George Frisbie Hoar (August 29,1826 –September 30,1904) was an American attorney and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1877 until his death in 1904. He belonged to an extended family that became politically prominent in 18th- and 19th-century New England.
Hoar was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1852 and to the Massachusetts Senate in 1857. He represented Massachusetts as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms from 1869 to 1877 and then served in the U.S. Senate until his death during his fifth term.[6] For one term during his House service,from 1873 to 1875,his brother Ebenezer Rockood Hoar served alongside him. He was a Republican,but generally avoided heavy partisanship,and did not hesitate to criticize other members of the party whose actions or policies he believed were in error.
In 1880 Hoar was chairman of the 1880 Republican National Convention. When James Garfield,who eventually won the party's nomination and the presidential election,rose to object that votes were being cast for him without his consent,Hoar disallowed his objection. He later said:"I was terribly afraid that he would say something that would make his nomination impossible."[7]
An economic nationalist,Hoar believed in capitalism as progress for civilization in accordance to the plans by God.[2] He supported measures which aimed at protecting American industries from foreign competition.
In Congress,Hoar established a reputation as a conservative on economic issues.[1] He opposed monetary inflation,post-war greenbacks without the backing of gold,and free coinage of silver. In addition to viewing silver as an "inferior metal," Hoar favored protectionisttariffs,a common position within the Republican Party.[1] He served as a member,and at times chairman,of the important Senate Judiciary Committee.[5]
In 1874,a dying Charles Sumner lay on his deathbed,and among his last visitors were Rep. Hoar.[1] Sumner told the representative to ensure passage of what became known as the Civil Rights Act of 1875:
You must take care of the civil rights bill – my bill, the civil rights bill – don't let it fail!
—Charles Sumner, March 11, 1874
Indeed, Hoar successfully fought in ensuring the bill's passage,[8] although it became law in a weakened form.[1]
Hoar was long noted as a fighter against political corruption. He campaigned for the rights of African Americans and Native Americans, which included the reusing of tribal lands for individual settlement of Native Americans. He was a strong advocate of the Dawes Act and allotment schemes which allocated communal tribal lands to individuals. He explained these views by comparing federal Indian relations to that of "a father to his son, or by a guardian to an insane ward..."[9] - out of context. He opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, describing it as "nothing less than the legalization of racial discrimination"[10][11][12] He was a member of the Congressional Electoral Commission that settled the highly disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. He authored the Presidential Succession Act of 1886.
Hoar was a consistent opponent of American imperialism. He did not share his Senate colleagues' enthusiasm for American intervention in Cuba in the late 1890s. In December 1897, he met with Native Hawaiian leaders opposed to the annexation of their nation. He then presented the Kūʻē Petitions to Congress and helped to defeat President William McKinley's attempt to annex the Republic of Hawaii by treaty, though the islands were eventually annexed by means of joint resolution, called the Newlands Resolution.[14]
You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives—the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are coming home from their harvest bringing sheaves with them, in the shape of other thousands of sick and wounded and insane to drag out miserable lives, wrecked in body and mind. You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture. Your practical statesmanship which disdains to take George Washington and Abraham Lincoln or the soldiers of the Revolution or of the Civil War as models, has looked in some cases to Spain for your example. I believe—nay, I know—that in general our officers and soldiers are humane. But in some cases they have carried on your warfare with a mixture of American ingenuity and Castilian cruelty. Your practical statesmanship has succeeded in converting a people who three years ago were ready to kiss the hem of the garment of the American and to welcome him as a liberator, who thronged after your men when they landed on those islands with benediction and gratitude, into sullen and irreconcilable enemies, possessed of a hatred which centuries can not eradicate.
By this time, one of his strongest opponents on the pro-imperialist side was his fellow Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who was a leading advocate for the Treaty of Paris.[17]
In 1904, he was one of several high-profile investors who backed the Intercontinental Correspondence University,[23] but the institution folded by 1915. He attended the Unitarian Church of All Souls in Washington, D.C.[24]
Hoar enjoyed good health until June 1904. He died in Worcester on September 30 of that year and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord. After his death, a statue of him was erected in front of Worcester's city hall, paid for by public donations.
Family
In 1853, Hoar married Mary Louisa Spurr (1831–1859).[25] In 1862, he married Ruth Ann Miller (1830–1903).[26] With his first wife, he was the father of a son, U.S. Representative Rockwood Hoar, and a daughter, Mary (1854–1929).[26] With his second wife he was the father of a daughter, Alice (1863–1864).[26]
He was the uncle of U.S. Representative Sherman Hoar, and the great uncle of Massachusetts State Senator and Assistant Attorney General Roger Sherman Hoar.
His second wife's sister, Alice Miller (1840—1900), married U.S. Representative William W. Rice, G. F. Hoar's successor as U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
↑ In 1858, the Massachusetts Senate was redistricted to break up the county districts into regional districts. Earle represented the Central Worcester district, containing Worcester itself.
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The 1877 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1877. Incumbent Republican Senator George S. Boutwell, who had won a special election for the remainder of Henry Wilson's term, was defeated by reformist U.S. Representative George Frisbie Hoar.
The 1883 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1883. Incumbent Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar was re-elected to a second term in office despite a serious challenge from Democrats and members of his own party.
The 1889 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1889. Incumbent Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar was re-elected to a third term in office with no serious opposition.
The 1895 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1895. Incumbent Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar was re-elected to a fourth term in office.
The 1901 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1901. Incumbent Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar was re-elected to a fifth term in office.
Hoar is an English surname, a variant of Hoare, and is derived from the Middle English hor(e) meaning grey- or white-haired. Notable people with the surname include:
The George Frisbie Hoar statue is a public monument in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Located on the north side of the Worcester City Hall, the monument honors George Frisbie Hoar, a politician from the city. The monument, which consists of a statue designed by Daniel Chester French, was dedicated in 1908.
The 1874 Massachusetts gubernatorial election was held on November 3, 1874. Republican acting Governor Thomas Talbot, who took office after the resignation of William B. Washburn, was defeated by Democrat William Gaston, a former Mayor of Boston.
↑ Dunlap, David W. (March 17, 2017). "135 Years Ago, Another Travel Ban Was In the News". New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2018. Taking the ground that the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, is the cardinal principle upon which this Government is established, he went on to declare that no question of policy could be made a pretext for setting it aside to make a distinction against any race of men. He said that all the arguments against the negroes used years ago were now applied to the Chinese.
↑ Silva, Noenoe K. (1998). "The 1897 Petitions Protesting Annexation". The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document. University of Hawaii at Manoa. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
↑ Welch, Richard E. (September 24, 1966). "Opponents and Colleagues: George Frisbie Hoar and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1898-1904". The New England Quarterly. 39 (2): 182–209. doi:10.2307/363277. JSTOR363277.
↑ "Members". American Antiquarian Society. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
↑ Dunbar, B. (1987). Members and Officers of the American Antiquarian Society. Worcester: American Antiquarian Society.
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