Senators who Voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, Abolishing Slavery, 38th Congress

TEN EYCK, John Conover, 1814-1879, lawyer.  Republican U.S. Senator from New Jersey.  Was a Whig until 1856.  Joined Republican Party in 1856.  Chosen Senator in 1859.  Served until March 1865.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


TEN EYCK, JOHN CONOVER, a Senator from New Jersey; born in Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey, March 12, 1814; completed preparatory studies under private tutors; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1835 and commenced practice in Burlington, New Jersey; prosecuting attorney for Burlington County 1839-1849; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1844; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1859, to March 3, 1865; unsuccessful candidate for reelection; appointed a member of a commission to revise the New Jersey constitution in 1875, and for a time was president of the commission; died in Mount Holly, New Jersey, August 24, 1879; interment in St. Andrew's Cemetery.  

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.



TRUMBULL, Lyman, 1813-1896,  lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. The three terms that he served (1855-73) were marked by the bitter struggle over slavery and reconstruction, during which he was first a Democrat, next a leading Republican, and ultimately a supporter of the ill-starred Liberal Republican movement.


LYMAN TRUMBULL was born in Colchester, Connecticut, October 12th, 1813. He was educated at Bacon Academy, in his native town, which in those times was one of the best institutions of learning in New England. In his sixteenth year he became a teacher in a district school; and at twenty years of age went to Georgia, taking charge of an Academy at Greenville in that State. While engaged in teaching, he employed his leisure time in studying law with a view to preparing himself for the legal profession.

Having been admitted to practice at the bar in Georgia, in 1837 he removed to Illinois and settled in Belleville, St. Clair County. In 1840, he was elected a Representative in the State Legislature from that county; and before he had served out his term, he was, in 1841, appointed Secretary of State of Illinois. After serving in this office for two years, he returned to his profession, and gained an eminence therein second to no other lawyer in the State. In 1848, he was nominated and elected one of the Justices of the State Supreme Court, and, in 1852, was re-elected for nine years. As a Judge on the bench he distinguished himself by great acuteness of discrimination, accuracy of judgment, and familiarity with organic and statute laws. He resigned his place on the bench in 1853, and in the succeeding year was elected to represent the Belleville District, then embracing a wide extent of territory, in Congress; but before taking his seat in the House, the Legislature elected him to the Senate of the United States for the term of six years from March 4,1855.

During the great political contests which attended the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, Mr. Trumbull, both at home and in the halls of Congress, took a bold stand against the policy and doctrines of the old Democratic party, with which he had been actively identified, and espoused the cause of freedom, of which he became one of the strongest of champions. He opposed his colleague, Mr. Douglas, in all questions having reference to slavery, and especially in his celebrated “popular sovereignty” plan of settling that question in the Territories and future States. With such distinguished ability did he contest this question with Mr. Douglas and his friends, that he at once gained a national reputation.

In 1860, he earnestly and ably advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln, his fellow-citizen and friend, to the Presidency. During the early part of the next year, just previous to Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and when the war of the rebellion had already virtually commenced, Mr. Trumbull was one of the leaders of the Union party in the Senate, and favored prompt and decided measures for the maintenance of the Union. In 1861, Mr. Trumbull was re-elected for a second term, and in 1867 for a third term in the Senate of the United States.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, a position which he has held uninterruptedly since 1861, he framed and advocated some of the most important acts which were passed by Congress during and since the war. He was one of the first to propose the amendment of the Constitution abolishing Slavery in the United States, which proposition passed Congress, and was ratified by the requisite votes of two-thirds of the States.

He ably advocated the acts establishing and enlarging the Freedman's Bureau, and eloquently championed the Civil Rights Bill. He voted for the acquittal of President Johnson on the Articles of Impeachment.

Senator Trumbull continued his residence at Belleville until 1849, when he removed to Alton, and subsequently, in 1863, to Chicago, where he now resides. He is of medium stature, with a cast of countenance which marks the man of thought. Lacking the warmth of temperament calculated to win personal friendship, he possesses talents which command universal respect.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 2, 1869.

During the war Senator Trumbull was at once Lincoln's able helper and stanch opponent, his attitude being determined by that of the executive toward the Constitution. An authoritative spokesman of the administration, he often tried to school his master in matters of executive propriety. He opposed legalizing Lincoln's extraordinary acts performed while Congress was in recess, saying: "I am disposed to give the necessary power to the Administration to suppress this rebellion; but [ am not disposed to say that the Administration has unlimited power and can do what it pleases, after Congress meets" (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, I Session, p. 392). In introducing his radical confiscation bill (December 1861) he declared that he wanted "no other authority for putting down even this gigantic rebellion than such as may be derived from the Constitution properly interpreted." He would suppress the "monstrous rebellion according to law, and in no other way" (Ibid., 2 Session, p. 18). He censured the method, but not the motive, of Lincoln's arbitrary arrests and led the movement which, while indemnifying the President for previous suspensions of the writ of habeas corpus, regulated further suspensions. In 1864, as chairman of the judiciary committee, he introduced the resolution which became the basis of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. When the first state sought admission under Lincolnian reconstruction he was the President's agent, but was foiled by Sumner and the Democrats.

Trumbull's powerful personal and committee influence aided the Radicals in the early stages of the fight with Johnson. His bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau failed to pass over the veto. The veto of his civil rights bill, designed to give effect to the thirteenth amendment, alienated him from the Administration after a period of patient tolerance and dignified expostulation. He urged its repassage to offset the actions of the executive, and spoke of "the spirit of this message, of the dangerous doctrines it promulgates, of the inconsistencies and contradictions of its author, of his encroachments upon the constitutional rights of Congress, of his assumption of unwarranted powers, which, if persevered in and not checked by the people, must eventually lead to subversion of the Government and the destruction of liberty" (Ibid., 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1760). These episodes mark an opposition which lasted until the impeachment furor. They also presage his departure from the leadership of radicalism. His decreasing activity in the Stevens-Sumner program was followed, as this group insisted on more and more humble submission of the rebel states, by participation with the moderates who attempted rather ineffectually to check the Radicals. Again, his was a legal criterion; he was one who was "willing to be radical lawfully" rather than one "who would rather be radical than right" (Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1870). This viewpoint drove him to oppose the impeachment proceedings and he was one of the famous seven who saved Johnson from conviction. This heresy, together with his reconstruction attitude, lost him Republican leadership. The excesses of the Grant administration drove him into the Liberal Republican movement. He was among those suggested for the presidential nomination, but loyally stumped several states for Greeley. After the movement collapsed he finished his senatorial term and then retired to Chicago, where he practised law.

His appearance as counsel for the Tilden side in the disputed election of 1876 marked his return to the Democratic fold and he was that party's unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of Illinois in 1880. His last political excursion found him skirting the edges of Populism; in 1894 he drafted a platform which Chicago Populists took to a national conference in St. Louis. His death removed one of the able statesmen of his generation, an unpretentious, scholarly constitutionalist, who failed to scale political heights because of a conscience and a lack of popular appeal. The conscience drove him from party to party seeking a place where he could abide, and his colorless public personality denied him the kind of support on which spectacular careers are built. He was twice married: first, June 21, 1843, to Julia Maria Jayne, who died in August 1868; and second, November 3, 1877, to Mary Ingraham; three sons by his first wife survived him.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 19-20



VAN WINKLE, Peter Godwin, 1808-1872.  U.S. Senator from newly-formed State of West Virginia.  Served as Senator 1863-1869.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


PETER G. VANWINKLE was born in the city of New York, September 7, 1808. He received an academical education, and entered on the study of law. In 1835 he emigrated to what is now West Virginia, and settled in Parkersburg, where he engaged in law practice, in which he continued till 1852. He then became treasurer and afterwards president of a railroad company. He was a member of the Virginia State Constitutional Convention of 1850, and in 1861 was a member of the Wheeling Convention, assembled to frame a Constitution for the proposed new State, of West Virginia. He was a member of the Legislature of the new State in 1863, and in December, of the same year, was elected to the Senate of the United States.

Mr. Vanwinkle, as a Senator in the Fortieth Congress, served on the Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads, and as chairman of the Committee on Pensions. Although seldom participating in the debates of the Senate he was an active and able member of that body. He several times addressed the Senate pending the consideration of the Tax bill, and the Ohio River Bridge bill. Many of his statements in these speeches are of much interest, and evince that their author had given diligent attention to the subject which he wa3 discussing. Several of his addresses, in presenting various claims for pensions, as chairman of the committee on that subject, give evidence of ability and sound discretion. In the Impeachment trial, Mr. Vanwinkle voted to acquit President Johnson, presenting, in a brief but elaborate opinion on the case, his reasons for not regarding the offenses charged in the various articles as crimes or misdemeanors. His Senatorial term ended March, 1869, when he retired from political and public life.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 2, 1869.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 219-220:

VAN WINKLE, PETER GODWIN (September 7, 1808-April 15, 1872), lawyer, United States senator, was the second son of Peter and Phoebe (Godwin) Van Winkle. He was born in New York City, and came from an old Knickerbocker family, the American progenitor of which, Jacob Van Winkle, settled in New Netherland about 1634. What formal education he received was obtained in the primary and secondary schools of his native city. In early manhood he moved to Parkersburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), where he began the study of law and in 1835 was admitted to the bar. Although actively engaged in his profession, he was at one time or another recorder of the town, a member of its governing board of trustees, and president of this boards position equivalent to that of mayor. Beginning in 1852 he served as treasurer and later as president of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad Company, which, in connection with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, built and operated a line from Grafton to the Ohio River. He was also for a number of years an attorney and lobbyist for the Baltimore & Ohio.

He was a member of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1850-51, though he seems not to have played a conspicuous role in its proceedings. He did, however, take a prominent part in the convention held at Wheeling in June 1861, in which sat representatives from northwestern Virginia. This convention passed an ordinance providing for the reorganization of the government of Virginia on a basis of loyalty to the Union. The government thus created was to supersede that centering at Richmond. Francis H. Pierpont [q.v.] was chosen governor, and Van Winkle was selected as a member of his advisory council. This convention at an adjourned session (in August) also passed an ordinance which provided for the division of Virginia and the creation of what became the state of West Virginia.

A constitutional convention was assembled at Wheeling on November 26, 1861. Van Winkle was one of the leading members of this body, and had much to do with the framing of the constitution. He urged the inclusion in West Virginia of the counties in th e extreme eastern section, mainly in order that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad should be entirely on West Virginia and Maryland soil. When the government of West Virginia was organized, he was a member of the first legislature and had an important part in the legislation enacted by it. In August 1863 he was one of the two chosen United States senators; he drew the long term and so served for six years.

In the Senate his record on routine policies must have impressed the leadership of the Republican party favorably, for he became a member of the important finance committee and chairman of the committee on pensions. His career as a whole, while not a brilliant one, was characterized by exceptional courage and independence of spirit. Though he went along with his party in voting for the Thirteenth and Fifteenth amendments, he refused to follow its leaders on some measures of prime importance. In a rather lengthy speech (April 21, 1864) in opposition to the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, he declared himself in favor of turning over the government of the Southern states to the loyal local citizens, though they might formerly have been disloyal, and of withdrawing from that section all federal soldiers as soon as safety should permit. He also opposed the granting of citizenship to the freedmen, believing that the majority of them were not equal to this responsibility. Consistently with this view, he voted against the Fourteenth Amendment in opposition to the wishes of a large majority of his party. His greatest offense against party regularity, however, was his refusal to vote for conviction in the impeachment proceedings against President Johnson. This defiance of the leadership of his party was loudly condemned in West Virginia; the Wheeling intelligencer referred to him as "West Virginia's Betrayer," and declared that there was not a loyal citizen in the state who had not been misrepresented by that vote. With feeling so strong against him, there was no prospect of his being returned to the Senate, and so he did not become a candidate for reelection. Leaving Washington at the end of his term, he spent the three remaining years of his life at Parkersburg. In 1831 he married Juliette, daughter of William P. and Martha Rathbun, of Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, by whom he had several children.



WADE, Benjamin Franklin, 1800-1878, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator, strong and active opponent of slavery.  In 1839, opposed enactment of stronger fugitive slave law, later calling for its repeal.  U.S. Senator, March 1851-1869.  Opposed Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.  Reported bill to abolish slavery in U.S. Territories in 1862.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. 


PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE.

IN Feeding Hills Parish, Massachusetts, on the 27th of  October, 1800, was born Benjamin F. Wade, the youngest of ten children. His father was a soldier of the Revolution, and fought in every battle from Bunker Hill to Yorktown. His mother was the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, and was a woman of vigorous intellect and great force of character.

The family was one of the poorest in New England. They had, however, among their scanty property a few books, which eventually came into Benjamin's possession. He never enjoyed more than seven days' schooling, yet under the tuition of his mother he soon learned to read and write. He read and re-read the few books of the family library, and as a boy became better informed than most of his age.

He was for a time employed as a farm hand on very meagre wages. When eighteen years old, thinking he might find something better in the West, with a bundle of clothing on his back, and seven dollars in his pocket, he started on foot for Illinois. He walked as far as Ashtabula County, Ohio, when a fall of snow having impeded his progress, he determined to wait for spring to finish his journey. He hired out to cut wood in the forest at fifty cents per cord. He spent his evenings reading the Bible by the light of the fire on the hearth of the log cabin, and in a single winter read through both Old and New Testaments.

When spring came, he was persuaded to further suspend his journey to Illinois, by engaging in a summer's work at chopping, logging, and grubbing. This was followed by a winter at school-teaching. After two years of such employment, he engaged in driving herds of cattle from Ohio to New York. He thus made six trips, the last one leaving him in Albany, New York. Here he taught a winter school, and in the spring hired himself to shovel on the Erie Canal, in which employment he spent the summer :-—“The only American I know,” said Governor Seward, in a speech in the Senate, “who worked with a spade and wheel-barrow on that great improvement.”

Having occupied the summer in work on the canal, he taught school another winter in Ohio. In the following spring he commenced the study of law with Hon. Elisha Whittlesey. He was soon after elected a justice of the peace. After two years he was admitted to the bar, He waited another year for his first suit, and from that time his success was steady. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Ashtabula County, a position of great advantage to a young man just rising in his profession.

But Mr. Wade's destined field was politics. He was elected to the State Senate, where he took the lead of the Whig minority. He aided in abolishing the law for imprisonment for debt. He inaugurated a war against the “Black Laws” of Ohio. He took a bold stand against the admission of Texas into the Union. “So help me, God!” he declared, “I will never assist in adding another rod of slave territory to this country.”

Mr. Wade having attempted to bring about a repeal of the State laws that oppressed the negroes and gave security to slavery in the neighboring States, incurred the displeasure of his party friends, who left him at home at the next election.

Time and events having at length brought the people up to Wade's position, they again sent him to the Senate against his will. There he procured the passage of a bill which founded the Oberlin College, “ for the education of persons without regard to race or color.” He led the resistance of Ohio to the resolution adopted by Congress, denying the people the right to petition concerning the abolition of slavery. He labored to bring the Legislature and the State up to the support of John Quincy Adams in his fight for the sacred right of petition.

In 1847, Mr. Wade was elected President Judge of the Third Judicial District. After the session of his court was over for the day, Judge Wade sometimes went to the neighboring school-houses and made speeches in favor of General Taylor, then a candidate for the Presidency. Since Wade was known far and near as a strong antislavery man, it was thought strange that he did not support Mr. Van Buren, the candidate of the Liberty party. Some of his friends remonstrated with him for supporting Taylor, a slaveholder. “Taylor is a good old Whig,” he replied, “and I am not going to stand by and see him crucified between two such thieves as Cass and Van Buren.” For four years he occupied the bench, and obtained with the bar and the people the reputation of a wise and just judge.

In March, 1851, as he was hearing a cause in court, the firing of a cannon in the streets of Akron announced to the public that Mr. Wade had been elected United States Senator by the Legislature of Ohio. The office had not been sought for by him, nor canvassed for by his friends. The arrangements of politicians and the selfishness of aspirants were over-ruled by the people in their desire to have one who would represent the manhood, the conscience, the progress of the State.

When Mr. Wade entered the Senate, he found but few opposed to the aggressions of slavery. In 1856, when the great Kansas controversy came up, the advocates of slavery were thirty-two against thirteen in favor of freedom. Wade showed himself brave against all odds and every influence. “I come before the Senate to-day," said he, “as a Republican, or, as some prefer to call me, a Black Republican, for I do not object to the term. I care nothing about the name; I come here especially as the advocate of liberty, instead of slavery.”

Mr. Wade has continued a member of the United States Senate, by successive re-election, for eighteen years. His Senatorial career has been marked by indomitable energy, unfailing courage, and invariable consistency. It has been marked by some acts which cannot fail to cause his name to be remembered. He reported from

the Committee on Territories the first provision prohibiting slavery in all the Territories of the United States to be henceforth acquired. He proposed in the Senate the bill for Negro Suffrage in the District of Columbia.

It was in the days when Republicans in Congress were few, and the champions of Slavery were dominant in the councils of the Republic, that Mr. Wade rendered services for the struggling cause of liberty that are never to be forgotten. He met the arrogant leaders of the South with a bravery that secured their respect, and gained friends for his cause. Toombs, the fierce fire-eater of Georgia, once said in the Senate, “My friend from Olio puts the matter squarely. He is always honest, outspoken, and straightforward ; and I wish to God the rest of you would imitate him. He speaks out like a man. He says what is the difference, and it is. He means what he says; you don't. He and I can agree about everything on earth except our sable population.”

It was the custom in those days for Northern Senators to yield submissively to the insolence of the slaveholders. Mr. Wade had too much nerve and independence meekly to accept the situation. Soon after he took his seat, a Southerner in debate grossly insulted a Free State Senator. As no allusion was made to himself or his State, Wade sat still; but when the Senate adjourned, he said openly, if ever a Southern Senator made such an attack on him or Ohio while he sat on that floor, he would brand him as a liar. This coming to the ears of the Southern men, a Senator took occasion to pointedly speak, a few days afterward, of Ohio and her people as negro thieves. Instantly Mr. Wade sprang to his feet and pronounced the Senator a liar. The Southern Senators were astounded, and gathered round their champion; while the Northern men grouped about Wade. A feeler was put out from the Southern side, looking to retraction; but Mr. Wade retorted in his peculiar style, and demanded an apology for the insult offered himself and the people he represented. The matter thus closed, and a fight was looked upon as certain. The next day a gentleman called on the Senator from Ohio, and asked the usual question touching his acknowledgment of the code.

“I am here,” he responded, “in a double capacity. I represent the State of Ohio, and I represent Ben. Wade. As a Senator, I am opposed to dueling. As Ben. Wade, I recognize the code.”

“My friend feels aggrieved,” said the gentleman, " at what you said in the Senate yesterday, and will ask for an apology or satisfaction.”

“I was somewhat embarrassed,” continued Senator Wade, “ by my position yesterday, as I have some respect for the Chamber. I now take this opportunity to say what I then thought; and you will, if you please, repeat it. Your friend is a foul-mouthed old blackguard.”

“Certainly, Senator Wade, you do not wish me to convey such a message as that?”

“Most undoubtedly I do; and will tell you, for your own benefit, this friend of yours will never notice it. I will not be asked for either retraction, explanation, or a fight.”

Next morning Mr. Wade came into the Senate, and proceeding to his seat, deliberately drew from under his coat two large pistols, and, unlocking his desk, laid them inside. The Southern men looked on in silence, while the Northern members enjoyed the fire-eaters' surprise at the proceeding of the plucky Ohio Senator. No further notice was taken of the affair of the day before. Wade was not challenged, but ever afterward was treated with politeness and consideration by the Senator who had so insultingly attacked him.

Mr. Wade's fierce retorts sometimes fell with terrible effect upon his adversaries. When he was speaking against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Mr. Douglas interrupted him with an inquiry designed at once to rebuke and embarrass him: “You, Sir, continually compliment Southern men who support this bill, but bitterly denounce Northern men who support it. Why is this? You say it is a moral wrong; you say it is a crime. If that be so, is it not as much a crime for a Southern man to support it, as for a Northern man to do so ?”

Mr. WADE.—“No, sir, I say not !”

Mr. DOUGLAS.—“ The Senator says not. Then he entertains a different code of morals from myself and —”

Mr. WADE (breaking in, and pointing at Douglas with extended arm and forefinger, his face wrinkling with scorn, and contempt and rage flashing out of his eyes)—“ Your code of morals! Your morals! My God, I hope so, sir!”

A witness of the scene says that the “ Giant” was hit in the forehead, and, after standing for a moment, his cheeks as red as scarlet, he sank silent into his chair.

Mr. Wade gained enduring fame by the unanswerable reasoning, the powerful oratory, and the undaunted courage with which he resisted the extension of slavery against the united might of the propogandists of the South and North.

Near the close of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Mr. Wade was elected President pro tempore of the Senate. He was chosen to that office at a time when it seemed probable that his election would soon become an elevation to the Presidential Chair by virtue of the impeachment and removal of Mr. Johnson. The narrowness of Mr. Johnson's escape, and the nearness of Mr. Wade's approach to the Presidency, are among the most curious scenes in recent history.

As an orator, Senator Wade has little polish, but great force, directness, and effect. He is an original thinker, and has much learning for one whose advantages were so few. His manners are plain and unaffected, his tastes are simple as in his humbler years. At home, in Ohio, he lives in a style undistinguished from the substantial citizens about him. His residence is a plain white frame house, hid among the trees and surrounded by ample grounds.

“There is," says one,“ a Puritan grimness in his face, which melts into sweetness and tenderness when his sympathies are touched, and which is softened away by the humor which wells from his mirthfulness in broad, rich, and original streams."

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 1, 1869.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 303-305:

With the outbreak of war, Senator Wade became one of the most belligerent men in Congress, demanding swift and decisive military action. Personally a fearless man, he played a dramatic part in momentarily stemming a portion of the Union retreat from Bull Run (July 21, 1861). When the army was reorganized he pressed vigorously for another forward movement, and when McClellan delayed, Wade became one of his sharpest critics. With Senators Chandler and J. W. Grimes he was instrumental in setting up the Committee on the Conduct of the War. From the moment of its creation the Committee, under Wade's chairmanship, became a violently partisan machine, suspicious of the loyalty of those who ventured to dissent from its wishes and bent upon an unrelenting prosecution of the war. Its members worked in close cooperation with Secretary of War Stanton, a kindred spirit whom Wade had urged for that office, but they were generally critical of the President. Like other Radical Republicans in Congress, Wade seemed temperamentally incapable of understanding Lincoln and deplored his cautious and conservative policies. He himself favored drastic punitive measures against the South, including legislation for the confiscation of the property of the Confederate leaders and the emancipation of their slaves (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 3375; Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States ... during the Great Rebellion (1864, pp. 196 ff.). He was not overburdened with constitutional scruples where measures that he favored were concerned. At the same time he decried the President's "dictatorship" and found Lincoln's clement reconstruction policy, announced on December 8, 1863, particularly obnoxious. When he and Henry Winter Davis [q.v.] attempted to counteract it by a severe congressional plan, embodied in the Wade-Davis bill, and Lincoln checked this by a "pocket veto," announcing his reasons in a proclamation (July 8, 1864), their indignation was unbounded. The result .. his Wade-Davis Manifesto (August 5), a fierce blast, condemned the President's "executive usurpation" as a "studied outrage on the legislative authority" and insisted that in matters of reconstruction Congress was "paramount and must be respected" (Appletons' American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1864, 1865, pp. 307-10). Previously Wade had joined with others in indorsing the Pomeroy circular, designed to replace Lincoln with Salmon P. Chase (G. F. Milton, The Age of Hate, 1930, p. 28), but when that project collapsed and the Manifesto aroused a storm of disapproval in Ohio, he gave his support to Lincoln in the closing weeks of the election contest in 1864. But he continued to resist the President's reconstruction policy, characterizing it as "absurd, monarchical, and anti-American" (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1128).

The accession of Johnson to the presidency in April 1865 was hailed by Wade and his faction as a godsend, and they hastened to make overtures to him in behalf of their own measures. When to their surprise he took over Lincoln's policy, Wade dubbed him either "a knave or a fool," and contended that to admit the Southern states on the presidential plan was "nothing less than political suicide" (H.K. Beale, The Critical Year, 1930, pp. 49, 314). From December 1865 onward, along with Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other vindictive leaders, he waged a persistent campaign against Johnson, pressing for the enactment of the congressional program, including the Civil Rights, Military Reconstruction, and Tenure of Office bills. At the opening of the session in December 1865 Wade promptly introduced a bill for the enfranchisement of negroes in the District of Columbia (Congressional Globe, 39 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1), and supported negro suffrage in the campaign of 1866, although he was willing to readmit the Southern states if they ratified the fourteenth amendment within a reasonable time (Ibid., 39 Congress, 2 Session, p. 124). His methods during the period leave the impression that he, like Stevens, was ready to resort to almost any extremity in order to carry through the congressional policies or gain a point.

The Radicals succeeded in having Wade elected president pro tempore of the Senate when that office became vacant (March 2, 1867). According to the statute then in force, he would have succeeded to the presidency in the event of Johnson's removal. But it appears that the prospect of Wade's succession really became an embarrassment to them, for many of the conservatives felt that he would be no improvement and might prove less satisfactory than Johnson (Diary of Gideon Welles, 1911, volume III, 293; Oberholtzer, post, II, 13411.). Wade himself voted for Johnson's conviction despite the fact that he was an interested party. So expectant was he of success that he began the selection of his cabinet before the impeachment trial was concluded (Adam Badeau, Grant in Peace, 1887, pp. 136-37; C. G. Bowers, The Tragic Era, 1929, pp. 188-89). Thwarted in his presidential ambitions by Johnson's acquittal, and having failed of reelection to the Senate, Wade sought the second place on the ticket with Grant in 1868. However, after leading on the first four ballots in the Republican convention, he lost the nomination to Schuyler Colfax.

Upon his retirement from the Senate in 1869 Wade resumed the practice of law in Ohio. He became general counsel for the Northern Pacific Railroad and served for a time as one of the government directors of the Union Pacific. In 1871 Grant appointed him a member of the commission of investigation which visited Santo Domingo and recommended its annexation



WILKINSON, Morton Smith, born 1819, lawyer.  Republican U.S. Senator from Minnesota.  U.S. Senator from 1859-1865.  U.S. Congressman from March 1869-March 1871.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


WILKINSON, MORTON SMITH, a Senator and a Representative from Minnesota; born in Skaneateles, Onondaga County, New York, January 22, 1819; attended the common schools; moved to Illinois in 1837 and was employed in railroad work two years; returned to Skaneateles in 1840; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1842 and commenced practice in Eaton Rapids, Mich., in 1843; moved to Stillwater, Washington County, Minn., in 1847; elected to the first legislature of Minnesota Territory in 1849; register of deeds of Ramsey County 1851-1853; moved to Mankato in 1858; member of the board of commissioners to prepare a code of laws for the Territory of Minnesota in 1858; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1859, to March 3, 1865; unsuccessful candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Thirty-eighth Congress); elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress (March 4, 1869-March 3, 1871); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1870; moved to Wells, Faribault County; member of the State senate 1874-1877; prosecuting attorney of Faribault County 1880-1884; resumed the practice of his profession; died in Wells, Minn., February 4, 1894; interment in Glenwood Cemetery, Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn. 

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 512:

WILKINSON, Morton Smith, senator, born in Skaneateles, Onondaga county, New York, 22 January, 1819. He received an academical education, went to Illinois in 1837, was engaged for two years in railroad business, afterward returned to his native place, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar in Syracuse in 1842, and in 1843 began practice at Eaton Rapids, Mich. He removed to St. Paul, Minn., in 1847, was elected a member of the first territorial legislature in 1849, and was appointed one of a board of commissioners to prepare a code of laws for the territory. He was elected to the U. S. senate as a Republican in 1859, and held his seat till 1865, serving as chairman of the committee on Revolutionary claims, and as a member of the committee on Indian affairs. He was a delegate to the Baltimore convention of 1864 and to the Loyalists' convention of 1866 at Philadelphia, and served in congress from Minnesota from 4 March, 1869, till 3 March, 1871. He was a member of the state senate in 1874-'7, and afterward united with the Democratic party. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 512.



WILLEY, Waitman Thomas, 1811-1900, lawyer.  U.S. Senator from Virginia (1861), later West Virginia (1863).  Willey was elected by the Unionist legislature at Wheeling to take the seat of U.S. Senator James M. Mason.  Served in Senate until March 1871.  He presented the constitution of West Virginia and was instrumental in securing its acceptance by Congress and the ratification by the people of the "Willey amendment" providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in the proposed state. Thus, West Virginia was the only state to secede from the Confederacy.  Became a Radical Republican. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.


WAITMAN T. WILLEY was born in the county of Mongalia, Virginia, October 18, 1811. His birthplace was a “log cabin, just twenty feet square.” As soon as the little boy could well walk, he was put to work upon the farm until he was twelve years old—receiving, meanwhile, eight or ten months of schooling in a country school-house. From twelve to sixteen years of age—with the exception of tuition at a grammar school for two months—he continued at hard work upon his father's farm, at the end of which time he went to Madison College. He was distinguished in college by industry as a student, and success as scholar, and at the end of his four years' course was graduated with the highest honors of his class, and was pronounced by the trustees of the institution as “ well entitled to that honor.”

In the following year, Mr. Willey-being yet under twenty-one years of age—commenced the study of law at Wellsbury, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1833. As a lawyer he was successful, and soon secured a good and reputable practice. In 1840, he was a candidate for the State legislature. He was also on the Whig electoral ticket, and made forty speeches in behalf of his candidate. In 1841, in one and the same month, he was made Clerk of Mongalia County Court and of the Supreme Court. In 1850, he was elected a member of the Convention for re-forming the constitution of Virginia. In this Convention, Mr. Willey sustained a very prominent part. His speeches, which were somewhat numerous, were of decided ability, and were highly complimented, even by those whose views differed from his own. “He is,” writes one of these, “a man of fine attainments, extensive reading, and high moral character; a bold thinker, an energetic and earnest speaker.”' His speech in this Convention, in favor of representation based upon suffrage, was deemed the best that was delivered on that side of this important question. In concluding this great speech, having alluded in glowing terms to the progress of popular liberty in the world, he adds this noble peroration :

“ And yet, in the midst of all this, in the middle of the nineteenth century, beneath the noontide effulgence of this great principle of popular supremacy, a voice is heard in old Virginia, rising from almost the spot where the clarion voice of Henry awoke a nation to freedom, when he exclaimed, ‘Give me liberty or give me death 'even here, where we should take off our shoes, for the earth on which we walk is holy-bearing in its consecrated bosom the remains of George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, the one the author of the Declaration of Independence, the other of the Virginia Bill of Rights even here, a demand is made by honorable gentlemen to give superior political power to the property-holder, and virtually invest goods and chattels with the prerogative of legislating upon the rights and liberties of a vast majority of the people of this Commonwealth! I trust this can never take place.”

In 1852, Mr. Willey was a Whig candidate for Congress, with no expectation of election, but to bring out a full Whig vote for General Scott.

At the State Convention of the Whig party, February 10, 1858, Mr. Willey was nominated as a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor. Alluding to this nomination, the Richmond Whig represented Mr. Willey as “one of the ablest and most eloquent men in Virginia,” and “universally esteemed and popular.” The Baltimore Patriot added: “A stronger name has never been presented to the freemen of Virginia. The name of Waitman T. Willey is a household word throughout the entire Northwest. A distinguished lawyer, with a reputation without a stain, his name upon the ticket secures at least five thousand votes that might have been considered doubtful.”

In the canvass, Mr. Willey addressed the people daily until the election, and was everywhere acknowledged as a statesman, a patriot, an honest man, and an exemplary Christian. In the election he carried his own county, although his ticket ran behind.

In 1860, Mr. Willey, as might be expected, was exerting himself continually for the Union, and to strengthen the union sentiment of the State. In January, he published a long article for distribution on the general subject of disunion and secession. “Why, therefore,” he writes, “should we madly rush into the perils of disunion ? Our country was never more thrifty and prosperous, and what but the national Union secured to us all this happiness and prosperity? I shudder whenever I think of disunion. It does appear to me that some of our leaders, like the incendiary Erostratus, are aspiring after the infamous immortality which must eternally be attached to the names of the destroyers of the fairest fabric of national government ever devised by man, or bestowed on him by heaven.”

In the winter of 1860–61, Mr. Willey was elected to a seat in the Richmond Convention, which resulted in the secession of Virginia. Referring to this Convention, he writes: “If the journal and proceedings of that body ever come to light, they will show how faithfully I resisted that terrible disaster.”

In July, 1861, he was elected by the reorganized legislature of Virginia, sitting at Wheeling, to the United States Senate, and took his seat in that body during the special session of Congress then in progress. Also, in the fall of this year, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention assembled at Wheeling, to ordain a constitution for the proposed new State of West Virginia.

The attitude of Mr. Willey in the United States Senate, at this most trying crisis, was eminently just, enlightened, and patriotic, and worthy of Virginia in its wiser and better days.

“We may, with equal confidence,” said he, “challenge a more minute examination of the policy and administration of the General Government affecting the States in rebellion. And here I do but allege what the records of the country will amply attest, when I say that in the bestowment of official patronage and emolument and position in every branch of the Government, the South has ever enjoyed an eminently liberal proportion of favor. The journals and acts of Congress will verify the assertion that every important measure of national policy has either originated with Southern statesmen, or has been made, sooner or later, essentially to conform to the demands of Southern sentiment. This is a broad assertion, but it is true. The South has always exercised a controlling influence in the councils of the Republic. She has had more than an equal share of Presidents ; she has had more than a fair proportion of appointments in the Cabinet; the Supreme Court has been adorned with a full quota of her eminent jurists; the corps diplomatique has had no just cause of complaint for the want of representatives from south of Mason and Dixon's line; and the glorious annals of our army and navy attest on every page the valor and skill of Southern chieftains.”

After unfolding the Southern conspiracy, he said: “Sir, truth will ere long strip these conspirators naked before the world, and the people whom they have so cruelly misled will rise up and curse them. History-impartial history—will arraign and condemn them to universal contempt. It will hold them responsible before man and God for the direful consequences already brought upon the country, and for the evils yet to come-for the desolations of war, its pillage and rapine, and blood, and carnage, and crime, and widowhood, and orphanage, and all its sorrows and disasters."

Mr. Willey, then and always, insisted upon the impossibility of dismemberment. “Sir," said he, “this Union cannot be dissolved. Nature and providence forbid it. Our rivers, and lakes, mountains, and the whole geographical conformation of the country rebuke the treason that would sever them. Our diversities of climate and soil and staple production do but make each section necessary to the other. Science and art have annihilated distance, and brought the whole family of States into close propinquity and constant and easy intercourse. We are one people in language, in law, in religion, and destiny. “Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.' The past is glorious; the future shall be sublime."

Mr. Willey, at the same session of the Senate, in an able and appropriate speech, gave a full and minute history of the new State matter, on the application of West Virginia for admission into the Union as a State. He met every objection, satisfied every reasonable doubt, and secured an early, favorable, and unanimous report from the committee, its triumphant and speedy passage through the Senate, and eventually through the House, until it received the sanction of the President.

The new State having been admitted, Mr. Willey in August, 1863, was elected one of the United States Senators from West Virginia. He drew the short term of two years, before the expiration of which he was re-elected for the term ending in 1871.

Thus far we have contemplated Mr. Willey in scarcely more than a single phase of his character, while to pause here would leave this sketch but half completed. Not only has he sustained an eminent reputation as a lawyer and statesman, but he has all along stood before the public as a Christian and a philanthropist. The very beginning of his professional life demonstrates the transparent integrity of his character. At thirty years of age, he writes :

“I was poor when I started; I am comparatively poor still. I was honest when I started, and, thank God, I am honest still. I would not give the consciousness of honesty and integrity for all the honors of ill-gotten gain.” Elsewhere he adds, on occasion of somewhat straitened circumstances : “Poverty is far more desirable than ill-gotten wealth. I will live honest, if I die poor. I will live an honorable man, if I die in obscurity. I would not exchange the approbation of a good conscience for the hoards of Cresus. I would not relinquish the pleasure and exalted happiness of conscious integrity for the crown of an emperor.”

Mr. Willey is an active member of the Methodist Church, and his church connection seems early to have been with him a matter of gratulation and thanksgiving ; while his religious experience, so far as it has been apparent to the eye of strangers, bears the marks of deep sincerity and genuineness. In 1853, we find him delivering a series of lectures on the “Spirit and Progress” of that branch of the church of which he is a member ; wherein, among other things, he discusses the importance of an earnest faith in connection with the performance of Christian duty. Alluding to these lectures, the public prints alleged, and doubtless with much truth, that “he would fill a pulpit with no ordinary ability.”

The cause of Temperance has ever held a warm place in the affections of Mr. Willey. He was early a member of various associations, here and there, for the promotion of this great enterprise. In 1853, he was, by the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance of West Virginia, elected their lecturer on “ Temperance and Legal Prohibition.”

We find him also deeply interested in Sabbath-schools, and he is himself a Sabbath-school teacher. So likewise has the great missionary enterprise always enlisted his sympathies, commended itself to his judgment, and called forth his eloquence. Thus, he is not one of those lights that are hid under a bushel. At Washington, Mr. Willey has preserved his consistency. He has been here the friend of temperance, missions, the Sabbath-school, and every good work. The National Intelligencer says of him: “He devotes his hours of leisure from legislative duties in furtherance of good objects here. His late speech at the Foundry Church on Sunday afternoon on Sunday schools, will not soon fade from the mind of any one present on the occasion.”

More effective still seems to have been an address, delivered at Philadelphia, on a missionary occasion, when, in the course of his speech, he read various extracts from the highest authorities, illustrating the elevating power of the Gospel upon heathen nations. He further insisted that it was the best civilizing agency that was ever employed—that Magna Charta was not found at Runnymede, nor the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia ; but that both of these immortal documents were traceable to the Bible.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: Historical and Biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 1, 1869.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 246-247:

Senator Willey’s chief work began with the movement for a new state in western Virginia. Reluctantly he admitted the necessity for dividing the Old Dominion. In the Mass Convention at Wheeling, May 12, 1861, he was one of the conservative leaders who checked the radical movement to create a state government immediately. A new convention, contingent upon the ratification of secession at the polls, met on June 11, and reorganized the government of Virginia in the northwestern counties, under Francis H. Pierpont [q.v.] as governor. In addition to consenting to the division of the state, this government later became the reconstruction government of Virginia. By it Willey was elected almost immediately to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the withdrawal of James M. Mason [q.v.]. He presented the constitution of West Virginia and was instrumental in securing its acceptance by Congress and the ratification by the people of the "Willey amendment" providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in the proposed state. He was continued in the Senate by the legislature of West Virginia and was reelected in 1865. That the West Virginia revolution took the form of law and that the statehood movement was successful were in large measure due to the leadership of Willey and his associates.

In the meantime, he had become a Republican and had campaigned for Lincoln in 1864. He later became a Radical Republican and voted for the impeachment of President Johnson. Usually, but not invariably, he supported party measures. Democratic victory in West Virginia in 1870 resulted in his retirement from office, which he accepted gracefully, closing his work in the state constitutional convention of 1872 by introducing resolutions calling for a cessation of political disabilities. He campaigned for the Republicans in 1868, 1872, and 1876, being a member of the national convention in the last-named year. Local office holding, law, and domestic duties engaged his activities during the remainder of his life. He died in Morgantown, West Virginia, in his eighty-ninth year.



WILSON, Henry, 1812-1875, abolitionist leader, statesman, U.S. Senator and Vice President of the U.S.  Massachusetts state senator.  Member, Free Soil Party.  Founder of the Republican Party.  Strong opponent of slavery.  Became abolitionist in 1830s.  Opposed annexation of Texas as a slave state.  Bought and edited Boston Republican newspaper, which represented the anti-slavery Free Soil Party.  Called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1815.  Introduced bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the granting of freedom to slaves who joined the Union Army.  Supported full political and civil rights to emancipated slaves.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. 


HENRY WILSON was born at Farmington, N. H., February 16, 1812, of poor parentage. He was early apprenticed to a farmer in his native town, with whom he continued eleven years, during which period his school privileges, at different intervals, amounted to about one year. He early formed a taste for reading, which he eagerly indulged on Sundays and evenings by fire-light and moon-light. Thus, in the course of his eleven years' apprenticeship, he read about 1,000 volumes—mainly of history and biography.

On coming of age, young Wilson left Farmington, and with all his possessions packed upon his back, walked to Natick, Massachusetts, and hired himself to a shoemaker. Having learned the trade, and labored nearly three years, he returned to New Hampshire for the purpose of securing an education. His educational career, however, was suddenly arrested by the insolvency of the man to whom he had entrusted his money, and in 1838 he returned to Natick to resume his trade of shoemaking.

Wilson was now twenty-six years of age, and up to this period his life had been mainly devoted to labor. It was in allusion to this that when, in 1858, he replied on the floor of Congress to the famous "mudsill" speech of Governor Hammond of South Carolina, he gave utterance to these eloquent words:

"Sir, I am the son of a hireling manual laborer, who, with the frosts of seventy winters on his brow, 'lives by daily labor.' I, too, have 'lived by daily labor.' I, too, have been a ' hireling manual laborer.' Poverty cast its dark and chilling shadow over the home of my childhood; and want was sometimes there—an unbidden guest. At the age of ten years—to aid him who gave me being in keeping the gaunt specter from the hearth of the mother who bore me—I left the home of my boyhood, and went forth to earn my bread by 'daily labor.'"

From his youth, Mr. "Wilson seems to have been deeply and permanently imbued with the spirit of hostility to Slavery, and few men have dealt more numerous or heavy blows against the institution. His political career commenced in 1840. During this year he made upwards of sixty speeches in behalf of the election of General Harrison. In the succeeding five years, he was three times elected a Representative, and twice a Senator, to the Massachusetts legislature. Here his stern opposition to Slavery was at once apparent, and in 1845 he was selected, with the poet Whittier, to bear to Washington the great antislavery petition of Massachusetts against the annexation of Texas. In the same year he introduced in the legislature a resolution declaring the unalterable hostility of Massachusetts to the further extension and longer continuance of Slavery in America, and her fixed determination to use all constitutional and lawful means for its extinction. His speech on this occasion was pronounced by the leading anti-slavery journals to be the fullest and most comprehensive on the Slavery question that had yet been made in any legislative body in the country. The resolution was adopted by a large majority.

Mr. Wilson was a delegate to the Whig National Convention of 1848, and on the rejection of the anti-slavery resolutions presented to that body, he withdrew from it, and was prominent in the organization of the Free Soil party. In the following year he was chosen chairman of the Free Soil State Committee of Massachusetts—a post which he filled during four years. In 1850 he was again a member of the State legislature; and in 1851 and 1852 was a member of the Senate, and president of that body. He was also president of the Free Soil National Convention at Pittsburg in 1852, and chairman of the National Committee. He was the Free Soil candidate for Congress in 1852. In 1853 and 1854 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. In 1853 he was an active and influential member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. In 1855, was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Everett.

Mr. Wilson took his seat in the Senate in February, 1855, and, by a vote nearly unanimous, has been twice re-elected to that office. As a Senator, he has been uniformly active, earnest, faithful, prominent, and influential,—invariably evincing an inflexible and fearless opposition to Slavery and the slave-power. In his very first speech, made a few days after entering the Senate, he announced for himself and his anti-slavery friends their uncompromising position. "We mean, sir," said he, "to place in the councils of the Nation men who, in the words of Jefferson, have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility to every kind of oppression over the mind and body of men." This was the key-note of Mr. Wilson's career in the Senate from that day to this.

In the spring of 1856 occurred the assault upon Mr. Sumner by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina. Mr. Wilson—whose fearlessness is equal to his firmness and consistency—denounced this act as "brutal, murderous, and cowardly." These words, uttered on the floor of the Senate, drew forth a challenge from Mr. Brooks, which was declined by Wilson in terms so just, dignified, and manly, as to secure the warm approval of all good and right-minded people.

At the commencement of the rebellion, the Senate assigned to Mr. Wilson the Chairmanship of the Military Committee. In view of his protracted experience as a member of this committee, joined with his great energy and industry,' probably no man in the Senate was more completely qualified for this most important post. In this committee originated most of the legislation for raising, organizing, and governing the armies, while thousands of nominations of officers of all grades were referred to it. The labors of Mr. Wilson, as chairman of the committee, were immense. Important legislation affecting the armies, and the thousands of nominations, could not but excite the liveliest interest of officers and their friends; and they ever freely visited him, consulted with, and wrote to him. Private soldiers, too, ever felt at liberty to visit him, or write to him concerning their affairs. Thousands did so, and so promptly did he attend to their needs that they called him the " Soldier's Friend."

As clearly as any man in the country, Mr. Wilson, at the commencement of the rebellion, discerned the reality and magnitude of the impending conflict. Hence, at the fall of Fort Sumter, when President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 men, the clear-sighted Senator advised that the call should be for 300,000; and immediately induced the Secretary of War to double the number of regiments assigned to Massachusetts. In the prompt forwarding of these troops Mr. Wilson was specially active. Throughout that spring, and until the meeting of Congress, July 4th, he was constantly occupying himself at Washington, aiding the soldiers, working in the hospitals, and preparing the necessary military measures to be presented to the national legislature.

Congress assembled; and, on the second day of the session, Mr. Wilson introduced several important bills relating to the military wants of the country, one of which was a bill authorizing the employment of 500,000 volunteers for three years. Subsequently Mr. Wilson introduced another bill authorizing the President to accept 500,000 volunteers additional to those already ordered to be employed. During this extra session, Mr. Wilson, as Chairman of the Military Committee, introduced other measures of great importance relating to the appointment of army officers, the purchase of arms and munitions of war, and increasing the pay of private soldiers,—all of which measures were enacted. In fact, such was his activity and efficiency in presenting and urging forward plans for increasing and organizing the armies necessary to put down the rebellion, that General Scott declared of Mr. Wilson that he "had done more work in that short session than all the chairmen of the military committees had done for the last twenty years."

After the defeat at. Bull Run, Mr. Wilson was earnestly solicited by Mr. Cameron, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Chase, to raise a regiment of infantry, a company of sharp-shooters, and a battery of artillery. Accordingly, returning to Massachusetts, he issued a stirring appeal to the young men of the State, addressed several public meetings, and in forty days he succeeded in rallying. 2,300 men. He was commissioned colonel of the Twenty-second Regiment, and with his regiment, a company of sharp-shooters, and the third battery of artillery, he returned to "Washington as colonel; and afterwards, as aid on the staff of General McClellan, Mr. Wilson served until the beginning of the following year, when pressing duties in Congress forced him to resign his military commission.

Returning to his seat in the Senate, Mr. Wilson originated and carried through several measures of great importance to the interests of the army and the country. Among these was the passage of bills relating to courts-martial, allotment certificates, army-signal department, sutlers and their duties, the army medical department, encouragement of enlistments, making free the wives and children of colored soldiers, a uniform system of army ambulances, increasing still further the pay of soldiers, establishing a national military and naval asylum for totally disabled officers and men of the volunteer forces, encouraging the employment of disabled and discharged soldiers, securing to colored soldiers equality of pay, and other wise and judicious provisions.

Invariably true and constant in his sympathies for the downtrodden and oppressed, Mr. Wilson never once forgot the slave, for whose freedom and elevation he had consecrated his time and energies for more than a quarter of a century. He actively participated in the measures culminating in the anti-slavery amendment to the Constitution. He introduced the bill abolishing Slavery in the District of Columbia, by which more than three thousand slaves were made free, and Slavery made for ever impossible in the capital of the Nation. He introduced a provision, which became a law, May 21, 1862, "providing that persons of color in the District of Columbia should be subject to the same laws to which white persons were subject; that they should be tried for offenses against the laws in the same manner as white persons were tried; and, if convicted, be liable to the same penalty, and no other, as would be inflicted upon white persons for the same crime." He introduced the amendment to the Militia Bill of 1795, which made negros a part of the militia, and providing for the freedom of all such men of color as should be called into the service of the United States, as well as the freedom of their mothers, wives, and children. This, with one or two other measures of a kindred character, introduced by Mr. "Wilson, and urged forward through much and persistent opposition, resulted in the freedom of nearly 100,000 slaves in Kentucky alone.

After the close of the war, Mr. Wilson was no less active and influential in procuring legislation for the suitable reduction of the army than he had been in originating measures for its creation. Making an extended tour through the Southern States, he delivered numerous able and instructive addresses on political and national topics.

He was among the first to declare himself in favor of General' Grant as the Republican candidate for the Presidency. After the nomination, Mr. Wilson entered with great zeal into the canvass, and made some of the ablest speeches of the campaign. Amid the pressure of public duties, Mr. Wilson has found time for literary pursuits. He is the author of a "History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses," and "History of the Reconstruction Measures of the Thirty-ninth Congress."

In his personal character Mr. Wilson is without reproach. He possesses purity as stainless as when he entered politics, and integrity as unimpeachable as when first elected to office. He is one of the most practical of statesmen, and one of the most skillful of legislative tacticians. Ills forte as a Senator is hard work—the simple and efficient means by which he has arisen from humble origin to his present high position.  The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 2, 1869.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volume 2, 1869.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 322-325:

WILSON, HENRY (February 16, 1812-November 22, 1875), United States senator, vice-president, born at Farmington, New Hampshire, and named Jeremiah Jones Colbath, was one of the many children of Winthrop and Abigail (Witbam) Colbath. The father was a day-laborer in a sawmill. So dire was the family's poverty that soon after the boy's tenth birthday he was bound by indenture to work for a neighboring farmer; he was to have food and clothing, and one month's schooling each winter. For more than ten years he worked at increasingly heavy farm labor. Two neighbors sent him books and directed his reading. By the end of his service he had "inwardly digested" nearly a thousand volumes, including the best in English and American history and biography. At twenty-one he received in quittance "six sheep and a yoke of oxen," which he immediately sold for $85-the first money returns for his years of work. At this period, with the approval of his parents, he had his name changed by act of the legislature to Henry Wilson.

After some weeks of unsuccessful job-hunting in neighboring towns, he walked more than a hundred miles to Natick, Massachusetts, and hired himself to a man who agreed, in return for five months' labor, to teach him to make "brogans." In a few weeks he "bought his time" and began to work for himself. For several years he drove himself hard at the shoemaker's bench, intent upon getting together enough money to begin the study of law. Meanwhile, he was reading incessantly and developing effectiveness in public speaking by taking an active part in the weekly meetings of the Natick Debating Society. To regain his health, broken by overwork, he made a trip to Virginia. In Washington he listened to passionate debates over slavery, and in the nearby slave pen watched negro families separated and fathers, mothers, and children sold at auction as slaves. Many years later he declared: "I left the capital of my country with the unalterable resolution to give all that I had, and all that I hoped to have, of power, to the cause of emancipation in America" (Nason and Russell, post, p. 31). With health restored, he turned to study; three brief terms in New Hampshire academies (at Strafford, Wolfborough, and Concord) ended his meager schooling. His savings exhausted, he returned to Na tick, paid off his debt by teaching district school in the winter term, and than with a capital of a very few dollars started fo manufacture shoes, continuing in this industry for nearly ten years and at times employing over a hundred workers. He dealt with them as man to man, and won their entire confidence and devotion. He was moderately successful in business, but the making of a fortune was not a career that attracted him. On October 28, 1840, he married Harriet Malvina Howe. Their only son, Henry Hamilton Wilson (d. 1866) served with distinction in the Civil War, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel of a colored regiment.

In 1840 Wilson supported the Whig candidate, Harrison, for president, believing that the Democrats' financial policy had injured the industrial interests of the North and brought misery to its wage-earners. In that year he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and for the next dozen years only twice did he fail to win a seat in one branch or the other of the legislature. In 1845 he was active in the Concord convention in protest against the extension of slavery, and with Whittier was chosen to present to Congress the petition of 65,000 Massachusetts citizens against the annexation of Texas. At the Whig national convention in Philadelphia (June 1848) when General Taylor was nominated for the presidency and no stand taken by the party as to the Wilmot Proviso, Wilson and Charles Allen, another Massachusetts delegate, headed the small group that denounced the Whigs' action, withdrew from the convention hall, and called the convention at Buffalo which launched the Free Soil party. From 1848 to 1851 Wilson edited the Boston Republican, the organ of that party. He was mainly instrumental in bringing about in 1851 the coalition-abhorred by all straight party men of that day-which resulted in the election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate. In 1851 and 1852 Wilson was president of the state Senate. In the latter year he served as chairman of the Free Soil national convention. Believing that the rising American (Know Nothing) party might be liberalized so as to become an important force for the cause of freedom, in 1854, with many other anti-slavery men, he joined that organization. No act of his life drew upon him so much criticism, and he soon came to deplore the step he had taken. He loathed the intolerant nativist spirit of the Know Nothings, and before many months had passed he declared that if the American party should prove "recreant to freedom" he would do his utmost to "shiver it to atoms" (Nason and Russell, p. 121). Over his vehement protest the American National Council at Philadelphia in 1855 adopted a platform as evasive on the slavery issue as had been that of the Whig convention in 1848, and forthwith Wilson again led anti-slavery delegates from the hall in a revolt which dismembered the American party in its first attempt to control national politics.

In January 1855-by a legislature almost entirely "American" in membership-Wilson had already been elected to fill the vacancy in the Senate caused by the resignation of Edward Everett [q.v.]. In his very first speech he aligned himself with those who favored the abolition of slavery "wherever we are morally or legally responsible for its existence" (i.e. in the District of Columbia and the Territories), and the repeal of the fugitive slave law, declaring his firm belief that, if the federal government were thus relieved from all connection with and responsibility for the existence of slavery, "the men of the South who are opposed to the existence of that institution, would get rid of it in their own States at no distant day" (Congressional Globe, 33 Congress, 2 Session, p. 238). He was outspoken in the debate upon the struggle in Kansas. Following Brooks's assault upon Sumner, Wilson upon the floor of the Senate characterized that act as " brutal, murderous, and cowardly" (Ibid., 34 Congress, 1 Session, p. 13o6). This brought a challenge from Brooks, to which Wilson instantly wrote a reply declining to "make any qualification whatever ... in regard to those words," and adding: " The law of my country and the matured convictions of my whole life alike forbid me to meet you for the purpose indicated in your letter" (History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, 487). In many states Wilson took a most active part in the campaign for the election of Lincoln. While peace hung in the balance, he made a powerful speech against the Crittenden compromise (Congressional Globe, 36 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 1088-94).

With the outbreak of the war heavy responsibilities at once devolved upon him. For nine years he had been a member of the Massachusetts state militia, rising to the grade of brigadier-general. In the Senate he had served for several years on the committee on military affairs. To its chairmanship he now brought a combination of long military and legislative experience unequaled by that of any other member of the Senate. With tremendous energy he threw himself into the task of framing, explaining, and defending legislative measures necessary for enlisting, organizing, and provisioning a vast army. General Winfield Scott declared that in that short session of Congress Wilson had done more work "than all the chairmen of the military committees had done for the last twenty years" (Nason and Russell, p. 307). At the end of the session, he returned to Massachusetts and within forty days recruited nearly 2300 men. Simon Cameron, secretary of war, wrote to Wilson, January 27, 1862: "No man, in my opinion, in the whole country, has done more to aid the war department in preparing the mighty army now under arms than yourself" (Ibid., p. 316). He constantly urged Lincoln to proclaim emancipation as a war measure, and he shaped the bills which brought freedom to scores of thousands of slaves in the border states, years before the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. In March 1865 he reported from the Senate conference committee the bill for the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau.

He was a bitter opponent of Johnson's reconstruction policy and attitude toward Congress. In that dark era Wilson was so concerned for the welfare of the freedmen in whose cause he had Jong been fighting that he could not appreciate the realities of the chaos in which the South had been left by the war, nor the sincerity and self-sacrifice with which many of the Southern leaders were grappling with the problems of reconstruction. He therefore joined with extremists in Congress in imposing tests and restrictions which in the retrospect of seventy years seem unnecessarily harsh and unrelenting. As a result of long tours through the South and West, however, his attitude soon became more conciliatory; he conferred frankly with pre-war Southern leaders, and counseled the freedmen who thronged to hear him to learn something, to get and till a bit of land, and to obey the law. He favored federal legislation in aid of education and homesteading in the impoverished Southern states. In 1872 the nomination of Wilson for vice-president strengthened the Republican ticket. He proved a highly efficient and acceptable presiding officer, though ill health soon made his attendance irregular. In November 1875 he suffered a paralytic stroke in the Capitol and was taken to the Vice-President's Room, where twelve days later he died. He was buried in Old Dell Park Cemetery, Natick.

Through nearly thirty years of public service Wilson did not allow personal ambition to swerve him from the unpopular causes to which he had devoted himself from the beginning-the freeing of the slave, and the gaining for the workingman, white or black, a position of opportunity and of dignity such as befitted the citizen of a republic. To gain these ends he did not hesitate to compromise on what he deemed non-essentials, to cut loose from old party ties, and to manipulate new coalitions to the dismay of party leaders who denounced him as a shifty politician. His sympathies were always with the workers from whose ranks he had sprung, and in his career they found incentive and inspiration. In his own state he was the champion of the free public school, of the free public library, of exemption of workers' tools and household furniture from taxation, and of the removal of property tests from office-holding. In the opinion of Senator G. F. Hoar (post, pp. 213, 216-17), Wilson was "a skilful, adroit, practiced and constant political manager"-"the most skilful political organizer in the country" of his day. No other leader of that period could sense as clearly as he what the farmer, the mechanic, and the workingman were thinking about, and he "addressed himself always to their best and highest thought." Wilson brought together much valuable material in the following books: History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-Eighth United States Congresses (1864); Military Measures of the United States Congress, 1861-1865 (1866); History of the Reconstruction Measures of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses (1868); and History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (3 volumes, 1872-77), the last written with the zeal and the bias of a crusader, but without overemphasis upon his own part in the movement.



Sources:
History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868.

The Fortieth Congress of the United States: historical and biographical. By William H. Barnes, Volumes 1-2, 1869.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present.