Gove Saulsbury was an American physician and politician.
Background
Saulsbury was born on May 29, 1815 in Kent County, Delaware, United States. He was the eldest of three brothers who attained political distinction in that state in the middle nineteenth century. They were of Welsh descent, sons of William Saulsbury of Mispillion Hundred, sheriff of Kent County, Del. , and his wife, Margaret Smith.
Education
He attended free schools of the vicinity, then Delaware College at Newark. After a period of teaching country schools, he entered the medical college of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was graduated M. D. in 1842, having written a thesis on rheumatism.
Career
He at once entered upon the practice of his profession at Dover. He was president of the board of trustees of Wilmington Conference Academy and later had been chosen delegate to the Ecumenical Council of Methodism in London.
Saulsbury was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1856, and in 1862 was elected to the Delaware Senate, where he took a prominent part in the sessions of 1863 and 1864.
Soon becoming the recognized Democratic leader, Saulsbury was elected speaker of the Senate at the opening of the session of 1865, upon the death of Governor Cannon, Mar. 1, became acting governor, and in the following year was elected governor by a majority of 1312.
In 1869 he characterized the reconstruction measures enacted by Congress as "the most flagrant usurpation of power" and in his last message (1871) he referred to the Fifteenth Amendment as having been "adopted by fraud and coercion. " His term as governor expired less than two months before that of his brother Willard as United States senator, and the two, as well as the third brother, Eli, became candidates for the senatorship.
Gove held, throughout, his following of fourteen, rising on the third ballot to fifteen, but Eli, on the fourth ballot, with Willard's support, received sixteen votes and was elected, Jan. 17, 1871, on the day of Gove's retirement from the governorship.
Gove Saulsbury seems never to have held public office thereafter, although he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1876 and again in 1880.
Achievements
Religion
In 1843 he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and eventually became active in its affairs.
Politics
He supported in the latter year a joint resolution to inquire into the enlistment of Negroes within the state, and later presented a committee report severely arraigning the Republican governor, William Cannon, for his policy in furnishing Federal troops.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
According to John Scharf, Saulsbury had “a deep sense of personal responsibility. He had a strong will and asserted his opinions earnestly and often, and as it seemed to those who differed with him, obstinately. ”
Governor Robert J. Reynolds described him as “distinguished for his cunning. He was the slyest, cunningest man, and the most natural born politician Delaware ever produced. " He was said to have “never apologized, compromised, or surrendered, unless it was in his interest. ”
Connections
On Nov. 1, 1848, he married Rosina Jane Smith of Snow Hill, Md. , by whom he had five children, only one of whom survived him.