Radical Republicans
Anti-Slavery Radical Republican Political Leaders
Click on the entries below to view an annotated list of biographies of Radical Republican political leaders. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Also see below for an index and a bibliography.
Click HERE for biographies of the founders and political leaders of the Republican party on our American Abolitionists website.
A
B
C
D-E
F
G
Garfield
Giddings through Grant
Greeley through Grow
H
I-L
M-O
P-R
S
Shellbarger through Stevens
Sumner
T-V
W
X-Z
Index
The following is a list of Radical Republicans included in this biographical directory. It includes 83 individuals for whom Scribner’s and Appletons’ encyclopedic biographies are available. To read the biographies, click on the links below for each letter of the alphabet (or see links above).
Amos Tappan Akerman: Attorney General under the Grant administration who vigorously prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan in the South under the Enforcement Acts
Adelbert Ames: Governor of Mississippi in 1868–1870 and 1874–1876
John Albion Andrew: Reformer, anti-slavery advocate, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party.
James Mitchell Ashley: Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, from Ohio.
John Armor Bingham: Lawyer, Military judge advocate. Representative from Ohio and principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Liberty Billings: Officer in the Union Army, a Unitarian minister, and a state senator from Florida.
Francis William Bird: Anti-slavery political leader, radical reformer. Member of the anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs,” leader of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party. Led anti-slavery faction of the newly formed Republican Party.
Austin Blair: Free-Soiler, radical republican. Governor of Michigan in 1861–1865.
Lionel Booth: Booth, was the commander of the 6th U.S. Regiment Colored Heavy Artillery in the Civil War.
Benjamin Boseman: African-American physician born in Troy, New York. Boseman served in the South Carolina House of Representatives for three consecutive terms, from 1868 until 1873, representing Charleston County. As a legislator, he introduced in 1870 South Carolina's first comprehensive Civil Rights bill.
George Sewall Boutwell: Representative from Massachusetts 1862-1868, and Treasury Secretary under President Grant from 1869 to 1873. Supported African American citizenship and voting rights during Reconstruction. Important leader serving on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which framed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
William Gannaway Brownlow: publisher of the Knoxville Whig, Tennessee Governor and U.S. Senator.
Rufus Bullock: Reconstruction Governor of Georgia 1868–1871.
Benjamin Butler: Massachusetts politician-soldier who restored union control in New Orleans. As Union General, he refused to return runaway slaves to Southerners at Fort Monroe. This led to a federal policy of calling enslaved individuals who fled to Union lines contraband of war. U. S. congressman, governor of Massachusetts. Republican member of the U.S. Congress.
Zachariah Chandler: Senator from Michigan 1857-1875, and Secretary of the Interior under President Grant, 1875-1877. Helped organize the Republican Party in 1854. Introduced Confiscation Bill in Senate, July 1861.
Salmon P. Chase: Governor of Ohio, Treasury Secretary under President Lincoln and Supreme Court chief justice who sought the 1868 Democratic nomination as a moderate. Abolitionist, member, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Anti-Slavery Republican Party.
Powell Clayton: Union general, radical republican Senator from Arkansas, 1868, elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1877.
John Cochrane: Radical republican.
Schuyler Colfax: Speaker of the House (1863–1869) from Indiana and the 17th Vice President of the United States (1869–1873). Secretary of State. Opposed slavery as a Republican Member of Congress.
Roscoe Conkling: U.S. Congressman from New York, represented his district in Washington, 1859-67, except for the single term 1863-65. Elected U.S Senator, 1867, 1873, 1879.
John Conness: Union Republican U.S. Senator from California. U.S. Senator 1863-1869. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
John Covode: U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress and as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth, and Thirty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1863); (Thirty-seventh Congress); delegate to the Union National Convention at Philadelphia in 1866; elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress (March 4, 1867-March 3, 1869 (Fortieth Congress); contested with Henry D. Foster the election to the Forty-first Congress.
John Creswell: elected Baltimore Representative to the House in 1863 during the Civil War, Creswell worked closely under Radical Republican Baltimore Representative Henry Winter Davis and was appointed Postmaster-General by President Grant in 1869, having vast patronage powers appointed many African Americans to federal postal positions in every state of the United States
Edmund J. Davis: Lawyer Judge, Union officer, Governor of Texas in 1870–1874. As president of the Reconstruction convention of 1868-69 he advocated disfranchisement of ex-Confederates, unrestricted negro suffrage, and other radical measures of the party.
Henry Winter Davis: Statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 3rd District of Maryland, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1863-1865. Anti-slavery activist in Congress. Supported enlistment of African Americans in Union Army.
Frederick Douglas: African American, escaped slave, author, diplomat, orator, newspaper publisher, radical abolitionist leader. Published, The North Star abolitionist newspaper with Martin Delany. Wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas: An American Slave, in 1845. Also wrote My Bondage, My Freedom, 1855.
Charles Daniel Drake: Lawyer, jurist, United States senator, from 1861 to 1863. Early in the war, he became a leader in the attack on slavery as a legalized institution, an issue which to most Missouri leaders had been distinctly secondary to the preservation of the Union. Drake energetically led the radical or "charcoal" wing of the Unionist party, He was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation.
Reuben Fenton: Statesman, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, elected in 1852, in 1856 he was re-elected as the Republican candidate, serving until 1864. Voted against extension of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Governor of New York in 1865–1868.
William Pitt Fessenden: Lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Elected to Congress in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party opposing slavery. Moved to repeal rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions before Congress. Strong leader in Congress opposing slavery. Elected to the Senate in 1854. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Prominent leader of the anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate.
Thomas Clement Fletcher: abolitionist, union general, reconstruction era Governor of Missouri in 1865–1869.
John C. Frémont: Army officer, explorer. In 1856, was first candidate for President from the anti-slavery Republican Party. Lost to James Buchanan. Early in his career, he was opposed to slavery and its expansion into new territories and states. First U.S. Senator from the State of California, 1850-1851. He was elected as a Free Soil Democrat, and was defeated for reelection principally because of his adamant opposition to slavery. Frémont supported a free Kansas and was against the provisions of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. On August 30, 1861, Frémont issued an unauthorized proclamation to free slaves owned by secessionists in his Department in Missouri. Lincoln revoked the proclamation and relieved Frémont of command. In March 1862, Frémont was given commands in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
James A. Garfield: Lawyer, Union general. Lt. Colonel, 42nd Regiment Ohio Volunteers. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Twentieth President of the United States.
Joshua Reed Giddings: Lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, Whig from Ohio, elected in 1838. First abolitionist elected to House of Representatives. Worked to eliminate “gag rule,” which prohibited anti-slavery petitions. Served until 1859. Leader and founder of the Republican Party. Argued that slavery in territories and District of Columbia was unlawful. Was censured by the House of Representatives for his opposition to slavery. Opposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and against further expansion of slavery into the new territories acquired during the Mexican War of 1846.
Ulysses S. Grant: President who signed Enforcement Acts and Civil Rights Act of 1875 while as General of the Army of the United States he supported Radical Reconstruction and civil rights for African Americans.
Horace Greely: Journalist, newspaper publisher, The New York Tribune. Major opponent of slavery. Co-founder, Liberal Republican Party in 1854. Supporter of the Union. The effort which the Tribune had expended in the forties on numerous causes was concentrated in the fifties upon the Free-Soil movement. He opposed the Mexican War, and indorsed the Wilmot Proviso. He advocated for the forcible resistance to the Fugitive-Slave Act. Greeley was among the first newspaper editors to join the Republican party. Supported emancipation. Candidate for president of the U.S.
Galusha A. Grow: Representative from Pennsylvania and Speaker of the House 1861 to 1863.
John Parker Hale: New Hampshire, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator. Member of the anti-slavery Liberty Party. President of the Free Soil Party, 1852. Elected to Congress in 1842, he opposed the 21st Rule suppressing anti-slavery petitions to Congress. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1846, he was the first distinctively anti-slavery Senator. Adamantly opposed slavery for his 16 years in office. In 1852, he was nominated for President of the United States, representing the Free Soil Party. As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
James Harlan: Statesman. Whig U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Elected Senator in 1855 representing Iowa. Re-elected, served until 1865, when appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Lincoln. Re-elected to Senate in 1866, served until 1873.
Andrew Jackson Hamilton: Union general, U.S. Representative from Texas, appointed by President Lincoln Military Governor of Texas in 1862; appointed provisional Governor by President Johnson in 1865; justice of the supreme court of Texas in 1866.
Hannibal Hamlin: . Vice President of the United States, 1861-1865, under President Abraham Lincoln. Congressman from Maine, 1843-1847. U.S. Senator from Maine, 1848-1857, 1857-1861, and 1869-1881. Governor of Maine, January-February 1857. In February 1857, he resigned as Governor of Maine to return to the U.S. Senate. In 1861, he was elected U.S. Vice President. Opponent of the extension of slavery into the new territories. Supported the Wilmot Proviso and against the compromise laws of 1850. Opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Early founding member of the Republican Party. Supported Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and creation of Black regiments for the Union Army.
Gilbert Haven: clergyman, African American civil rights advocate, abolitionist, bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At Wesleyan University (B.A. 1846), he was noted for his anti-slavery opinions.
Friedrich Hecker: Leader of the German-American Forty-Eighters. German revolutionist, Union soldier, farmer. Though never accepting political office, he was one of the early Republicans, was on the Fremont electoral ticket, campaigned against slavery, especially where Germans had settled, and was an ardent supporter of Lincoln.
James M. Hinds: James M. Hinds represented Arkansas in the United States House of Representatives for the 2nd congressional district from June 24, 1868 until his death in office four months later. He was assassinated by a Klansman for advocating civil rights for former slaves.
William Woods Holden: Governor of North Carolina in 1868–1871. Favored the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Advocated for unrestricted negro suffrage in 1867. The state legislature of 1870, at his urgent insistence, passed a number of acts directed against the Ku Klux Kan.
Jacob M. Howard: Lawyer. Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan. U.S. Congressman 1841-1843. Founding member of Republican Party in 1854. Elected in 1862. Served until March 1871. As a member of the judiciary committee he drafted the first clause of the Thirteenth Amendment. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Timothy Otis Howe: Lawyer, jurist. Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. Elected 1861, served until 1879. During his career he served on the committees of finance, commerce, pensions, and claims, was one of the earliest advocates of universal emancipation, and in a speech in the senate on 29 May, 1861, advocated in strong terms the negro-suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
George Washington Julian: Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana, vice president of the Free Soil Party, 1852. Member of U.S. Congress from Indiana, 1850-1851. Was against the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. Fought in court to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to their owners. Joined and supported early Republican Party. Re-elected to Congress, 1861-1871. Supported emancipation of slaves. Principal framer of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
William Darrah Kelley: Lawyer, jurist, abolitionist. Opposed slavery and, with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, abandoned the Democratic party to become one of the founders of the Republican organization. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Elected in 1860. Called the “Father of the House.” Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
Samuel J. Kirkwood: Statesman, political leader. Governor of Iowa, 1860-1864, 1876-1877. U.S. Senator, 1865-1867, 1877-1881. Secretary of the Interior, 1881-1882. Anti-slavery Senator. Early leader in the Republican Party. Strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union. During his second term as governor the pro-slavery element, or "Copperheads," in Iowa gained strength and at several times threatened insurrection.
James H. Lane: Lawyer, soldier, Union General. U.S. Senator from Kansas, 1861-1866. Elected Senator in 1861 and in 1865. Active in the abolitionist movement in Kansas in the 1850’s. A leader in the Jay Hawkers and Free Soil militant groups. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Benjamin Loan: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. He was subsequently re-elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses.
John Alexander Logan: Union General, United States Senator from Illinois, radical republican.
Owen Lovejoy: Clergyman, abolitionist, U.S. Congressman. Member and Manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society and Illinois Anti-Slavery Society. Active in Underground Railroad. Member, Illinois State Legislature. Brother of anti-slavery newspaper publisher, Elijah Parrish Lovejoy. Strong supporter of William Lloyd Garrison. He was elected to Congress in 1856 and actively supported the abolition of slavery in Congress until his death in 1864.
Horace Maynard: U.S. Congressman and Unionist. In 1857, he was elected as a candidate of the Whig and American parties and two years later was reelected. Fought against the withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union. Broke with his fellow Unionist of Civil War days, President Johnson, and aligned himself with the radical Republicans.
Joseph W. McClurg: Lawyer, legislator, soldier. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri. Served in Congress December 1863-1868. Elected Governor of Missouri in 1868. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. In the House of Representatives he became an ardent disciple of Thaddeus Stevens [q.v.], one the leaders of radical Republicanism and emancipation.
Joseph Medill: Journalist, he labored diligently for the organization of a new Republican party In March 1854 a secret meeting was held in the office of the Cleveland Leader and plans adopted for the new anti-slavery party. There is evidence to show that he was the first man to advocate the name Republican even before the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed. He was in favor of emancipation and confiscation of southern property; he continually urged the administration to adopt a more radical course of action. He was among the first to advocate the arming of the slaves. In the reconstruction of the South, he supported Congress and was heartily in favor of the radical policies of the Republican party.
Lot Myrick Morrill: Lawyer, opposed slavery, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1876, two-term Republican Governor of Maine, U.S. Senator, 1861-1869. Joined the Republican Party due to his position against slavery and its expansion into the new territories. Supported the bill in Congress that emancipated slaves in Washington, DC. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. After the war, he supported higher education for African Americans. In 1866, he supported voting rights for African Americans in Washington, DC.
Oliver P. Morton: Statesman, lawyer, jurist, anti-slavery activist. Member of the Republican Party. U.S. Senator, 1867-1877, and Governor of Indiana, 1861-1867. He was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and when the Democratic state convention endorsed the Douglas measure he went over to the People's party, the forerunner of the Republican party in Indiana. He helped with the formation of the new party along national lines. Probably he did more than any other man to obtain the ratification of the negro suffrage amendment to the Constitution.
Franklin J. Moses, Jr.: Lawyer, Governor of South Carolina in 1872–1874.
James Mullins: Represented Tennessee's 4th congressional district in the U. S. of Representatives from 1867 to 1869. He also served a single term in the Tennessee House of Representatives (1865–1867). Described as a "fierce fanatic of the Republican Party," Mullins supported the initiatives of Governor William G. Brownlow in the state legislature, leading efforts to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
Wendell Phillips: Lawyer, orator, reformer, abolitionist leader, Native American advocate. Leader and Officer in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Called “abolition’s golden trumpet.” In the measures for reconstructing the Union he took a prominent part, mainly for the purpose of guarding the rights of the negro population. He had previously won their gratitude by his zealous efforts in behalf of fugitive slaves, and to abolish distinctions of color in schools, in public conveyances, and in places of popular resort.
James Shepard Pike: Journalist, diplomat, anti-slavery activist. Washington correspondent and associate editor of the New York Tribune. He was as an uncompromising anti-slavery whig, and later as an ardent Republican. He supported Horace Greeley for the presidency in 1872.
Samuel Pomeroy: Republican U.S. Senator from Kansas. Appointed financial agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1854, he accompanied the second party of settlers to Kansas Territory in the fall of that year. Active in Kansas “Free State” convention of 1859. U.S. Senator 1861-1873. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Harrison Reed: Governor of Florida in 1868–1873.
Samuel Shellabarger: U.S. Representative from Ohio and principal drafter of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also called the anti-Ku Klux Klan bill. After passage by both houses of Congress, the bill was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on April 20. This bill was very instrumental in giving Grant the tools he needed to disable the first-era KKK.
Henry L. Shrewsbury: African American teacher and Reconstruction era state legislator in South Carolina. He was a free mullato, and represented Chesterfield County in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 until 1870.
Rufus Paine Spalding: Massachusetts, lawyer, jurist. Republican Representative from Ohio, 1863-1869. He took a leading role in the Congressional debates over Reconstruction.
James Speed: Kentucky, lawyer, soldier, statesman, U.S. Attorney General. Ardent opponent of slavery. Early friend of Abraham Lincoln. Emancipation candidate for Kentucky State Constitutional Convention. Unionist State Senator. U.S. Attorney General appointed by President Lincoln in 1864, he served until 1866. Advocate negro suffrage and was critical of President Johnson. He opposed Johnson's veto of the Freedmen's Bureau bill and favored the Fourteenth Amendment.
Edwin McMasters Stanton: Statesman, lawyer, anti-slavery activist. U. S. Secretary of War, 1862-1867. Favored Wilmot Proviso to exclude slavery from the new territories acquired by the U.S. after the War with Mexico in 1846. After Lincolns assassination Mr. Stanton took sides against President Johnson on the subject of reconstruction.
George Luther Stearns: Medford, Massachusetts, merchant, industrialist, Free-Soil supporter, abolitionist. Chief supporter of the Emigrant Aid Company which financed anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. Founded the Nation, Commonwealth, and Right of Way newspapers. Member of the “Secret Six” who secretly financially supported radical abolitionist John Brown, and his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, on October 16, 1859. Recruited African Americans for the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, U.S. Army.
Thaddeus Stevens: Statesman, lawyer, abolitionist leader. Republican Anti-slavery leader in U.S. House of Representatives. As member of Whig Party and leader of the radical Republican Party, urged Lincoln to issue Emancipation Proclamation. Led the fight to pass Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery and establishing citizenship, due process and equal protections for African Americans.
Charles Sumner: Boston, Massachusetts, statesman, lawyer, writer, editor, educator, reformer, peace advocate, anti-slavery political leader. U.S. Senatorial candidate on the Free Soil ticket in December 1851. Opposed the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Organizer and co-founder of the Republican party. He was severely beaten on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senator Preston S. Brooks. Strong supporter of Lincoln and the Union. He was among the first to support emancipation of slaves. As a U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Albion W. Tourgée: novelist, union soldier, judge, carpet-bagger, author, radical republican. In January 1867 he founded the Union Register, devoted to Radical policies.
Lyman Trumbull: Lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator from Illinois with strongly anti-slavery sentiments. Served three terms (1855-73) which were marked by a bitter struggle over slavery and reconstruction, during which he was first a Democrat, a leading Republican, and ultimately a Liberal Republican. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Daniel Phillips Upham: Arkansas politician-soldier who was ruthless in a campaign that would temporarily rid the South of the Ku Klux Klan.
Benjamin Franklin Wade: Lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator from Ohio, strong and active opponent of slavery. In 1839, opposed enactment of stronger fugitive slave law, later calling for its repeal. U.S. Senator, March 1851-1869. Opposed Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. Reported bill to abolish slavery in U.S. Territories in 1862. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. He was next in line to become President if Johnson was removed from office.
Henry Clay Warmoth: Union soldier, lawyer, Governor of Louisiana in 1868–1872, radical republican.
Elihu Benjamin Washburne: Statesman, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois, from December 1853 through March 1869. Called “Father of the House.” Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. When the war ended, Washburne found himself in the forefront of the Radicals and a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction.
George Henry Williams: Anti-slavery political leader, U.S. Senator from Oregon (1865–1871) and Attorney General under President Grant.
Waitman Thomas Willey: Lawyer. U.S. Senator from Virginia (1861), later West Virginia (1863). Willey was elected by the Unionist legislature at Wheeling to take the seat of U.S. Senator James M. Mason. Served in Senate until March 1871. He presented the constitution of West Virginia and was instrumental in securing its acceptance by Congress and the ratification by the people of the "Willey amendment" providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in the proposed state. Thus, West Virginia was the only state to secede from the Confederacy. Became a Radical Republican.
Henry Wilson: Abolitionist leader, statesman, U.S. Senator and Vice President of the U.S. Massachusetts state senator. Member, Free Soil Party. Founder of the Republican Party. Strong opponent of slavery. Opposed annexation of Texas as a slave state. Bought and edited Boston Republican newspaper, which represented the Free Soil Party. Called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts. Introduced bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the granting of freedom to slaves who joined the Union Army. Supported full political and civil rights to emancipated slaves
James F. Wilson: Lawyer, Ohio State Senator, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected to the federal House of Representatives to fill a vacancy in December 1861, he was reelected as a Republican and served until March 3, 1869. In the days of war and reconstruction he had a conspicuous and determining part in the congressional policies. He used fully his strategic position as chairman of the judiciary committee to forward abolition and the Union program. War measures that he fathered included the article prohibiting the use of troops in the return of fugitive slaves, enfranchisement of negroes in the District of Columbia, and the tax on state bank circulation; he introduced the original resolution for an abolition Amendment. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Johnson and Senator from Iowa.
Richard Yates: Civil War governor of Illinois. Elected to Congress in 1850 and again in 1852. In this period he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Having taken an antislavery stand he joined the Republican party and was a member of the national conventions which nominated Lincoln in 1860 and Grant in 1868. After the war Yates served one term (1865-71) in the United States Senate. Voted for President Johnson's conviction in the impeachment proceeding, and supported the prevailing radical Republican programs.
Sources:
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Bibliography: Abolition, Anti-Slavery, Opposition to Slavery
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