Thomas H. Seymour | |
---|---|
![]() | |
36th Governor of Connecticut | |
In office May 4, 1850 –October 13, 1853 | |
Lieutenant | Charles H. Pond Green Kendrick Charles H. Pond |
Preceded by | Joseph Trumbull |
Succeeded by | Charles H. Pond |
Member of the U.S.HouseofRepresentatives from Connecticut's 1st district | |
In office March 4,1843 –March 3,1845 | |
Preceded by | Joseph Trumbull |
Succeeded by | James Dixon |
Personal details | |
Born | Thomas Hart Seymour September 29,1807 Hartford,Connecticut,US |
Died | September 3,1868 60) Hartford,Connecticut,US | (aged
Political party | Democratic |
Profession | Politician,Lawyer |
Thomas Hart Seymour (September 29,1807 –September 3,1868) was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician who served as the 36th governor of Connecticut from 1850 to 1853 and as minister to Russia from 1853 to 1858. He was the leader of the peace settlement in the Democratic Party,and narrowly lost the April 1863 gubernatorial election.
Born in Hartford,Connecticut,to Major Henry Seymour and Jane Ellery,Seymour was sent to public schools as a child and graduated from Middletown Military Academy in Middletown,Connecticut,in 1829. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1833,commencing practice in Hartford. [1]
A judge of probate from 1836 to 1838,Seymour was also Editor of the Jeffersonian from 1837 to 1838. In 1842,he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served one term from 1843 to 1845, [2] declining reelection in 1844.
During the Mexican–American War,Seymour was commissioned as a major in the Connecticut Infantry on March 16,1846,later recommissioned to the new 9th United States Infantry on April 9,1847. Due to his courageous leadership at the Battle of Chapultepec,he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 12th Infantry under Colonel Milledge L. Bonham on August 12,1847. [3]
After the war,Seymour made an unsuccessful run for Governor of Connecticut in 1849,but was elected governor by the Connecticut General Assembly the next year in 1850. He was re-elected in 1851,1852 and 1853. He served as an 1852 presidential elector,endorsing Franklin Pierce and,in return for his support,Seymour was appointed to serve as minister to Russia and resigned the governorship shortly after being reelected to a fourth term. He accepted the commission of Minister to Russia from President Franklin Pierce. [4] He resigned from the governorship on October 13,1853,and spent the next four years in Russia,where he built a warm and ongoing alliance with the Czar Nicholas and his son. He served in this position until 1858 when President James Buchanan replaced him with Francis W. Pickens. In Russia,his attaches included Daniel Coit Gilman and Andrew Dickson White.
Seymour made two unsuccessful attempts to return to the governorship in 1860 and 1863 and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States at the 1864 Democratic National Convention,losing to Civil War general George B. McClellan.
Seymour died of typhoid fever,in Hartford,Connecticut,on September 3,1868 (age 60 years,340 days). [5] He is interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery. In 1850 the town of Humphreysville,Connecticut—then contemplating a change of name—was renamed Seymour in his honor.
Edwin Denison Morgan was the 21st governor of New York from 1859 to 1862 and served in the United States Senate from 1863 to 1869. He was the first and longest-serving chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was also a Union Army general during the American Civil War. Morgan was known for his progressive views on education,prison reform,and women's suffrage. He helped to found the Republican Party in New York and was a strong supporter of the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
Isaac Toucey was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator,U.S. Secretary of the Navy,U.S. Attorney General and the 33rd Governor of Connecticut.
John Milton Niles was a lawyer,editor,author and politician from Connecticut,serving in the United States Senate and as United States Postmaster General 1840 to 1841.
Joseph Roswell Hawley was the 42nd Governor of Connecticut,a U.S. politician in the Republican and Free Soil parties,a Civil War general,and a journalist and newspaper editor. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was a four-term U.S. Senator.
William Alfred Buckingham was a Republican who served as the governor of Connecticut during the Civil War and later as a United States senator.
Raymond Earl Baldwin was an American politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut and also as the 72nd and 74th Governor of Connecticut. A conservative Republican,he was elected governor of Connecticut in 1938 during a Republican landslide promising a balanced budget,government aid to private business,and lower taxes. He sharply cut the state budget,producing a million dollars surplus. He was defeated for reelection in 1940,but was elected governor again in 1942 and 1944. He supervised a complex system of civil defense and statewide services on the homefront during the war. He planned an elaborate program to deal with the postwar reconversion of Connecticut's many warplane and munitions plants. He was elected to the Senate in the Republican landslide of 1946. As a spokesman for the small businesses of America,he compiled a conservative record in favor of less regulation,except for more regulation of labor unions through the Taft–Hartley Act. As chairman of a subcommittee of the Armed Services committee,Baldwin engaged in a long-running dispute with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy alleged that Baldwin was whitewashing an episode in which Army prosecutors in 1944 gained the death penalty for German soldiers accused of massacring Americans at the Malmedy Massacre. Exhausted by the highly publicized controversy,Baldwin resigned from the Senate in December 1949 to become a state judge.
William Wallace Eaton was a United States representative and United States senator from Connecticut.
James Dixon was a United States representative and Senator from Connecticut.
Samuel Shethar Phelps was an American lawyer and politician. He was a United States senator from Vermont,and a member of the Whig Party.
Richard Dudley Hubbard was a United States representative and the 48th Governor of Connecticut.
Chauncey Fitch Cleveland was an American politician,a United States representative and the 31st governor of Connecticut.
Emilio Quincy Daddario was an American Democratic politician from Connecticut. He served as a member of the 86th through 91st United States Congresses.
Edwin Hyland May Jr. was an American businessman and politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Connecticut.
James Timothy Pratt was a U.S. Representative from Connecticut.
Origen Storrs Seymour was a Democratic Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1850 and the chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1873 to 1874. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1864 and 1865. He served as U.S. Representative from Connecticut from the 4th congressional district. He served as chairman of the commission to settle the boundary dispute between Connecticut and New York in 1876. Seymour was the first president of the Connecticut Bar Association.
Orsamus Cook Merrill was a U.S. Representative from Vermont.
William Darius Bishop was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Connecticut's 4th district from 1857 to 1859. He also was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1872,and in the Connecticut Senate from 1866 to 1874,and from 1877 to 1878. He was the president of the Naugatuck Railroad Company and the New York and New Haven Railroad Company
Thomas Hord Herndon was a U.S. Representative from Alabama who also served as an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Ephraim Ralph Eckley was an American Civil War veteran and three-term U.S. Representative from Ohio,serving from 1863 to 1869.
John Treadwell was an American politician and the 21st Governor of Connecticut.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress