Background
Alexander Williams Randall was born on October 31, 1819 at Ames, Montgomery County, New York, a son of Phineas Randall, a lawyer, native of Massachusetts, and Sarah (Beach) Randall, a native of New York state.
Alexander Williams Randall was born on October 31, 1819 at Ames, Montgomery County, New York, a son of Phineas Randall, a lawyer, native of Massachusetts, and Sarah (Beach) Randall, a native of New York state.
Alexander received a thorough academic education at Cherry Valley Academy. After a period of legal study under his father, he removed in 1840 to the new village of Prairieville (afterward Waukesha), in Wisconsin Territory. There he practised law successfully but soon became absorbed in public affairs.
At first, like his father, he bore the Whig label. Soon he showed Democratic leanings and in 1845 President Polk appointed him postmaster in his village, an office that paid a very low salary but offered important political advantages. The next year he was chosen a delegate to the state constitutional convention where he gained prominence through his successful championship of a resolution submitting separately the question of negro suffrage. This action, highly unpopular, kept him out of politics long enough to make him a seasoned lawyer and a sagacious leader.
Acting in 1848 with the Van Buren free-soil Democrats, and a little later with the "Barnburner" faction which in 1854 generally went "Free-soil, " he was elected to the state Assembly where he quickly gained a remarkable ascendancy. For a few months, under appointment by the first Republican governor, he filled an unexpired term as judge of the Milwaukee circuit.
In 1857 he was elected governor, although Carl Schurz, Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor, was defeated. Reëlected in 1859, he was in office when the Civil War broke. Randall proved one of the noted "war governors. " In his message of January 10, 1861, he predicted a conflict and urged preparedness.
After Lincoln's proclamation of April 15, he instantly enlisted a regiment of militia, which was ready to go forward in six days. The executive office became the army headquarters for the state, the governor's fiery zeal and exceptional organizing ability serving to unite all loyal elements in enthusiastic support of the nation. Randall also contributed notably, along with the other leading governors, to Lincoln's plans for the prompt mobilization of the national resources. So energetically did he proceed in Wisconsin that when he left the executive office, nine months later, the state had already supplied nearly 25, 000 troops.
Like many other political leaders, Randall, having missed a senatorship, desired a military appointment, but Lincoln sent him as minister to Rome. The next year he was back, still intent upon a military appointment. Again he missed that objective, but being made first assistant postmaster-general in 1863, he gave full sway to his genius for political organization in preparing the ground for Lincoln's triumphant reëlection. Andrew Johnson received him into his cabinet as head of the Post-Office Department, where he remained till the close of that stormy administration, to the last one of Johnson's most ardent defenders. His friendship for the widely hated President sufficed to send him back to the practice of law. He preferred, however, not to return to Wisconsin, but settled in Elmira, New York. There he remained active in his profession for a time, but his death from cancer ended his career at the early age of fifty-two.
He served as the sixth Governor of Wisconsin from 1858 until 1861. He was instrumental in raising and organizing the first Wisconsin volunteer troops for the Union Army during the American Civil War. He performed much useful work at Washington, but he will be longest remembered as Wisconsin's dynamic war governor.
From a party viewpoint he was extraordinarily "mobile, " but although he was often charged with political opportunism, his party shiftings were determined more on principle than on expediency.
Randall was endowed with a sound, keen, and quick, though not profound, intelligence, and was handsome of face and figure. He was effective and even eloquent in address, and he always gave the impression of perfect adequacy in any situation. A consistent and orderly worker, he rose very early and performed the day's drudgery before office hours. That methold provided leisure for conferences, visits, and the joviality of which he was exceptionally fond. He was a formidable opponent in the court room and on the hustings, yet kindly in disposition, rarely making personal enemies.
He had married in 1842 Mary C. Van Vechten of New York state, who died in 1858. Five years later he married Helen M. Thomas of Elmira, New York, who survived him.
