Adlai Ewing Stevenson

• Born: Oct., 25, 1835, Christian County, Ky.
• Political party: Democrat
• Education: Illinois Wesleyan University, 1854; Centre College, 1855–57; read law, 1858
• Military service: none
• Previous government service: master in chancery in Illinois, 1860–64; Illinois state's attorney, 1865–69; U.S. House of Representatives, 1875–77, 1879–81; first assistant postmaster general, 1885–89
• Vice President under Grover Cleveland, 1893–97
• Subsequent government service: monetary commission to Europe, 1897
• Died: June 14, 1914, Chicago, Ill.

Active in Democratic politics, Adlai Stevenson campaigned for Stephen A. Douglas against Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 Senate contest. He was appointed master in chancery (state judge) in Illinois in 1860 and served through 1864. He was first assistant postmaster general in Grover Cleveland's first administration, and “Adlai's Axe” chopped down 40,000 Republican postmasters. Because of his actions, the Republican-controlled Senate blocked his nomination for the Supreme Court in 1889. After obtaining the support of the Illinois delegation for Cleveland at the Democratic convention in 1892, he was rewarded with the Vice Presidential nomination, and for the next four years he presided over the Senate that had blocked him from the Supreme Court.

After leaving office, Stevenson served on a monetary commission to Europe in 1897. He ran for Vice President in 1900 on William Jennings Bryan's losing ticket and was defeated in the race for governor of Illinois in 1908.

Stevenson's grandson, Adlai E. Stevenson II, unsuccessfully ran for President twice on the Democratic ticket, in 1952 and 1956. His great-grandson, Adlai E. Stevenson III, served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1980.

Sources

• Leonard Schlup, “The American Chameleon: Adlai E. Stevenson and the Quest for the Vice Presidency in Gilded Age Politics”, Presidential Studies Quarterly 21 (Summer 1991): 511–29