Favorable or Unfavorable #362: James W Grimes

[vcczar]

JW Grimes (IA-R) is a good example of the New England diaspora. He was born in NH and moved to IA to be a lawyer. These settlers left New England because land generally land was getting scarce and the West offered opportunities in fields that were mostly monopolized by leading families in New England.

If you have New England descendants, it's possible you have ancestors of this diaspora. This large groups of settles settled Long Island in NY, Upstate NY, parts of NJ, Northern PA, North half of OH and IN, about all of MI, parts of MN and WI, most of IL and IA, parts of NE, and a lot of WA and OR and some of CA. One can argue that this diaspora helped end slavery and laid the foundation both for the GOP and ironically (by today's standards) and US political liberalism, although this latter was greatly helped by Irish, Italian, Slavic, and Jewish immigration over the years. post-Civil War.

For my own family, my great-grandmother moved from MA to OH in the late 1890s to go to college to study philosophy in Cleveland. She's my only New England diaspora ancestor that I know of and her movement is kind of late in the process. Her mom joined her in Cleveland, but her father (who had divorced her mom) stayed in MA until his death in 1929. He's my last MA ancestor. 

Grimes stayed in New England until he finished law school at Dartmouth. Despite graduating at an elite school, he had to go out West to find work. This represents one of many reasons for this migration. I find migrations fascinating.  

His actions:

Grimes, James W.	1861	Part of the peace conference aimed to avert war
Grimes, James W.	1864	Senate Naval Affairs Committee Chair. Served through the end of the CW 1864-1870
Grimes, James W.	1865	tries to get Congress and pres to agree on Reconstruction policy
Grimes, James W.	1866	Helps put together the 14th Amendment
Grimes, James W.	1868	GOPer takes stand against Johnson conviction by Senate