Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson was the 18th vice president of the United States, serving from 1873 until his death in 1875, and a senator from Massachusetts from 1855 to 1873. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading Republican, and a strong opponent of slavery. Wilson devoted his energies to the destruction of "Slave Power", the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.
Originally a Whig, Wilson was a founder of the Free Soil Party in 1848. He served as the party chairman before and during the 1852 presidential election. Wilson worked diligently to build an anti-slavery coalition, which came to include the Free Soil Party, anti-slavery Democrats, New York Barnburners, the Liberty Party, anti-slavery members of the Know Nothings, and anti-slavery Whigs. When the Free Soil party dissolved in the mid-1850s, Wilson joined the Republican Party, which he helped found, and which was organized largely in line with the anti-slavery coalition he had nurtured in the 1840s and 1850s.
While a senator during the Civil War, Wilson was considered a "Radical Republican", and his experience as a militia general, organizer and commander of a Union Army regiment, and chairman of the Senate military committees enabled him to assist the Abraham Lincoln administration in the organization and oversight of the Union Army and Union Navy. Wilson successfully authored bills that outlawed slavery in Washington, D.C., and incorporated African Americans in the Union Civil War effort in 1862.
After the Civil War, he supported the Radical Republican program for Reconstruction. In 1872, Wilson was elected vice president as the running mate of Ulysses S. Grant, the incumbent president of the United States, who was running for a second term. The Grant and Wilson ticket was successful, and Wilson served as vice president from March 4, 1873, until his death on November 22, 1875. Wilson's effectiveness as vice president was limited after he suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1873, and his health continued to decline until he was the victim of a fatal stroke while working in the United States Capitol in late 1875.
Throughout his career, Wilson was known for championing causes that were unpopular, including workers' rights for both blacks and whites and the abolition of slavery. Massachusetts politician George Frisbie Hoar, who served in the United States House of Representatives while Wilson was a senator and later served in the Senate himself, believed Wilson to be the most skilled political organizer in the country. However, Wilson's reputation for personal integrity and principled politics was somewhat damaged late in his Senate career by his involvement in the Crédit Mobilier scandal.
Early life and education
Wilson was born in Farmington, New Hampshire, on February 16, 1812, one of several children born to Winthrop and Abigail Colbath. His father named him Jeremiah Jones Colbath after a wealthy neighbor who was a childless bachelor, vainly hoping that this gesture might result in an inheritance. Winthrop Colbath was a militia veteran of the War of 1812 who worked as a day laborer and hired himself out to local farms and businesses, in addition to occasionally running a sawmill.The Colbath family was impoverished; after a brief elementary education, at the age of 10 Wilson was indentured to a neighboring farmer, where he worked as a laborer for the next 10 years. During this time two neighbors gave him books and Wilson enhanced his meager education by reading extensively on English history, American history and biographies of famous historical figures. At the end of his service he was given "six sheep and a yoke of oxen." Wilson immediately sold his animals for $85, which was the first money he had earned during his indenture.
Wilson apparently did not like his birth name, though the reasons given vary. Some sources indicate that he was not close to his family, or disliked his name because of his father's supposed intemperance and modest financial circumstances. Others indicate that he was called "Jed" and "Jerry," and disliked the nicknames so much that he resolved to change his name. Whatever the reason, when he turned 21 he successfully petitioned the New Hampshire General Court to legally change it. He chose the name Henry Wilson, inspired either by a biography of a Philadelphia teacher or a portrait from a book on English clergymen.
Career
After trying and failing to find work in New Hampshire, in 1833 Wilson walked more than one hundred miles to Natick, Massachusetts, seeking employment or a trade. Having met William P. Legro, a shoemaker who was willing to train him, Wilson hired himself out for five months to learn to make leather shoes called brogans. Wilson learned the trade in a few weeks, bought out his employment contract for fifteen dollars, and opened his own shop, intending to save enough money to study law. Wilson had success as a shoemaker, and was able to save several hundred dollars in a relatively short time. This success gave rise to legends about Wilson's skill; according to one story that grew with retelling, he once attempted to make one hundred pairs of shoes without sleeping, and fell asleep with the one hundredth pair in his hand. Wilson's shoemaking experience led to the creation of the political nicknames his supporters later used to highlight his working class roots—the "Natick Cobbler" and the "Natick Shoemaker".During this time Wilson read extensively and joined the Natick Debating Society, where he developed into an accomplished speaker. Wilson's health suffered as the result of the long hours he worked making shoes, and he traveled to Virginia to recuperate. During a stop in Washington, D.C., he heard Congressional debates on slavery and abolitionism, and observed African American families being separated as they were bought and sold in the Washington slave trade. Wilson resolved to dedicate himself "to the cause of emancipation in America," and after regaining his health returned to New England, where he furthered his education by attending several New Hampshire academies, including schools in Strafford, Wolfeboro, and Concord.
Having spent part of his savings on his traveling and schooling, and having lost some as the result of a loan that was not repaid, Wilson worked as a schoolteacher to get out of debt and begin saving money again, intending to start a business of his own. Beginning with an investment of only twelve dollars, Wilson started a shoe manufacturing company. This venture proved successful, and he eventually employed over 100 workers.
Political career
Wilson became active politically as a Whig, and campaigned for William Henry Harrison in 1840. He had joined the Whigs out of disappointment with the fiscal policies of Democrats Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, and like most Whigs blamed them for the Panic of 1837. In 1840 he was also elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and served from 1841 to 1843.Wilson was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate from 1844 to 1846 and 1850 to 1852. From 1851 to 1852 he was the Senate's President.
As early as 1845, Wilson had started to become disenchanted with the Whigs as the party attempted to compromise on the slavery issue, and as a Conscience Whig he took steps including the organization of a convention in Concord opposed to the annexation of Texas because it would expand slavery. As a result of this effort, in late 1845 Wilson and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier were chosen to submit in person a petition to Congress containing the signatures of 65,000 Massachusetts residents opposed to Texas annexation.
Wilson was a delegate to the 1848 Whig National Convention, but left the party after it nominated slave owner Zachary Taylor for president and took no position on the Wilmot Proviso, which would have prohibited slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. Wilson and Charles Allen, another Massachusetts delegate, withdrew from the convention, and called for a new meeting of anti-slavery advocates in Buffalo, which launched the Free Soil Party.
Having left the Whig Party, Wilson worked to build coalitions with others opposed to slavery, including Free Soilers, anti-slavery Democrats, Barnburners from New York's Democratic Party, the Liberty Party, the anti-slavery elements of the Whig Party, and anti-slavery members of the Know Nothing or Native American Party. Although Wilson's new political coalition was initially castigated by "straight party" adherents of the mainstream Democratic and Whig parties, Wilson was successful in an effort to broker an alliance between the minority Free Soil and Democratic parties in the state elections of 1850, notably resulting in the election of Charles Sumner to the Senate.
File:Pioneers of Freedom.jpg|thumb|left|135px|Abolitionist and Free Soil Party leaders Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and Henry Wilson.
From 1848 to 1851 Wilson was the owner and editor of the Boston Republican, which from 1841 to 1848 was a Whig outlet, and from 1848 to 1851 was the main Free Soil Party newspaper.
During his service in the Massachusetts legislature, Wilson took note that participation in the state militia had declined, and that it was not in a state of readiness. In addition to undertaking legislative efforts to provide uniforms and other equipment, in 1843 Wilson joined the militia himself, becoming a major in the 1st Artillery Regiment, which he later commanded with the rank of colonel. In 1846 Wilson was promoted to brigadier general as commander of the Massachusetts Militia's 3rd Brigade, a position he held until 1852.