
Isaac Newton Arnold (30 November 1815-24 April 1884) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-IL 2) from 4 March 1861 to 3 March 1863 (interrupting John F. Farnsworth's terms) and from 4 March 1863 to 3 March 1865 (succeeding Elihu B. Washburne and preceding John Wentworth).
Biography[]
Isaac Newton Arnold was born in Hartwick, New York in 1815, and he became a lawyer in 1835 and moved to Chicago a year later. He befriended fellow lawyer Abraham Lincoln, and he left the Democratic Party to help organize the Free Soil Party in Illinois. In 1860, he joined the Republican Party and was elected to the US House of Representatives, serving from 1861 to 1865. He introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the territories, and it was adopted in 1862. He left office in 1865 and wrote biographies of Lincoln and Benedict Arnold before dying in 1884.