Jacob Collamer

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Born in Troy, New York, and raised in Burlington, Vermont, Collamer graduated from the University of Vermont, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. After service in the militia during the War of 1812, he became active as an attorney, first in Royalton, and then in Woodstock. Highly regarded in the legal profession, he became a respected prosecutor, legislator, and judge.

Elected to the House of Representatives in 1842, Collamer became a prominent Whig leader and advocate of the anti-slavery cause. President Taylor selected Collamer to serve as Postmaster General following the 1848 presidential election. Collamer served until shortly after Taylor's death when he resigned to allow Taylor's successor, Millard Fillmore, to name his own appointee.

Collamer was elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1855, shortly after the formation of the new party. He became a respected voice against slavery and a prominent supporter of the Lincoln administration during the American Civil War. An advocate of more stringent postwar Reconstruction measures than those that were favored by Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson, Collamer advocated congressional control of the Reconstruction process. He died in Woodstock and was buried at River Street Cemetery in Woodstock.

Early lifeEdit

Jacob Collamer was born in Troy, New York on January 8, 1791, the son of Samuel Collamer and Elizabeth (Van Arnum) Collamer, and his family moved to Burlington, Vermont in 1795.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont in 1810,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and after additional study, UVM later upgraded Collamer's degree to Master of Arts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He studied law in St. Albans, Vermont with Asa Aldis, Asahel Langworthy, and Benjamin Swift.Template:Sfn He then relocated to Randolph, Vermont, where he completed his legal studies with attorney William Nutting,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and he was admitted to the bar in 1813.Template:Sfn During the War of 1812, Collamer was appointed a deputy U.S. tax collector for the district that included Orange County, Vermont, and was responsible for collecting levies in support of the war effort.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Military serviceEdit

He served as an officer in a Vermont Militia unit during the War of 1812.<ref>James V. Marshall, The United States Manual of Biography and History, 1856, page 613</ref> Appointed as an ensign in the 4th Regiment commanded by William Williams,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> he served first with an artillery unit on Vermont's border with Canada.Template:Sfn After promotion to first lieutenant, Collamer served as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General John French, commander of the militia's 2nd Brigade, 4th Division.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

French's unit left Orange County for upstate New York in September 1814 in response to warnings of an imminent British invasion from Canada.Template:Sfn When the brigade was crossing Lake Champlain en route to Plattsburgh, Collamer was sent ahead in a boat to inform Vermont Militia commander Samuel Strong that French's troops were on their way.Template:Sfn Collamer was fired on by American sentinels, but was uninjured.Template:Sfn Strong informed Collamer that the Battle of Plattsburgh had taken place the day before, and the British had retreated, so French's troops returned home.Template:Sfn

Early careerEdit

In 1816, he moved to Royalton, Vermont, where he continued to practice law.Template:Sfn He remained a resident of Royalton for 20 years, practicing law in partnership with James Barrett.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Among the prospective attorneys who studied law under his supervision was Lyman Gibbons, who later served as a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.<ref>Amherst College, Obituary Record: Roll of Graduates deceased during the Year 1879-1880; Deaths Not Previously Reported (1880), p. 187.</ref> Collamer also served in local offices, including Register of Probate, Windsor County State's Attorney, and member of the Vermont House of Representatives.Template:Sfn While serving in the House, Collamer was the main proponent of the legislation that created the Vermont Senate in 1836.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

From 1833 to 1842 Collamer was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, succeeding Nicholas Baylies.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1836 he moved to Woodstock.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> From 1839 to 1845 Collamer was a Trustee of the University of Vermont.<ref>University of Vermont, Catalogue of the University of Vermont, 1890, page 9</ref>

House of RepresentativesEdit

Elected to the US House of Representatives in 1842 as a Whig, Collamer served three terms, from 1843 to 1849.Template:Sfn He opposed the extension of slavery, the Texas Annexation, and the Mexican–American War; supported high tariffs to help American manufacturers and received national recognition for his "Wool and Woolens" speech on tariffs.<ref name="auto">John J. Duffy, Samuel B. Hand, Ralph H. Orth, editors, The Vermont Encyclopedia, 2003, page 91</ref>Template:Sfn

Collamer was Chairman of the Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-eighth Congress) and the Committee on Public Lands (Thirtieth Congress).Template:Sfn

Postmaster GeneralEdit

Collamer served as Postmaster General under President Zachary Taylor. Appointed at the start of the Taylor's administration in 1849, he served until resigning in July 1850.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Collamer resigned shortly after Taylor's death to enable President Millard Fillmore to name his own appointee.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As Postmaster General, Collamer was criticized by Whig partisans of the spoils system because he was reluctant to remove local Democratic postmasters en masse so they could be replaced by Whigs.<ref>K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, 1993, page 262</ref> Among his accomplishments was the introduction of a permanent system for using postage stamps; Collamer sent the first letter using one, a note addressed to his brother in Barre, Vermont in which he recommended saving the stamp because if the system worked, it might be valuable to collectors.Template:Sfn

Beyond politicsEdit

Upon returning to Vermont, Collamer was appointed a judge of the newly created state Circuit Court, where he served until 1854.<ref>Charles C. Little and James Brown (Boston), The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1852, 1851, page 234</ref> He was succeeded on the bench by Abel Underwood, who served until the state Circuit Court was abolished in an 1857 court reorganization.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Collamer was a longtime trustee of and lecturer at the Vermont Medical College in Woodstock and served as President of the Board of Trustees.<ref>University of Vermont, University of Vermont Obituary Record, Volume 1, pages 23-24</ref>

SenatorEdit

In 1855 Collamer was elected to the Senate as a conservative, anti-slavery Republican.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In his first term, Collamer was Chairman of the Committee on Engrossed Bills (Thirty-fourth Congress).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1856, Collamer received several votes for Vice President at the Republican National Convention.<ref>Republican National Committee, Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions, 1893, pages 63-64</ref>

In the Senate, he defended his positions vigorously even when he was in the minority.Template:Sfn When the Committee on Territories, chaired by Stephen A. Douglas, recommended passage of the Crittenden Amendment, which proposed resubmitting for popular vote the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, Collamer and James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin refused to vote in favor but instead crafted a persuasive minority report explaining their opposition.Template:Sfn

Collamer also represented the minority view in June 1860, when the select committee chaired by James Murray Mason issued its report on John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.<ref>West Virginia Culture and History, Senate Select Committee Report on the Harper’s Ferry Invasion, retrieved December 17, 2013</ref> Mason argued that Brown's raid was the work of an organized abolitionist movement, which needed to be curtailed with federal authority.<ref name="wvculture.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Collamer and Doolittle countered that Brown and his followers had been caught and punished and that further government action was not necessary.<ref name="wvculture.org"/>

Collamer's years on the bench helped develop his reputation as the best lawyer in the Senate.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His colleagues were known to pay close attention to his remarks on the Senate floor even though he spoke infrequently and even then too quietly to reach the entire chamber or the galleries.Template:Sfn Charles Sumner referred to Collamer as the "Green-Mountain Socrates"Template:Sfn and called him the wisest and best balanced statesman of his time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Civil WarEdit

At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Collamer received the favorite son votes of Vermont's delegates and withdrew after the first ballot.<ref>The Vermonter magazine, Incidents in the Life of Lincoln, January 1909, page 5</ref> Reelected to the Senate in 1861, he served until his death.<ref>William Lloyd Garrison, The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, 1976, page 397</ref>

In 1861, Collamer authored the bill to invest the President with new war powers and give Congressional approval to the war measures that Abraham Lincoln had taken under his own authority at the start of his administration.<ref>Jacob G. Ullery, Men of Vermont Illustrated, 1894, pages 121-124</ref>

Collamer was the lead senator of the nine Republicans who visited Lincoln in 1862 to argue for change in the composition of his cabinet by persuading him to replace his Secretary of State, William Henry Seward.<ref>Chester G. Hearn, Lincoln, the Cabinet, and the Generals, 2010, pages 139-143</ref> Having been encouraged to confront Lincoln by claims of cabinet disharmony from Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, the senators changed their minds during the meeting after Chase was maneuvered by Lincoln into backtracking on his initial argument.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Again a member of the majority once the Democrats from the southern states left the Senate during the war, Collamer was Chairman of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads (Thirty-seventh to Thirty-ninth Congresses) and the Committee on the Library (Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses).Template:Sfn

After the war, Collamer opposed the Reconstruction of plans of Presidents Lincoln and Andrew Johnson and was an advocate of Congressional control over the process of readmitting former Confederate states to the Union.<ref name="auto"/>

DeathEdit

Collamer died at his home in Woodstock on November 9, 1865Template:Sfn and was buried in Woodstock's River Street Cemetery.<ref>U.S. Government Printing Office, Addresses on the Death of Senator Jacob Collamer, 1866, pages 61-62</ref><ref>Robert I. Vexler, The Vice-Presidents and Cabinet Members: Biographies Arranged Chronologically by Administration, Volume 1, 1975, page 185</ref>

Awards and honorsEdit

Collamer received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Vermont in 1850 and Dartmouth College in 1855.<ref>University of Vermont, University of Vermont Obituary Record, Volume 1, 1895, pages 23-24</ref>

In 1881, the state of Vermont donated a marble statue of Collamer created by Preston Powers to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.Template:Sfn Each state is represented by two statues, and Vermont's are likenesses of Collamer and Ethan Allen.<ref>United States Congress, Joint Committee on the Library, Legislation Creating the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol, 1916, page 25</ref><ref>Glenn Brown, Glenn Brown's History of the United States Capitol, 1900, page 530</ref>

FamilyEdit

In 1817, Collamer married Mary Stone, who died in 1870.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Their children included Elisabeth, Harriet, Mary, Edward, Ellen, Frances, and William.Template:Sfn