Politicians

James M. Ashley was a five-term Ohio Congressman and Radical Republican leader who introduced the House proposal that would become the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Nathaniel Prentice Banks was a ten-time member of the United States House of Representatives and, during the American Civil War, one of President Abraham Lincoln's political generals.

An influential congressman from Ohio during the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras, John Bingham drafted the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

U.S. Vice-president John C. Breckinridge was an American political leader who represented Kentucky in the U.S. House and Senate before serving as a general officer in the Confederate Army and as the fifth, and final, Confederate Secretary of War.

Fifteenth President of the United States James Buchanan was the nation's chief executive when the Union began to dissolve in December 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War.

A prominent Confederate commander during the American Civil War, General Simon B. Buckner also served one term as governor of Kentucky after the conflict.

Aaron Burr (1756–1836) was a U.S. Senator and Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson. Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in an infamous duel in 1804. He was also tried and acquitted of treason against the United States for allegedly trying to establish a separate empire in the southwest.

A prominent Union officer, Major General Benjamin F. Butler also served as a United States Congressman and as Governor of Massachusetts after the American Civil War.

A staunch defender of slavery, states' rights, and nullification, John Caldwell Calhoun served the nation as a Congressional Representative and Senator from South Carolina, U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State, and Vice President of the United States during the Antebellum Era.

Salmon Portland Chase was the twenty-third Governor of Ohio, a U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War, and the sixth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 22nd and 24th U.S. President, Grover Cleveland is the only chief executive to serve two nonconsecutive terms in the White House.

Long-time Ohio politician Thomas Corwin sponsored the Corwin Amendment in the U.S, House of Representatives in 1861 as an eleventh-hour attempt to avert the American Civil War.

Samuel Cox was a prominent lawyer, newspaper editor, and Peace Democrat who represented Ohio and, later, New York in Congress.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Mexican-American War veteran, U.S. Congressman, Senator, and Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis served as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

William Dennison, Jr. was the twenty-fourth Governor of Ohio, serving from January 9, 1860 through January 13, 1862. Dennison also served as Postmaster General of the United States from 1864 to 1866.

John Dickinson was a Founding Father, known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Although he refused to sign the Declaration of Independence, his name was signed to the United States Constitution.

Stephen Douglas was a prominent Congressman and Senator from Illinois, He supported Manifest Destiny and Popular Sovereignty and helped pass the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In 1858, he participated in a series of public debates with Abraham Lincoln.

Thomas Ewing, Jr., was a prominent lawyer and politician who served as a Union general in the West during the American Civil War.

Thomas Ewing, Sr. was an influential Ohio lawyer and politician who served in the United States Senate, as United States Secretary of the Treasury, and as United States Secretary of the Interior.

Thirteenth President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, was the last Whig president and the last U.S. President not affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties.