic majority in the legislature, was seen as a great victory for the Republicans, and an embarrassment for President-elect Buchanan.

Simon Cameron quickly became one of the leaders of the Republican minority in the Senate.

Simon Cameron returned to a Senate far less congenial than the body he had left eight years before, with members deeply divided over slavery.

Nevertheless, remembering the recent beating of Charles Sumner, Cameron made a pact with Zachariah Chandler of Michigan and Benjamin F Wade of Ohio that they would take each other's part in another such incident.

Simon Cameron's view concerning slavery remained much as it had during his first term in the Senate.

Simon Cameron opposed its spread, believing it to be against Pennsylvania's interest for it to do so, but thought Congress had no power to do anything about it where it already existed.

Simon Cameron, beginning in about 1859, employed as a servant an escaped slave named Tom Chester.

Simon Cameron arranged for him to be educated; he later emigrated to Liberia and became that country's minister to Russia.

Simon Cameron was one of only four Republicans to vote in favor.

In 1858, Simon Cameron campaigned for the Republicans in Pennsylvania, who were rewarded with control of the state House of Representatives, although Democrats maintained a one-vote majority in the state Senate, Democrats previously had a majority of Pennsylvania's seats in the federal House of Representatives; they were reduced to five out of twenty-five seats.

The year 1860 was a presidential election year, and Simon Cameron sought the nomination, believing that Pennsylvania's strength at the nominating convention would be sufficient to win.

Kahan suggested that the fact that Cameron hosted both Seward and another presidential hopeful, Governor Salmon P Chase of Ohio, in 1859, meant that he was trying to keep good relations with the major contenders for the nomination and place himself in a position to be a kingmaker.

In mid-March, Simon Cameron told Seward that he wanted to meet with Weed in advance of the 1860 Republican National Convention in May in Chicago.

Confident that Seward would gain the nomination, and of Simon Cameron's support, Weed did not meet with Simon Cameron.

Kahan suggested that if the two had met, Simon Cameron would have demanded a cabinet seat for his support, something Weed wanted to avoid.

The understanding between Lincoln's backers and Simon Cameron's became public almost at once, with one newspaper printing that the senator had been promised the Treasury Department.

Simon Cameron campaigned for Curtin, though antagonism between the two continued.

Simon Cameron had reneged on his support for Seward, Weed's candidate, and Weed advised excluding Simon Cameron in favor of a trustworthy Southerner.

Lincoln wrote to withdraw the offer, asking Simon Cameron to keep it confidential, unless he chose to publicly decline, in which case he had no objection to the offer being made public.

One reason for Lincoln's about-face was that he had asked Simon Cameron to keep the offer confidential, which he had not done.

Simon Cameron complained to Lincoln's associates about the president-elect's conduct, but did and said nothing publicly, and in fact arranged for Lincoln and his family to use a luxurious Pennsylvania Railroad car for the journey to Washington.

In Philadelphia, other Simon Cameron acolytes buttonholed Lincoln, both in the lobby of his hotel, and at his room.

Simon Cameron still wanted the Treasury position, which went to Chase, and only reluctantly accepted War.

Simon Cameron broke with Lincoln and openly advocated emancipating the slaves and arming them for the army at a time when Lincoln was not ready to publicly take that position.

Simon Cameron was sworn in as Secretary of War on March 12,1861.

The week's delay in swearing-in was because Simon Cameron was in Pennsylvania and has been taken by some historians to mean that, even amid the rapidly-worsening secession crisis, that Simon Cameron did not take his new position seriously.

Simon Cameron made a political comeback after the Civil War, building a powerful state Republican machine, which would dominate Pennsylvania politics for the next 70 years.

In 1866, Simon Cameron was again elected to the US Senate.

Later that year, Cameron helped Rutherford B Hayes win the Republican nomination for president.

Simon Cameron resigned from the Senate in 1877, after ensuring that his son would succeed him.

Simon Cameron's brother James was a colonel in the 79th New York Volunteer Infantry, and was killed in action at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21,1861.

Simon Cameron retired to his farm at Donegal Springs near Maytown, Pennsylvania, where he died on June 26,1889, at the age of 90.

Simon Cameron is buried in the Harrisburg Cemetery in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Simon Cameron was shrewd, wealthy, and devoted his talents in money to the goal of building a powerful Republican organization.

Simon Cameron achieved recognition as the undisputed arbiter of Pennsylvania politics.

Simon Cameron's assets included business acumen, sincere devotion to the interests and needs of Pennsylvania, expertise on the tariff issue and the need for protection for Pennsylvania industry, and a skill at managing and organizing politicians and their organizations.

Simon Cameron cleverly rewarded his friends, punished his enemies, and maintain good relations with his Democratic counterparts.

Biographer Paul Kahan says Simon Cameron was very good as a "back-slapping, glad-handing politician", who could manipulate congressmen.

Simon Cameron paid too much attention to patronage and then not enough to strategy.