Maynard, Horace

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Horace Maynard
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Family
    Ephraim Maynard (father), Diane Cogswell (mother), Laura Ann Washburn (wife)
    Other Education
    Amherst College
    Occupation
    Politician
    Diplomat
    Attorney or Judge
    Educator
    Relation to Slavery
    Slaveholder who freed slaves
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Presbyterian
    Political Parties
    Whig
    Republican
    American Party (Know Nothings or Nativists)
    Union (Unconditional Union, National Union)
    Other
    Other Political Party
    Opposition Party
    Government
    Hayes Administration (1877-81)
    Diplomat
    US House of Representatives
    Other state government

    Horace Maynard (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    The secession crisis created a difficult situation for Maynard. When he met Stephen A. Douglas in the summer of 1860, Maynard suggested that a special House committee with one representative from each state be established to deal with the crisis, a course that was taken in December 1860. Occupying a middle ground, he supported the proposed Crittenden Compromise to create a dividing line between slavery and freedom at 36° 30', declared that he saw no reason why the Union could not continue half free and half slave, and strongly urged the North to listen to the grievances of the South and remove the causes of discontent. At home, he valiantly campaigned against secession, supported Unionists regardless of party, and cooperated with fellow Whigs like William G. Brownlow as well as Democrats like Andrew Johnson, whom he had opposed for years.

    Maynard's efforts were crowned with success in East Tennessee, which voted against secession, but the state as a whole joined the South. In August 1861 he won reelection to Congress against a Confederate opponent, only to be forced to flee to the North immediately afterward. In Washington, together with Johnson, Maynard became one of the principal advocates of a Union campaign to liberate East Tennessee, a course of action he ceaselessly urged on the Lincoln administration. In 1863 Johnson, then military governor of Tennessee, appointed him attorney general.
    Hans L. Trefousse, "Maynard, Horace," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00670.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Maynard, Horace," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/12566.