William Taulbee: A Stain on the Capitol

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In most sex scandals involving elected officials, the damage is limited to a politician's career. The scandal is easy fodder for a political opponent to use in the next election. Some voters may be willing to forgive infidelity, but others see it as a sign that the official is untrustworthy, morally unsound, or just plain sleazy.

Occasionally, however, a sex scandal ends in bloodshed. One of the most famous examples is the case of Representative Daniel Sickles, a New York Democrat, who shot and killed his wife's lover within sight of the White House. Arthur Brown, a Republican and one of the first two U.S. senators from Utah, was murdered by his mistress about nine years after he left office.

William Preston Taulbee is another federal politician who wound up meeting his end as a result of a sex scandal. It is unusual, however, in that he did not die at the hands of a jilted lover, cuckolded husband, or angry wife. Instead, he was gunned down by a reporter he had been routinely harassing for his coverage of the scandal.

Taulbee and Kincaid

Taulbee was born on October 22, 1851, near Mount Sterling in Morgan County, a mountainous area of eastern Kentucky. He attended the common schools and was also tutored by his father, who later served in the state's general assembly. In his youth, Taulbee also helped run the family farm.

Although he worked for a time shoveling coal, Taulbee soon left to become a teacher. He married Lou Emma Oney in 1871, and would have five sons with her. Taulbee continued teaching until 1877, when he began to study theology. He became an ordained minister and was admitted to the Kentucky conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Taulbee also studied law and opened a practice after he was admitted to the bar in 1881.

Taulbee's first foray into politics occurred in 1878, when he was elected clerk of the Magoffin County Court. He was re-elected in 1882. Two years later, he became the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives and handily defeated his Republican opponent, William L. Hurst. He faced a tougher re-election fight in 1886, even though he was battling the same opponent. Both Taulbee and Hurst traveled extensively through their district prior to the election, engaging in fiery debates on 27 occasions. Although it was a tighter race, Taulbee was returned to the House.

There is little information about Taulbee's service in the nation's capital. He was known as a gifted speaker, described as having a dignified bearing despite his rather young age. He was also popular enough in his district that one phrase suggested, "As goes Taulbee, so goes the mountains." His supporters nicknamed him "Our Pres" or "Pres Taulbee."

Soon after winning his second term, rumors began to circulate that Taulbee would not run again in 1888. He essentially confirmed these suspicions when he said he had purchased a house in Washington, D.C. and planned to live there after retiring from Congress.

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Charles Euston Kincaid was slightly younger than Taulbee. He had been born on May 18, 1855, and spent much of his early life around Lexington. Kincaid graduated from Centre College and began working in journalism, editing a newspaper in Lawrenceburg for two years. He then worked as a correspondent for the Lexington Courier-Journal, covering state politics and later matters related to the South and Cuba.

Kincaid also dabbled in politics. He picked up the nickname "Judge Kincaid" after he was elected a municipal judge in Lawrenceburg in 1879, and a year later he was appointed a state railroad commissioner. Kincaid also spent a good deal of time abroad, serving as a consular agent to England under President Grover Cleveland. In 1884, he was one of the emissaries appointed by the state legislature to travel to Italy and persuade the authorities there to repatriate the body of Kentucky sculptor Joel T. Hart. Kincaid also served as the private secretary to Governor Proctor Knott and later to Senator John Williams.

By the late 1880s, Kincaid was working as the Washington, D.C. correspondent for the Louisville Times. He was a social friend of several congressmen, but also known for unflinching accounts challenging those in power. Most targets simply shrugged off the attacks, however. Senator James B. Beck, a Kentucky Democrat, commented, "He's one of those small, buzzing bees. He won't hurt anybody, and he's too little to take hold of."

It is unclear how well Taulbee and Kincaid were acquainted during the former's last years in the House. Kincaid undoubtedly had contact with the congressman while covering the actions of Kentucky's congressmen and senators. But any hope of a cordial relationship disappeared after Taulbee became involved in a salacious scandal in December 1887.

"Brown-Haired Miss Dodge"

The first report that Taulbee was having an extramarital affair didn't even include the congressman's name. The Washington Post issued a brief article saying a Patent Office employee had caught a Kentucky representative "in a very compromising position" with one of the office's clerks. This wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence. The model room of the Patent Office, where the miniature versions of various inventions submitted with patent applications were stored, was nicknamed the "Lovers' Retreat" because it was a popular place for flirtatious clerks and their wooing suitors to meet during lunch breaks. The thick cases holding the models offered plenty of hiding places for discreet trysts.

The Patent Office's model room as it appeared in the mid-1860s (Source)

Kincaid pursued the matter further, publishing an article in the Louisville Times with a rambling headline: "Kentucky's Silver-Tongued Taulbee Caught in Flagrante, or Thereabouts, with Brown-Haired Miss Dodge, Also of Kentucky." The headline also declared that the duo had been "lunching on forbidden fruit and hidden waters" and asked, "What's the world coming to?"

Kincaid's reports gave more details than the Washington Post brief, but still erred on the side of Victorian modesty. Taulbee and the clerk had been discovered "in a compromising way," "held sweet communion for half an hour before going to plebeian Monday lunch," and were "rather warmer than they were proper." Kincaid also detailed the circuitous routes Taulbee took to rendezvous with his mistress as well as other maneuvers he employed to try to keep the affair hidden, and determined that the congressman had helped the clerk get her job so they could arrange their meetings more easily. He would later maintain that he had told Taulbee he would be glad to interview him to get his side of the story, but that the congressman had not accepted the offer.

The clerk, Laura L. Dodge, was more accommodating. She sat down for an interview with Kincaid, who described the 17-year-old as beautiful, petite, "plump as a partridge," and "bright as sunshine and saucy as a bowl of jelly." Dodge admitted that she was not from Kentucky, as she had told the Patent Office. She refused to answer Kincaid's question about where she was actually from, saying she didn't want to get Taulbee in trouble. The congressman was a gentleman, Dodge said, and she was supposed to be a lady. "We will both swear on a stack of Bibles that we have not done anything," she declared.

Kincaid wasn't convinced. "What a mess this is for an ex-Methodist minister and a Congressman from the grand old Commonwealth of Kentucky," he ended the article.

Abuse of Kincaid

While newspapers in Kentucky picked up the tale of infidelity, the scandal aroused little interest in the nation's capital. The Washington Post didn't even follow up on its brief to identify the congressman. Patent Commissioner Benton J. Hall said he would investigate the matter, but the outcome was never reported. It seemed one likely result was the dismissal of Dodge, who left the Patent Office in the wake of Kincaid's articles but was soon able to find work in the Pension Office.

Taulbee did not seek the Democratic nomination in 1888, but it seemed clear that he had already made this decision soon after starting his second term, not because he had been exposed as an adulterer. He had also irritated his party a few years earlier. At the 1887 state convention, he proposed censuring President Grover Cleveland. The suggestion which was greeted by hisses and easily voted down.

After leaving office at the beginning of 1889, Taulbee stayed in Washington, D.C. to work as a lobbyist. He was successful in this role, earning a great deal of money. He lost some of these assets in the same year he left office, when House cashier Craven Silcott absconded with $75,000 in congressional payroll funds. The vanished funds included some savings Taulbee had had with the Sergeant at Arms, but he remained comfortably wealthy. His reputation in Kentucky also seemed to be intact. Kentucky's Semi-Weekly Interior Journal suggested that he was still "the most popular man in the district," and that his endorsement would all but guarantee victory for any congressional hopeful from eastern Kentucky.

Kincaid was still working as a correspondent covering Congress, so he ended up frequently crossing paths with Taulbee. Even though Taulbee had weathered the scandal fairly well, he was apparently none too fond of how the reporter had portrayed him. There were suggestions that Kincaid's articles had helped destroy Taulbee's marriage to Eliza, although the matrimony seems to have survived as well; the two would ultimately be buried together. Perhaps Taulbee simply held a grudge against Kincaid for the tenor of his articles.

Whatever the reason for Taulbee's enduring hatred for Kincaid, he rarely if ever encountered the reporter without bullying him. On several occasions, Taulbee insulted Kincaid or warned that he would someday kill him. Sometimes the harassment carried over into physical abuse. Kincaid recalled separate incidents where Taulbee had shoved him against an iron railing, slammed him into the door of a streetcar, and crushed his foot under his heel while the two men were in an elevator. Taulbee also got into the habit of tweaking Kincaid's nose or ear to indicate that he didn't consider the reporter to be worth fighting.

A brawl between Taulbee and Kincaid would have been extremely one-sided. The former congressman was described as "tall and sinewy," having retained the muscular physique built up in his youth of hard labor. Kincaid, by contrast, was "a little pint of cider fellow," barely five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds. He also had a range of health problems, including astigmatism which limited his vision as well as liver and digestive problems. On two occasions in the previous five years, he had nearly died of typhoid fever.

Kincaid never responded to Taulbee's insults, threats, or abuses. He did not want to worry his sick mother, he later said; he also told Taulbee that he did not want any trouble. He hoped that Taulbee would simply tire of this behavior and leave him alone.

Instead, the bullying continued unabated for a full year. It finally culminated in a confrontation on a House stairwell on a winter afternoon.

The final confrontations

On the morning of February 28, 1890, Taulbee spotted Kincaid near the entrance to the House of Representatives chamber. He called out that he wanted to see him. Kincaid responded that he couldn't, since he was "waiting for a gentleman."

Perhaps taking this as an insult, Taulbee responded by grabbing Kincaid by the collar, throwing him about, and giving his ear a violent twist. The House doorkeepers, who controlled access to the chamber, separated the two men.

The exact verbal exchange that followed between Taulbee and Kincaid is uncertain, but the intent of the words is clear. Kincaid protested, "I am not prepared to cope with you physically," to which Taulbee replied, "Well, you had better be." Another version had Kincaid saying, "I am a small man and unarmed," with Taulbee responding, "You had better be armed, or go arm yourself."

Both Taulbee and Kincaid were able to enter the House soon after the scuffle. Word of the altercation spread through the press gallery and among the members of Congress. Some had long expected that the feud between the two men would only end when one of them killed the other. Taulbee's words suggested that the fatal showdown was imminent.

About two hours after the initial confrontation, Kincaid and Taulbee met again on the eastern side of the House wing of the Capitol Building. A Y-shaped staircase descends toward a basement restaurant, and the encounter occurred near where the twin sets of marble stairs meet.

Kincaid had gone home in the interim and retrieved a revolver. Referencing Taulbee's earlier request, Kincaid allegedly declared, "Taulbee, you can see me now." He then raised the gun and shot Taulbee in the face.

An illustration of the incident, inaccurately showing Kincaid shooting Taulbee in the back of the head (Source)

The shot was audible in many parts of the building, including the House chamber. The bullet just missed Taulbee's eye, piercing his cheek. Bleeding profusely, Taulbee managed to stagger away from the scene. Kincaid promptly surrendered to a police officer who rushed to the scene, confessing that he was the shooter.

Although he had suffered a serious wound, Taulbee managed to stay conscious and conversant. He spoke with Senator John Griffin Carlisle, a Kentucky Democrat and former colleague; Carlisle had served in Congress since 1876, including three terms as Speaker of the House. Taulbee admitted to the earlier altercation with Kincaid, but told his friend, "He ought not to have done it. Why did he do so?"

Kincaid, speaking from his jail cell, claimed that he only shot Taulbee after he approached him in a threatening matter. Although the former congressman was said to be unarmed, contemporary articles noted that there were rumors that Taulbee's friends had made sure to relieve him of an "ugly-looking pistol" after the incident. Kincaid told reporters how Taulbee had told several people, including a judge, that he would have Kincaid's blood yet.

"Mr. Taulbee had been dogging me for more than a year. I am almost ashamed to admit it, but he has assaulted me six times," Kincaid said. He added, "No man has suffered more at the hands of another than I have from him. Mr. Taulbee has haunted me like a ghost. He has heaped insult after insult on me, and three different times threatened to kill me."

Reactions to the shooting were split between congressmen and reporters. Elected officials did not always have the best relationships with the press, and some thought that Kincaid and other reporters had dedicated too much attention to the Patent Office scandal. The press corps expressed regret for the incident, but was more likely to sympathize with Kincaid; his fellow reporters described him as an agreeable, fair person who wouldn't have harmed Taulbee unless provoked.

Several newspapermen were aware of the contentious relationship between Taulbee and Kincaid. Jay Durham, a former D.C. reporter, said, "He alway manifested the most intense hatred toward Kincaid. He was voluminous in vile epithets toward the correspondent."

Some accounts suggested that this was simply how Kentuckians settled their disagreements. The infamous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys had been raging for 10 years in the eastern part of the state, and it was only one of several deadly rivalries in the area. A little more than a decade earlier, a judge and former congressman had been gunned down outside his Owingsville hotel by a defendant dissatisfied with his ruling. Ten years after Kincaid shot Taulbee, an unknown assailant would assassinate Kentucky's governor after a contested election. The Courier-Journal of Louisville commented, "that which may regarded in Kentucky and other states of the Union as a matter of self-defense is treated here in Washington as murder in the first degree."

As Taulbee recovered in Providence Hospital, it seemed probable that he would survive. The bullet had lodged somewhere in his skull, and the physicians decided not to try to remove it.

More than a week after the shooting, however, his condition worsened. The bullet had come to rest just inside the skull, and an abscess had formed around the projectile and put pressure on the brain. On March 11, Taulbee died.

Kincaid's trial

Kincaid had been released on $2,000 bail, and turned himself in to face the upgraded charge of murder after Taulbee's death. He was released again due to poor health, and because his friends had helped him raise the $20,000 needed for the new bail, and allowed to return to Kentucky to recuperate.

In the spring of 1891, Kincaid returned to the nation's capital to stand trial on the charge of killing Taulbee. The proceedings had been delayed until after Congress adjourned on March 3, since Kincaid's defense attorneys included Senator Daniel Voorhees, a Democrat from Indiana. Kincaid was also represented by Washington advocate C. Maurice Smith, circuit court judge and former Republican congressman Jeremiah Wilson of Indiana, and Charles Grosvenor, a Republican congressman from Ohio who had left the House after losing his party's nomination in the previous year. U.S. Attorney Charles C. Cole, newly appointed by President Benjamin Harrison, would lead the prosecution.

An attempt to delay the trial a second time occurred after Voorhees came down with rheumatism. However, this request was denied after the court concluded that Kincaid was adequately represented by the remainder of his legal team. Testimony began on March 23.

Over the course of the two-week trial, eight sitting or former members of Congress were called to the stand. A number of Washington reporters also attended the trial as witnesses. The testimony outlined the animosity Taulbee felt toward Kincaid, establishing how the former congressman had tormented the reporter for months. One correspondent quoted Taulbee as saying, "He ought to be killed. By God, I'll kill him." Another said Taulbee had threatened to kick Kincaid's head off if he ever got within 10 feet of him. Many of the reporters said they had relayed these threats to Kincaid, and that he grew increasingly worried about his personal safety.

Two House doorkeepers, William McCormick and Robert Woodbridge, testified that they had witnessed the first confrontation between Taulbee and Kincaid. Woodbridge said he saw Taulbee pull on Kincaid's ear, while McCormick said he'd heard Taulbee call Kincaid a liar. About an hour later, McCormick said, Kincaid returned to the Capitol and spoke with him. He was in an anxious state, wondering what to do since he was a sick man and had been unable to cope with Taulbee while unarmed. McCormick told the reporter he had no advice to give.

The defense expanded on Kincaid's assertion that he had been in fear for his life when he shot Taulbee. Witnesses described Taulbee's long campaign of harassment against the reporter. Kincaid took the stand in his own defense, recounting how Taulbee had once threatened to cut his throat. He also said Taulbee had called him "a damn little coward and monkey" at their first confrontation on the fateful morning of February 28, 1890. The warning to arm himself had been enough to convince him to take up the revolver he never took outside his room.

Kincaid said that he had not been trying to seek out Taulbee, but had simply had another chance encounter with the former congressman. He had been taking one set of stairs down the Y-shaped staircase, intending to go to lunch and meet someone in the basement restaurant, when he unexpectedly came upon Taulbee and a companion on the platform. He said Taulbee immediately reacted by striding toward him, declaring, "I'll show you!"

Taulbee had a hand in his pocket, Kincaid testified. He said he began to retreat, and declared, "You're going to kill me, are you?" Kincaid also remembered that he had drawn his weapon and warned Taulbee several times to stand back. Taulbee had been undeterred, growling, "I'll show you." It was only when Taulbee was within reaching distance of him that he pulled the trigger, deciding that it was a choice between killing or being killed.

The prosecution suggested that Kincaid should have fled before opening fire for it to be a true case of self-defense; they also framed the matter as one of revenge. Kincaid, angered and humiliated by Taulbee's provocations, had finally decided to ambush him and end the harassment once and for all. One of their key witnesses was Samuel Donelson, a House doorkeeper who was the only witness of the shooting besides Kincaid and the deceased Taulbee. Donelson said Kincaid had waited until he and Taulbee were walking down the stairs before shouting, "Taulbee, you can see me now" and firing the single shot.

Taulbee's brother was also called to the stand. He said that three days before his death, Taulbee told him, "I did not know Kincaid was near and did not know who it was who shot me until I was told." Taulbee had also reportedly said he bore "no resentment" toward Kincaid, although he considered the shooting to be cowardly. The defense scrutinized the statements, pointing out discrepancies between the testimony of Donelson and Taulbee's brother.

The trial ended on April 8. After just a few hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict. They determined that the matter had been one of self-defense; Kincaid was not guilty.

Aftermath and legacy

The shooting of Taulbee helped fuel a flurry of reform efforts on Capitol Hill. Constituents demanded for rules that could improve congressional conduct and morals while limiting corruption.

Kincaid returned to Kentucky and continued to work in politics and diplomacy alongside his journalistic endeavors. He also remained in poor health. He died in 1906, only 51 years old, while working for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Dodge worked at the Pension Office until 1895, when she was fired. Five years later, she married a Pension Office reviewer named William Albert Paul; after his death in 1927, she was re-married to prominent attorney Tracy L. Jeffords and became well-known on the D.C. social scene. She died on Christmas Day in 1959 at the age of 89.

Taulbee's descendants showed little willingness to forgive Kincaid or accept the verdict that he was acting in self-defense. Six decades after the trial, one of his sons, John Taulbee, denounced the trial as "a farce." Not only had the defense bought off witnesses, he accused, but the shooting had nothing to do with Taulbee's hostility toward the reporter; instead, Kincaid had murdered his father because Taulbee had not named him to a political position. Virginia Hinds-Burton, a great-granddaughter of Taulbee's, said in 2007, "My great-grandfather was murdered. And his murderer got away with murder. And five boys were left without a father. A wife was left without a husband to support her."

A contemporary account of the shooting notes how House janitors started scrubbing away the bloodstains as soon as possible. Even so, much of the blood had soaked into the porous marble. "Some of the stains will remain there for all time," the article suggested.

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The observation proved prescient. Visitors to the staircase today can still see dark splotches on the stone. These are said to be Taulbee's bloodstains, still evident after more than 125 years. Those with a belief in the paranormal say the ex-congressman continues to haunt the site of his killing to this day. Reporters who stumble on the stairs aren't just miscalculating a step, they say; rather, Taulbee trips members of the media to show his continuing disdain toward the field of journalism.

Sources

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Shooting of Congressman William Taulbee on the Steps of the U.S. Capitol" at House.gov, "Charles Kincaid Trial: 1891" at law.jrank.org, "Settled a Grudge" in the Chicago Tribune on Mar. 1 1890, "The Taulbee Inquest" in The Day on Mar. 13 1890, "The Kincaid Case" in the Terre Haute Daily News on Mar. 27 1891, "Kincaid on the Stand" in the Galveston Daily News on Apr. 2 1891, "Are Blotches in Capitol Bloodstains?" in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Nov. 1 1978, "A Historic Killing in the Capitol Building" on NPR on Feb. 19 2007, Kentucky Politicians: Sketches of Representative Corn-Crackers and Other Miscellany by John J. McAfee, Wicked Capitol Hill: An Unruly History of Behaving Badly by Robert S. Pohl, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bourbon, Bombast, and Burgoo by Bery, Genealogy of the Lewis Family in America, From the Middle of the Seventeenth Century Down to Present Time by William Terrell Lewis

William S. Taylor: A Killing in Kentucky

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Although he was accused of involvement in a heinous crime in his home state of Kentucky, William Sylvester Taylor was still welcomed to the 1900 Republican National Convention as a delegate-at-large. The meeting would see President William McKinley remain on the ballot for an attempt at a second term, with Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York named as candidate for Vice President. Taylor joined the other delegates in the near-unanimous decision on this ticket; Roosevelt was the only one of the 926 delegates to not support his name for Vice President, considering it more fitting to abstain.

Taylor, who had been ousted as governor of Kentucky after serving for just a few weeks, had since moved to Indiana. He only agreed to attend the Republican National Convention after he was assured that the officials in Pennsylvania would make no attempt to extradite him to his home state. After the convention, there were rumors that he was traveling toward Niagara Falls, a popular place to cross the border into Canada. These reports proved to be unfounded.

Nevertheless, Taylor continued to be nervous about his surroundings. His immediate successor to the governor's office had been gunned down in front of the state capitol in Frankfort, in an incident which remains the only gubernatorial assassination in United States history. A court contended that Taylor had actively plotted to remove his rival after a bitterly contested race.

Early political career

Taylor was born on October 10, 1853, in Butler County, Kentucky. He grew up on a farm and didn't start his formal education until age 15. Despite this late start, he proved a fast learner and a gifted orator. He became a teacher in 1874, and remained in this profession until 1882. He also continued to work in farming, and later became a lawyer.

During his time as an educator, Taylor entered his first political contest. He ran for county clerk in 1878, but was unsuccessful. Four years later, he tried again and was victorious.

Taylor soon proved a popular Republican candidate in Butler County. He was elected to two terms as county judge, serving from 1886 to 1894, and was named as a delegate to the 1888 Republican National Convention. Between 1896 and 1899, he was Kentucky's attorney general.

The state was a fairly violent place to live during this time. While Kentucky had nominally remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, sentiments within the state were more divided. The northern part of the state was more developed and industrialized, while the southern portion relied more on agrarian pursuits. During the war, northern Kentuckians had strongly supported the Union while residents living closer to the Tennessee border were more sympathetic to the Confederacy.

Since Kentucky was a slave state, it was subject to Reconstruction after the war. The ongoing tensions in the state contributed to a number of violent episodes, including duels, feuds, and murders. This atmosphere all but guaranteed that a close election result in the 1899 gubernatorial election would not be resolved without bloodshed.

Governor's race

The Republicans chose Taylor as their candidate without much fanfare. He would face off against William Goebel, whose ascension to the Democratic nominee had been much more chaotic.

William Goebel (Source)

Goebel was an attorney and state senator who had also become something of a political boss by the time of the election. He helped organize political efforts across the state, and worked to get his supporters in control of city and county governments. He supported civil rights for black residents and women, and often took on the big railroad companies in his legal work. In the state senate, he supported stronger regulations on the railroads; he often used profanity or insults to shore up his arguments.

Four years before the gubernatorial race, Goebel's crusade for fair transportation regulations had attracted the ire of businessman John Lawrence Sanford. The two men had been at odds over the removal of tolls from some Kentucky turnpikes, an action which cost Sanford money. On April 11, 1895, Goebel was walking with friends in downtown Covington when he spotted Sanford and confronted him. Witnesses said that Sanford ambushed Goebel, pulling a pistol and firing at close range.

The bullet passed through Goebel's coat, but didn't leave a scratch on him. He quickly reacted to the assault by pulling his own pistol and shooting Sanford in the head; the businessman died instantly. Goebel was later acquitted of murder, due to witness testimony that Sanford had previously threatened to kill Goebel and that the state senator had fired in self-defense.

In 1899, Goebel mounted an aggressive effort to win the Democratic Party's nomination for governor. At the state convention, he was one of four candidates vying for the job. He made a secret agreement with fellow candidate William J. Stone, a former Confederate soldier who lost a leg in the Civil War, to assure his favored choice for a temporary chairman over that of Parker Watkins Hardin, an ex-Confederate general backed by the railroads. From there, he was able to get control of the convention's committees and shape its platform.

When the convention's delegates failed to produce a gubernatorial candidate after 25 votes, Goebel proposed that the person receiving the fewest votes on the next ballot should drop out. He then betrayed Stone, having some of his own men throw their support behind Hardin to help put Stone at the bottom of the tally. He believed that Stone's delegates would be more likely to support him over Hardin after Stone was out of the picture. This tactic proved successful, and Goebel was ultimately picked as the Democratic nominee for governor.

A small contingent of Democrats, disgusted with the manipulative dealings at the convention, refused to support Goebel. They formed a group called the Honest Election League and named John Young Brown, who had served as governor between 1891 and 1895, as their nominee.

During his campaign, Goebel accused Taylor of having a cozy relationship with Kentucky's railroad interests. At his rallies, he frequently asked whether the attendees wanted the corporations to be "the master or the servant of the people." William Jennings Bryan, who had been the Democratic nominee in the 1896 presidential election, campaigned on Goebel's behalf.

Aside from his populist appeal, Goebel had another advantage going into the election. While in the state senate, he had overseen the passage of a controversial new election law. This act established a three-member board of commissioners, appointed by the state legislature, to determine the victor in contested elections. Since the Democrats were in power in the legislature, the commission established in 1899 would likely favor the Democratic candidate.

A contested result

When the votes were tallied after the general election on November 7, Taylor had eked out a razor-thin majority. The Republican candidate had earned 193,714 votes, while Goebel had mustered 191,331. The Democratic candidate's underhanded tactics had proved his undoing; the Honest Election League had convinced 12,040 voters to cast a ballot for Brown instead of Goebel.

At first, Goebel was content to accept the loss. However, his supporters convinced him that the election had been marred by corruption. He challenged the result and asked for the matter to be heard before the election commission. But in a move that surprised Kentucky's voters, the Democratic commissioners voted two to one that Taylor had won the election fairly. On December 12, the Republican candidate was sworn into office.

Their finding still had to be approved by the state legislature, but the Democrats in this body continued to suspect that Taylor had only won the election through fraud. The legislature opted to launch their own investigation into the issue, drawing a group of 11 legislators at random to look into the contest. In what was likely a premeditated maneuver, the selection picked 10 Democrats and only one Republican. Taylor and his allies feared that the committee was almost certain to invalidate the election results.

A political cartoon shows Goebel trying to dislodge Taylor from the "Governor's Chair" with the Kentucky legislature (Source)

On January 2, 1900, the Democratic legislature formally contested the election results. They charged that a wide range of corruption had taken place on Election Day, including voter intimidation, military interference, a conspiracy by the L&N Railroad and the Republican Party to bribe voters, and the acceptance of fraudulent returns and "thin" ballots (those where the paper was thin enough that it was possible to determine who a voter chose by looking at the back of the ballot).

To put pressure on the legislature, Taylor called for supporters from the strongly Republican regions of eastern Kentucky to come to Frankfort. A large number of these Appalachian "mountain men" answered his call, surging into the capital and bringing firearms in a show of force. Tensions and resentment over the election continued to worsen.

The death of Goebel

The stalemate continued until the end of the month, when a shocking turn of events threw the state into even greater turmoil. While walking with his comrades toward the state capitol on January 30, a shot rang out. The bullet pierced Goebel's chest, breaking through a rib and puncturing a lung. His friends rushed him to the Capital Hotel, where the Democrats had set up a base of operations. A doctor worked to stabilize the wound, but knew that it was almost certain to be fatal.

An illustration portraying the scene moments after Goebel was shot (Source)

In the wake of the attack on Goebel, Taylor called the militia to Frankfort to keep order. He also ordered the state legislature to disperse, calling on them to reconvene a week later. Suggesting that it would be "sheer madness" for the legislature to assemble in the capital in the current environment, he asked them to meet in the town of London - an eastern Kentucky community and Republican stronghold.

Taylor also issued a statement a day after the shooting, blaming the "unprecedented and unlawful" acts of the legislature for the incident. However, he also decried the attack on his opponent as unacceptable. "The dreadful tragedy which occurred yesterday shocked and startled all, and can be no more sincerely deplored by any one than myself," he said.

Given that their nominee for governor was slowly dying of a gunshot wound, the Democrats weren't in the mood to reconcile with Taylor. Instead, they looked at his actions as a blatant attempt to seize power by force. They charged that the call for armed men to occupy the capital and the subsequent shooting of Goebel demonstrated that Taylor was willing to rule through "force, fraud, and corruption." In defiance of Taylor's orders, the Democratic members of the legislature tried to assemble on their own. After the militia refused to let them meet at the capital, courthouse, and opera house, they finally came together at the Capital Hotel.

On January 31, the Democratic legislators declared that they had deemed enough of the ballots for Taylor to be invalid. As a result, they concluded that Goebel had won the highest number of "legal votes." A total of 76 members of the state house of representatives and senate signed a declaration naming Goebel as governor and John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham as lieutenant governor; the document also denounced Taylor for "filling the capital of the State with reckless armed men, who have assassinated an honored member of this general assembly, and in calling out the militia without cause, excluding the general assembly from the legislative halls and in preventing it from meeting to transact the business of the commonwealth."

Goebel was sworn in shortly before 9 p.m. In his only act as governor, he signed an order for the legislature to reconvene and the militia to disperse. The leader of the militia, sympathetic to the Republicans, refused to obey the order. Beckham responded by replacing the state's adjutant general with someone more in line with the Democrats, allowing him to call out a separate militia to reinforce Goebel's claim to the governor's office.

Now it was the Republicans' turn to cry foul, accusing the Democrats of trying to steal the election from the duly elected candidate. Some even suggested that Goebel was already dead, and that the legislators had given the oath of office to a corpse.

Militia members, with a Gatling gun, in front of the Kentucky state capitol (Source)

For a time, the state of Kentucky was essentially split between two state governments. Taylor held the Executive Building, refusing to concede the election. Goebel and Beckham held their own claims to the gubernatorial office. The Republican and Democratic legislators were meeting separately, within blocks of each other. Two separate militias faced each other. Observers in other parts of the United States wondered if the situation might devolve into a civil war within the state.

Three days after he was named governor of Kentucky, Goebel died. Beckham was promptly sworn in to take his place. The dispute continued, with Taylor asserting that he had been elected fairly and that Beckham was "claiming and pretending to be the governor of Kentucky."

On February 6, three days after Goebel's death, Democratic and Republican leaders met to try to resolve the question over who held the rightful claim to the governor's office. The stated purpose of the summit was to "end the unfortunate condition of political affairs now existent in Kentucky." At first, it seemed like the Democrats had triumphed; the parties agreed that Taylor and his lieutenant governor, John Marshall, would step down.

But on February 10, Taylor announced that he would not sign the agreement. The matter would have to be decided in the courts.

Life as a fugitive

The Louisville Circuit Court ruled that Goebel had been the victor in the 1899 election. The decision was sustained after the Republicans appealed it to the Court of Appeals. Taylor managed to have the case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices decided on May 21 that the federal government had no jurisdiction in the dispute. As such, the lower court rulings would stand and Beckham would become governor.

Soon after this decision, Taylor left Kentucky for good. By this time, several people had been charged in the assassination of Goebel. Taylor feared that he would be accused of complicity in the murder.

The indictments had been handed down in April. Several witnesses had claimed that the fatal bullet was fired from annex of Kentucky secretary of state in the Executive Building. The grand jury named several of the "mountain men" as the principal conspirators in the murder: James and Berry Howard, Henry Youtsey, Harland Whitaker, and Dick Combs.

A number of other men were charged as accessories before the fact. This group included Caleb Powers, Taylor's secretary of state; Charles Finley, a former secretary of state; Captain John T. Powers, Caleb's brother; William H. Culton, a clerk in the state auditor's building; and F. Wharton Golden. The grand jury named Taylor as an indirect accessory to the crime, along with Green Golden and State House police captain John Davis, but did not indict them.

Democratic investigators charged that the decision to kill Goebel had been agreed upon by 25 men meeting in the Executive Building. The people named as principals or accessories, they alleged, had been the leaders of the plot.

Caleb Powers, who went to trial four times for Goebel's murder (Source)

Many of the men charged in the assassination had no intention of submitting to arrest. Caleb Powers and Davis reportedly disguised themselves as militiamen and boarded a train to Lexington, but their escape attempt was discovered and they were captured when they arrived in the city. Whitaker was arrested soon after Goebel was shot after he ran out of the governor's office, and was found to have several revolvers on him; he was later killed in a mine explosion in Idaho.

Taylor and Finley had fled north to Indianapolis. Here, they found themselves protected by a series of sympathetic Republican governors. James A. Mount, whose term began in January 1897, refused to let Kentucky officials take either man back across the state line. At one point, Finley was arrested and a Kentucky state police officer tried to take custody of him. He had to be released after Mount refused to approve the extradition.

Taylor also appealed to William McKinley for a pardon. The President said he sympathized with the ousted governor, but could not grant the request.

Kentucky returned to relative peace after Beckham was confirmed as governor, and he would stay in office until 1907. During that time, the courts would seek justice for Goebel's murderer. Caleb Powers was convicted, along with Howard. Youtsey confessed to being involved in the assassination and was sentenced to life in prison. However, the verdicts in Powers' and Howard's cases were later overturned.

Powers would be tried for Goebel's murder a total of four times. He was convicted three times, twice being sentenced to life in prison and once to death; in each case, the result of the trial was overturned.   Taylor refused to leave Indiana to testify on his former cabinet official's behalf, despite reassurances that he would have immunity from arrest, on the belief that it would be unwise to return to Kentucky.

In November 1907, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Samuel W. Hager had said he would not pardon Powers or commute his sentence if he was elected. Powers, preparing for his fourth trial, criticized Hager for making the decision before his case had even been resolved. He also asserted that the charges would have been thrown out long before if pro-Goebel Democrats hadn't comprised the juries, tried unsuccessfully to get his case transferred to federal court, and claimed he knew who had murdered Goebel and that it wasn't Howard.

Powers' fourth trial ended in a hung jury. Governor Augustus E. Willson, who became the first Republican to hold the office since Taylor after his election in 1907, pardoned Powers in 1908. Powers later wrote a book defending himself against lingering rumors that he had gotten away with murder.

After Mount left office in Indiana in 1901, his successor continued to shelter Taylor and Finley. Governor Winfield T. Durbin became a close friend of Taylor's, and later said he rejected an attempted $93,000 bribe to turn the former governor over to Kentucky authorities. Charles A. Bookwalter, the mayor of Indianapolis, claimed that the man who had been hired to prosecute the cases against Taylor and his co-defendants, Thomas A. Campbell, offered to give him $25,000 if he allowed Taylor to be kidnapped. Bookwalter said he refused, instead ordering the police to guard Taylor's home for 60 days. Campbell again approached him, offering a higher sum to remove the guard, and the mayor again refused.

There were worries that vigilantes would try to shanghai the ex-governor across state lines to face criminal charges. In November 1904, Durbin said he was not sure if incoming Governor J. Frank Hanly would continue to refuse requisitions to send Taylor back to Kentucky. Hanly, a Republican, had only said that he would consider the case on its merits before deciding what to do. In the end, he never gave Taylor up to the Kentucky authorities.

Later years

While living in Indiana, Taylor resumed his work as an attorney. He later became the vice president and general counsel of Empire Life Insurance.

Willson had been governor of Kentucky for about 16 months before he decided to end Taylor's exile. On April 23, 1909, he pardoned the former governor as well as Finley, John Powers, Whitaker, Davis, and defendant Zach Steele. The governor, who had previously pardoned Caleb Powers and James Howard, said he had looked into Goebel's assassination and come to the conclusion that Youtsey had acted alone. The only evidence that had come up against Taylor was testimony that he had written to Howard inviting him to come to Frankfort to kill Goebel. Since Howard had not been accused of shooting Goebel, Willson considered this accusation irrelevant.

The governor believed that the decision of Taylor and others to flee the state was not a sign of their guilt, but rather their fear that they would not be able to get a fair trial. Willson also moved to dismiss the charges against the other defendants, leaving Youtsey as the only one to be convicted in Goebel's death.

"From the fair, impartial study of the reports of all of the trials and from my knowledge of the condition of these times, I believe that Governor William S. Taylor had no guilty knowledge of the murder of William Goebel and that he would never have been indicted but for political excitement and passion," Willson said.

The identity of Goebel's assassin remains a mystery. Youtsey was the only one to serve a significant prison sentence for the crime, although he did not claim to be the gunman. He remained behind bars until December 1918, when he was paroled.

Three months after he was pardoned, Taylor made his first visit to Kentucky since Goebel's assassination. However, he said he did not intend to come back to live in the state permanently. He had experienced too much sorrow in the wake of the 1899 election, he said, including the death of his wife and daughter of "broken hearts."

Taylor returned to his career in Indianapolis and spent the rest of his days in this city. He died of heart disease on August 2, 1928, at the age of 74.

Sources

National Governors Association, Kentucky Historical Society, "The Four Days Governor" by Ellen Terrell on the Library of Congress website, "Kentucky Has Two Governors" in the Deseret News on Feb. 1 1900, "The Rival Governors" in the Daily Star on Feb. 16 1900, "Ten Kentucky Indictments" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Apr. 18 1900, "Taylor in Bad Health" in the Toledo Blade on Jun. 28 1900, "Governor Taylor in Danger of the Law" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Nov. 18 1904, "Taylor Will Not Testify" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Aug. 2 1907, "Caleb Powers' Strange Case" in the Evening News on Nov. 26 1907, "Pardons in the Goebel Case" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Apr. 24 1909, "Ex-Governor Taylor Returns to Kentucky" in The Daily Star on Aug. 30 1909, "Death Recalls Ancient Feuds of Governors" in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug. 4 1928, "The Late Governor Goebel" in Humanities in August 2013, Kentucky's Governors edited by Lowell H. Harrison, The Encyclopedia  of Northern Kentucky edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool, A New History of Kentucky by Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, That Kentucky Campaign by R.E. Hughes, F.W. Schaefer, and E.L. Williams, The Independent Vol. 52, Powers v. Commonwealth, Official Proceedings of the Twelfth Republican National Convention

John Milton Elliott: the most ignominious game

Image from kaintuckeean.com

The fact that John Milton Elliott's defection from the United States during the Civil War did not negatively affect his life after the conflict shows just how common such actions were. Rather, Elliott is another politician best known for his dramatic and tragic end.

Elliott was born in Scott County, Virginia in May 1820. He moved to Morgan County (now renamed for Elliott) in Kentucky. He returned to Virginia to attend Emory and Henry College in Emory, graduating in 1841. From there, he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and began a practice in Prestonburg, Kentucky.

In 1847, Elliott became a member of the state's house of representatives. Five years later, he was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives. He was re-elected twice and chose not to run for re-election in 1858. Upon his departure, he returned to his legal practice and again joined the state house of representatives in 1861. Elliott initially favored neutrality in the split between the Union and Confederacy after several southern states seceded, but his sympathies were clearly with the states just south of Kentucky. He occasionally purchased a slave, denounced the abolitionist movement, and was a member of Kentucky's Southern Rights party.

After the close of the fall session of the house of representatives, Elliott began organizing support for the Confederacy in eastern Kentucky. The activity did not go unnoticed, and the U.S. District Court returned an indictment charging him with treason for "directly or indirectly giving aid and comfort to the enemy." In December of 1861, Elliott was one of eight members of the Kentucky General Assembly expelled for the same cause. He joined the convention at Russellville organizing the Kentucky representatives to the Confederate government, and was elected to both the First and Second Confederate Congresses.

After the war, the Fourteenth Amendment barred anyone who had previously sworn an oath to the United States Constitution and joined an insurrection or rebellion against it from holding office unless there was a two-thirds vote allowing it. The provision effectively ended Elliott's political career, but he was able to return to a successful legal career. He settled in Owingsville, and later Catlettsburg. From 1868 to 1874, he served as a circuit court judge. Starting in 1876, he was a judge of the court of appeals.

This line of work would effectively seal Elliott's fate. The sister of one Col. Thomas Buford had purchased a farm from a Mr. Guthrie, but managed to pay off only one of three notes. Guthrie began foreclosure proceedings against her in 1871. He won the suit, but Buford argued that the title was defective and the ruling was reversed on a technicality in the appeals court. Guthrie pressed the foreclosure and won again, meaning Buford's sister lost both her property and her $20,000 investment. In 1878, Elliott affirmed the decision after Buford again appealed.

By the time the final decision was made, Buford's sister had died. He directly blamed the court for her death, and bore a grudge against both Judge Pryor, who had made the initial decision against him, and Elliott. Buford later said he bore no personal grudge against Elliott, but rather had been enraged when the judge came over after Pryor's decision and said, "Colonel, I did the best I could for you." Buford considered this to be an insincere statement. "He had given the original decision against me; he had concurred in this one and although he did not pronounce it, I had means of knowing that he was the moving spirit and engineer of it all through," Buford accused. He frequently stopped by the Capitol Hotel, where both Pryor and Elliott boarded, to shout threats up to them. At one point, the sheriff tried to serve eviction papers on Buford but quickly withdrew when he found that the farm had been heavily fortified to ward off such attempts.

In March of 1879, Buford sought his revenge. His primary target was Pryor, but he said he decided against killing the judge because he had children. He would not have been able to find Pryor in any case, since he had accepted a friend's drink invitation and was not at the hotel; doubtful about Buford's proclamation that he had decided against killing him, Pryor would tell people for years afterward that the drink had saved his life. Buford went after another judge as well, but couldn't persuade him to leave his breakfast to see him.

Finally, Buford found Elliott in front of the Capitol Hotel with another judge. Buford had been wandering through the town carrying a shotgun loaded with buckshot, but this did not raise any concerns. In fact, Buford was wearing his hunting gear and asked Elliott if he wanted to go snipe hunting. Elliott declined, and Buford persisted by asking Elliott to go out for a drink with him. Elliott refused this offer as well. The other judge turned away for a moment and heard a gunshot. When he turned back, he saw that Elliott had collapsed. He died soon after.

Buford readily confessed that the shooting was no accident and showed no remorse, calling Elliott "the most ignominious game my gun ever killed." He added that he killed Elliott "to try my case, to show that they could not rob and assassinate with impunity." The murder itself shocked the state. Governor James B. McCreary declared that state offices would be closed at noon the day after Elliott's death as a token of respect, and ordered all state officers and clerks to attend the funeral. The New York Times wrote, "No man among all the popular elements of his district enjoyed such real and universal esteem." Later, Elliott would have a statue dedicated to his memory at the Boyd County Courthouse in Calettsburg.

Elliott went to trial in July of 1879. There was little chance of disproving that Buford had shot Elliott, and there was no attempt to do so by the defense. Rather, 45 witnesses took the stand to testify that Elliott was insane. The jury found Buford guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. A second trial took place on appeal in 1881, and on this occasion he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Buford was sent to an asylum, although he soon escaped and made his way to Indiana. He stayed there for two years before voluntarily returning to the asylum, dying there in February of 1885.

Elliott's murder also helped contribute to the death of General Abe Buford II, Thomas's brother. Renowned as a horse breeder and veteran of the Mexican War and Civil War (on the Confederate side), Abe bankrupted himself paying for Thomas's defense. In 1884, he committed suicide, leaving behind a note that said in part, "My financial troubles have driven me to despair. Have lost my only chance to relieve my unfortunate brother and self, and the future is too dark for me to struggle against any further."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Political Graveyard, "Members of the Legislature Expelled" in the New York Times on Dec. 24 1861, "The Record of Murder" in the New York Times on March 27 1879, "A Chivalrous Murderer" in the New York Times on Jul. 20 1879, "Abe Buford's Suicide" in the Reading Eagle on Jun. 10 1884, Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky edited by H. Levin, American Law Review Vol. 54, Famous Kentucky Tragedies and Trials by Lewis Franklin Johnson, A New History of Kentucky by Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, The Kentucky Encyclopedia edited by John E. Kleber

Matthew Lyon: pomp and consequence

Depiction of Lyon brawling with congressman Roger Griswold. (Source)

Matthew Lyon's first infraction as a politician was essentially a failed delivery. A member of the Vermont state house of representatives and clerk of the Court of Confiscation, he was impeached in 1785 for refusing to bring records to the Council of Censors. The request had been made by a Tory contingent in the house, which was seeking compensation for lands seized during the American Revolution. In addition to the impeachment, Lyon was reprimanded and fined 500 pounds for never showing up for the trial. Once these penalties had been imposed, Lyon requested a new trial, and one was granted. Whatever happened next is lost to history, but events worked out in Lyon's favor. The trial never occurred, but the impeachment was rescinded, the fine remitted, and the reprimand withdrawn. It wasn't the first time that Lyon had managed to escape trouble unscathed, and it wouldn't be the last.

Lyon was born in 1749 in County Wicklow, near Dublin, in Ireland. There, he attended school and began training to be a printer. In 1765, when he was 15, Lyon took a ship for the British colonies in America. A biography by James McLaughlin says that Lyon was supposed to receive free passage because he worked as a cabin boy during the journey, but was betrayed by the captain upon his arrival and sold into indentured servitude to pay for his passage. He worked on a farm in Woodbury, Connecticut, before his master traded him for a pair of bulls. Until the end of his life, one of Lyon's favorite sayings was, "By the bulls that redeemed me."

After fulfilling his debt, Lyon remained in Connecticut for a time and in 1774 moved to Wallingford in the New Hampshire Grants, which would later become the state of Vermont. When the Revolution began in 1775, he joined the Green Mountain Boys militia and took part in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. Later in the year, he became an adjutant with Col. Seth Warner's regiment in Canada, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in July of 1776. In an incident that would later be of great consequence on the floor of the House, Lyon was court-martialed for cowardice and cashiered after his company abandoned a fort on Lake Champlain due to the threat of Indian attack.

Lyon was eventually reinstated and promoted to a captain. He also helped guide a retreat from Fort Ticonderoga to safety after realizing that the troops were in danger of running right into a British force and possible capture. In 1777, Lyon moved to Arlington, Vermont and resigned from the army the next year.

Upon his retirement from the military, Lyon turned to administrative duties and took part in the convention that established the state constitution. He also served as assistant judge of Rutland County and deputy secretary to Governor Thomas Chittenden, meeting and later marrying Chittenden's daughter along the way. He was a member of the state house of representatives from 1779 to 1783 and for 10 of the years between 1783 to 1796. His other accomplishments included founding the town of Fair Haven in 1783 and building and operating several mills for iron casting, paper production, and timber sawing.

Lyon, a stout anti-Federalist and member of the Democratic-Republican Party, made three unsuccessful bids for the House of Representatives between 1790 and 1794. In 1793, he established a printing office to start cranking out the Farmers' Library, which would later become the Fair Haven Gazette. Essentially, Lyon's reason for starting up the newspaper was to introduce more political opinion into the Vermont press, which was dominated by Federalist publications from surrounding areas.

In 1796, Lyon was successful in winning a seat in Congress, then based in Philadelphia. Not one to spare words, he directly accused Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist leader, of "screwing the hard-earnings out of the poor people's pockets" so the government would be able to "vie with European Courts in frivolous gaudy appearances." One of Lyon's main targets was a ceremony borrowed from the British Parliament, in which the House sent a committee to formally request the President to address Congress.

Lyon quickly became one of the main enemies of the Federalists. He was derisively called "the roaring Lyon of Vermont" and other nicknames, and openly mocked as he traveled through strong Federalist areas between Vermont and Philadelphia. After unsuccessfully trying to amend the practice of requesting the audience of the President so that any members who didn't wish to participate weren't compelled to do so, Lyon questioned whether he alone could be exempted; another member suggested that Lyon was insane and should be locked up while the rest of the congressmen visited the President. In one of his better-known speeches, Lyon said that it did not matter how well-born one was, but only how well they served the country. He said one of the reasons he did not support the ceremony was because he did not trace his ancestry to "the couriers of Oliver Cromwell, nor those who hanged witches, or punished their horses for working on Sundays."

Among the Federalist attacks on Lyon was the story, almost certainly apocryphal, that he had been forced to wear a wooden sword as punishment after being cashiered from the army. Though Lyon could hold his own against the attacks on him, the slander on his military record proved a sore spot. In one incident in January of 1798, he was talking with the Speaker of the House during an off time in the deliberations and criticizing the Connecticut congressmen, saying their actions in the House were contrary to the desires of their constituents. Boasting loudly enough for the nearby Connecticut delegation to hear, Lyon said he would be able to foment a revolution of political opinion within six months if he were to go into the state with a printing press. Upon hearing this, Federalist congressman Roger Griswold of Connecticut asked Lyon if he would be wearing his wooden sword when he went there. After Griswold pressed the question, Lyon spat in his face.

The incident was referred to the Committee on Privileges, making Lyon the first congressman to have an ethics complaint lodged against him. The committee determined that he should be expelled for "a violent attack and gross indecency." The House debated for two weeks the question of whether Lyon should be allowed to remain in Congress, with one member saying the nation would dissolve into civil war if that were allowed. The majority favored expulsion in a 52-44 vote, but did not carry enough support to make the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Lyon. Some congressmen suggested that a censure would be more appropriate, but ultimately no action was taken on that recommendation.

The feud with Griswold was far from over, however. Seeking to take his own revenge, Griswold entered the House a couple of weeks after the vote and attacked Lyon with a hickory cane as the Vermont representative was seated at his desk. After sustaining a few blows to the head and face, Lyon managed to escape and get ahold of a set of fire tongs near the House fireplace. Most accounts say Lyon and Griswold both lost their weapons soon after, grappled for awhile, and then took a breather. The fight resumed when an ally of Lyon armed him with a hickory stick of his own, and Lyon got in at least one strike against Griswold as he stood near the a water table. Friends of Griswold moved to get the congressman his own weapon back, but the fight was finally broken up when the Speaker called for order to be restored.

Newspapers on both sides went berserk. Anti-Federalists said Griswold had refused a duel challenge from Lyon and that it was a sign of Federalist cowardice. A Federalist paper in Connecticut threatened Lyon with tarring and feathering if he ever tried to enter the state. In the House, some exasperated congressmen said that both Lyon and Griswold should be thrown out. Though the Committee on Privileges supported the recommendation, neither side was very supportive. Federalists did not want to lose Griswold; Anti-Federalists argued that Lyon was an innocent victim in the brawl, and that it had not disrupted Congress because the House hadn't been in session at the time (an argument also employed in the first debate over Lyon's expulsion). A vote to expel the two members failed 73-21, and though a resolution to reprimand the two congressmen was immediately introduced the House narrowly decided against accepting the question, 48-47.

1798 was shaping up to be quite the banner year for Lyon. In the midst of increasing tension between the United States and France in that year, the Sedition Act passed. The law established penalties for encouraging riots or uprisings, or for forming groups to oppose government measures. The most controversial aspect made it illegal to publish any false or scandalous works intended to defame the government. Opponents of the law saw it as a transparent attempt to cut down on opposition pieces criticizing President John Adams or other government officials. Lyon predicted that he would be the first person arrested under the Sedition Act due to his unpopularity with the Federalists.

In the summer of 1798, Lyon ensured he would meet his prophecy by publishing a letter in Spooner's Vermont Journal explaining why he rejected the idea of "Presidential infallibility." He criticized Adams' fast day proclamation, saying it used "the sacred name of religion as a state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another," and that "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, and unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." The letter also said decent men were turned out of office for independence of thought while yes-men were sheltered.

Lyon also printed a letter from Joel Barlow, an expatriate in France, in response to a speech by Adams on the United States' relationship with France. Barlow wondered why the response to Adams' speech, which declared France's religion and morality at an end and suggested that the United States remain perpetually armed against the country, had not been "an order to send [Adams] to a madhouse." In addition to the two letters, Lyon launched a magazine entitled Scourge of Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truths, which declared its aim to be telling the truth and opposing the lies of the Federalist Party.

Lyon was indicted in October of 1798 by a federal circuit court in Vermont, the first person prosecuted under the Sedition Act. The trial took place the same month in Vergennes, Vermont. The charges against Lyon were attempt to stir up sedition and bring Adams and the government into contempt; malicious publication of Barlow's letter; and assisting and abetting the publication of Barlow's letter. The prosecutors essentially let the publications stand on their own, but also showed that Lyon had been using the writings at public meetings in Vermont and in his political campaign for re-election to the House in the 1798 election.

Lyon served as his own defense during the trial. He argued that the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter because the Sedition Act was illegal; that the publication was innocent; and that the contents spoke the truth. On the last contention, he asked the presiding judge, William Patterson, whether he had not "dined with the President, and observed his ridiculous pomp and parade." Patterson said he hadn't, and that the dinners were simple affairs. When Lyon asked him whether the President had more servants and pomp than the tavern at Rutland, Patterson apparently remembered his role as a judge and kept quiet.

Oddly enough, the Chief Justice of Vermont at the time was Israel Smith, who had served in Congress for eight years before being unseated by Lyon. At the trial, Smith appeared as counsel for Lyon in the closing arguments, but declined to make a reply. Lyon ended up taking up the task himself, stressing the unconstitutionality of the Sedition Act. Patterson told the jury that they weren't to consider constitutionality and that the Sedition Act was law until it was declared null and void. After an hour, the jury returned a guilty verdict.

Patterson told Lyon that he had no business violating the Sedition Act, considering he was a lawmaker and expected to remain within its boundaries. He considered "the reduced condition of [Lyon's] estate" a mitigating factor after Lyon claimed that he could only contribute $200 toward a fine because the depression of 1798 had seriously affected him. Patterson then surprised Lyon by unexpectedly including four months of jail time in the sentence, along with a $1,000 fine and payment of the prosecution costs. Patterson also warned that Lyon could spend more time in jail if the difference of the fine was not raised by the time the sentence expired.

Federalist papers rejoiced in the conviction, declaring it a victory over "the unbridled spirit of opposition to the government" and the end of "the vile career of the beast of the mountain." Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, an anti-Federalist serving under Adams due to a quirk in the original electoral system, criticized the decision, saying it made federal judges "objects of national fear."

Friends of Lyon quickly came to his aid, with some upstarts even vowing to break him out of jail. From his cell window, Lyon encouraged them to show their support at the polls instead; he was still a congressional candidate, after all. With the help of his son, Lyon began distributing letters from the jail to keep his campaign going, adding some criticism of his condition as well. In one letter, he complained of being thrown into a cramped and smelly cell usually reserved as a "common receptacle for horse-thieves, money-makers, runaway-negroes, or other types of felons." While still in jail, Lyon prevailed in the 1798 election with almost twice as many votes as his opponent. One year later, Vermont printer Anthony Haswell was charged with violation of the Sedition Act for accusing the Federalist marshal in charge of Lyon of cruel punishment and saying the government had appointed Tories who had been opposed to independence to government positions. Haswell was sentenced to two months in jail and a $200 fine.

The remainder of the fine proved to be no issue. Lyon's constituents raised money to help pay it off, and Lyon also raffled off his property to raise money. Another fund was started in Virginia, and included contributions from future Presidents Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. More than twice the amount necessary was collected in the course of these fundraising efforts, so Vermont and Virginia supporters each paid half the fine.

Lyon was released from jail in February, in time to make it back to Congress to resume his newly elected term. He was warned that there might be efforts to prosecute him for sedition based on the letters he sent from the cell, but he claimed immunity from arrest as a congressmen en route to the capital. There, he was met with yet another expulsion attempt based on the conviction, as defenders argued that he had been unjustly prosecuted. The vote broke along party lines, with the 49-45 majority once again not meeting the necessary two-thirds majority. A Federalist paper angrily declared, "happy must the nation be where it is but a single step from the dungeon to the Legislature!"

Lyon's survival in the House may well have affected the course of history. Though Lyon did not run in the 1800 election, the contest of note in that year was the Presidential race. When electors tied in their votes for Adams or Jefferson, the matter went to the House. It once again deadlocked there, with eight states in favor of Jefferson, six in favor of Adams, and two states, including Vermont, contested. The other representative from Vermont was a Federalist, but eventually absented himself from the deliberations at his uncle's request. Lyon promptly cast Vermont for Jefferson, giving him the majority necessary to become President.

In early March, the terms of Lyon, Adams, and the Sedition Act all came to a close. Lyon immediately took advantage of the expiration of the law that had convicted him, sending a long, critical letter to Adams. Lyon declared that he was heading west, "where I have fixed for myself an asylum from the persecutions of a party the most base, cruel, assuming, and faithless that ever disgraced the councils of any nation." He berated Adams, saying he had not fulfilled promises, "expected a crown," bullied France and sought to involve the nation in war, and supported unconstitutional laws. "I hope and pray that your fate may be a warning to all usurpers and tyrants and that you may, before you leave this world, become a true and sincere penitent, and be forgiven all your manifold sins in the next," Lyon concluded.

Lyon kept his word about moving west, heading to Caldwell County, Kentucky in 1801 and founding the town of Eddyville. He also started a newspaper and shipyard there, and was a member of the state house of representatives a year after arriving. Jefferson offered him a commisaryship in the Western Army, but he declined. In 1803, he was once again sent to the House and served there for eight years. He lost the 1810 election over his opposition to going to war with England, which would occur in 1812. Despite his opposition to war, Lyon nevertheless became involved with gunboat manufacturing to assist in the military efforts.

Lyon's later life is somewhat unknown. He was appointed a U.S. agent to the Cherokee Nation in the Arkansas Territory, but sources differ as to whether it was in 1817 or 1820. He also ran to be a delegate to Congress from the territory, but sources also differ as to whether or not he was successful. Some say James W. Bates won that election, while others say that Lyon prevailed but died before he could take office. In 1822, Lyon died in Spadra Bluff, Arkansas; in 1833, he was re-interred in Eddyville, whose county was renamed Lyon County after Lyon's son, Chittenden Lyon.

Five years after Lyon's death, Chittenden Lyon began serving in the House of Representatives and stayed there until 1835. In 1840, Congress ordered that the fine Lyon paid after his conviction be refunded to his heirs, with interest; four years later, they made the same provision for Haswell, the printer who had defended him. In 2001, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont invoked Lyon in a speech discussing his decision to leave the Republican Party and become an Independent. Vermont people had always been independent thinkers, said Jeffords, and "proudly elected Matthew Lyon to Congress, notwithstanding his flouting of the Sedition Act."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Matthew Lyon, Redemptioner" in The Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, "The American Pym" in New England Magazine, Volume 31, "Jeffords: Independence Is The Vermont Way" in the Los Angeles Times on May 25 2001, Matthew Lyon, the Hampden of Congress by James Fairfax McLaughlin, American State Trials by John D. Lawson, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone, A History of the People of the United States From the Revolution to the Civil War by John Bach McMaster, The Federalist System, 1789-1801 by John Spencer Bassett, A Speaking Aristocracy: Transforming Public Discourse in Eighteenth Century Connecticut by Christopher Grasso, The Early American Republic by Sean Patrick Adams, Censures: Webster's Quotations, Facts, and Phrases by Icon Group International, Lyon Memorial by Albert Brown Lyons and George William Amos Lyon and Eugene Fairfield McPike, Abridgment of the Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1856, Collections of the Vermont Historical Society, The Kentucky Encyclopedia by John E. Kleber

Andrew J. May: war crimes

Andrew Jackson May, at right, with Dwight D. Eisenhower (center) and Chester Nimitz (left). Image from pro.corbis.com

As head of a military committee during World War II, Andrew Jackson May found himself in a position of significant influence. Unfortunately, a jury decided after the war ended that May had not responsibly used that influence.

Born in Floyd County in Kentucky in 1875, May worked as a teacher before graduating from the Southern Normal Law University and entering that field. In addition to being involved in agriculture, coal mining, and banking, he served as the county attorney for Floyd County and special judge of circuit court for Johnson and Martin counties for two years.

After losing his first attempt in 1928, May was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 1930. He was returned to office in the next seven elections. In 1938, as war loomed closer in Europe and Asia, he became chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs and held the post throughout the entire war and until he left Congress.

Following a tour of the Pacific theater in the summer of 1943, May gave a press conference in which he reassured reporters that American submarines were surviving well because the Japanese were setting their depth charges to explode at too shallow a depth. Some newspapers printed the information; Admiral Charles Lockwood later said that the Japanese took account of the deficiency and that the blunder may have cost the Navy up to ten submarines and 800 sailors. However, author Mike Otlund theorizes that the Japanese may have been experimenting with deeper charges some months prior to May's press conference.

In 1946, accusations surfaced that May had wrongfully used his influence to help build the munitions combine of brothers Murray and Henry Garsson in New York. Time reported that the brothers had ties to the mob and had previously been charged, but not convicted, of crimes ranging from bribery to evasion of corporation laws. The magazine said their company had been "paper-built" in 1942 to provide 4.2-inch shells and quickly won a contract from the government before the company even existed. By the war's end, the combine had done some $78 million in business. While the shells were initially rumored to be highly defective, investigators later found that only 63 misfirings out of every 4 million caused the deaths of 38 men and injuries to 127 others; moreover, the defect rested in the fuses, not in the shells themselves.

May himself was charged with accepting bribes from the brothers, while the Garssons were accused of conspiracy to defraud the government of May's services. Joseph F. Freeman, the Garssons' Washington agent, was also implicated in the crimes but later cleared. In the midst of this turmoil, May lost his re-election bid in 1946 to the Republican candidate, W. Howes Meade.

During an 11-week trial, May was charged with using his sway in Congress to pressure government officials to award contracts to the Garssons, unfreeze their funds, look into a cut-back contract for truck bodies manufactured by the bodies, and seeking draft furloughs or deferments for friends of the Garssons. In return for these favors, May was alleged to have received significant bribes from the brothers. Some of these were in the form of checks or the Garssons depositing money into May's account or paying off notes. By far the largest was money paid to the Cumberland Lumber Company, conveniently located in May's hometown of Prestonburg. The Garssons bought up the company and May served as their agent; prosecutors charged that the company made for a handy front for bribes, as over $50,000 paid by the Garssons went for lumber which they never received.

May said his funding of the Garssons was a way of assisting the war efforts and equated the money to campaign contributions. However, he later admitted that his personal funds had become intermixed with those of Cumberland Lumber. Henry Garsson said the combine had tried to offer May compensation for his work on their behalf, but that he had refused.

The jury returned a remarkably speedy verdict in July of 1947, finding May and the Garssons guilty of three counts of bribery conspiracy after only one hour and 50 minutes of deliberation. May was found to have taken some $53,000 in bribes, but was not required to pay any fine. All three men were sentenced to serve between eight months and two years in prison, and all unsuccessfully appealed the verdict.

May spent nine months in prison in 1950 and was able to return to law work. President Harry Truman granted him a pardon in 1952, and he died in Prestonburg in 1959.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Political Graveyard, "Murray Garsson's Suckers" in Time on Aug. 12 1946, "Garsson Sequel" in Time on Sept. 16 1946, "Judge Denies May, Garsson Plea, Frees One" in the Deseret News on May 14 1947, "Garsson Testifies 'Compensation' Offered Andrew J. May Was Refused" in the Deseret News on June 3 1947, "Handy Andy" in Time on June 9 1947, "May, Garssons Guilty in Bribe Conspiracy Case" in the St. Petersburg Times on July 4 1947, "Garssons and May Ordered to Prison" in the New York Times on Dec. 2 1949, The Pacific Campaign: World War II, the U.S.-Japanese Naval War, 1941-1945 by Dan Van der Vat, Find 'em, Chase 'em, Sink 'em: The Mysterious Loss of the WWII Submarine 'USS Gudgeon' by Mike Ostlund

James "Honest Dick" Tate: gone without a trace

From Kentucky Politicians by John J. McAfee

James William Tate was born in 1831 in Franklin County, Kentucky. After working as a post office clerk, he was appointed to the post of assistant secretary of state in 1854 and 1859, resigning both times to follow commercial pursuits. In 1865, he became an aide to the clerk at the Kentucky House of Representatives, and in 1867 he ran as a Democrat for state treasurer and won. "Honest Dick" Tate served in the post for the next two decades, comfortably winning re-election every two years. John J. McAfee, writing in 1886, described Tate as honest and amiable, a "trusted and honored treasurer" with an "unblemished record for probity and principle."

Two years later, Tate's reputation was tarnished in one of the most bizarre financial scandals ever to hit the political scene. During his 21 years of service, Tate's bookkeeping had never been seriously scrutinized. As the state government moved to do so in 1887 and 1888, Tate managed to delay the process by saying he needed more time to get his records in order. On March 14, 1888, Tate departed for Louisville. Two days later, he took a train for Ohio and was never seen in Kentucky again.

On March 20, Governor Simon Buckner suspended Tate from his duties. By that time, Tate had a good head start on the government, which discovered that he had disappeared along with a substantial amount of money. Investigators found the treasurer's records in a shambles, and it took 10 days to sort through them and discover a $247,000 shortfall. The theft led to increased suspicions in the capital for a time, as several legislators had borrowed from the treasury. Fayette Hewitt, the state's auditor, came under criticism for not overseeing Tate's activities. Ultimately, it was determined that Tate acted alone.

Soon after Tate was found to be missing, a $5,000 reward was offered for his capture. The Kentucky Legislature introduced articles of impeachment against the treasurer, found him guilty in absentia of four counts, and removed him from office. Buckner appointed Stephen G. Sharp to serve as a replacement. A criminal indictment charging embezzlement was handed down in Franklin County three months after Tate's disappearance.

The exact amount that Tate absconded with remains unclear, since some of the nearly quarter-million dollar sum was due to shoddy practices and not direct theft. Tate had distributed several illegal IOUs, ranging from less than two dollars to over $5,000, that had never been paid back; some money was used to gamble on stocks, and some was simply stored improperly and found in various places in the treasury. Tate's bond and sureties helped reduce the burden on the state. Tate certainly took some of the cash, however. He was found to have purchased land in other states as well as coal mines in Kentucky. A clerk in the treasury testified that he saw Tate filling up two sacks with gold and silver coins and a wad of bills shortly before his disappearance.

The incident led the state to create the office of the state examiner and inspector to oversee the treasurer and auditor. The state also imposed term limits on elected officials.

Tate left behind a wife and daughter, and corresponded with them until December of 1888, going to Japan and China before returning to the United States. The letters stopped on December 3. Some 1,200 people petitioned for his pardon in 1896, but nothing became of it. The New York Times reported in 1890 that friends thought Tate had died in China within the past year. However, citing Tate's daughter as a source, the Times reported seven years later that Tate was believed to be alive and well, a wealthy coffee planter in Brazil who had even made trips to Chicago for the 1893 World's Fair and as part of a pan-American delegation. Tate's daughter, seeking to collect on a life insurance policy, had been looking to have him declared legally dead under a Kentucky statute. In January of 1898, the Times reported that the insurance companies had agreed to pay off on the policy.

Sources: History Mysteries by James C. Klotter, Kentucky Politicians: Sketches of Representative Corn-Crackers and Other Miscellany by John J. McAfee, Kentucky: Decades of Discord 1865-1900 by Hambleton Tapp and James C. Klotter, The Weekly Underwriter Volume 62 (1900), "Defaulter's Death Admitted" on Jan. 22 1898 of the New York Times, "Ex-Treasurer Tate May Be Pardoned" on Dec. 6 1896 of the New York Times, "Believed to Be Dead" on Aug. 9 1890 of the New York Times, "A Lost Defaulter Found" on Sept. 27, 1897