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For his son of the same name, see August Belmont Jr.

August Belmont
Belmont c. 1850s
Chair of the Democratic National Committee
In office
1860–1872
Preceded byDavid Allen Smalley
Succeeded byAugustus Schell
U.S. Minister to the Netherlands
In office
1853–1857
Preceded byGeorge Folsom
Succeeded byHenry C. Murphy
Consul-General of Austria to the U.S.
In office
1844–1850
Personal details
Born
Aron Belmont

(1813-12-08)December 8, 1813
Alzey, Mont-Tonnerre, French Empire
DiedNovember 24, 1890(1890-11-24) (aged 76)
Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Resting placeIsland Cemetery,
Newport, Rhode Island
Spouse
Caroline Slidell Perry
​
​
(after 1849)​
Children6, including Perry, August Jr., Oliver, Raymond
Parent(s)Simon Belmont
Frederika Elsass
OccupationFinancier, politician, diplomat, racehorse owner/breeder
Signature

August Belmont Sr. (born August Schönberg; December 8, 1813 – November 24, 1890) was a German-American financier, diplomat, and politician. He served as Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 1860 to 1872. He was also a thoroughbred racehorse owner and the founder and namesake of the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown of American Thoroughbred horse racing.[1]

Early life

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He was born on December 8, 1813 to a Jewish family in the Rhenish Hessian village of Alzey, which was shortly annexed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse after the Napoleonic Wars. His father, Simon Belmont[a] was the owner of a freehold estate and leading citizen of Alzey, serving as president of the local synagogue for many years. His paternal ancestors were Spanish Jews who fled the Iberian peninsula during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. His mother, Frederika Elsass Belmont, died when August was seven.[2]

After his mother's death, he lived with his uncle and grandmother in Frankfurt, where he attended the Philanthropin, a Jewish school founded by Mayer Amschel Rothschild. When he was fifteen, his relatives prevailed upon the Rothschild family, who were friends of the Belmonts' and leading European financiers, to train him for business.[2] While training as an apprentice and running errands, he was tutored in French, English, composition, and arithmetic.[2] In 1832, his training was rewarded with an appointment as confidential clerk; two years later, he bcame secretary and traveling companion to one of the firm's partners, taking him outside Germany for the first time on a trip to Paris, Naples, and the Vatican City.[2]

Business career

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In 1837, the Rothschild branches in Paris and London became concerned with their holdings in the Spanish Empire, which had been destabilized by the Carlist War. They sent Belmont to sail for Cuba via New York City. Reaching New York amid the Panic of 1837, he learned that the Rothschilds' American agent, J.L. and S.I. Joseph & Co., had collapsed under liabilities of $7 million. As the situation called for a response from Europe more rapid than communications technology permitted, Belmont acted on his own judgment to postpone his trip to Cuba and superintend the Rotschild interests in New York, establishing August Belmont & Co. at 78 Wall Street. The Rothschilds eventually approved his decision, making him their permanent agent in the United States.[3]

August Belmont & Company

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From 1837 to 1842, Belmont experienced instantaneous success, serving as disbursing agent, dividend colelctor, and newsgatherer for the Rothschilds and their customers. The new financial house also invested in foreign exchange markets, commercial and private loans, commercial paper, and handled deposits. His European connections attracted private investment from corporations and railroads and state and local governments.[4] By the time of the Mexican-American War, Belmont & Company underwrote a substantial portion of United States Treasury loans.[4]

Belmont became a naturalized United States citizen in 1844.[5] His business positions, especially in international trade, were strengthened in 1844 when he became the consul general of Austria-Hungary in New York City, representing the Habsburg family in diplomatic matters. He resigned the position in 1850 over objections to the regime's policies towards Hungary, which had become a major cause célèbre in the United States, and his growing interest in American politics.[4]

Political career

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1852 presidential campaign

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Belmont entered politics as a leading supporter of James Buchanan's campaigns for President in 1852 and 1856.

Belmont's wife, Caroline Slidell Perry, was the member of a prominent political family which included John Slidell, a leading member of the Democratic Party in Louisiana. By 1850, Slidell encouraged Belmont, by then very wealthy, to enter politics. He had voted for Democratic candidates since his naturalization in 1844, although most of his business acquaintances were nominal or active Whigs.[6]

With Slidell, Belmont worked for the presidential nomination of former United States Secretary of State James Buchanan in 1852, hoping to unite the crucial state of New York in a coalition with Southern states. To avoid the appearance of Southern interference, Belmont was chosen to manage Buchanan's campaign in the state.[6] At the time, New York Democrats were deeply divided into various factions over the issue of slavery, with the anti-slavery "Barnburners" bolting in 1848 to support the Free Soil Party candidacy of Martin Van Buren.[6] Throughout 1851 and the spring of 1852, Belmont and Slidell worked to rally the various Democratic factions to Buchanan, including through the purchase of the New York Morning Star newspaper, but they failed to overcome favorite son William L. Marcy or Lewis Cass in the New York delegation. Efforts to unite the Buchanan delegates with Marcy or Stephen Douglas also failed, and Franklin Pierce was nominated as an unexpected dark horse at the 1852 Democratic National Convention.[6]

Belmont lent financial and political support to Pierce's campaign, bringing sustained attack from the city's Whig newspapers, which accused Belmont of using "Jew gold" from abroad to buy votes and maintaining "dual allegiance" to the Habsburgs and Rothschilds.[6] Belmont demanded a retraction of at least one Tribune story, but after he was rebuffed by Horace Greeley, he enlisted the Democratic Herald and Evening Post in his defense. The ensuing journalistic war of words became known within the city as the "Belmont affair."[6]

Minister to the Netherlands

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Pierce won the 1852 election easily and appointed Buchanan and Belmont to diplomatic posts in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, respectively. Belmont held the title of Charges d'Affairs at The Hague from October 11, 1853, until September 26, 1854, when the position's title was changed to Minister Resident. He continued as Minister Resident until September 22, 1857.

Ostend Manifesto

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Shortly after Pierce's election, Belmont proposed to Buchanan a plan to purchase and annex Cuba through military and diplomatic pressure on the unstable Kingdom of Spain, along with financial pressure from the Rothschilds and other European banking houses which held Spanish government bonds and could threaten the government with bankruptcy. In the letter, Belmont proposed that President-elect Pierce could, through his ministers to London and the Bourbon monarchies in Paris and Naples, create a diplomatic climate favorable to Spanish capitulation. For Naples, he recommended himself; Buchanan endorsed the plan and proposed it to Pierce, omitting Belmont's name.[7] Belmont proposed the plan again to William Marcy upon learning that Marcy might become Secretary of State, adding that he was on good terms with the lover of Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily.[7] He continued to lobby Buchanan, Marcy, and Pierce, directly and through friends, for the appointment to Naples, but it was ultimately given to Robert Dale Owens, and Belmont reluctantly accepted appointment to The Hague.

While in the Netherlands, Belmont urged American annexation of Cuba as a new slave state in what became known as the Ostend Manifesto.[8]

Although Belmont lobbied hard for it, newly elected President Buchanan denied him the ambassadorship to Madrid in the Kingdom of Spain after the presidential election of 1856, thanks to the Ostend Manifesto.[9]

As a delegate to the pivotal, but soon violently-split 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, Belmont supported influential U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, (who had triumphed in the famous 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates over his long-time political rival, the newly recruited Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, in their battle for Douglas's Senate seat).[citation needed]

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

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Senator Douglas subsequently nominated Belmont as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Belmont is attributed with single-handedly transforming the position of party chairman from a previously honorary office to one of great political and electoral importance, creating the modern American political party's national organization. He energetically supported the Union cause during the Civil War as a "War Democrat" (similar to former Tennessee Senator Andrew Johnson, later installed as war governor of the Union Army-occupied seceded state), conspicuously helping U.S. Representative from Missouri Francis P. Blair raise and equip the Union Army's first predominantly German-American regiment.[10]

Belmont also used his influence with European business and political leaders to support the Union cause in the Civil War, trying to dissuade the Rothschilds and other French bankers from lending funds or credit for military purchases to the Confederacy and meeting personally in London with the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, and members of Emperor Napoleon III's French Imperial Government in Paris.[11] He helped organize the Democratic Vigilant Association, which sought to promote unity by promising Southerners that New York businessmen would protect the rights of the South and keep free-soil members out of office.[12]

Post-war political career

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September 1868 Thomas Nast cartoon "This is a White Man's Government!" showing left to right a stereotyped Irishman (perhaps representing the Democratic Party), an ex-Confederate soldier (Nathan B. Forrest), and a capitalist (Belmont) "triumphing" over a prostrate USCT soldier on the ground.
 
Thomas Nast cartoon Schurz, Belmont, Fenton, Trumbull, Tipton, and others lie before a vengeful Columbia (representing the U.S.) while Uncle Sam (also representing the U.S.) waves his hat beside the victorious Ulysses S. Grant, 1872

Remaining chairman of the Democratic National Committee after the War, Belmont presided over what he called "the most disastrous epoch in the annals of the Democratic Party".[13] As early as 1862, Belmont and Samuel Tilden bought stock in the New York World in order to mold it into a major Democratic press organ with the help of Manton M. Marble, its editor-in-chief.[14]

According to the Chicago Tribune in 1864, Belmont was buying up Southern bonds on behalf of the Rothschilds as their agent in New York because he backed the Southern cause. Seeking to capitalize on divisions in the Republican Party at the War's end, Belmont organized new party gatherings and promoted Salmon Chase (the former United States Secretary of the Treasury since 1861, and later Chief Justice of the United States in 1864) for president in 1868, the candidate he viewed least vulnerable to charges of disloyalty to the Party during the Republican/Unionists Lincoln-Johnson Administrations, (1861–69).[15]

Horatio Seymour's electoral defeat in the 1868 election paled in comparison to the later nomination of Liberal Republican Horace Greeley's disastrous 1872 presidential campaign. In 1870, the Democratic Party faced a crisis when the Committee of Seventy emerged to cleanse the government of corruption. A riot at Tammany Hall led to the campaign to topple William M. Tweed. Belmont stood by his party.[16]

While the party chairman had originally promoted Charles Francis Adams for the nomination, Greeley's nomination implied Democratic endorsement of a candidate who as publisher of the famous nationally dominant newspaper, the New York Tribune, had often earlier referred to Democrats before, during and after the War as "slaveholders", "slave-whippers", "traitors", and "Copperheads" and accused them of "thievery, debauchery, corruption, and sin".[17]

Although the election of 1872 prompted Belmont to resign his chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, he nevertheless continued to dabble in politics as a champion of U.S. Senator Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware for the presidency, as a fierce critic of the process granting Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in the 1876 election, and as an advocate of "hard money" financial policies.[18]

Personal life

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Further information: Perry family
 
Caroline Slidell Perry Belmont, portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy
 
Painting of Belmont in a carriage with his wife Caroline, by Wouterus Verschuur, 1854

On November 7, 1849, Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry (1829–1892).[19] She was the daughter of naval officer Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858), captain and commodore in the U.S. Navy, later famous for his expedition to open the trading ports of Japan in 1853.[19] According to Jewish newspaper sources, he converted to Christianity at that time, taking his wife's Episcopal faith.[20][21]

Together, they were the parents of six children, with all of his surviving sons becoming involved in politics:[22]

Belmont died in Manhattan, New York City on November 24, 1890, from pneumonia.[1] His funeral was held at the Church of the Ascension in New York City.

The Letters, Speeches and Addresses of August Belmont was published at New York in 1890. Belmont left an estate valued at more than ten million dollars (equivalent to $310 million in 2023). He is buried in an ornate sarcophagus in the Belmont family plot (along with other Belmonts, Perrys and Tiffanys) in the Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island.[33] His widow died in 1892.[34]

Society life

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By-the-Sea, Belmont's Newport cottage, c. 1915

Belmont threw lavish balls and dinner parties, receiving mixed reviews from New York's high society. He was an avid sportsman, and the famed Belmont Stakes thoroughbred horse race is named in his honor. It debuted at Jerome Park Racetrack, owned by Belmont's friend, Leonard Jerome (the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill). The Belmont Stakes is part of thoroughbred horse racing's Triple Crown and takes place at Belmont Park racetrack, just outside New York City. Belmont was heavily involved in Thoroughbred horse racing. He served as the president of the National Jockey Club from 1866 to 1887 and owned the Nursery Stud (a horse-breeding farm near Babylon, New York, on Long Island), which in 1885 was replaced by a stud farm of the same name near Lexington, Kentucky.[1]

His home, By-the-Sea in Newport, Rhode Island, was demolished in 1946.[35]

Legacy

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Statue of Belmont by John Quincy Adams Ward in Newport

Belmont, New Hampshire, is named in his honor, an honor he never acknowledged.[citation needed]

The Liberty ship SS August Belmont was named in his honor.

In 1910, sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward completed a bronze statue of a seated Belmont. The statue was originally installed in front of a small chapel adjacent to the Belmont burial plot in the Island Cemetery. It was later moved to a park between Washington Square and Touro Street in Newport. It was replaced by a marker dedicating the park as Eisenhower Park in 1960, to honor President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The statue was loaned by the city of Newport to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1985. It was eventually installed, about 1995, in front of the headquarters building for the Preservation Society of Newport County at the corner of Bellevue and Narragansett Avenues in Newport.[citation needed]

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Author Edith Wharton reputedly modeled the character of Julius Beaufort in her novel The Age of Innocence on Belmont.[36]

In The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter, August Belmont appears as a character.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "August Belmont is Dead. A Notable Career Closed Early Yesterday Morning. The Veteran Banker's Short And Fatal Illness. His Life As a Leader In Finance, Politics, Society, and On The Turf" (PDF). The New York Times. November 25, 1890. Retrieved April 29, 2015. August Belmont, the famous banker and turfman, died yesterday morning at 3 o'clock at his residence, 109 Fifth Avenue. The cause of Mr. Belmont's death was pneumonia, from which he had been suffering only three days. The beginning of the malady was a cold contracted at the recent horse show in Madison Square Garden. ...
  2. ^ a b c d Katz 1968, pp. 3–5.
  3. ^ Katz 1968, pp. 6–7.
  4. ^ a b c Katz 1968, pp. 6–8.
  5. ^ Katz 1968, p. 10.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Katz 1968, pp. 10–21.
  7. ^ a b Katz, pp. 22–31.
  8. ^ Katz, pp. 42–45.
  9. ^ Katz, pp. 58–61; John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, Vol. II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pg. 534
  10. ^ Katz, pg. 90. For more on Belmont's public contributions to the war effort, see Belmont's self-published, A Few Letters and Speeches of the Late Civil War, New York, [Private Printing], 1870.
  11. ^ Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. II (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), pg. 170.
  12. ^ Katz 1968, p. [page needed].
  13. ^ Quoted in Katz, 91.
  14. ^ Garraty and Carnes, pg. 534.
  15. ^ Garraty and Carnes, pg. 534; Katz, pp. 167–68.
  16. ^ Homberger, Eric (2002). Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social power in a Gilded Age. New York. p. 174.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ^ Katz, pg. 200
  18. ^ Katz, pp. 210–76.
  19. ^ a b "Mrs. August Belmont Dead.; Death Came Peacefully Yesterday After a Long Illness". The New York Times. November 21, 1892. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  20. ^ American Israelite, August 7, 1874, pg. 4
  21. ^ Jewish Exponent, December 19, 1924.
  22. ^ Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.
  23. ^ "Perry Belmont, 96, Ex-diplomat, Dead. Envoy To Spain In 1888-9 Was In Congress 8 Years. Decried Isolationism In 1925 Perry Might, 96, Ex-diplomat, Dead". The New York Times. May 26, 1947. Retrieved April 30, 2015. Perry Belmont, former representative and diplomat, who was a grandson of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, died this morning in the Newport Hospital, where he had been a patient since August. He was in his ninety-seventh year. ...
  24. ^ "MRS. BELMONT DIES; LONG ILL IN PARIS; Former Social Leader Noted for Beauty--First Married to Henry T. Sloane. 20 YEARS IN WASHINGTON Husband, Perry, Former Minister to Spain--Still Owner of Newport Residence". The New York Times. October 21, 1935. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  25. ^ "August Belmont, Stricken In Office, Dies In 36 Hours. Financier and Sportsman Undergoes Operation, Rallies, Then Sinks Into Coma". The New York Times. December 11, 1924. Retrieved May 3, 2011. August Belmont, financier and sportsman, died at 6:30 o'clock last evening in his apartment at 550 Park Avenue, less than thirty-six hours after he had been taken ill in his office. ...
  26. ^ "MRS. AUGUST BELMONT BURIED.; Laid to Rest in Newport (R.I.) Cemetery -- Only the Family Present". The New York Times. October 20, 1898. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  27. ^ "Eleanor Robson and August Belmont Wed. Married by Mgr. Lavelle at Actress's Home With Only Near Relatives Present. Honeymoon in The South. Star Of "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" Left The Stage On Feb. 12. Careers Of Bride And Bridegroom". The New York Times. February 27, 1910. Retrieved September 24, 2010. August Belmont and Miss Eleanor Robson, the actress who crosed her stage career with the fall of the curtain on "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" at the Majestic Theatre, Brooklyn, on Feb. 12, were married yesterday afternoon at 5 o'clock at, the home of the bride, 302 West Seventy-seventh Street, Mgr. Lavelle. assisted by Father Byrnes of St. Patrick's Cathedral, officiating.
  28. ^ The Howland Quarterly. Pilgrim John Howland Society. 1939. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
  29. ^ "O.H.P. Belmont Dead After Brave Fight. He Succumbs to Septic Poisoning, Following an Operation for Appendicitis. To be Held at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City. Burial at Woodlawn". The New York Times. June 11, 1908. Retrieved May 27, 2011. The death of Oliver H.P. Belmont occurred soon after 6:30 o'clock this morning at Brookholt, his Long Island country seat. ...[permanent dead link‍]
  30. ^ "Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont Dies at Paris Home". The New York Times. January 26, 1933. Retrieved December 9, 2010. Shock Suffered Last Spring. Complicated by Bronchial and Heart Ailments. Society Leader was 80. Former Wife of W. K. Vanderbilt. Long Held Sway in New York and in Newport Colony
  31. ^ "Mrs. Belmont Dies at 80 in Paris Home". Chicago Daily Tribune. January 26, 1933. Retrieved December 9, 2010. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, leader of New York's '400' for a period of many years before and after the turn of the century, died today at her residence here. She was 80 years old. ...
  32. ^ "Young Mr. Belmont's Death. Accidentally Shooting Himself While Practicing With A Pistol" (PDF). The New York Times. February 1, 1887. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  33. ^ Cite error: The named reference Belcourt was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  34. ^ "Mrs. August Belmont Dead. Death Came Peacefully Yesterday After A Long Illness" (PDF). The New York Times. November 21, 1892. Retrieved April 29, 2015. Mrs. August Belmont died yesterday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock. An hour before death she became unconscious, and did not again rally. She passed away peacefully. At her bedside at her death was her son Perry Belmont, August Belmont Jr. and wife, S.S. Howland and wife, Oliver H.P. Belmont, and Dr. Barrows. She was attended in her illness by Drs. Barrows, Polk, and Hanlen.
  35. ^ "By-the-Sea". The Preservation Society of Newport County. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  36. ^ "The Edith Wharton Society". Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. Retrieved January 27, 2007.

Notes

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  1. ^ French for 'beautiful mountain', in German it is Schönberg

Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to -A-M-B-1996-/sandbox7.
 
Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about August Belmont.
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by U.S. Minister to the Netherlands
1853–1857 		Succeeded by



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