Martin Russell Thayer (January 27, 1819 – October 14, 1906) was a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the U.S. state of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. His grandnephew was John B. Thayer, who died on the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''.

Early life

Martin Russell Thayer was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, near the city limits of Petersburg. He attended the Mount Pleasant Classical Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Amherst College. He moved with his father to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

in 1837. He graduated from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1840. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1842 and commenced practice in Philadelphia.

Public service

Thayer was a commissioner to revise the revenue laws of Pennsylvania in 1862. He was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, during which he served on the committee on the bankrupt law and was the chairman of the

United States House Committee on Private Land Claims The United States Court of Private Land Claims (1891–1904) was an ad-hoc court created to decide land claims guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and in the states of Nevada, Col ...

. He declined to be a candidate for re-election in

1866 Events January–March * January 1 ** Fisk University, a historically black university, is established in Nashville, Tennessee. ** The last issue of the abolitionist magazine '' The Liberator'' is published. * January 6 – Ottoman t ...

, and resumed the practice of law. While in Congress, Thayer criticized the use of portraits of living persons on US currency, suggesting that the Treasury's privilege of portrait selection for currency was being abused. Spearheaded by Thayer, on April 7, 1866 Congress enacted legislation specifically stating "that no portrait or likeness of any living person hereafter engraved, shall be placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States." Thayer was judge of the district court of Philadelphia from 1867 to 1874, and served as president judge of the court of common pleas of Philadelphia from 1874 until his resignation in 1896. In 1873 he was appointed on the board of visitors to

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

, and wrote the report. (Some 40 years earlier, his cousin

Sylvanus Thayer Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer (June 9, 1785 – September 7, 1872) also known as "the Father of West Point" was an early superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an early advocate of engineeri ...

had been superintendent of West Point.) He was elected as a member to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1877. He was elected by the judges of the common pleas court prothonotary of Philadelphia in 1896. He also engaged in literary pursuits. He died in Philadelphia in 1906 and is buried in the churchyard of Church of St. James the Less in

Works

* ''The Duties of Citizenship'' (Philadelphia, 1862) * ''A Reply to Mr. Charles Ingersoll's "Letter to a Friend in a Slave State."'' (Philadelphia, 1862) * ''The Great Victory: its Cost and Value'' (1865) * ''The Law considered as a Progressive Science'' (1870) * ''On Libraries'' (1871) * ''The Life and Works of

Francis Lieber Francis Lieber (March 18, 1798 or 1800 – October 2, 1872), known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an '' Encyclopaedia Americana''. He was the author of the Lieber Code duri ...

'' (1873) * ''The Battle of Germantown'' (1878)

Notes

References

The Political Graveyard
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External links

* * 1819 births 1906 deaths 19th-century American judges 19th-century American politicians Amherst College alumni Burials at the Church of St. James the Less Judges of the Pennsylvania Courts of Common Pleas Pennsylvania lawyers Pennsylvania prothonotaries People from Dinwiddie County, Virginia Politicians from Amherst, Massachusetts Politicians from Philadelphia Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania alumni {{Pennsylvania-Representative-stub