John Bingham

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After graduation, Bingham returned to Mercer, Pennsylvania to read law with John James Pearson and William Stewart, and he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar on March 25, 1840 and the Ohio bar by year's end. Bingham then returned to Cadiz, Ohio to begin his legal and political career. An active Whig, Bingham campaigned for President William Henry Harrison. His uncle, Thomas, a prominent Presbyterian in the area, had served as associate judge in the Harrison County Court of Common Pleas from 1825 to 1839. The young lawyer's practice extended to Tuscarawas County, Ohio and its seat, New Philadelphia. In 1846, Bingham won his first election as district attorney for Tuscarawas County, serving from 1846 to 1849.

Early political career

Bingham's political activity continued despite the Whig Party's decline. Campaigning as candidate of the Opposition Party, he was elected to the 34th Congress, representing the 21st congressional district. In Washington, D.C., he roomed at the same boarding house as did fellow Ohio representative Joshua Giddings, a prominent abolitionist whom Bingham admired. Voters reelected Bingham to the 35th, 36th and 37th Congresses as a Republican. However, the district was one of two Ohio districts eliminated in the redistricting following the census of 1860. Bingham thus ran for reelection in what became the 16th district. Known for his abolitionist views, he lost to Democratic peace candidate Joseph W. White, and thus failed to return for the 38th Congress, in part because Union soldiers (mostly Republican-leaning) who were away from home fighting in the war were not allowed to vote by mail in Ohio. Nonetheless, the House of Representatives appointed Bingham as one of the managers of impeachment proceedings against West Hughes Humphreys.

During the Civil War, Bingham strongly supported the Union and became known as a Radical Republican. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Judge Advocate of the Union Army with the rank of major during his hiatus from Congress, and Bingham briefly became solicitor of the United States Court of Claims in 1865. Bingham’s judge advocate service was exceptional in the sense that he was a prosecutor or appellate reviewer in three significant military trials. He oversaw critical aspects of the trials of General Fitz John Porter in 1863, Surgeon General William Hammond in 1864 and the military commission trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators in 1864.

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