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186 took his seat on 20 Dec, 1852, and served till 3 March, 1855. During the civil wav he was an ad- vocate of peace, and in 18(i;J was a delegate to the peace convention held at Frankfort, Ky.

DIXON, George, British navigator, d. about 1800. lie discovered several small islands near the northwest coast of America, and a strait that he named Dixon's Entrance. He was the author of " Voyage Round the World, but more particularly to the Northwest Coast of America, 1785-'88" (London, 1789); "Voyage of Meares " (1790) ; and "The Navigator's Assistant" (1791).

DIXON, George Washington, comic singer, b. about 1808; d. in New Orleans, La., in March, 1861. He first appeared in 1827 as a comedian, in small parts, at the amphitheatre in Albany, N. Y. In 1880, for the first time in that city, he assumed the character of a negro minstrel, with the accom- paniment of the banjo. Thence he went to New York, Philadelphia, and other large cities, singing his famous songs, " The Coal-Black Rose " and "Zip Coon," to admiring throngs. Dixon may justly be termed the pioneer of negro minstrelsy. Rut he lacked enterprise and industry ; his songs were without character, had little melody, and be- came time-worn. For years he produced noth- ing new, until he was supplanted by novelty. , In ls;j9 he pulilished in New York a weekly, called tlie " Polyanthos," and for a libel therein on Rev. Dr. Hawks he suffered six months' imprisonment. His life closed in a charity hospital.

DIXON, James, senator, b. in Enfield, Conn., 5 Aug.. 1814 ; d. in Hartford, 27 March, 1873. He was graduated at Williams with distinction in 1834, studied law in his father's office, and began prac- tice in Enfield, but soon rose to such eminence at the bar that he re- moved to Hart- ford, and there formed a partner- ship with Judge William W. Ells- worth. Early com- bining with his legal practice an active interest in public affairs, he was elected to the popular branch of the Connecticut legislature in 1837 and 1838, and again in 1844. In 1840 he married Eliza- beth L., daughter of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Cogswell, professor in the Connecticut theological institute. Mr. Dixon at an early date had become the recognized leader of the Whig party in the Hartford congressional district, and was chosen in 1845 a member of the U. S. house of representatives. He was re-elected in 1847, and was distinguished in that difficult arena alike for his power as a debater and for an amenity of bearing that exiorted the respect of political opponents even in the turbulent times following the Mexican war, and the exasperations of the sectional debate pre- cipitated by the " Wilmot Proviso." Retiring from congress in 1849, he was in that year elected from Hartford to a seat in the Connecticut senate, and, having been re-elected in 1854, was chosen president of that body, but declined the honor, be- cause the floor seemed to offer a better field for use- fulness. During the same year he was made presi- dent of the Whig state convention, and, having now reached a position of commanding influence, he was in 1857 elected U. 8. senator, and participated in all the parliamentary debates of the epoch that preceded the civil war. He was remarkable among his colleagues in the senate for the tenacity with which he adhered to his political princi[)les, and for the clear presage with which he grasped the drift of events. Six years afterward, in the midst of the civil war, he was re-elected senator with a unanimity that had had no precedent in the annals of Connecticut. During his service in the senate he was an active member of the committee on manufactures, and during his last term was at one time appointed chairman of three important committees. While making his residence in Washington the seat of an elegant hospitality, he was remarkable for the assi- duity with which he followed the public business of the senate, and for the eloquence that he brought to the discussion of grave public questions as they successively arose before, during, and after the civil war. Among his more notable speeches was one delivered 25 June, 1862, on the constitutional sta- tus created by the so-called acts of secession — a speech that is known to have commanded the ex- press admiration of President Lincoln, as embody- ing what he held to be the true theory of the war in the light of the constitution and of public law. To the jarinciples expounded in that speech Mr. Dixon steadfastly adhered during the administra- tion alike of President Lincoln and of his succes- sor. In the impeachment trial of President John- son he was numbered among the Republican sena- tors who voted against the sufficiency of the arti- cles, and from that date he participated no longer in the councils of the Republican i^arty. With- drawing from public life in 1869, he was urged by the president of the United States and by his col- leagues in the senate to accept the mission to Russia, but refused the honor, and, without re- turning to the practice of his profession, found oc- cupation for his scholarly mind in European travel, in literary studies, and in the society of congenial friends. From his early youth he had been a stu- dent and lover of the world's best literature. Re- markable for the purity of his literary taste and for the abundance of his intellectual resources, he might have gained distinction as a prose writer and as a poet if he had not been allured to the more exciting fields of law and politics. While yet a stu- dent at college he was the recognized poet of his class, and even his graduation thesis was written in verse. His poems, struck off as the leisure labors of a busy life, occupy a conspicuous place in Everest's " Poets of Connecticut," while five of his sonnets, exquisite for refinement of thought and felicity of execution, are preserved side by side with those of Bryant, Percival, and Lowell in Leigh Hunt's " Book of the Sonnet." He was also a frecjuent con- tributor to the "New England Magazine " and to the periodical press. Trinity college conferred upon him in 1862 the degree of LL. D. " Deeply imbued with classical letters, versed in the prmciples and the practice of law, widely read in history, and possess- ing withal a logical mind, J\Ir. Dixon always pre- ferred to discuss public questions in the light of a permanent political philosophy, instead of treating them with paramount reference to the dominant emotions of the hour.

DIXON, Jeremiah. See Mason, Charles.

DIXON, Joseph, inventor, b. in Marblehead, Mass., 18 Jan., 1799; d. in Jersey City, N. J., 17 June, 1869. He was entirely self-educated, and early showed unusual mechanical ingenuity, inventing a machine for cutting files before he was twenty-one. Subsequently he became a printer,