Background
Joseph Smith Fowler was born on August 31, 1820 in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of James and Sarah (Atkinson) Fowler, both natives of Maryland.
Joseph Smith Fowler was born on August 31, 1820 in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of James and Sarah (Atkinson) Fowler, both natives of Maryland.
Fowler attended country schools for a time and then began to teach in Shelby County, Kentucky. Later he returned to Ohio, and in 1843 was graduated from Franklin College at New Athens.
At Bowling Green, Kentucky, Fowler again taught school and at the same time studied law, and in 1845 became professor of mathematics at Franklin College, Davidson County, Tennessee, where he remained for four years. His occupation and whereabouts in the years following 1849 are not known, but in 1856 he was made president of Howard Female Institute at Gallatin, Tennessee, and remained there until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
In 1862 he returned to Nashville, and Johnson made him state comptroller in the military government. He was an efficient officer, and was prominent in the work of reconstruction, particularly in relation to the abolition of slavery.
In May 1865 he was elected United States senator but was denied his seat until July 1866. In Tennessee he had been on intimate terms with Johnson, but he differed with him as to Reconstruction, was one of the signers of the call for the Southern Loyalists’ convention in 1866, and attended as a delegate.
He watched the House during the process of impeachment and was horrified at its dangerous passion, which he thought likely to precipitate a revolution. When impeachment had first been attempted, he had thought the President impeachable, but as time passed he had found that opinion “based on falsehood, ” and that Johnson was being attacked for pursuing Lincoln’s policy.
He then saw in the impeachment plan a plot contrived by leaders “neither numerous nor marked for their prudence, wisdom, or patriotism, mere politicians, thrown to the surface through the disjointed times, ” bent on “keeping alive the embers of the departing revolution, ” and with “more of sectional prejudice than of patriotism”.
He filed a strong opinion, joined with Henderson and Ross in refusing to vote for the resolution of thanks to Stanton, and in July excoriated B. F. Butler for his report on the charges of corruption. In spite of his radical advocacy of negro suffrage, he voted against the Fifteenth Amendment, believing it wiser to move more slowly, and thinking that female suffrage should be included.
He retired from the Senate in 1871 and returned to Tennessee. He supported Grant in 1868, but by 1872 was utterly disgusted with his administration and was an elector at large on the Greeley ticket.
After some years he moved to Washington and remained there practising law until his death.
In his political affilliation Fowler was a Republican. He supported Grant in 1868, but by 1872 was utterly disgusted with his administration and was an elector at large on the Greeley ticket.
Fowler had been opposed to slavery since childhood, and he did not believe in the right of secession, but he had lived long enough in the South to be sympathetic with the Southern people, and would doubtless have remained there if it had not been for Davis’s “forty day” proclamation, which caused him to move with his family to Springfield.
In the Senate he voted for mort of the radical measures, including the reconstruction acts, although he did not approve of the provision for military government. He served faithfully but without any special distinction on many committees, and frequently participated in debate. Judging from the reports, he was an effective speaker.
He was of average ability only, but was distinctly levelheaded. He was radical, but was inclined to be liberal. When Johnson removed Stanton, Fowler, like Henderson, declined to vote for the resolution declaring the removal an illegal act.
Quotations: During the process of impeachment, when his attitude was soon made clear to the radicals, who attempted to coerce him by threats and slander, he quietly ignored them and voted “Not Guilty, ” with the quiet statement, “I acted for my country and posterity in obedience to the will of God. ”
On November 12, 1846, Joseph Smith Fowler married Maria Louisa Embry of Tennessee.