Wade, Benjamin Franklin

Wade, Benjamin Franklin

(1800–78) lawyer, public official; born in Springfield, Mass. Raised on a farm, he moved to Ohio at age 21, taught school and read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1831. He built a thriving practice before entering public life in the antislavery cause. Elected to the U.S. Senate (Whig, Ohio; 1851–56; Rep., 1856–69), he joined with congressional Radical Republicans to press for the emancipation of slaves and, after the Civil War, a punitive peace for the former Confederacy. As chairman of the powerful Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, he participated in investigations of every aspect of the federal war effort. He was among those who pursued the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson most vehemently; as president pro tempore of the Senate he would have succeeded Johnson as president and was so sure of a conviction that he actually began to select his cabinet. He retired from public life in 1869, resumed the practice of law, and became general counsel for the Northern Pacific Railway.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.