This building served as the law office of Joshua Reed Giddings, a Whig congressman who advocated the abolition of slavery and an end to the domestic slave trade. Born in 1795, he spent much of his youth working on his father's farm. After serving in the War of 1812, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He became a successful lawyer, was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1826, and in 1837 was elected as a Whig to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he quickly established himself as a staunch opponent of slavery. In 1854 he joined the Republican Party and contributed greatly to the party's platform during its conventions of 1856 and 1860. President Abraham Lincoln later appointed him consul-general to Canada, where he served until his death in 1864. In his 1859 farewell speech to the House of Representatives, he declared his desire that every human soul might enjoy the liberty needed to protect and cherish life, attain knowledge, and prepare for heaven, and that his epitaph say he hated oppression and wrong and loved liberty and justice.