GIDDINGS
GIDDINGS
/ ^^
science at Bryn Mawr college, Pa., where be
became associate in political science in 18S9,
associate professor in 1891, and professor in 1892.
He was also lecturer on sociology in Columbia,
1893-94, and in the
latter year was ad-
vanced to tbe full
chair. He was for
three years chairman
of the publication
committee of the
American economic
association and later
first vice-president of
the association, and
was a vice-president
of the American acad-
emy of political and
social science from its
foundation. He was
' V the first American
member of the Institut International de Sociol-
ogie (Paris). Union univei'sity conferred upon
him the degree of Ph.D. in 1897, and Oberlin that
of LL.I). in 1900. He is the author of; T\ie
Modern Distribution Process (with J. B. Clark
18S8); The Principles of Sociology (1896, 3d ed.,
1897), which was translated into several lan-
guages; llie Elements of Sociology {\8'JS); an in-
troduction to Proal's Political Crime (1898), and
Democracy mxl Empire (1900).
QIDDINQS, Joshua Reed, representative, was born at Tii.ga Point, Pa., Oct. 6, 177.J. His ancestors were English and emigrated to America in 16.50, locating in Connecticut. In 1725 his gi-eat-grandfather Giddings settled in Canau- daigua, N.Y., then a wilderness, and in 1806 his father re- moved thence to tbe Connecticut western reserve, built a home in Ashtabula county, Ohio, and cleared a farm. Here Joshua was brought up and in 1812 be served in Colonel Ha}-es"s regi- ment in the defence of the northern bor- der.s. He was one of a party of twenty-two soldiers attacked by the Indians, Sept. 29, 1812, north of Sandusky bay, when six of the party were killed and six wounded. He afterward caused a monument to be erected on the spot in memory of his fallen comrades. After the retreat of Proctor bis regiment was sent home. He then taught school, studied law, and was
admitted to the bar in 1824, practising in Jeffer-
son. He served as a representative in the state
legislature of Ohio, 1826; was defeated as a can-
didate for the state senate in 1828, and in 1836
was elected as a Whig a representative in the
2.>th congress. He was returned to the succeed-
ing congresses up to and including the 3.5th, retir-
ing, March 3, 1859. In congress he protested
against the free states, or the general govern-
ment, taking any part in the return of fugitive
slaves to their owners, and contended for the
abolition of slavery in territory governed by the
United States and for the suppression of coast-
wise slave trade. During a speech delivered by
him in the house, Feb. 11, 1838, his progress was
interrupted by the application of a rule of the
house, known as the "gag-rule." This action
led to a bitter controversy with the slaveholding
members and on Feb. 9, 1841, in discussing the
.Seminole war, which he opposed, he charged the
slaveholdei-s with a design to enslave the Maroons
and thus break up the asylum for fugitives, then
existing in Florida. On March 21, 1842, he
offered in the house resolutions declaring slavery
to be an abridgment of a natural right and
therefore inoperative outside the territorial juris-
diction that created it; and applied the principle
to the slaves, who, while in course of transporta-
tion from Virginia to Louisiana on the Creole,
captured the vessel and claimed the protection
of the British government by putting into the
harbor of Nas.sau, N.P., in the fall of 1841. The
secretary of state, Mr. Webster, had instructed
Mr. Everett, U.S. minister to London, to demand
from England indemnification for the owners of
the slaves. Mr. Giddings's resolutions created
intense excitement and his friends advised him
to withdraw them, which he did under protest.
The house thereupon passed a resolutionof censure
by a vote of 125 to 69, and when Mr. Giddings
undertook to speak in his own defence, the houfe
refused him the privilege by carrying a motion
for the previous question. He resigned his seat,
went before his constituents for their approval
of his course, and was re-elecrted by an increafed
majority. In 1843, when the question of tl e
annexation of Texas was before congress, I'.e
joined John Quincy Adams and others in an ad-
dress to the people, declaring tbe consun-.mation
of that purpose to be identical with dissolution.
He favored the claim to the whole territory of
Oregon, as expressed in the motto, " Fifty-four
forty, or fight." When the W^hig party natle
Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts its candi-
date for speaker, he refused to support him on
the ground that Winthrop did not represent the
party on the slavery question. He refused to
support General Taylor for President in 1848 on
tbe same ground, and gave his allegiance to Van
