Hoar

covered Nova Scotia and other British prov-
inces, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Vir-
ginia, North and South Carolina, Ohio, and In-
diana. He went over the Quaker sections in
these states and provinces many times, visiting
all the meetings, and on some journeys all the
families, of Friends. He traveled by horse and
carriage and on one of his journeys he covered
7,600 miles in twenty-one months. His preach-
ing and his personal communications were
marked by frequent insights into states and con-
ditions of individuals and communities, and in-
timations of events about to occur. But his rep-
utation as a prophet rested particularly upon a
unique vision which came to him in 1803. In this
premonition he saw divisions occurring in the
churches of America beginning in the Presby-
terian denomination and going on through the
other Protestant churches. The same dividing
spirit split the Society of Friends and divided
the United States, resulting 'in bloodshed and
the final abolition of slavery in the Southern
states. "Then a Monarchical power arose—took
the Government of the United States—estab-
lished a national religion" (Journal, post, p.
379). The veridical value of the earlier predic-
tions is weakened for scientific students by the
fact that the vision was not officially printed
until 1861, though a slightly earlier printing oc-
curred in 1854. When the divisions occurred in
the Society of Friends Hoag was a stout oppo-
nent of Elias Hicks, whose liberal preaching led
to the so-called Hicksite separation of 1827-28.
At ,the second separation, in 1845, Hoag sup-
ported John Wilbur against the followers of Jo-
seph John Gurney and allied himself with the
small body of "Wilburites" in New York. He
died the following year in his Vermont home.

[Jour, of the Life of Jos. Hoag (Auburn, N. Y.,
1861); Albert J. Edmunds, The Vision, in 1803, of Jos.
Hoag (1915); Friends' Intelligencer, Dec. 2, 1854, con-
taining an early printing of the "Vision"; David Mar-
shall, The Visions of Jos. Hoaff and Daniel Barker
(Carthage, Ind., 1889).] R.M.J.

HOAR, EBENEZER ROCKWOOD (Feb.
21, i8i6-Jan. 31, 1895), jurist, congressman,
attorney-general, was born in Concord, Mass.,
the son of Samuel Hoar and brother of George
Frisbie Hoar \_qq.v.]. His mother was Sarah,
daughter of Roger Sherman [q.v.~\. He gradu-
ated from Harvard College in 1833 (B.A.),
taught a year, began to read law in his father's
office, and continued in the Harvard Law School,
where he received the degree of LL,B. in 1839.
He rapidly rose to eminence in practice, being
.associated in various cases with Choate and with
Webster. He entered politics in 1840 as a dele-
gate to the Whig young men's convention for

Hoar

Middlesex County. Five years later he was one
of the organizers of an anti-annexation meet-
ing at which was adopted a pledge written by
himself and Henry Wilson to "use all practica-
ble means for the extinction of slavery on the
American Continent." A few months later as an
anti-slavery Whig he was elected to the Massa-
chusetts Senate, where his declaration that he
would rather be a "Conscience Whig" than a
"Cotton Whig" gave the slogan to the anti-slav-
ery movement, of which he became a leader. His
call to the people of Massachusetts in protest
against the nomination of Taylor for president
led to the Free Soil convention at Worcester on
June 28, 1848.

In 1849 hfi was appointed a judge of the court
of common pleas. One of the notable features of
his service on the bench was his charge to the
grand jury in the trial of the men who attempted
to free the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns [q.v.].
In 1855 he resigned to resume practice but in
1859 he became an associate justice of the su-
preme judicial court of Massachusetts, a position
which he held for a decade. Then called by Presi-
dent Grant to the post of attorney-general, he
proved one of the most effective department
heads. He exerted his influence against the rec-
ognition of the Cuban insurgents as belligerents.
When nine new circuit judgeships were created,
Hoar's sturdy insistence that these positions be
filled by men of high character and fitness was
keenly resented by many senators who wished to
treat them as patronage. Accordingly, a few
months later when the President nominated him
for a seat upon the supreme bench, the Senate
rejected the nomination, ostensibly because he
did not live in the district to which he was to be
assigned. "What could you expect from a man
who had snubbed seventy Senators 1" said Simon
Cameron (Proceedings of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, post, p. 304). The charge that
Grant and Hoar connived to pack the Supreme
Court so as to obtain a reversal of its stand upon
the legal-tender issue has been conclusively re-
futed (G. F. Hoar, The Charge against Presi-
dent Grant and Attorney General Hoar of Pack-
ing the Supreme Court, 1896; Storey and Emer-
son, post, pp. 199-202). In 1870, with dignified
loyalty to his chief, he retired from the cabinet
when Grant sought to secure the support of some
Southern senators who were demanding that the
Attorney-General be displaced by a man from
the South; but the next year he yielded to
Grant's request to serve as a member of the joint
high commission which framed the Treaty of
Washington to settle the Alabama claims.
He served a single term in Congress (1873-

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