Chauncey Langdon Knapp was born in
Berlin, Vermont, February 26, 1809. He was trained as a printer, and became a newspaperman in
Montpelier. For a number of years, he was co-proprietor and editor of the
State Journal, Vermont's main
Anti-Masonic Party newspaper. Interested in politics, he served as
Secretary of State of Vermont from 1836 to 1843.
Career In 1843, he visited
Lowell, Massachusetts, and met poet
John Greenleaf Whittier, at the time editor of Lowell's
Middlesex Standard (the voice of the Anti-slavery Movement and the
Liberty Party). Whittier invited Knapp to stay in Lowell, take over as editor, and continue the fight against slavery and for social reform in Lowell. Knapp accepted and he eventually moved from editor of the
Middlesex Standard to editor of the
Lowell Citizen and News. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Liberty Party candidate in 1846 and as a member of the
Free Soil Party in 1848. Knapp was appointed Clerk of the
Massachusetts State Senate in 1851.
Congress In 1854, Knapp ran as an anti-slavery candidate and was elected to the
United States House of Representatives. He was identified with the
American Party (the only major party with an anti-slavery plank) while serving in the
Thirty-fourth Congress. When the
Republican Party was formed with an anti-slavery plank, Knapp joined it. He was again overwhelmingly elected to the
Thirty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1857 – March 3, 1859). During the heated slavery debates in Congress, Senator
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was severely beaten by Congressman
Preston Brooks of South Carolina on May 22, 1856. In response, Congressmen Knapp delivered his first address on the floor of the House, a speech in which he said his constituents viewed the attack as an "audacious blow hurled at the great right of free opinion. . .the primal element and safeguard of constitutional liberty." == Later career ==