Zachariah Chandler was an American politician, one of the leaders of the Radical Republicans during the American Civil War and Reconstruction.
Background
Zachariah Chandler was born on December 10, 1813 at Bedford, New Hampshire, United States. His father, Samuel Chandler, was a descendant of William Chandler, who emigrated from England and settled at Roxbury, Massachussets, about 1637. His mother, Margaret Orr, was the oldest daughter of Col. John Orr.
Education
Chandler was educated in the common schools. Upon graduation, deciding not to attend college, Chandler moved west in 1833 to Detroit, at that time the capital of Michigan Territory. In Detroit, Chandler opened a general store and through trade, banking, and land speculation became one of the wealthiest men in the state of Michigan.
Career
In 1833 Zachariah Chandler removed to Detroit, where he opened a general store, and eventually through trade, banking, and land speculation became one of the richest men in Michigan. He made campaign speeches for Taylor in 1848, served for a year (1851 - 52) as mayor of Detroit, and in 1852 offered himself as a Whig candidate for governor and was defeated. He was one of the signers of the call for the meeting at Jackson, July 6, 1854, which launched the Republican party, and "the leading spirit" of the Buffalo convention called to aid free state migration to Kansas. In 1856 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention at Pittsburgh, and was made a member of the national committee of the party. In January 1857, he was elected to the United States Senate in succession to Lewis Cass, and held his seat until Mar. 3, 1875. In the Senate he allied himself with the radical anti-slavery element of the Republicans, although hostile to Charles Sumner, and was later recognized as one of the most outspoken enemies of secession. From March 1861 to 1875 he was chairman of the Committee on Commerce, to whose jurisdiction the appropriations for rivers and harbors, later known as the "pork barrel, " were assigned. At the outbreak of the Civil War he exerted himself to raise and equip the first regiment of Michigan volunteers. He was a member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War; initiated acts for the collection and administration of abandoned property in the South and for the further regulation of intercourse with the insurrectionary states; bitterly denounced the incompetence of McClellan in a speech at Jackson, which he regarded as one of his most important public services; supported the proposal of a national bank; voted for greenbacks as an emergency measure while strongly resisting inflation of the currency; and approved of the Reconstruction acts although criticizing them as in some respects too lax. His aggressive Republicanism was matched by his clamorous jingoism in regard to Great Britain; on January 15, 1866, he offered a resolution, which was tabled, for non-intercourse with Great Britain for its refusal to entertain the Alabama claims, and in 1867, when the question of recognizing Abyssinia as a belligerent in its war with Great Britain was under consideration, he submitted a resolution "recognizing to Abyssinia the same rights which the British had recognized to the Confederacy". From the beginning of his senatorial career he used his Federal patronage to strengthen his political power, and by methods openly partisan and despotic if not actually corrupt obtained control of the Republican machine in Michigan, and was for years the undisputed boss of his party in the state. The Democratic landslide of 1874, however, broke his power, and he was defeated for reelection to the Senate. In October 1875, he became secretary of the interior, retaining the office until the close of Grant's second administration. His reorganization of the department was attended by wholesale dismissals for alleged dishonesty or incompetence. He was again elected to the Senate in February 1879, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Isaac P. Christiancy.
Achievements
Politics
Zachariah Chandler took a prominent part as a Whig in politics (serving as mayor in 1851), and, impelled by his strong anti-slavery views, actively furthered the work of the " Underground Railroad, " of which Detroit was one of the principal transfer points. He was one of the organizers in Michigan of the Republican party, and in 1857 succeeded Lewis Cass in the United States Senate, serving until 1875, and at once taking his stand with the most radical opponents of slavery extension.
Connections
Zachariah Chandler was married to Letitia Grace Douglass of New York.