Schuyler Colfax

Schuyler Colfax
17th Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1873
President	Ulysses S. Grant
Preceded by	Andrew Johnson
Succeeded by	Henry Wilson
29th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
In office December 7, 1863 – March 3, 1869
Preceded by	Galusha A. Grow
Succeeded by	Theodore M. Pomeroy
Born	March 23 1823(1823--) New York City, New York
Died	January 13 1885 (aged 61) Mankato, Minnesota
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Evelyn Clark Colfax Ellen Maria Wade Colfax

Schuyler Colfax, Jr. (March 23, 1823 – January 13, 1885) was a Representative from Indiana, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the seventeenth Vice President of the United States.

Biography

Vice President Schuyler Colfax

Statue of Colfax at the Amtrak Station in Colfax, California.

Colfax was born in New York City to Schuyler Colfax, Sr. (d. October 30, 1822 of tuberculosis) and Hannah Stryker. In 1836 he moved with his mother and stepfather to New Carlisle, Indiana. As a young man, Colfax began to contribute articles to the New York Tribune on Indiana politics and formed a lasting friendship with that paper's editor, Horace Greeley. He quickly established a reputation as rising young Whig in Indiana politics and at 19, became the editor of a pro-Whig newspaper, the South Bend Free Press. In 1845, Colfax purchased the newspaper and changed its name to the St. Joseph Valley Register.

Colfax was a delegate to the Whig Party Convention of 1848 and the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1849. member of the state constitutional convention in 1850. Colfax was nominated to run for Congress in 1850 and lost a narrow race to his Democratic opponent. As the Whig Party collapsed, Colfax ran again, this time successfully^[1], in 1854 as a Anti-Nebraska candidate in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After a brief flirtation with the Know-Nothing Party, Colfax became a member of the new Republican Party that was being formed as a fusion of Northern Whigs, Anti-Nebraska Democrats, Know Nothings and Free Soilers. After Republicans gained the majority in the House in 1856, Colfax became Chair of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. Colfax was an energetic campaigner against slavery and his speech attacking the proslavery Lecompton Legislature in Kansas became the most widely requested Republican campaign document in that election. In 1862, following the defeat of House Speaker Galusha Grow's bid for re-election, Colfax was elected as his replacement as Speaker of the House.^[1]

In 1868 he was elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket headed by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.^[1] He was inaugurated March 4, 1869 and served through March 4, 1873. Colfax was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination for Vice Presidency in 1872 and was replaced on the ticket by Henry Wilson, a Senator from Massachusetts. Compounding Colfax's ill fortune, he became embroiled in the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal and left office under a cloud of suspicion.^[1]

After leaving public office, Colfax embarked on a successful career as a lecturer. On January 13, 1885, Colfax walked some ¾ of a mile in -30˚F weather to Omaha rail station in Mankato, Minnesota. Five minutes after arriving, he dropped dead of a heart attack brought on by extreme cold and exhaustion.^[2] He is interred in the City Cemetery, South Bend, Indiana^[3].

The towns of Colfax, California, Colfax, Washington, and Colfax, Louisiana, are named for Schuyler Colfax. The "Jewel of the Midwest," Schuyler, Nebraska, is also named after Colfax. The city is the county seat of Colfax County, Nebraska. Colfax County, New Mexico is named after the Speaker as well. In addition, the "main street" traversing Aurora, Denver, and Lakewood, Colorado and abutting the Colorado State Capitol is named "Colfax Avenue" in the politician's honor. There is a street named Colfax Avenue, in the Grant City section of Staten Island, NY, and a Colfax Avenue on Chicago's Southeast Side.

• His grandfather William Colfax served in George Washington's Life Guard during the American Revolution became a General in the New Jersey Militia and married Hester Schuyler (Cousin of General Philip Schuyler.)
• On October 10, 1844, he married a childhood playmate, Evelyn Clark, who died in 1863 and had no children. On November 18, 1868, two weeks after he was elected Vice President, Colfax married Ella M. Wade, a daughter of Senator Benjamin Franklin Wade; related to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; see Dudley-Winthrop Family. They had one son, Schuyler Colfax III, in 1870.

Publications

• Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax (New York, 1886)

References

See also

• Dudley-Winthrop Family

External links

• Schuyler Colfax's signature on the 1864 joint resolution proposing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery

• Find-A-Grave profile for Schuyler Colfax
• http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Schuyler_Colfax.htm
• Fremont's hundred days in Missouri : speech of Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, in reply to Mr. Blair, of Missouri, delivered in the House of Representatives, March 7, 1862 at archive.org
• The life and public services of Schuyler Colfax: together with his most important speeches at archive.org

Speakers of the United States House of Representatives

Muhlenberg • Trumbull • Muhlenberg • Dayton • Sedgwick • Macon • Varnum • Clay • Cheves • Clay • Taylor • Barbour • Clay • Taylor • Stevenson • Bell • Polk • Hunter • White • Jones • Davis • Winthrop • Cobb • Boyd • Banks • Orr • Pennington • Grow • Colfax • Pomeroy • Blaine • Kerr • Randall • Keifer • Carlisle • Reed • Crisp • Reed • Henderson • Cannon • Clark • Gillett • Longworth • Garner • Rainey • Byrns • Bankhead • Rayburn • Martin • Rayburn • Martin • Rayburn • McCormack • Albert • O'Neill • Wright • Foley • Gingrich • Hastert • Pelosi

Vice Presidents of the United States of America

John Adams · Thomas Jefferson · Aaron Burr · George Clinton · Elbridge Gerry · Daniel D. Tompkins · John C. Calhoun · Martin Van Buren · Richard Mentor Johnson · John Tyler · George M. Dallas · Millard Fillmore · William R. King · John C. Breckinridge · Hannibal Hamlin · Andrew Johnson · Schuyler Colfax · Henry Wilson · William A. Wheeler · Chester A. Arthur · Thomas A. Hendricks · Levi P. Morton · Adlai E. Stevenson · Garret Hobart · Theodore Roosevelt · Charles W. Fairbanks · James S. Sherman · Thomas R. Marshall · Calvin Coolidge · Charles G. Dawes · Charles Curtis · John Nance Garner · Henry A. Wallace · Harry S. Truman · Alben W. Barkley · Richard Nixon · Lyndon B. Johnson · Hubert Humphrey · Spiro Agnew · Gerald Ford · Nelson Rockefeller · Walter Mondale · George H. W. Bush · Dan Quayle · Al Gore · Dick Cheney

Donate to Wikimedia