B. Gratz Brown | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 20thGovernor of Missouri | |
| In office January 4, 1871 – January 3, 1873 | |
| Lieutenant | Joseph J. Gravely |
| Preceded by | Joseph W. McClurg |
| Succeeded by | Silas Woodson |
| United States Senator fromMissouri | |
| In office November 13, 1863 – March 3, 1867 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Wilson |
| Succeeded by | Charles D. Drake |
| Member of the Missouri House of Representatives fromSt. Louis | |
| In office 1852–1858 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Benjamin Gratz Brown (1826-05-28)May 28, 1826 Frankfort, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | December 13, 1885(1885-12-13) (aged 59) Kirkwood, Missouri, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic(before 1854, 1872–85) Republican(1854–62) Union Emancipation(1862–63) Radical Union(1863–70) Liberal Republican(1870–72) |
| Spouse | |
| Relatives | Mason Brown (father) Montgomery Blair (cousin) Margaret Wise Brown (granddaughter) |
| Education | Transylvania University Yale University (BA) University of Louisville (LLB) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States (Union) |
| Branch/service | Union Army |
| Years of service | 1861–1863 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Commands | 4th Regiment U.S. Reserve Corps |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Benjamin Gratz Brown (May 28, 1826 – December 13, 1885) was an American politician. He was aU.S. Senator, the20th Governor of Missouri, and theLiberal Republican andDemocratic Partyvice presidential candidate in thepresidential election of 1872.
Born inFrankfort, Kentucky, Brown established a legal practice inSt. Louis, Missouri. Both of his grandfathers,John Brown andJesse Bledsoe, represented Kentucky in the Senate. After settling in St. Louis, Brown won election to theMissouri House of Representatives. He became an ally ofThomas Hart Benton andFrancis Preston Blair Jr. in the struggle for control of the state Democratic Party against pro-slavery forces. As the 1850s progressed, Brown continued to speak againstslavery, and he helped found the MissouriRepublican Party.
During theCivil War, Brown worked to keep Missouri in theUnion. In 1863, he was elected to the Senate as a member of theRadical Union Party. In the Senate, he aligned with theRadical Republicans and opposed many of PresidentAbraham Lincoln's policies. He was part of a movement that unsuccessfully sought to replace Lincoln as the 1864 Republican nominee. After the war, Brown strongly opposed PresidentAndrew Johnson'sReconstruction policies and supported theFreedmen's Bureau bills.
Brown resigned from the Senate in 1867 but helped found theLiberal Republican Party in 1870. The party chose Brown as its nominee for governor, and he defeated incumbent Republican GovernorJoseph W. McClurg. Brown sought the new party's 1872 presidential nomination but was defeated byHorace Greeley. After the nomination of Greeley, the1872 Liberal Republican convention chose Brown as the party's vice presidential nominee. Seeking to avoid splitting the vote of opponents to PresidentUlysses S. Grant's re-election, the1872 Democratic National Convention subsequently nominated the Liberal Republican ticket. The Republican ticket nonetheless triumphed in the election, as Grant won 55.6% of the popular vote and a majority of theelectoral vote. Greeley died after the election but before the electors officially cast their votes, and Brown received some of Greeley's electoral votes. After the election, Gratz returned to his law practice and affiliated with the Democratic Party.
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Brown was born in 1826 inFrankfort, Kentucky, the son of Judith Ann (Bledsoe) andMason Brown. He was the grandson of SenatorsJohn Brown andJesse Bledsoe of Kentucky. He graduated fromTransylvania University in Lexington in 1845 where he was a member ofBeta Theta Pi fraternity, and fromYale College inNew Haven, Connecticut, in 1847.
He studied law, and later settled inSt. Louis,Missouri. There he joined his cousin,Francis P. Blair Jr., and SenatorThomas Hart Benton in a struggle against the pro-slavery faction for control of Missouri'sDemocratic Party. He was a correspondent for the Missouri Republican at theTreaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and served as the secretary at the treaty negotiations.[1][2] He married Mary Gunn (1842–1888) in 1858, and together they had six children.
Brown became a member of theMissouri House of Representatives and served there between 1852 and 1858. An able lawyer in St. Louis, Brown made a speech in 1857 against a joint resolution opposing emancipation. The speech marked the beginning of theFree Soil movement in Missouri. He was a leader of the movement. After that, he edited theMissouri Democrat between 1854 and 1859. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Missouri in 1857.
On August 26, 1856, he fought aduel onBloody Island (Mississippi River) withThomas C. Reynolds (then the St. Louis District Attorney) over the slavery issue. Reynolds was not hurt but Brown was shot in the leg and limped for the rest of his life.[3]
Brown became a founding member of theRepublican Party in Missouri. Throughout the 1860s, he and Blair contested control of the state's Republican party. He worked to prevent Missouri fromseceding from the Union in 1861. After that, he served as an officer in theUnion Army during the first half of theCivil War, raising a regiment (the 4th U.S. Reserves) and serving as itscolonel. He recruited over 1,100 soldiers for his regiment, many of whom were St. Louis-areaGerman-Americans, a key constituency that Brown courted for his political advantage.
Brown resigned from the Army after he was elected in late 1863 as aRadical Unionist to theU.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the expulsion ofWaldo P. Johnson. Brown opposedAbraham Lincoln's moderation and objected to theEmancipation Proclamation because it did not free slaves in Missouri and other loyal border states. He was a key figure in the move to replace Lincoln withJohn C. Frémont in thepresidential election of 1864. In the Senate, Brown was chairman of thePublic Buildings and Grounds committee and of theCommittee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense. Following Lincoln's assassination, Brown was vehemently opposed to new PresidentAndrew Johnson's moderate plan ofReconstruction. He also supported the Radical-sponsored Civil Rights Bill and Freedmen's Bureau Bill. Brown left the Senate in 1867 because of ill health.
In 1870, dissatisfied with the Missouri Republicans, he joined the newLiberal Republican Party. The party nominated Brown for governor, and he defeated Republican incumbentJoseph W. McClurg. Brown served as the Governor between 1871 and 1873.
Brown was one of the contenders for the Liberal Republican presidential nomination, but lost to newspaper editorHorace Greeley. Brown was the vice presidential candidate under Greeley in thepresidential election of 1872 for the Liberal Republican and Democratic parties. Greeley died on November 29 of illness, before theelectoral college could vote, and the electoral votes (63 of 66) that were to have been for Greeley were split among four others, including Brown, who received eighteen of those electoral votes. The Republicans, incumbentpresidentUlysses S. Grant and the vice presidential candidate, U.S. SenatorHenry Wilson ofMassachusetts, won the election anyway.
Brown returned to his law practice, quit the Republican Party and resumed his ties to the Democrats. He died inKirkwood, Missouri and is interred there at Oak Hill Cemetery.
| U.S. Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Missouri 1863–1867 Served alongside:John B. Henderson | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theSenate Public Grounds Committee 1866–1867 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Missouri 1870 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by None | Liberal Republican nominee forGovernor of Missouri 1870 | Succeeded by None |
| Preceded by | Democraticnominee forVice President of the United States 1872 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by None | Liberal Republican nominee forVice President of the United States 1872 | Succeeded by None |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor of Missouri 1871–1873 | Succeeded by |
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| Class 3 | ||
| Public Buildings (1838–1857) | | |
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| Public Buildings and Grounds (1857–1947) | ||
| Public Works (1947–1977) | ||
| Environment and Public Works (1977–present) | ||
| International | |
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| People | |
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