Godlove Stein Orth Godlove Stein Orth ( April 22 , 1817 – December 16 , 1882 ) was a U . S . House representative from Indiana and acting - Lieutenant Governor of Indiana . Biography . He was born near Lebanon County , Pennsylvania on April 22 , 1817 . He attended Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg for about one year and then studied law with the office of James Cooper . He entered the bar in 1839 . His political career started with public speeches in 1840 supporting William Henry Harrison for president . He started as a Whig but as that party collapsed , he looked elsewhere . For a time he was the Indiana leader of the Know - Nothings ( called the American Party ) and later aligned himself with the Republican Party . He served in the Indiana Senate 1843 - 1849 , acting - Lieutenant Governor of Indiana 1845 , U . S . House representative from Indiana 1863 - 1871 from 1873 to 1875 and 1879 - 1882 . " Godlove S . Orth is a fat , fluffy , pudgy - cheeked , good - humored old boy , with a volubility co - equal with the necessities of a politician , and a smile that is broad , bewitching , childlike , and bland , " the Chicago Times reported in 1876 . " He has a good head , well stocked with information and experience , and is no fool . " He was , in fact , a politician skilled at political survival , and had to be : as was so often the case with congressmen , local jealousies kept even the most able members from serving more than one or two terms , before some other county in the district demanded the nomination in recognition . Those jealousies and factional feuds nearly prevented his re - election in 1866 , and in 1868 he had to fend off a serious challenge from General Lew Wallace . Survival therefore took assiduous cultivation of his constituents . In his district , as he informed another Republican , he kept a list of the top hundred party leaders for each county , and a file on some ten thousand other constituents , " pretty much all the reading Republicans and some Democrats in the District . " When he sent out public documents and books , or speeches from other House members , he would mail them to names on the first list ; when he sent pamphlets and his own speeches , it went to the second . Naturally , he had a hearty appreciation of the franking system , as a way of not having to pay the postage costs . Orth therefore made a reliable second - string leader for the House Republicans in the late 1860s . He stood at the more conservative end of his party during Andrew Johnson ' s administration : supporting Reconstruction , but trying to bring the President and Congress back into harmony , if it were possible . On the House Foreign Affairs Committee , he became the Grant Administration ' s most reliable point - man , and in 1871 the one to manage a resolution appointing a fact - finding commission sent to Santo Domingo to prepare the way for possible annexation . A Chicago Tribune correspondent described him as " as good a man as can be found , without prejudice , without notions , without fixed ideas upon any question . He is one of those men , who , upon large , general irresponsible principles are always right , but who are unpronounced upon little , local , and special questions . " That was not meant in criticism ; the reporter thought him " one of the most law - observing , conservative , neighborhood constructions of manhood we know . " After his retirement from the House , Orth was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria . He resigned in the late spring of 1876 , having been nominated in February for governor by the Republican party . Members of the reform wing distrusted Orth automatically , because he stood well with Senator Oliver Morton ' s political machine , and they doubted his personal integrity . They were strengthened in their suspicions when a newspaper charged him with participating in a ring of speculators that shook down Venezuelan claimants in disputes between injured parties in Venezuela and the United States and with lobbying the Congress to confirm those claims . With the ex - Congressman refusing to make a full explanation or convincing denial and with rumors of incriminating letters waiting to be released in what promised to be a hot campaign , Morton withdrew his public support . On August 2 , Orth withdrew as candidate for governor , and was replaced by Benjamin Harrison . Orth was married twice , and had a daughter and two sons . He died in office in December 1882 , just after losing a re - election bid to Thomas B . Ward , in Lafayette , Indiana and is interred at Greenbush Cemetery Lafayette , Indiana . References . Retrieved on 2008 - 10 - 30