James Mitchell Ashley, a nineteenth-century abolitionist, Republican politician, and railroad executive, was born on this day in 1824. Though best known by historians and political scientists as the initiator of President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, the five-term Ohio Congressman is significant to our state’s history as the sponsor of the Arizona Organic Act.
Signed into law by President Lincoln on February 24th, 1863, Ashley’s bill carved the Arizona Territory out of land once belonging to New Mexico Territory. Notably, Ashley’s legislation established the Arizona-New Mexico border that is in place to this day – a border drawn to separate the former New Mexico Territory in two along a north-south line. In so doing, the federal government effectively neutralized the would-be Confederate Territory of Arizona that had been organized along an east-west line along the 35th parallel to split New Mexico Territory into a Union-held northern section and a Confederate southern portion. Confederate influence in the newly-formed territory was further weakened when officials selected Prescott as the new capital, thus shifting the base of power from what is now Mesilla, NM, then the center of Confederate territorial government.
Following a ten year career in Congress, Ashley moved west to serve as governor of Montana Territory. Outside of his life in politics, Ashley founded and managed the now-defunct Ann Arbor Railroad, a venture boasting track in the states of Ohio and Michigan.