Matthew H. Carpenter was an American lawyer and United States senator from Wisconsin.
Background
Matthew Hale Carpenter was born on December 22, 1824 in Moretown, Vermont, United States; the son of Ira and Esther Ann (Luce) Carpenter. His baptismal name was "Merritt Hammond, " but not liking it, he later changed it to "Matthew Hale. " His father was a man of little formal education, but of considerable influence in his community.
Education
Frail in body and precocious in mind, young Carpenter did not develop the interests usual with American youth, and he showed early two traits that ever remained with him, a cordial dislike for manual work and a great avidity for books. At fourteen he made his home with Paul Dillingham, a lawyer of Waterbury, Vt. , later prominent in politics. At eighteen he entered West Point, but, chafing under military discipline, resigned and resumed his legal studies, first with Dillingham and later with Rufus Choate at Boston. Instead of remaining with either of his masters, however, he migrated to Wisconsin and settled at Beloit in June 1848.
Career
As an ardent Democrat of the Douglas stripe Carpenter participated in the presidential campaigns of 1848, 1852, and 1856, but he did not himself accept political preferment. In the middle fifties he took up residence in Milwaukee and became for a short time the partner of E. G. Ryan, later chief justice of the Wisconsin supreme court. When the Civil War issues drew men into public controversy, Carpenter urged the election of Douglas so that secession on the part of the South would not be precipitated, something he considered inevitable if Lincoln were elected. He did not, however, believe that Republican success justified secession; that step he considered treason. Physical defects alone prevented him from taking the field. By speeches and public letters he urged vigorous prosecution of the war against the Confederates, and in 1862, in answer to the famous Ryan address the Democratic platform of that year which arraigned Lincoln's war measures Carpenter wrote a communication in defense of the government. In the role of legal advocate Carpenter helped to shape the Reconstruction policy of the North. In the Garland case he represented an ex-Confederate, pardoned by President Johnson, who tried to establish his right to practise in United States courts; and in the case of William H. McCardle, a Mississippi editor sentenced by a military tribunal, he pleaded the cause of the United States government. This latter case involved the constitutionality of the military governments in the South as established by the Reconstruction measures of Congress. Though acting in the capacity of attorney in the interest of his clients, his arguments in both instances were in conformity with his views on Reconstruction; namely, that once rebel citizens and rebel states were restored to their position in the Union, they were entitled to full equality with other citizens and other states, but until that restoration had been effected, Congress, the omnipotent political body, had broad discretionary powers as to the method to be used in achieving that end. Political recognition did not come to Carpenter until 1869, in which year the Republican legislature of Wisconsin sent him to the Senate. There he identified himself, for the most part, with the Radical supporters of President Grant. In one of his greatest public speeches, that at Janesville, June 26, 1873, he courageously but unwisely discussed the two most dangerous issues of the day, the "Salary Grab" and the Credit Mobilier. He had voted for the salary increase and this mistake was not offset by his vote for its repeal the following year. Besides he had a reputation for indiscreet personal conduct and had won the enmity of the railroads by securing unfavorable decisions from the courts and by advocating federal control of interstate commerce. These obstacles proved insurmountable when he was a candidate for reelection in 1875; even his friend, Boss E. W. Keyes, could not rally to him the united support of the party. In one of the most bitter and exciting senatorial contests in the history of the state, Carpenter was defeated by a coalition of Democrats and dissenting Republicans, most of whom were followers of the Senator's rival, the former governor, C. C. Washburn. Upon leaving the Senate, Carpenter established an office in Washington and became the attorney in two cases of nation-wide significance. He represented Secretary of War Belknap in his impeachment trial, and a little later Samuel Tilden before the electoral commission. These two unpopular causes did him no permanent harm, for when Senator Howe's third term expired in 1879, Carpenter, who had rehabilitated his political fortunes, was victor in a triangular contest between himself, the incumbent, and Boss Keyes. His second term in the Senate was cut short by his death.
Achievements
Politics
Originally a Democrat, he evolved into a Republican during the Civil War, and helped perpetuate the party's political machinery in Wisconsin. His sustained support for President Ulysses S. Grant's administration despite allegations of corruption lost him the backing of reformers, and his legal arguments in favor of Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden in the disputed presidential election of 1876 outraged many Republicans. A gifted orator, he was dubbed "the Webster of the West. "
Connections
In 1855 Carpenter married Caroline Dillingham, the daughter of Paul Dillingham. They were the parents of four children.