- James Rood Doolittle
Infobox Senator
name=James Rood Doolittle
width=200px
jr/sr=United States Senator
state=Wisconsin
party=Democrat, Republican
term=March 4 ,1857 –March 3 ,1869
preceded=Henry Dodge
succeeded=Matthew H. Carpenter
date of birth=birth date|1815|1|3|mf=y
place of birth=Hampton, New York , U.S.
date of death=death date and age|1897|7|23|1815|1|3|mf=y
place of death=Providence, Rhode Island , U.S.
spouse=
religion=
profession=Politician ,Lawyer
footnotes=James Rood Doolittle (
January 3 ,1815 –July 23 ,1897 ) was an American politician who served as a senator from the state ofWisconsin fromMarch 4 ,1857 , toMarch 3 ,1869 . He was a strong supporter of PresidentAbraham Lincoln 's administration during theAmerican Civil War .Early life and career
Born in
Hampton, New York , Doolittle attended the Middlebury Academy inMiddlebury, Vermont . He graduated fromHobart College inGeneva, New York , in 1834. he studiedlaw and was admitted toNew York bar association in 1837. He then established a law practice in Rochester. Doolittle moved toWarsaw, New York , in 1841. From 1847 to 1850, he was thedistrict attorney for Wyoming County. He also served for a time as acolonel in the New York statemilitia .In 1851, Doolittle moved to
Racine, Wisconsin , where he served as ajudge from 1853 to 1856.U.S. Senator
Until the
Missouri Compromise wasrepeal ed, Doolittle was a Democrat. He was elected and then re-elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 1857 and 1863, respectively. He was a delegate to thePeace conference of 1861 inWashington, D.C. During his time as a senator, Doolittle was the Chairman of the
Committee on Indian Affairs . Along with his colleague,Jacob Collamer of Vermont, Doolittle represented the minority view for the so-called "Mason Report" (June 1860), prepared by the Senate committee which investigated the John Brown raid onHarper's Ferry of October 1859.During the Civil War, Doolittle supported many of President Lincoln's policies, and was active in representing Wisconsin's interests on
Capitol Hill . During the summer recess of 1865, he visited the Indians west of theMississippi River as chairman of a joint special committee which was charged with an inquiry into the condition of the Indian tribes and their treatment by the civil and military authorities of the United States. In the West the committee split into subcommittee which considered different regions with Doolittle participating in the inquiry into Indian affairs in the State ofKansas , theIndian Territory , andColorado . The report of the committee, The Doolittle Survey of 1865, titled "The Condition of the Tribes " was issued January 26, 1867. The Senator was accused by theNew York Times in 1872, when he was under consideration for appointment as Secretary of the Interior in a projected "reform cabinet" to be formed by Democratic presidential candidateHorace Greeley , of suppressing the report, as it contained information exposing theIndian ring , fraudulent suppliers of goods to the Indian tribes under treaty obligations. The Times alleged that the report was printed only after theCincinnati Gazette obtained a copy of it. ["DOOLITTLE AND THE INDIANS.; What the Senator Knows About Suppressing Reports A Good Secretary of the Interior for Greeley's Reform Cabinet",New York Times , September 8, 1872] He took a prominent part in the debate on the various war and reconstruction measures, upholding the national government, but always insisting that the seceding states had never ceased to be a part of the Union. He strongly opposed theFifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on the ground that each state should determine questions ofsuffrage for itself. [Appletons Cyclopedia. ]Later life
After he left Congress, he ran for
Governor of Wisconsin in 1871 as a Democrat, but lost the election and subsequently retired from politics.Doolittle returned to the Midwest and became a lawyer in
Chicago, Illinois , while maintaining his residence in Racine. He served for a year as President of theUniversity of Chicago , and spent many years on its staff as aprofessor in the law school, as well as serving on the Board of Trustees.He was president of the
National Union Convention of 1866 in Philadelphia, and also of the1872 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, which adopted the nomination ofHorace Greeley for the Presidency.He died in
Providence, Rhode Island , and was interred in Mound Cemetery in Racine, Wisconsin.References
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Notes
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