Party was at first called in Pennsylvania. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, despite a Democratic majority in the state legislature, a fact that gave rise to charges of bribery. His prominence as a candidate first for the presidential and then for the vice-presidential nomination in the Republican national convention of 1860 led to his being selected by President Lincoln as secretary of war. His administration of this office at a critical time was marked by his accustomed energy, but unfortunately also by partiality in the letting of government contracts, which brought about his resignation at Lincoln’s request in January 1862 and his subsequent censure by the House of Representatives. Lincoln sent him as minister to Russia, but he returned in November 1862. He again served in the Senate (after 1872, being chairman of the committee on foreign relations) from 1867 until 1877, when he resigned to make room for his son, whose election he dictated. Cameron was one of the ablest political organizers the United States has ever known, and his long undisputed control of Pennsylvania politics was one of the most striking examples of “boss rule” in American history. The definition of an honest politician as “one who when he is bought will stay bought” has been attributed to him. He died on the 26th of June 1889.
His son James Donald Cameron (1833– ) was born at Middletown, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of May 1833, graduated at Princeton in 1852, became actively interested in his father’s banking and railway enterprises, and from 1863 to 1874 was president of the Northern Central railway. Trained in the political school of his father, he developed into an astute politician. From June 1876 to March 1877 he was secretary of war in President Grant’s cabinet. In the Republican national convention of 1876 he took an influential part in preventing the nomination of James G. Elaine, and later was one of those who directed the policy of the Republicans in the struggle for the presidency between Tilden and Hayes. From 1877 until 1897 he was a member of the United States Senate, having been elected originally to succeed his father, who resigned in order to create the vacancy. He was chairman of the Republican national committee during the campaign of 1880.
CAMERON, VERNEY LOVETT (1844–1894), English traveller
in Central Africa, was born at Radipole, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire,
on the 1st of July 1844. He entered the navy in 1857,
served in the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, and was employed
for a considerable time in the suppression of the East African
slave trade. The experience thus obtained led to his being
selected to command an expedition sent by the Royal Geographical
Society in 1873, to succour Dr. Livingstone. He was also
instructed to make independent explorations, guided by Livingstone’s
advice. Soon after the departure of the expedition from
Zanzibar, Livingstone’s servants were met bearing the dead
body of their master. Cameron’s two European companions
turned back, but he continued his march and reached Ujiji,
on Lake Tanganyika, in February 1874, where he found and
sent to England Livingstone’s papers. Cameron spent some time
determining the true form of the south part of the lake, and
solved the question of its outlet by the discovery of the Lukuga
river. From Tanganyika he struck westward to Nyangwe,
the Arab town on the Lualaba previously visited by Livingstone.
This river Cameron rightly believed to be the main stream of
the Congo, and he endeavoured to procure canoes to follow
it down. In this he was unsuccessful, owing to his refusal to
countenance slavery, and he therefore turned south-west.
After tracing the Congo-Zambezi watershed for hundreds of
miles he reached Bihe and finally arrived at the coast on the
28th of November 1875, being the first European to cress
Equatorial Africa from sea to sea. His travels, which were
published in 1877 under the title Across Africa, contain valuable
suggestions for the opening up of the continent, including the
utilization of the great lakes as a “Cape to Cairo” connexion.
In recognition of his work he was promoted to the rank of
commander, made a Companion of the Bath and given the gold
medal of the Geographical Society. The remainder of Cameron’s
life was chiefly devoted to projects for the commercial development
of Africa, and to writing tales for the young. He visited
the Euphrates valley in 1878–1879 in connexion with a proposed
railway to the Persian Gulf, and accompanied Sir Richard
Burton in his West African journey of 1882. At the Gold Coast
Cameron surveyed the Tarkwa region, and he was joint author
with Burton of To the Gold Coast for Gold (1883). He was killed,
near Leighton Buzzard, by a fall from horseback when returning
from hunting, on the 24th of March 1894.
A second edition of Across Africa, with new matter and corrected maps, appeared in 1885. A summary of Cameron’s great journey, from his own pen, appears in Dr Robert Brown’s The Story of Africa, vol. ii. pp. 266–279 (London, 1893).
CAMERON OF LOCHIEL, SIR EWEN (1629–1719), Scottish
Highland chieftain, was the eldest son of John Cameron and the
grandson of Alan Cameron, the head of the clan Cameron.
Having lost his father in infancy he passed part of his youth with
the marquess of Argyll at Inveraray, leaving his guardian about
1647 to take up his duties as chief of the clan Cameron, a position
in which he succeeded his grandfather. In 1653 Lochiel joined
the earl of Glencairn in his rising on behalf of Charles II., and
after the defeat of this attempt he served the Royalist cause by
harassing General Monk. In 1681 he was knighted by Charles II.,
and in July 1689 he was with Viscount Dundee at Killiecrankie.
He was too old to share personally in the Jacobite rising of 1715,
but his sympathies were with the Stuarts, and his son led the
Camerons at Sheriffmuir. Lochiel, who died in February 1719,
is called by Macaulay the “Ulysses of the Highlands.” He was a
man of enormous strength and size, and one who met him in 1716
says “he wrung some blood from the point of my fingers with a
grasp of his hand.” An incident showing his strength and
ferocity in single combat is used by Sir Walter Scott in The Lady
of the Lake (canto v.). Lochiel’s son and successor, John, who
was attainted for sharing in the rebellion of 1715, died in Flanders
in 1748. John’s son Donald, sometimes called “gentle Lochiel,”
joined Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, in 1745, was
wounded at Culloden, and escaped to France, dying in the same
year as his father. The 79th regiment, or Cameron Highlanders,
was raised from among the members of the clan in 1793 by Sir
Alan Cameron (1753–1828).
See Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel (Bannatyne Club, 1842).
CAMERONIANS, the name given to that section of the Scottish
Covenanters (q.v.) who followed Richard Cameron (q.v.), and
who were chiefly found among those who signed the Sanquhar
Declaration in 1680. Known also as “Society Men,” “Sanquharians”
and “Hillmen,” they became a separate church
after the religious settlement of 1690, taking the official title
of Reformed Presbyterians in 1743. Societies of Cameronians
for the maintenance of the Presbyterian form of worship were
formed about 1681; their testimony, “The Informatory Vindication,”
is dated 1687; and they quickly became the most pronounced
and active adherents of the covenanting faith. Holding
fast to the two covenants, the National Covenant of 1580 and
the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, they wished to restore
the ecclesiastical order which had existed between 1638 and 1649,
and were dissatisfied with the moderate character of the religious
settlement of 1690. Refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to
an “uncovenanted” ruler, or to exercise any civil function, they
passed through a period of trial and found some difficulty in
maintaining a regular ministry; but in 1706 they were reinforced
by some converts from the established church. They objected
strongly to the proposal for the union of England and Scotland,
and were suspected of abetting a rising which took place in the
west of Scotland in 1706; but there appears to be no foundation
for the statement that they intrigued with the Jacobites, and
they gave no trouble to the government either in 1715 or in 1745.
In 1712 they publicly renewed the covenants at Auchensauch
Hill in Lanarkshire, and in 1743 their first presbytery was
constituted at Braehead, while a presbytery was formed in North
America in 1774. In 1863 the Cameronians, or Reformed
Presbyterians, decided to inflict no penalties upon those members
who had taken the oaths, or had exercised civil functions, and
