During and before the American Civil War, Cox was a moderate member of the Copperhead faction, who supported peace with the South at any cost.

[9] As a child, Cox was described by neighbors as "bright, sunny, genial, fond of fun, sparkling with wit, always truthful, fearless, and generous, never hesitating to confess a fault of his own, and ever ready to defend the weak and oppressed."

[10] Among his classmates at the academy in Zanesville were future Supreme Court Justice William Burnham Woods and geologist James M.

In a memorable incident during his freshman year, the town won a court case against the university and Cox sabotaged a cannon scheduled to be fired in celebration.

Among his friends were Franklin J. Dickman, James Burrill Angell, and future Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court Thomas Durfee.

[18] As a student, Cox read legal treatises in his spare time, including Blackstone's Commentaries and William Cruise's Digest of the Laws of England Respecting Real Property.

[20] As a young editor (and as an erstwhile writer at Brown), Cox expounded some of his political beliefs, including his opposition to the American System of the Whig Party and support for free trade.

[25] On December 16, 1857, Cox delivered the maiden speech in the newly completed House chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building.

The bold speech positioned Cox squarely as a supporter of Senator Stephen A. Douglas's "popular sovereignty," as opposed to President James Buchanan and the proposed Lecompton constitution for Kansas.

Cox's speech was credited as helping sink the Lecompton constitution and leading to the eventual admission of Kansas as a free state.

[27] He remained an opponent of the Buchanan administration and an ally of Senator Douglas amid growing sectional and political divide in Congress.

"[34] In 1864, Cox took an active part in the campaign against Lincoln's re-election, denouncing Republicans for allegedly supporting miscegenation.

[37] After leaving Congress, Cox moved to New York City to return to the practice of law, in partnership with Charlton Thomas Lewis.

[42] After a second trip to Europe, limited to the Mediterranean coast by his ill health,[43] Cox returned to find Congress dominated by the issue of Reconstruction.

Cox spent much of the next Congress in an effort to abolish the test oath system, which required all civil servants and military officers to swear they had not engaged in disloyal conduct during the War.

Horace Greeley, his opponent in 1870, was the ticket's presidential nominee, putting Cox in the unusual position of stumping for his most recent rival.

[50] However, Cox left the capital to serve as a delegate to the 1876 Democratic National Convention, and Milton Sayler was chosen to fill the Speakership.

After Kerr's death, Randall was elected his successor in the 45th Congress and Cox was additionally placed at the head of the committee on the Tenth Census.

He first visited London, attending the funeral of Benjamin Disraeli and the House of Commons, where the debate over the Bradlaugh case further reinforced his opposition to the test oath.

[55] Upon his return to the United States, Cox became active in the movements for civil service reform and restrictions on foreign contract labor.

Cox resigned his seat to accept appointment, citing the frantic pace of Congress and his continued minor role.

He ran for Congress to fill the vacant seat left by Joseph Pulitzer, once again representing the Lower East Side (specifically the area known today as Alphabet City).

He had, once again, missed a minimal amount of Congressional service, and Representative Cummings claimed that Cox was thus the first man elected twice to the same Congress (the 49th).

He actively supported measures to irrigate the western United States, drawing on desert aridity he had witnessed as Minister.

In 1891, grateful postal workers raised $10,000 to erect a statue of Cox by sculptor Louise Lawson in New York City.

[69] Cox wrote several books including Why We Laugh, A Buckeye Abroad (1852), Eight years in Congress, from 1857 to 1865 (1865) and Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 1855-1885 (1885).

"In his political action he seemed more anxious to annoy his opponents than to extinguish them," Congressman George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts wrote, in a typical dismissal.

[citation needed] Others who served longer with him realized that Cox also had the grit and parliamentary skill to make a formidable adversary in debate.

Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed said, "in action he was a whole skirmish line, and has covered more movements of the Democratic party, and led it out of more parliamentary pitfalls than any of its orators and all its leaders put together.

[75] James H. Baker, then the editor of the Scioto Gazette, a Whig newspaper in Chillicothe, gave him the title "by reason of a highly wrought and sophomoric editorial on a flaming sunset after a great storm.