William Allen was an American politician. He served as a Senator and 31st Governor of Ohio.
Background
William Allen was born on December 18, 1803 in Edenton, North Carolina, United States. He was descended from Quaker forebears who were among the earliest settlers of Pennsylvania. In the eighteenth century a branch of the family removed to North Carolina, where it separated itself from the Society of Friends and engaged actively in the American Revolution. Nathaniel Allen, the father of William, was an officer in the Revolutionary army and later a member of the North Carolina convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. William was the issue of Nathaniel's third marriage, to one Sarah Colburn. Deprived of both his parents at an early age, and, through a technicality of the law, of his share in the large estate of his father, he was reared under the tutelage of his half-sister, a woman of great force and of some education, who had become the wife of the Reverend Pleasant Thurman. After a short residence in Lynchburg, Virginia, as an apprentice to a saddler, Allen determined to hazard his fortunes in the West, whither his sister and her family had already gone. In 1819 the sixteen-year-old boy arrived at the home of his sister in Chillicothe, Ohio, after a perilous journey on foot, in midwinter, across the ice-clad Alleghanies.
Education
Allen studied two years in Chillicothe Academy, supplemented by a course of general reading under the direction of his sister. He began the study of law in the office of Colonel Edward King, the son of Rufus King. Three years later, at the age of twenty-one, he was admitted to the practise of law.
Career
Allen became a partner of Colonel King. Riding the circuit, in accordance with frontier custom, Allen soon became a noted local figure; his large stature and commanding presence, his fluency of speech and skill in debate won for him a reputation throughout the section of the state in which he traveled, --a reputation which induced the Jackson Democrats of his district to nominate him as their candidate for Congress. The district was normally Republican by a majority of 1, 500 to 2, 000, but after an exciting contest the youthful Allen carried it by a majority of 1 against Gen. Duncan McArthur. He served one term in the House, from 1833 to 1835, without particular distinction, and was defeated for reelection. But the Democratic party sent him to the Senate in 1837 to succeed Thomas Ewing, and again for a second term in 1843. In the confusion of public opinion in the late forties and fifties Allen was unable to perceive the significance and weight of the Free-Soil element in the Democratic party. After his defeat by Salmon P. Chase (1849) he went into retirement on his large 1, 400 acre farm, "Fruit Hill, " near Chillicothe, where he remained for the next twenty-five years.
Toward the end of his life he made a spectacular reappearance in state politics in his election to the governorship of Ohio in 1873. Although he served acceptably in this office, he failed to be reelected, his espousal of the Greenback panacea contributing largely to his defeat. In 1876 his name was presented to the Democratic National Convention for the presidency.
He died at Fruit Hill, Chillicothe, Ohio on July 11, 1879.
Achievements
Politics
Allen was an ardent expansionist and a frequent declaimer on the Senate floor for the rights of the United States in Oregon and for the annexation of Texas. In his second term he was chairman of the important Committee on Foreign Relations and became the spokesman of President Polk during the war with Mexico.
During the Civil War he was an anti-war Democrat and an out-spoken critic of the Lincoln administration. For his stand on the war he was severely criticized.
Personality
Allen did not reach the higher levels of statesmanship. A partial explanation of his failure is found in his provincial and partisan outlook, his attachment to lost causes, and his inability to weigh accurately new and unexpected issues. But he voiced at all times what he believed to be aspirations and ideals of the West. His essential honesty was never questioned.
Connections
In 1842 Allen married Mrs. Effie (McArthur) Coons. They had one daughter, Effie.