William Hayden English
William Hayden English | |
---|---|
Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives | |
In office March 8, 1852 – June 21, 1852 | |
Preceded by | John Wesley Davis |
Succeeded by | Oliver Brooks Torbet |
Member of the Indiana House of Representatives | |
In office 1851–1853 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Lexington, Indiana, U.S. | August 27, 1822
Died | February 7, 1896 Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. | (aged 73)
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Emma Jackson |
Children | 2, including William |
Education | Hanover College (no degree) |
William Hayden English (August 27, 1822 – February 7, 1896) was an American politician. He served as a U.S. Representative from Indiana from 1853 to 1861 and was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1880.
English entered politics at a young age, becoming a part of Jesse D. Bright's conservative faction of the Indiana Democratic Party. After four years in the federal bureaucracy in Washington, from 1845, he returned to Indiana and participated in the state constitutional convention of 1850. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1851 and served as its speaker at the age of twenty-nine. After a two-year term in the state house, English represented Indiana in the federal House of Representatives for four terms from 1853 to 1861, working most notably to achieve a compromise on the admission of Kansas as a state.
English retired from the House in 1861, but remained involved in party affairs. In the
Family and early career
William Hayden English was born August 27, 1822 in
From the end of 1842, English was mentored by Lieutenant Governor Jesse D. Bright, who helped him rise within Bright's faction of the party.[4] The following year, the Indiana House of Representatives selected English as their clerk.[1] In 1844, he worked the campaign trail, this time in the service of presidential candidate James K. Polk.[1]
Politics and marriage
As a reward, after Polk took office in 1845, he granted English a
English attended the 1848 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, where he supported Lewis Cass, the eventual presidential nominee. With the election of the Whig Party's candidate, Zachary Taylor, to the presidency, a Whig party member replaced English at the Treasury Department. He secured a job as clerk to the United States Senate's Claims Committee through party connections;[a] serving until 1850 in Washington.[1]
English and his wife then returned to Indiana, where he worked as secretary to the Indiana constitutional convention.
In August 1851, English won his first election to the state House of Representatives.
English's time in Congress, much like the rest of his political career, can be seen as pragmatic. While he morally abhorred slavery, he condemned abolitionists and believed in the notion of “popular sovereignty,” which argued that the people of a state or territory should choose for themselves whether to have slavery.[11] He explained his opinion in a speech in 1854:
"Sir, I am a native of a free State [sic], and have no love for the institution of slavery. Aside from the moral question involved, I regard it as an injury to the State where it exists….But sir, I never can forget that we are a confederacy of States, possessing equal rights, under our glorious Constitution. That if the people of Kentucky believe the institution of slavery would be conducive to their happiness, they have the same right to establish and maintain that we of Indiana have to reject it; and this doctrine is just as applicable to States hereafter to be admitted as to those already in the Union."[11]
Congress
Kansas–Nebraska Act
The House of Representatives convened for the 33rd Congress in December 1853. At that time, the simmering disagreement between the
English Bill
In December 1857, in an election boycotted by free-state partisans, Kansas adopted the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution and petitioned Congress to be admitted as a slave state.[19] President James Buchanan, a Democrat, urged that Congress take up the matter, and the Senate approved a bill to admit Kansas.[19] The bill was defeated in the House, 112–120. English found the process by which the pro-slavery Kansans forced through their constitution inadequate, and voted against admission.[18] Congress continued to debate the matter for months without resolution. English and Georgia Democrat Alexander H. Stephens came up with a compromise measure, later called the English Bill.[20] The English Bill offered Kansas admission as a slave state, but only if the people endorsed that choice in a referendum. The Bill also required Kansans to renounce the unusually large grant of federal lands they had requested in the Lecompton Constitution.[20] The Kansas voters could, thus, reject Lecompton by the face-saving measure of turning down the smaller land grant.[20] Congress passed the English Bill, and Kansans duly rejected their pro-slavery constitution by a ratio of six to one.[20] Some of English's political allies, including Bright (now a senator), would have preferred that Kansas be admitted as a slave state, but the decision was popular enough in his district to allow English to be reelected in 1858 with a majority of 56% to 44%.[21]
Business career
English declined to run for reelection in 1860 but he gave several speeches advocating compromise and moderation in the growing North-South divide. After Abraham Lincoln's election that year, English urged Southerners not to secede.[22] After southern secession occurred and the Civil War began, Governor Oliver P. Morton offered English command of a regiment, but he declined it since he had no military knowledge or interests.[23] English, however, supported Morton's (and indirectly Lincoln's) war policies and considered himself a War Democrat. English lent money to the state government to cover the expenses of outfitting the troops and served as provost marshal for the 2nd congressional district.[23]
After retiring from Congress, English spent a year at his home in Scott County before he relocated to Indianapolis, the state capital.[23] English and ten associates (including James Lanier) organized the First National Bank of Indianapolis in 1863, the first bank in that city chartered under the new National Bank Act.[24] He remained president of that bank until 1877, including the difficult period during the Panic of 1873, when many other banks folded.[23]
English's business interests included other industries as well. He became the controlling shareholder of the Indianapolis Street Railway Company and remained in charge of the company until 1876, when he sold his shares.[25] Having also sold his shares of the bank by 1877, English turned most of his investment capital to real estate. By 1875, he had ordered construction of 75 houses along what is now English Avenue.[26]
His wife, Emma, died two years later, in 1877. he survived her by 19 years. When he died in 1896, he owned 448 properties, most of them in Indianapolis.[27]
In 1880, English constructed English's Opera House, which, according to the 1994 Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, quickly became known as the city's finest.
Vice-presidential candidate
After leaving the House of Representatives, English remained in touch with local politics, and served as chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party. His son had been elected to the state house in 1879, and the elder English was still consulted on political matters.[27] Although he had not sought elected office since 1858, he had raised his national profile in 1879 through several interviews and letters to friendly newspapers.[30] English attended the 1880 Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati as a member of the Indiana delegation, where he favored presidential candidate Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, whom he admired for his support of the gold standard.[31] The first ballot was inconclusive, with Bayard in second place.[32] Major General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania led the voting, and on the second ballot was nominated for President.[33]
The Indiana delegation held back their votes from Hancock until the crucial moment, and as a reward, the delegates unanimously selected English for the vice-presidential nomination.
the people endeavoring to regain the political power which rightfully belongs to them, and to restore the pure, simple, economical, constitutional government of our fathers on the one side, and a hundred thousand federal office-holders and their backers, pampered with place and power, and determined to retain them at all hazards, on the other.[37]
Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the
The October state elections in Ohio and Indiana resulted in Republican victories there, discouraging Democrats about the federal election to come the following month.[42] There was even some talk among party leaders of dropping English from the ticket, but English convinced them that the October losses owed more to local issues, and that the Democratic ticket could still carry Indiana, if not Ohio, in November.[42] In the end, English was proven wrong: the Democrats and Hancock failed to carry any of the Midwestern states they had targeted, including Indiana. Hancock and English lost the popular vote by just 7,018.[43] The electoral vote, however, had a much larger spread: 214 for Garfield and Arthur, compared to 155 for Hancock and English.[43]
Post-election career and legacy
English resumed his business career after the election. He also became more interested in local history, joining a reunion of the survivors of the 1850 state constitutional convention, which met at his opera house in 1885.[27] He became the president of the Indiana Historical Society and wrote two volumes, which were published at his death: Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778–1783; and Life of General George Rogers Clark.[44] He served on the Indianapolis Monument Commission in 1893, and helped to plan and finance the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument there.[25]
He died at his home in Indianapolis on February 7, 1896. English was interred in
Notes
- ^ Bright, now a Senator, was a member of the committee.
- ^ Before the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, senators were chosen by their states' legislatures.
- ^ Many in Congress did not agree they were so bound, and this was a point of contention in the debates.[14]
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 9.
- ^ Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 8.
- ^ a b c d Kennedy, Dillaye & Hill 1880, p. 220.
- ^ Bright 1934, pp. 370–392.
- ^ a b Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 17.
- ^ Van Bolt 1953, pp. 136–139.
- ^ Van Bolt 1953, p. 141.
- ^ a b Van Bolt 1953, pp. 155–157.
- ^ a b c d Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 10.
- ^ Dubin 1998, p. 164.
- ^ a b Clark 2016.
- ^ Freehling 1990, pp. 536–565.
- ^ Freehling 1990, pp. 554–565.
- ^ a b Russel 1963, p. 201 n.38.
- ^ Freehling 2007, pp. 61–96.
- ^ Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 10; Freehling 1990, p. 559.
- ^ Elbert 1974, p. 8.
- ^ a b Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 11.
- ^ a b Freehling 2007, pp. 136–141.
- ^ a b c d Freehling 2007, pp. 142–144.
- ^ Dubin 1998, p. 181.
- ^ Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 12.
- ^ a b c d Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 13.
- ^ Zeigler 1994, p. 292.
- ^ a b c Nicholas 1994, p. 545.
- ^ Draegart 1954, p. 114.
- ^ a b c Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 14.
- ^ a b c Draegart 1956a, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Worth 1994, p. 547.
- ^ House 1962, p. 184.
- ^ Clancy 1958, pp. 64–65.
- ^ Proceedings 1882, p. 99.
- ^ Jordan 1996, pp. 274–280.
- ^ a b Jordan 1996, p. 281.
- ^ Philipp 1917, pp. 43–44; House 1962, p. 185.
- ^ Proceedings 1882, p. 168.
- ^ Proceedings 1882, p. 167.
- ^ Clancy 1958, p. 250.
- ^ Jensen 1971, pp. xv–xvi.
- ^ Jordan 1996, pp. 292–296.
- ^ Jordan 1996, p. 297.
- ^ a b c Jordan 1996, pp. 297–301.
- ^ a b Jordan 1996, p. 306.
- ^ Draegart 1956b, pp. 352–356.
- ^ a b Commemorative Biography 1908, p. 18.
- ^ Craig 1998, p. 352.
Sources
- Books
- Commemorative Biographical Record of Prominent and Representative Men of Indianapolis and Vicinity. Chicago, Illinois: J.H. Beers & Co. 1908.
- Clancy, Herbert J. (1958). The Presidential Election of 1880. Chicago, Illinois: Loyola University Press. ISBN 978-1-258-19190-0.
- Dubin, Michael J. (1998). United States Congressional elections, 1788–1997 : the official results of the elections of the 1st through 105th Congresses. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-0283-0.
- ISBN 0-19-505814-3.
- Freehling, William W. (2007). The Road to Disunion: Volume 2 Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861. New York: Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 978-0-19-505815-4.
- ISBN 0-226-39825-0.
- Jordan, David M. (1996) [1988]. Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21058-5.
- Kennedy, E.B.; Dillaye, S.D.; Hill, Henry (1880). Our Presidential Candidates and Political Compendium. Newark, New Jersey: F.C. Bliss & Co. OCLC 9056547.
- Nicholas, Stacey (1994). "William Hayden English". In Bodenhamer, David J.; Barrows, Robert G. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 544–545. ISBN 0-253-31222-1.
- Official Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention. Dayton, Ohio: [Dayton] Daily Journal Book and Job Room. 1882.
- Worth, Richard W. (1994). "English Hotel and Opera House". In Bodenhamer, David J.; Barrows, Robert G. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 546–547. ISBN 0-253-31222-1.
- Zeigler, Connie J. (1994). "Banking Industry". In Bodenhamer, David J.; Barrows, Robert G. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 291–293. ISBN 0-253-31222-1.
- Journal articles
- "Some Letters of Jesse D. Bright to William H. English (1842–1863)". Indiana Magazine of History. 30 (4): 370–392. December 1934. JSTOR 27786698.
- Craig, Berry (Autumn 1998). "William English Walling: Kentucky's Unknown Civil Rights Hero". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 96 (4): 351–376. JSTOR 23384145.
- Draegart, Eva (June 1954). "The Fine Arts in Indianapolis, 1875–1880". Indiana Magazine of History. 50 (2): 105–118. JSTOR 27788180.
- Draegart, Eva (March 1956a). "Cultural History of Indianapolis: The Theater, 1880–1890". Indiana Magazine of History. 52 (1): 21–48. JSTOR 27788327.
- Draegart, Eva (December 1956b). "Cultural History of Indianapolis: Literature, 1875–1890". Indiana Magazine of History. 52 (4): 343–367. JSTOR 27788390.
- Elbert, E. Duane (March 1974). "Southern Indiana in the Election of 1860: The Leadership and the Electorate". Indiana Magazine of History. 70 (1): 1–23. JSTOR 27789943.
- House, Albert V. (September 1962). "The Democratic State Central Committee of Indiana in 1880: A Case Study in Party Tactics and Finance". Indiana Magazine of History. 58 (3): 179–210. JSTOR 27789008.
- Russel, Robert R. (May 1963). "The Issues in the Congressional Struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 1854". The Journal of Southern History. 29 (2): 187–210. JSTOR 2205040.
- Van Bolt, Roger H. (June 1953). "Indiana in Political Transition, 1851–1853". Indiana Magazine of History. 49 (2): 131–160. JSTOR 27788097.
- Thesis
- Philipp, Ernest Joseph (1917). "Chapter 5: The Democratic National Convention". The Presidential Election of 1880 (M.A. thesis). University of Wisconsin.
- Manuscript collection
- Finding aid to the William Hayden English family papers at the Indiana Historical Society Archived December 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- Website
- Clark, Justin (June 29, 2016). "William Hayden English: A Man Apart". The Indiana History Blog. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
External links
- United States Congress. "William Hayden English (id: E000191)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- William Hayden English at Find a Grave