Albert G. Riddle
United States lawyer, diplomat and politician (1816-1902)
Albert Gallatin Riddle (May 28, 1816 – May 15, 1902) was a 19th-century American lawyer and politician who served one term as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1861 to 1863.
Early life
Born in Monson, Massachusetts, Riddle moved with his parents to Newbury, in the Western Reserve of Ohio, in 1817. He completed preparatory studies, and then studied law.
Career
Riddle was admitted to the bar in 1840 and began practice in Geauga County, serving as prosecuting attorney of that county from 1840 to 1846.
Early political career
He served as member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1848 to 1850, and in 1848 called the first Free Soil convention in Ohio.
Riddle moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1850. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1856, and in 1859 he defended the Oberlin slave rescuers.
Congress
He served as a Republican in the Thirty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1861 – March 3, 1863), making speeches in favor of arming slaves, the first on this subject that were delivered in Congress, and others on emancipation in the District of Columbia and in vindication of President Lincoln. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1862.
Later career
After his term in Congress, Riddle served as consul at Matanzas, Cuba, in 1863 and 1864.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1418938. VIAF identifies the subject as 67929533. The Library of Congress control number is n85367524. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1816, 1902, 1861 and 1863.
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This entry incorporates text from “Albert G. Riddle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.