Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1835-1914

Dates:
Birth 1835-10-23
Death 1914-06-14
Gender:
Male
Americans
English

Biographical notes:

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) served as the 23rd vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897. Previously, he served as a representative from Illinois in the late 1870s and early 1880s. After his subsequent appointment as assistant postmaster general of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–89), he fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he duly became vice president of the United States.

In office, he supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for ruling in a dignified, non-partisan manner.

In 1900, he ran for vice president with William Jennings Bryan. In doing so, he became the fourth vice president or former vice president to run for that post with two different presidential candidates (after George Clinton, John C. Calhoun and Thomas A. Hendricks).

After the 1900 election, Stevenson returned again to private practice in Illinois. He made one last attempt at office in a race for governor of Illinois in 1908, at age 73, narrowly losing. In 1909 he was brought in by founder Jesse Grant Chapline to aid distance learning school La Salle Extension University. After that, he retired to Bloomington, where his Republican neighbors described him as "windy but amusing." He died in Chicago, on June 14, 1914, aged 78. His body is interred in a family plot in Evergreen Cemetery, Bloomington, Illinois.

Stevenson's son, Lewis G. Stevenson, was Illinois secretary of state (1914–1917). Stevenson's grandson Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was the Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 1952 and 1956 and Governor of Illinois. His great-grandson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, was a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981 and an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986.

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Subjects:

  • Art, Greek
  • Constitutional history
  • Pensions
  • Recipes
  • Smithsonian Publications
  • Travelers
  • Vice presidents
  • Vice Presidents' spouses
  • Voyages and travels

Occupations:

  • Businessmen
  • Lawyers
  • Representatives, U.S. Congress
  • Vice presidents

Places:

  • Chicago, IL, US
  • Bloomington, IL, US
  • DC, US
  • KY, US
  • IL, US

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