Ransom Hooker Gillet

Background

Ransom Hooker Gillet was born on January 27, 1800, at New Lebanon, New York. He was the son of Capt. John Gillet, a veteran of the Revolution, and Lucy Gillet, his wife.

His parents moved in 1802 to a farm in Saratoga County, where young Ransom grew up, working on his father’s farm in the summer, and lumbering in the pine-forest during the winter.

Education

In 1819, Gillet removed to St. Lawrence County, where he was employed to teach school during the winter and attended the St. Lawrence Academy during the summer.

In 1821, he began to read law in the office of Silas Wright at Canton, and after a brief period set up his practice at Ogdensburg, having been taken into partnership by Wright.

Career

Gillet's association with this important Democratic political leader was the beginning of a relationship which lasted till Wright’s death in 1847 and did much to define Gillet’s political principles and to shape his political career.

From 1827 to 1837, he was brigade-major and inspector of the local brigade of militia. He became postmaster of Ogdensburg in 1830, and served till 1833. In the meantime, he had his first taste of national politics, attending the first National Democratic Convention in 1832.

In the same year, he was elected to Congress, serving two terms. In Congress, he spoke but little, but was on terms of intimacy with James K. Polk, whose candidacy for speaker he supported vigorously in 1835, and with whom he claims to have had much influence in the make-up of the congressional committees.

In 1837, he accepted an appointment from President Van Buren as commissioner to treat with the Indian tribes in New York and held this post till 1839. In 1840, he attended the Democratic nominating convention and was influential in drawing up a series of resolutions which constituted the platform of that year, and which were reiterated by every Democratic convention till 1864.

In private life during the Harrison-Tyler regime, Gillet again appeared in Washington with the advent of the Polk administration. He had hoped for an important office, and was strongly backed by Wright, but was given the relatively insignificant post of register of the treasury.

In 1847, however, he received the solicitorship of the treasury, holding this post until the autumn of 1849. Again retiring because of the Whig victory, he was appointed a clerk to the attorney general in 1855, and solicitor to the court of claims in 1858.

The defeat of the Democrats in 1860 ended his political career. Gillet remained stanchly Democratic in his political principles, and was severely critical of the Lincoln administration throughout the period of the war.

After 1864, he spent most of his time at Lebanon Springs, New York, where he occupied himself with writing. Three books appeared from his pen, Democracy in the United States (1868), a piece of partisan history, written with an eye to the campaign of 1868; The Federal Government (1871), an elementary work on the structure of the government; and The Life and Times of Silas Wright, a large part of which consists of Wright’s speeches and correspondence.

During his years at Washington, he was active at the bar. He was counsel for Amos Kendall in an important case in which the latter sought to recover counsel fees for his services to the Cherokee Indians, and he acted, curiously enough against Kendall, in the suit of Samuel F. B. Morse against Henry O’Reilly, in which the validity of the Morse patents was in question. Gillet was counsel for O’Reilly and prepared the brief in the case for the Supreme Court.

He took over Edwin M. Stanton’s practise when Stanton became secretary of war.

Achievements

• Gillet was elected to Congress, serving two terms. He was appointed clerk to the attorney general, and solicitor to the court of claims. He received the solicitorship of the treasury.

Works

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  • The Federal Government

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Federal Government: Its Officers and Their Duties

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Democracy in the United States: What it Has Done, what it is Doing, and what it Will Do

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Life and Times of Silas Wright, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Life and Times of Silas Wright, Vol. 2 ...)

Personality

As writings amply testify, Gillet was a sincere but narrow partisan. Bred in the atmosphere of Democracy, he remained constant to his political creed. His abilities, to judge from his speeches and writings, were hardly more than moderate.

On the other hand, he left a memory of personal kindliness and public benefaction in the town in which he spent much of the last part of his life.

Connections

In 1825, Gillet was married to Eleanor C. Barhydt.

Father:

John Gillet

Mother:

Lucy Gillet

Wife:

Eleanor C. Barhydt