Hannibal Hamlin

Hannibal Hamlin
15th Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1861 – March 4, 1865
President	Abraham Lincoln
Preceded by	John C. Breckinridge
Succeeded by	Andrew Johnson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 6th district
In office March 4, 1843 – March 3, 1847
Preceded by	Alfred Marshall
Succeeded by	James S. Wiley
United States Senator from Maine
In office June 8, 1848 – January 7, 1857 March 4, 1857 – January 17, 1861 March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1881
Preceded by	Wyman B. S. Moor Amos Nourse Lot M. Morrill
Succeeded by	Amos Nourse Lot M. Morrill Eugene Hale
26th Governor of Maine
In office January 8, 1857 – February 25, 1857
Preceded by	Samuel Wells
Succeeded by	Joseph H. Williams
Personal details
Born	August 27, 1809 Paris, Maine
Died	July 4, 1891 (aged 81) Bangor, Maine
Political party	Democratic Republican
Spouse	Ellen Vesta Emery Hamlin

Hannibal Hamlin (August 27, 1809 – July 4, 1891) was the fifteenth Vice President of the United States, serving under President Abraham Lincoln from 1861-1865. He was the first Vice President from the Republican Party.

Prior to his election in 1860, Hamlin served in the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, and, briefly, as Governor of Maine.

Early life

Hamlin was born on Paris Hill (now a National Register Historic District) in Paris, Maine, in Oxford County, a descendant of James Hamlin in the sixth generation, who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. Hamlin was a great nephew of U.S. Senator Samuel Livermore II of New Hampshire, and a grandson of Stephen Emery, Maine's Attorney General in 1839-40.

Hamlin attended the district schools and Hebron Academy there, and later managed his father's farm. For the next few years he worked at several jobs: schoolmaster, cook, woodcutter, surveyor, manager of a weekly newspaper in Paris, and a compositor at a printer's office. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1833. He began practicing in Hampden, a suburb of Bangor, where he lived until 1848.

Hamlin in his younger years

Political beginnings

Hamlin's political career began in 1836, when he began a term in the Maine House of Representatives after being elected the year before. He served in the bloodless Aroostook War, which took place in 1839. Hamlin unsuccessfully ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1840 and left the State House in 1841. He later served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, from 1843-1847. He was elected to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy in 1848, and to a full term in 1851. A Democrat at the beginning of his career, Hamlin supported the candidacy of Franklin Pierce in 1852.

From the very beginning of his service in Congress he was prominent as an opponent of the extension of slavery; he was a conspicuous supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, and spoke against the Compromise Measures of 1850. In 1854 he strongly opposed the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise. After the Democratic Party endorsed that repeal at the Cincinnati Convention two years later, on June 12, 1856 he withdrew from the Democratic Party and joined the newly organized Republican Party, causing a national sensation.

The Republicans nominated him for Governor of Maine in the same year, and having carried the election by a large majority he was inaugurated in this office on the January 8, 1857. In the latter part of February, however, he resigned the governorship, and was again a member of the United States Senate from 1857 to January 1861.

Vice Presidency

In 1860, Hamlin became Vice President. Maine was the first state in the Northeast to be captured by the Republican Party, and the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket thus made sense in terms of regional balance. Hamlin was also a strong orator, and a known opponent of slavery. While serving as Vice President, Hamlin was not necessarily one of the chief advisers to President Abraham Lincoln, although he urged both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of African Americans. He strongly supported Joseph Hooker's appointment as commander of the Army of the Potomac, which was a dismal failure. It is believed that this was among the decisions that along with his identification with the Radical Republicans caused him to be dropped from the ticket in 1864. Lincoln left no record of why he was switching his Vice-President. He chose Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat, probably with his mind on post-war reconciliation.

Hamilin's vice presidency would usher in a half-century of sustained national influence for the Maine Republican Party. In the 50-year period 1861-1911, Maine Republicans would occupy the offices of Vice President, Secretary of the Treasury (twice), Secretary of State, President pro tempore of the United States Senate, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (twice), and would field a national presidential candidate in James G. Blaine, a level of influence in national politics never matched by subsequent Maine political delegations.

Later life

Hamlin served in the Senate from 1869 to 1881. In June 1881, President James Garfield nominated him for the post of ambassador to Spain, in which capacity he served from 1881 to 1882. After he completed the posting he retired from public life to his home in Bangor, Maine. He continued, however, to be a behind-the-scenes influence in the local and state Republican Party.

Family

Hamlin in his elder years

Hamlin had three sons who grew to adulthood: Charles Hamlin, Cyrus Hamlin, and Hannibal Emery Hamlin. Charles and Cyrus served in the Union forces during the Civil War, both becoming generals. Cyrus was among the first Union officers to argue for the enlistment of black troops, and himself commanded a brigade of freemen in the Mississippi River campaign. Charles and sister Sarah were present at Ford's Theater the night of Lincoln's assassination. Hannibal Emery Hamlin was Maine Attorney General from 1905 to 1908. Hannibal Hamlin's great-granddaughter Sally Hamlin was a child actor who made many spoken word recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in the early years of the 20th century.

Hannibal's older brother, Elijah Livermore Hamlin, was president of the Mutual Fire Insurance Co. of Bangor, and the Bangor Instutution for Savings. He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Maine in the late 1840s, though he did serve as Mayor of Bangor in 1851-52. The brothers were members of different political parties (Hannibal a Democrat, and Elijah a Whig) before both becoming Republican in the later 1850s.

Hannibal's nephew (Elijah's son) Augustus Choate Hamlin was a physician, artist, minerologist, author, and historian. He was also Mayor of Bangor in 1877-78, and a founding member of the Bangor Historical Society. Augustus served as surgeon in the 2nd Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, eventually becoming a U.S. Army Medical Inspector, and later the Surgeon General of Maine. He wrote books about Andersonville Prison and the Battle of Chancellorsville.

There are biographies of Hamlin by his grandson Charles E. Hamlin (published 1899, reprinted 1971) and by H. Draper Hunt (published 1969).

Miscellaneous

Hamlin County, South Dakota is named in his honor, as is Hamlin, New York. There are statues in Hamlin's likeness in the United States Capitol and in a public park (Norumbega Mall) in Bangor. There is also a building on the University of Maine Campus, in Orono, named Hannibal Hamlin Hall.

Hamlin's house in Bangor subsequently housed the Presidents of the adjacent Bangor Theological Seminary. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

External links

• United States Congress. "Hannibal Hamlin (id: H000121)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Biography at Mr. Lincoln's White House
• The life and times of Hannibal Hamlin by Charles Eugene Hamlin
• Bangor in Focus: Hannibal Hamlin

References

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