Wilson, Henry, 1812-1875

<p>Henry Wilson was born on February 16, 1812, in Farmington, New Hampshire. He was born Jeremiah Jones Colbath, but legally changed his name when he was twenty-one years old. Wilson grew up very poor, and when he was ten years old, his father hired him out as an apprentice to a local farmer. He lived and worked with the farmer until 1833 and only very occasionally attended school. He was, however, a voracious reader and a hard worker. When he finished his apprenticeship, he left New Hampshire and moved to Natick, Massachusetts, where he became a shoemaker. After learning the trade, Wilson started his own shop, which eventually grew into a shoe factory, and he grew wealthy. In 1840, he married Harriet Malvina Howe, and they had one son.</p>

<p>Interested in social and moral reforms, Wilson turned his attention to politics. He first won office in the Massachusetts state legislature in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party but left the party in 1848 because he did not think it had a strong enough stand against slavery. He was a committed abolitionist and a member of the temperance movement; he also worked to improve the lives of workers. Wilson joined the Free Soil Party, and from 1848 until 1851, he edited the Boston Republican, a newspaper with ties to the party. For a short time, he was also affiliated with the American or Know-Nothing Party but soon left it because of its anti-immigrant stances. Wilson joined the Republican Party in 1855, the same year the state legislature appointed him to the U.S. Senate. In Washington, D.C, he served in the Senate until he stepped down to become vice president in 1873. He was a renowned speaker but also known for traveling around his home state listening to his constituents. During the Civil War, he helped recruit volunteers from Massachusetts to join the Union Army, and as chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, he helped organized the war effort and equip the Union Army. He continued his fight against slavery and pushed President Abraham Lincoln to free slaves; he was also a strong supporter of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In 1862, he sponsored legislation to free slaves in Washington, D.C. After the war ended, Wilson aligned himself with the Radical Republicans and fought President Andrew Johnson to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves. In the 1872 election, the Republican Party chose Wilson to run with President Ulysses S. Grant, after Vice President Schuyler Colfax announced his retirement in 1870. During the campaign, the party billed the ticket as the "Galena Tanner" and the "Natick Shoemaker," after Grant's previous job as a tanner and Wilson's as a shoemaker, to help the ticket appeal to the average working man. Grant easily won reelection, and Wilson became vice president. Like most vice presidents of the era, Wilson had little influence in the Grant administration. In ill health and grief stricken due to the deaths of his wife and only son, Wilson spent much of his time in office writing a three-volume work, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. Wilson had a stroke in 1873. He suffered another stroke and died shortly afterwards on November 22, 1875.</p>

WILSON, HENRY, a Senator from Massachusetts and a Vice President of the United States; born Jeremiah Jones Colbath in Farmington, N.H., February 16, 1812; worked on a farm; attended the common schools; had his name legally changed by the legislature to Henry Wilson in 1833; moved to Natick, Mass., in 1833 and learned the shoemaker's trade; attended the Strafford, Wolfsboro, and Concord Academies for short periods; taught school in Natick, Mass., where he later engaged in the manufacture of shoes; member of the State legislature between 1841 and 1852; owner and editor of the Boston Republican 1848-1851; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1852 to the Thirty-third Congress; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1853; unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1853; elected on January 31, 1855, to the United States Senate by a coalition of Free Soilers, Americans, Conscience Whigs and Democrats to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Edward Everett, and soon after aligned with new Republican party; reelected as a Republican in 1859, 1865, and 1871, and served from January 31, 1855, to March 3, 1873, when he resigned to become Vice President; chairman, Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia (Thirty-seventh through Fortieth Congresses), Committee on Military Affairs (Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses); in 1861 he raised and commanded the Twenty-second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket with President Ulysses Grant and served from March 4, 1873, until his death in the Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., November 22, 1875; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, November 25-26, 1875; interment in Old Dell Park Cemetery, Natick, Mass.

<p>Henry Wilson (born Jeremiah Jones Colbath; February 16, 1812 – November 22, 1875) was the 18th vice president of the United States (1873–75) and a senator from Massachusetts (1855–73). 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 the "Slave Power" – the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.</p>

<p>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 Native American Party (Know Nothings), and anti-slavery Whigs (called Conscience 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Throughout his career, Wilson was known for championing causes that were at times unpopular, including workers' rights for both blacks and whites and the abolition of slavery. Massachusetts politician George F. 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.</p>