William B. Allison | |
|---|---|
 Allison in 1870 | |
| 20thDean of the United States Senate | |
| In office December 28, 1898 – August 4, 1908 | |
| Preceded by | Justin Smith Morrill |
| Succeeded by | Eugene Hale |
| Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference | |
| In office March 4, 1897 – August 4, 1908 | |
| Preceded by | John Sherman |
| Succeeded by | Eugene Hale |
| United States Senator fromIowa | |
| In office March 4, 1873 – August 4, 1908 | |
| Preceded by | James Harlan |
| Succeeded by | Albert B. Cummins |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromIowa's3rd district | |
| In office March 4, 1863 – March 3, 1871 | |
| Preceded by | District created |
| Succeeded by | William G. Donnan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William Boyd Allison (1829-03-02)March 2, 1829 Perry, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | August 4, 1908(1908-08-04) (aged 79) Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. |
| Political party | Whig;Know Nothing;Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Anna Carter Allison Mary Neally Allison |
| Education | Allegheny College Western Reserve College |
| Profession | Politician,Lawyer |
| Signature | .png) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Rank |  Lieutenant Colonel |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
William Boyd Allison (March 2, 1829 – August 4, 1908) was an American politician. An early leader of theIowa Republican Party, he represented northeasternIowa in theUnited States House of Representatives before representing his state in theUnited States Senate. By the 1890s, Allison had become one of the "big four" key Republicans who largely controlled the Senate, along withOrville H. Platt of Connecticut,John Coit Spooner of Wisconsin andNelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island.
Born inPerry, Ohio, Allison established a legal practice inDubuque, Iowa and became a prominent member of the nascent Iowa Republican Party. He was a delegate to the1860 Republican National Convention and won election to the House of Representatives in 1862. He served four terms in the House and won election to the Senate in 1872. He became chairman of the powerfulSenate Appropriations Committee, serving for all but two years between 1881 and 1908. Four different Republican presidents asked Allison to join theirCabinet, but Allison declined each offer. A significant number of delegates supported his presidential nomination at the1888 and1896 Republican National Conventions.
Allison emerged as a centrist and pragmatic leader in the Senate, and he helped pass several important bills. TheBland–Allison Act of 1878 restoredbimetallism, but in a lessinflationary manner than had been sought by CongressmanRichard P. Bland. A prominent advocate of highertariffs, Allison played a major role in the passage of theMcKinley Tariff and theDingley Act. He also helped pass theHepburn Act by offering the Allison amendment, which granted courts the power to review theInterstate Commerce Commission's railroad rate-setting. Allison sought a record seventh term in 1908, but died shortly after winning the Republican primary againstprogressive leaderAlbert B. Cummins.
Born inPerry,Ohio, Allison was educated at Wooster Academy.[1] Afterward, he spent a year atAllegheny College inPennsylvania, then graduated fromWestern Reserve College (then located inHudson, Ohio) in 1849. He then studiedlaw and began practicing inAshland, Ohio. While practicing law there from 1852 until 1857, he was a delegate to the 1855 Ohio Republican Convention and an unsuccessful candidate for district attorney in 1856.[1] In 1857, he moved toDubuque, Iowa, which would serve as his hometown for the last fifty years of his life.
While in Ohio, Allison's rise in politics coincided during a period of time where the Whig Party was facing collapse due to internal divisions overslavery. Anabolitionist and supporter of business interests, he served in conventions to the newly formedRepublican Party as well as theKnow Nothing Party.[2]
Although serving in the 1856 Know Nothing national convention, Allison left the party and joined the Republicans.[2] Following an unsuccessful bid for county attorney, he moved to Dubuque, Iowa, where his older brother resided. Although the city was a stronghold for theDemocratic Party at the time, Allison's ties with a law partnership and a Presbyterian church proved to successfully propel him into the state GOP leadership.[2]
After his arrival in Dubuque, Allison took a prominent part in the politics of the nascent Republican Party. He was a delegate to the1860 Republican National Convention inChicago,[3] which nominatedAbraham Lincoln forPresident of the United States.
During the subsequent Civil War, he was on the staff ofIowa GovernorSamuel J. Kirkwood, who ordered him to help the state raiseregiments for the war. He personally helped raise four regiments. He was given the rank oflieutenant colonel during the war, although it was unlikely he actually served in uniform.
In 1862, in the midst of the war, Allison was elected to theUnited States House of Representatives as the representative of Iowa's newly created3rd congressional district.[4] As a congressman and member of theHouse Ways and Means Committee,[1] he pushed for highertariffs.
The Census of 1860 led to an increase in Iowa's congressional district seats from two to six. In the 1862 midterms, Allison ran for theU.S. House of Representatives from the third district which included Dubuque, challenging incumbent Republican congressman William Vandever.[2] Benefiting from connections to Kirkwood in addition to railroad interests, he denied Vandever renomination and won the general election.[5]
In the House, Allison sided with the powerfulRadical Republican wing of the party which frequently opposed President Lincoln's policies as being too moderate,[2] instead favoring a harsher treatment of theConfederacy. After being re-elected in 1864,[6] he was a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, in addition to emerging as a leading expert on protective tariffs and railroads.[2] His tariff viewpoints were described as having "not always pleased" constituents.[7]
The Radical Republicans were not unified on ideological issues aside from their advocacy of harsher Reconstruction policies to ensure and safeguard the constitutional rights of blacks. Indeed, Allison broke from the factions' more staunchly conservative members in maintaining a moderate stance on tariff policy.[2] However, he strongly represented railroad interests,[8] on which he was accused of conflicts of interests.
Following the war, Allison continued to serve in the House after winning re-election in 1866 and 1868. In January 1870, he was an unsuccessful candidate for election by theIowa General Assembly to theUnited States Senate seat for 1871–1877, losing to Iowa Supreme Court JusticeGeorge G. Wright.[9] Allison declined to be a candidate for renomination to his own House seat later that year, but instead focused on laying the groundwork to run for Iowa's other Senate seat (then held byJames Harlan), which was up in January 1872, following November 1871 state legislative races.[10] In the 1871 state legislative races, candidates were nominated and elected on the direct issue of whether they would vote for Harlan, Allison orJames F. Wilson for senator.[11] Enough legislators who favored Allison were nominated and elected in 1871 that in January 1872 he won the required number of votes to take Harlan's U.S. Senate seat, effective March 4, 1873.[10][11]
Allison was reelected to six-year terms in the U.S. Senate six times – in 1878, 1884, 1890, 1896, and 1902.[12] His U.S. Senate tenure was marked by his influence on regulation, railroad, and tariff policy.[2] Initially retaining the moderate stances he was known for during his House years, Allison over time sided with protectionists. A defender of PresidentUlysses S. Grant, he also allied with theStalwarts,[13] theconservative wing of the GOP which opposedcivil service reform in the late 1870s out of concern for the plight of Southern blacks in addition to supporting Grant during the1880 United States presidential election.
He chaired the 1884–1886 Allison Commission, a bipartisanjoint congressional committee "among the first to explore the question of whether federal intervention politicizes scientific research."[14] It considered the charge that parts of the government were engaged in research for theoretical, not practical, purposes. The majority report favored the status quo, and Congress upheld it.[14] In 1885, the Commission's finding of misuse of funds at theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey led to the dismissal of several officials but exoneratedCharles Sanders Peirce.
As Allison earned seniority, he also earned one of the most powerful committee positions. From 1881–93 and again from 1895 to 1908, he was chairman of theSenate Appropriations Committee, where he had great influence. Allison's combined years as chairman of the committee make him the longest-serving chairman to date. He was also a member of theSenate Committee of Indian Affairs (and its chairman from 1875 to 1881),[1] theSenate Finance Committee, and theCommittee on Engrossed Bills. He became chairman of theSenate Republican Conference in 1897.
He was asked three times to serve as theSecretary of the Treasury, first by President James A. Garfield, whose offer he accepted, but later he asked for his name to be withdrawn after being pressured out of it by theStalwart faction of the Republican Party, of which he was a part. Later, PresidentChester Arthur offered (to which Allison again agreed but then the next day declined),[15] then by PresidentBenjamin Harrison. In 1897, PresidentWilliam McKinley offered him the position ofU.S. Secretary of State.[1] Again, Allison declined.[16]
It was deemed just as well; no Republican senator was so well fitted for the duties of responsible statesmanship, or positioned so well. For thirty years he sat on the Senate Finance Committee and took a critical role in framing legislation. In 1881, he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and continued to serve there until his death in 1908. After 1897, he was chosen as chairman of the Republican caucus, an unofficial position, but one generally accorded to the most venerable and respected party member in the Senate.
Eminently conservative, trusted by the railroad interests, Allison's pragmatism made him the centrist that everybody could deal with, including Democratic colleagues. When in 1888 a Republican alternative was needed to the Mills tariff bill coming out of the House, Allison handled the details. The bill that emerged from committee was purely for campaign purposes. Nobody thought that it could pass, but it put the best face on protectionist principles and later served as a model for the 1890 McKinley Tariff, which Allison played a large part in framing. In 1897, when the Dingley Tariff bill reached the Senate, Allison did most of the work reconciling discontented interests. When the Bland bill, allowing the free coinage of silver, came to the Senate, Allison altered it. The resultingBland–Allison Act of 1878 simply had the government buy a certain, more limited amount of silver, which the Treasury was permitted to put into circulation as silver dollars. It was far less inflationary than Bland's original bill. The Act passed over the veto of PresidentRutherford B. Hayes. It remained unchanged until theSherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. In 1892, Allison chaired the Brussels Monetary Conference and in 1900 was one of the fathers of the Gold Standard Act.
In 1896, he became a dark-horse candidate for the presidency.[17] However, support for his candidacy faded when it became clear that McKinley would be nominated on the first ballot.[18]
"Allison is the man of experience," an admiring reporter wrote in 1906, "the sage old pilot of the Senate. They say that no man who has ever been in the Senate knew so much about it as he does. He is the political forecaster, the compromiser, the weather prophet, the man who brings irreconcilable things together. It is said that the oldest inhabitant cannot recall having heard Allison give utterance to an opinion on any subject whatever. Doubtless he does give utterance to them, but never except in the inner councils of the Caesars. Sagacious to the point of craft, it does not annoy him to know that the epithet most frequently applied to him is 'the Old Fox.'...When he rises in his place in the Senate, he disdains to talk as if he were making a speech; he leaves all that to the youngsters, whose sum of knowledge does not equal all that he has forgotten. He never rises except to shed light on some knotty point, and when he does it is always as briefly as possible, and in a conversational voice that is almost an undertone. Then he drops back into his seat and, with sublime indifference, lets the talk go on."[19]
Allison was married twice, first to Anna Carter, who died in 1859, four years after the marriage. His second marriage was to Mary Neally, who died in 1883, ten years after their marriage.
In 1908, as Allison neared his 44th year in Congress, and his 80th birthday, he sought a record seventh term in the Senate.[20] However, Iowa's Republican Governor at the time,Albert B. Cummins, had aspired to become a U.S. Senator for several years, and as leader of Republican progressives had targeted his party's "old guard" for retirement or (if necessary) defeat. After seeming to promise that he would not challenge Allison in 1908, Cummins ran against Allison for the Republican nomination in the state's first-ever congressional primary on June 2, 1908. Much like Allison's 1873 race for the Senate against incumbent Harlan,[10] Cummins' 1908 race for the Senate against incumbent Allison was very acrimonious.[11] However, this time the incumbent prevailed; Allison won a clear victory over Cummins by over ten thousand votes.[21] As a reflection of the nature of its preference for Allison over Cummins, theAmes Times reported the primary results under a two-level banner headline simply stating "GLORY TO GOD!"[22]
Allison did not live to see the 1908 general election or a seventh term. Two months after his primary win, he died in Dubuque.[23] Many were surprised by his death, but news reports soon indicated that he had been under constant medical care for more than two years and that those familiar with his condition had expected his death.[1] He was interred inLinwood Cemetery, in Dubuque.
Governor Cummins was elected by the legislature to fill the unexpired term of Senator Allison and for the term beginning March 4, 1909. He was re-elected in 1914 and 1920 but in June 1926 lost in the Republican primary toSmith W. Brookhart. Cummins died shortly after his loss in the primary.
Allison was the namesake ofAllison, Iowa, the county seat ofButler County.
The Allison-Henderson Park in Dubuque was named in honor of Allison and a fellow Dubuque icon,US House SpeakerDavid B. Henderson.
There is an imposing memorial to Allison by sculptorEvelyn Beatrice Longman on the grounds of theIowa State Capitol in Des Moines.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Allison, William Boyd".The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Society. pp. 94–95.
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by (none) | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromIowa's 3rd congressional district March 4, 1863 – March 3, 1871 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 3) from Iowa March 4, 1873 – August 4, 1908 Served alongside:George G. Wright,Samuel J. Kirkwood,James W. McDill,James F. Wilson,John H. Gear,Jonathan P. Dolliver | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Dean of the United States Senate December 28, 1898 – August 4, 1908 | Succeeded by |
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| Class 3 | ||
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Chairs of theUnited States Senate Committee on Appropriations | ||
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Chairs of theUnited States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs | ||
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| Full Committee (1820–1947) | | |
| Select Committee (1977–1993) | ||
| Full Committee (1993–) | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
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