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BENJAMIN HELM BRISTOW (1832-1896)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 583 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BENJAMIN HELM BRISTOW (1832-1896)  ,
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American lawyer and politician, was born in Elkton,
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Kentucky, on the loth of
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June 1832, the son of Francis Marion Bristow (1804-1864), a Whig member of Congress in 1854-1855 and 1859-1861 . He graduated at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1851, studied law under his
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father, and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1853 . At the beginning of the
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Civil War he became
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lieutenant-colonel of the 25th Kentucky
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Infantry; was severely wounded at Shiloh; helped to recruit the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, of which he was lieutenant-colonel and later colonel; and assisted at the capture of John H . Morgan in
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July 1863 . In 1863-1865 he was state senator; in 1865-1866 assistant
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United States
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district-attorney, and in 1866-1870 district-attorney for the
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Louisville district; and in 1870-1872, after a few months' practice of law with John M . Harlan, was the (first appointed)
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solicitor-general of the United States . In 1873 President Grant nominated him attorney-general of the United States in case George H . Williams were confirmed as chief justice of the United States, —a contingency which did not arise . As secretary of the
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treasury (1874-1876) he prosecuted with vigour the so-called " Whisky Ring," the headquarters of which was at St Louis, and which, beginning in 187o or 1871, had defrauded the Federal government out of a large
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part of its rightful revenue from the distillation of whisky . Distillers and revenue
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officers in St Louis,
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Milwaukee,
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Cincinnati and other cities were implicated, and the illicit gains—which in St Louis alone probably amounted to more than $2,500,000 in the six years 1870-1876—were divided between the distillers and the revenue officers, who levied assessments on distillers ostensibly for a Republican
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campaign fund to be used in furthering Grant's re-election . Prominent among the ring's alleged accomplices at Washington was Orville E . Babcock, private secretary to President Grant, whose
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personal friendship for Babcock led him to indiscreet interference in the
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prosecution .

Through Bristow's efforts more than 200 men were indicted, a number of whom were convicted, but after some months' imprisonment were pardoned . Largely owing to

friction between himself and the president, Bristow resigned his portfolio in June 1876; as secretary of the treasury he advocated the resumption of specie payments and at least a partial retirement of "
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greenbacks"; and he was also an advocate of civil service reform . He was a prominent
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candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1876 . After 1878 he practised law in New York City, where he died on the 22nd of June 1896 . See Memorial of Benjamin Helm Bristow, largely prepared by David Willcox (Cambridge, Mass., privately printed, 1897) ;Whiskey Frauds, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., Mis . Doc . No . 186; Secrets of the
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Great Whiskey Ring (Chicago, 1880), by John McDonald, who for nearly six years had been supervisor of
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internal revenue at St Louis,—a
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book by one concerned and to be considered in that
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light .

End of Article: BENJAMIN HELM BRISTOW (1832-1896)
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