Ohio History Journal

  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  •  
  • 5
  •  
  • 6
  •  
  • 7
  •  
  • 8
  •  
  • 9
  •  
  • 10
  •  
  • 11
  •  
  • 12
  •  
  • 13
  •  
  • 14
  •  
  • 15
  •  
  • 16
  •  
  • 17
  •  
  • 18
  •  
  • 19
  •  
  • 20
  •  
  • 21
  •  
  • 22
  •  
  • 23
  •  
  • 24
  •  
  • 25
  •  
  • 26
  •  
  • 27
  •  
  • 28
  •  
  • 29
  •  
  • 30
  •  
  • 31
  •  

JOHN BROUGH

JOHN BROUGH.

 

 

OSMAN CASTLE HOOPER.

John Brough is generally thought of as the last of Ohio's

war governors, the sturdy Union man who, as a candidate for

the executive office in 1863, defeated Clement L. Vallandigham

by the then unheard of majority of more than 100,000 votes. He

was all that, but he was more than that, and it is the duty, as well

as the pleasure of Ohioans to recognize it.

If ever a masterful man sat in Ohio's executive chair, it was

John Brough. No general in the field was more stern or more

zealous, more watchful of others, more careless of himself. Those

days of 1863 were dark and gloomy for the Union cause; the

election of Brough was like a sunburst. It proved that Ohio,

though not without its falterers, and palterers, was steadfast for

the Union; and it steadied the whole line of northern states,

cheered the heart of Lincoln and put a new enthusiasm into the

armies in the field. The power that the people of Ohio gave to

Brough on that election day, he exercised to the fullest extent-

to his temporary discomfiture, perhaps, but to his lasting glory.

It is for this that John Brough is best remembered, but

there are other things for which he should be honored. Before

he stood like a giant at the head of a patriotic state during the

Civil War, he had stood as the especial champion of the state

when it was beset with debt and had helped to save it from the

shame of repudiation, and before that, he had served in the legis-

lature, striving to rescue the state from cheap money and ruin-

ous speculation.

As journalist, as clerk of the senate, as member of the house

of representatives and as auditor, as well as in the capacity of

governor, John Brough bore himself well and with a sturdy

honesty and a vigorous intelligence which, while they won for

him the invective and sometimes the ridicule of his contempo-

 

(40)