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William Meredith | |
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| Attorney General of Pennsylvania | |
| In office June 3, 1861 – January 16, 1867 | |
| Governor | Andrew Gregg Curtin |
| Preceded by | Samuel Anderson Purviance |
| Succeeded by | Benjamin H. Brewster |
| 19thUnited States Secretary of the Treasury | |
| In office March 8, 1849 – July 22, 1850 | |
| President | Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore |
| Preceded by | Robert J. Walker |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Corwin |
| United States Attorney for theEastern District of Pennsylvania | |
| In office 1841–1845 | |
| President | William Henry Harrison John Tyler |
| Preceded by | John M. Read |
| Succeeded by | Thomas M. Pettit |
| President of thePhiladelphia City Council | |
| In office 1834–1849 | |
| Member of thePennsylvania House of Representatives | |
| In office 1824–1828 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1799-06-08)June 8, 1799 |
| Died | August 17, 1873(1873-08-17) (aged 74) |
| Political party | Federalist(Before 1824) Whig(1834–1854) Republican(1854–1873) |
| Spouse | Catherine Keppele(1834–1854) |
| Children | 5 |
| Education | University of Pennsylvania(BA) |
William Morris Meredith (June 8, 1799 – August 17, 1873) was an American lawyer and politician fromPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. He served as theUnited States Secretary of the Treasury, duringPresidentZachary Taylor's Administration.
Born on June 8, 1799, inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, William Morris Meredith was the eldest son of William Tuckey Meredith (died 1844), a successful attorney and after 1814 president of Schuylkill Bank, who narrowly lost toNicholas Biddle the presidency of theBank of the United States. During the year he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar, 1795, William Tuckey Meredith married the writer and poet Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith (née Ogden) (died 1828). Gertrude was the niece ofLewis Morris, as well as ofGouverneur Morris, and highly educated and respected in her own right, as well as published inDennie's Port Folio. The couple ultimately had eleven children. William Tuckey Meredith served on the Philadelphia Common and Select Councils, and on the Vestry ofChrist Episcopal Church, among other leadership positions in the city. His brother Jonathan Meredith (d. 1872) was a leader of the Bar inBaltimore, Maryland. Another brother was the Civil War colonelSullivan A. Meredith.
William M. Meredith graduated from theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1812 (graduation at age 13 not being unusual at the time). After assisting his father in the family's saddlery business, he read law, and was himself admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.
After his mother's death in 1828, William Morris Meredith helped raise his younger siblings. On June 17, 1834, at the age of 35 and after a ten-year engagement, Meredith married the former Catherine Keppele (d. 1854). They had one son (William, b. 1838, later a published essayist and poet) and four daughters: Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith, Euphemia Ogden Meredith, Elizabeth Caldwell Meredith, Catherine Keppele Meredith. Catherine Meredith also helped care for her husband's siblings, and his father when he was disabled by a stroke in 1839.
Meredith was admitted to the bar in 1817, and began practicing law. He drew considerable public attention, as did his slightly senior colleague James C. Biddle (later his brother-in-law), by questioning the conduct of Judge Frank Hallowell inCommonwealth v. Cook, a murder case in which three black men were charged with killing a boy. During the jury's deliberation, theAmerican Daily Advertiser published an article which defense counsel thought highly biased. The judge allowed counsel to question jurors as to whether they read the article, and when the judge refused to dismiss a juror who said he was offended by Meredith's questioning, complained such that the judge held both lawyers in contempt of court and ordered them jailed for 30 days, despite considerable public sympathy.[1][2] Upon their release, they secured release of two of the prisoners in an appeal on double jeopardy grounds. This gained Meredith a reputation for fearlessness and inflexible honesty, and he was elected President of thePhiladelphia Bar Association the following year.
A Federalist, Meredith was then elected to thePennsylvania House, where he served in the minority for five years, from 1824 to 1828, the year of his mother's death (during which his father was grief-stricken and never fully recovered). One of his accomplishments was establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile offenders, and he served as that institution's manager, and also on the board of thePennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, in which capacity he continued to serve for many years until his death.[3]
Meredith was president of thePhiladelphia City Council from 1834 until 1849, and was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1837. That same year, he was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[4] Meredith also served asUnited States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1841 to 1845. During that time, he prosecuted Alexander Holmes for manslaughter in theWilliam Brown case.
A successful attorney, particularly after he secured termination of the German Lutheran Church's interment rights inFranklin Square inCommonwealth v. Allmyer,[5] Meredith owned theWheatland Estate inLancaster, Pennsylvania, from May 1845 until December 1848 before selling it to future presidentJames Buchanan.
PresidentZachary Taylor, wanting aPennsylvaniaWhig for his cabinet, appointed William M. Meredith to be the 19th Secretary of the Treasury. He began his term in office on March 8, 1849.
Meredith strongly opposed thefree tradelegislation passed the year before under his predecessorRobert J. Walker. He felt that there was a need to protect the American workman, who was subject to competition from poorly paid European labor. Meredith's principal contribution in office was hisAnnual Report of 1849 in which he set forth an elaborate argument for aprotective tariff.
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The increase in the public debt due to theMexican–American War and the acquisition ofCalifornia gave Meredith additional argument for raising revenue through higher import duties, but no action was taken on the tariff during Meredith's term. He also recommended a revision of theCoast Survey Code, which had not been changed since its implementation in 1806. The Coast Survey had seen great expansion and improvement with the introduction ofsteam powered ships and was in need of revision. Meredith resigned from his office as Secretary of the Treasury, upon President Taylor's death in 1850.
Meredith was elected Pennsylvania's attorney general in the 1860 election, and served for two terms (from 1861 until 1867). In 1861, as a delegate to a Peace Conference, he worked unsuccessfully to prevent the southern states from seceding from the Union. His brotherSullivan Amory Meredith had served in the Mexican War, and became a Brigadier General of Union Volunteers, commissioned in 1862, and the brothers helped assure Pennsylvania met its quota of troops. His son William served for a brief period as secretary to Major GeneralGeorge A. McCall, but his stutter and problems with cataracts caused him to resign that position.
William Meredith later served as a member of a commission working out the settlement of theAlabama claims, in 1870. The following year, PresidentUlysses Grant asked Meredith to travel to Geneva as senior counsel for the United States in an international arbitration proceeding, but he declined the position due to ill health. His last political post was as President of the 1872 Republican National Convention.
Meredith died inPhiladelphia in August 1873, at the age of 74. His wife, Catherine had died in 1854. Both are interred at theChrist Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.
TheHistorical Society of Pennsylvania holds the Meredith family papers.[6] APhiladelphia school was named in his honor in 1931, and remains active today.[7]
Meredith received one of only two 1849Double Eagles while serving as Treasury Secretary. That 1849 Double Eagle is apattern coin. The other coin is on display at theSmithsonian Institution. The coin was auctioned as part of his estate but its subsequent whereabouts are unknown.[8]
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| Preceded by | U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Served under:Zachary Taylor 1849–1850 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | Attorney General of Pennsylvania 1861–1867 | Succeeded by |
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