US Senator. He was born in Colchester, Connecticut, to a distinguished Connecticut family and was educated locally. He later moved to the South where he taught school and studied law. Admitted to the Georgia bar in 1836, he subsequently set up a law practice with his brother, George, in Belleville, Illinois. Elected to the state legislature in 1840, he resigned a year later to serve as Illinois' Secretary of State. The year 1843 proved to be both a good and bad year for him. He was married in Springfield, Illinois, to Julia Jayne, (with Mary Todd Lincoln as a bride's attendant) and yet was removed from office; returning to his law practice. In 1846 Abraham Lincoln defended him before the Illinois Supreme Court from a suit to recover $400 which he had withheld as his fee for work performed on a digest of state laws while he was the Illinois Secretary of State. Ironically, he was elected a state supreme court justice, serving in that capacity until 1854. Appointed as a Democrat to the United States Senate the next year, he served there for 18 years. He held vehement antislavery beliefs and consequently split with the Democratic party over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He became closely associated with the Radicals and in 1861 was reelected to the Senate as a Republican. When the conflict began, he supported most of Abraham Lincoln's war measures but broke with President Lincoln over the growing powers of the executive branch. In December 1861 he introduced into Congress the controversial Confiscation Bill, which provided for seizure of property and emancipation for slaves of disloyal citizens. By 1864 he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his support was instrumental in the passage of the 13th Amendment. He tried to reach an accommodation with President Andrew Johnson's administration, but was alienated by party politics and presidential vetoes of important legislation. By 1866 he had moderated his views and resisted Radicals' attempts to conquer the South. Therefore on May 16, 1868, he voted against Johnson's impeachment. In 1872 he supported Horace Greeley for president and returned to his Chicago law practice after his Senate term was up. He returned to the Democratic party in 1876, running unsuccessfully for governor of Illinois in 1880. He continued his law practice in Chicago. In 1894 he left the Democratic party and became a Populist. He later would die of cancer in Chicago.