William Freeman Vilas was a General Secretary of the Interior Senator lawyer, cabinet member, and senator from Wisconsin.
Background
William Freeman Vilas was the son of Judge Levi Baker Vilas and Esther Green (Smilie) Vilas, and a descendant of Peter Vilas (1704 - 1756), an emigrant from England. Brought by his parents from his birthplace, Chelsea, Orange County, Vermont, to Madison, Wisconsin.
Education
In 1851, Vilas was graduated at the University of Wisconsin in 1858, and at the Law School of the University of Albany in 1860. He was admitted to the bar in Madison in 1860, but before he became heavily involved in legal practice he went to war with the 23rd Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Mustered out, he returned to Madison and gained immediate distinction in his profession.
Career
Vilas served the state, 1875-78, as reviser of statutes (Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, 1878) and assisted in reediting the first twenty volumes of Wisconsin Reports (published 1875 - 76). He became a professor of law (1868-85, 1889 - 92) and a regent (1881-85, 1898 - 1905) of the University of Wisconsin, a worker on many non-political bodies and commissions, and in 1885 a member of the Wisconsin legislature.
At the home-coming banquet for General Grant given by the Society of the Army of the Tennessee in the old Palmer House in Chicago, November 13, 1879, Vilas made the successful speech of an evening too full of oratory. He was established by this as the most prominent Democratic orator in Wisconsin, and he contested thereafter with General Edward S. Bragg for the reality of party leadership.
In 1884, he was permanent chairman of the convention that nominated Cleveland for the presidency, and served as chairman of the committee that notified the nominee. Cleveland appointed him postmaster-general and relied upon him as a counselor and friend. In 1887, the President and his young wife were entertained at the handsome Vilas mansion in Madison. As postmaster-general, Vilas was useful because of an intimate knowledge of the West and an unusual degree of executive ability; but he issued a circular warning postal employees against "offensive partisanship" that evoked a scolding from civil service reformers.
In 1888, when L. Q. C. Lamar was elevated to the Supreme Court, Vilas was shifted to the Department of the Interior. Here his special abilities had even greater value since the business of the department was largely in the West and since the arbitrary accumulation of unrelated bureaus in the department gave skill in administration a chance to show itself. He knew, perhaps, too much for his comfort.
Part of his fortune was based upon speculations in land and lumber, and these aroused intermittent attacks from his political opponents in Wisconsin. Upon the termination of the Democratic administration in 1889, he returned to Madison. In 1891, he was elected by the Democratic legislature to succeed John C. Spooner in the United States Senate. He was defeated by Spooner six years later and retired to private life.
A trusted friend of Cleveland, Vilas adhered to the gold standard, fought Bryan in the convention at Chicago, and was chairman of the committee that drafted the platform of the "Gold Democrats" at Indianapolis in September 1896. For the rest of his life he was an onlooker in politics, with Republicans dominating his state, and a new order rising to power in the La Follette group.
He was the first citizen of Madison, after the death of General Lucius Fairchild, and was active in the rebuilding of the University of Wisconsin under Presidents Thomas C. Chamberlin, Charles Kendall Adams, and Charles R. Van Hise.
Achievements
Personality
Under the influence of Van Hise, Vilas provided, by a carefully drafted will, that his large estate should go to the University after the death of his wife and the one daughter who survived him.
Connections
Vilas was married on January 3, 1866, to Anna Matilda Fox.