Thomas A. Hendricks
Thomas Andrews Hendricks was an American politician and lawyer from Indiana who served as the 16th governor of Indiana from 1873 to 1877 and the 21st vice president of the United States from March 1885 until his death in November of that year. Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also represented Shelby County, Indiana, in the Indiana General Assembly and as a delegate to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention. In addition, Hendricks served as commissioner of the United States General Land Office. Hendricks, a popular member of the Democratic Party, was a fiscal conservative. He defended the Democratic position in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era and voted against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also opposed Radical Reconstruction and President Andrew Johnson's removal from office following Johnson's impeachment in the U.S. House.
Born in Muskingum County, Ohio, Hendricks moved to Indiana, with his parents in 1820; the family settled in Shelby County in 1822. After graduating from Hanover College, class of 1841, Hendricks studied law in Shelbyville, Indiana, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1843. Hendricks began his law practice in Shelbyville, moved to Indianapolis in 1860, and established a private law practice with Oscar B. Hord in 1862. The firm evolved into Baker & Daniels, one of the state's leading law firms. Hendricks also ran for election as Indiana's governor three times, but won only once. In 1872, on his third and final attempt, Hendricks defeated General Thomas M. Brown by a margin of 1,148 votes. His term as governor of Indiana was marked by numerous challenges, including a strong Republican majority in the Indiana General Assembly, the economic Panic of 1873, and an economic depression. One of Hendricks's lasting legacies during his tenure as governor was initiating discussions to fund construction of the present-day Indiana Statehouse, which was completed after he left office. A memorial to Hendricks was installed on the southeast corner of its grounds in 1890.
Hendricks, a lifelong Democrat, was his party's nominee for vice president as the running mate of New York governor Samuel Tilden in the controversial presidential election of 1876. Although they won the popular vote, Tilden and Hendricks lost the election by one vote in the Electoral College to the Republican Party's presidential nominee, Rutherford B. Hayes, and his vice presidential running mate, William A. Wheeler. Despite his poor health, Hendricks accepted his party's nomination for vice president in the election of 1884 as Grover Cleveland's running mate. Cleveland and Hendricks won the election, but Hendricks only served as vice president for about eight months, from March 4, 1885, until his death on November 25, 1885, in Indianapolis. He is buried in Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery.
Early life and education
Hendricks was born on September 7, 1819, in Muskingum County, Ohio, near East Fultonham and Zanesville. He was the second of eight children born to John and Jane Hendricks. His father was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was from Virginia.In 1820 Hendricks moved with his parents and older brother to Madison in Jefferson County, Indiana, at the urging of Thomas's uncle, William Hendricks, a successful politician who served as a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and as the third governor of Indiana. Thomas's family first settled on a farm near his uncle's home in Madison, and moved to Shelby County, Indiana, in 1822. Hendricks's father, a successful farmer who operated a general store, became involved in politics, including appointment from President Andrew Jackson as deputy surveyor of public lands for his district. Indiana's Democratic Party leaders frequently visited the Hendricks home in Shelbyville, and from an early age Hendricks was influenced to enter politics.
Hendricks attended local schools. He graduated from Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana, in 1841, in the same class as Albert G. Porter, also a future governor of Indiana. After college Hendricks read law with Judge Stephen Major in Shelbyville, and in 1843 he took an eight-month law course at a school operated by his uncle, Judge Alexander Thomson in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Hendricks returned to Indiana, was admitted to the bar in 1843 and established a private practice in Shelbyville.
Marriage and family
Hendricks married Eliza Carol Morgan of North Bend, Ohio, on September 26, 1845, after a two-year courtship. The couple met when Eliza was visiting her married sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Morgan West, in Shelbyville. The couple's only child, a son named Morgan, was born on January 16, 1848, and died in 1851, at the age of three. Thomas and Eliza Hendricks moved to Indianapolis in 1860 and resided from 1865 to 1872 at 1526 South New Jersey Street, now known as the Bates-Hendricks House.Early political career
Hendricks remained active in the legal community and in state and national politics from the 1840s until his death in 1885.Indiana legislature and constitutional convention
Hendricks began his political career in 1848, when he served a one-year term in the Indiana House of Representatives after defeating Martin M. Ray, the Whig candidate. Hendricks was also one of the two Shelby County delegates to the 1850–1851 Indiana constitutional convention. He served on committee that created the organization of the state's townships and counties and decided on the taxation and financial portion of the state constitution. Hendricks also debated the clauses on the powers of the different offices and argued in favor of a powerful judiciary and the abolishment of grand juries.U.S. Congressman
Hendricks represented Indiana as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Thirty-second and Thirty-third Congresses from March 4, 1851, to March 3, 1855. Hendricks was chairman of the U.S. Committee on Mileage and served on the U.S. Committee on Invalid Pensions. He supported the principle of popular sovereignty and voted in favor of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which expanded slavery into the western territories of the United States. Both positions were unpopular in Hendricks's home district in Indiana and led to defeat in his re-election bid to Congress in 1854.Land office commissioner
In 1855 President Franklin Pierce appointed Hendricks as commissioner of the United States General Land Office in Washington, D.C. His job supervising 180 clerks and a four-year backlog of work was a demanding one, especially at a time when westward expansion meant that the government was going through one of its largest periods of land sales. During his tenure, the land office issued 400,000 land patents and settled 20,000 disputed land cases. Although Hendricks made thousands of decisions related to disputed land claims, only a few were reversed in court, but he did receive some criticism: "He was the first commissioner who apparently had no background or qualifications for the job.... Some of the rulings and letters during Hendricks's tenure were not always correct."Hendricks resigned as land office commissioner in 1859 and returned to Shelby County, Indiana. The cause of his departure was not recorded, but potential reasons may have been differences of opinion with President James Buchanan, Pierce's successor. Hendricks resisted Buchanan's efforts to make land office clerks patronage positions, objected to the pro-slavery policies of the Buchanan administration, and supported the homestead bill, which Buchanan opposed.
Candidate for Indiana governor
Hendricks ran for governor of Indiana three times, and succeeded only on his third attempt. He became the first Democrat to win a gubernatorial seat after the American Civil War.In 1860 Hendricks, who ran with David Turpie as his running mate, lost to the Republican candidates, Henry S. Lane and Oliver P. Morton. Three of the four men eventually served as Indiana's governor, and all four became U.S. senators.
In 1868, his second campaign for Indiana governor, Hendricks lost to Conrad Baker, the incumbent, by 961 votes. Baker, who would later become one of Hendricks's law partners, was elected as lieutenant governor in 1864 and became governor after Morton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867. In the national election, Republican nominees Ulysses S. Grant and his running mate, Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, carried the state by a margin of more than 20,000 votes, suggesting that the close race for governor demonstrated Hendricks's popularity in Indiana. Following his defeat in his second gubernatorial race Hendricks retired from the U.S. Senate in March 1869 and returned to his private law practice in Indianapolis but remained connected to state and national politics.
In 1872, his third campaign to become governor of Indiana, Hendricks narrowly defeated General Thomas M. Browne, 189,424 votes to 188,276.