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Encyclopedia Dubuque

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ALLISON, William Boyd: Difference between revisions

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[[CATEGORY: Politicians]]
[[CATEGORY: Politician]]

Revision as of 03:33, 21 November 2008

William Allison (photo: Library of Congress)

ALLISON, William Boyd. (Perry, Wayne County, OH, Mar. 2, 1829-Dubuque, IA, Aug. 4, 1908). United States Senator from 1873 to 1908. Known as the "Gibraltar of Iowa Democracy" and "Mr. Republican" for nearly two decades, Allison, the senior Republican member on the Committee on Appropriations, was the single most powerful Congressional voice on all decisions involving finances. Allison also served on the Committee on Finance and was considered an expert on tariff concerns. He gained less obvious power from his membership in "The Four" (with Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, John C. Spooner of Wisconsin, and Orville H. Platt of Connecticut), all members of the Committee on Finance who dominated the Congress. Allison was also a member of the Committee on Committees, chairman of the Republican caucus, and chairman of the steering committee.

Wedded to his work after his second wife's suicide in 1883, Allison found in the Senate nearly his only pleasures in life. His most famous legislation was the Bland-Allison Bill of 1878 that restricted the unlimited coinage of silver and reestablished the silver dollar as legal tender.

Allison began his legislative career on March 4, 1863, with election to the 38th Congress. He declined to run for re-election to the House in 1870, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate. Allison returned to his legal practice in Dubuque but was elected to the Senate in 1872. In 1875 Allison was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the SIOUX for the sale of the Black Hills. The unsuccessful venture failed to stop white trespassing on sacred Native American land and led to the massacre of General Custer at Little Big Horn. Allison continued his service in the Senate for thirty-five years and five months.

In 1888 Allison launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He was nominated in 1896, but lost to the man who became President of the United States, William McKinley. Allison's long record of political service was brought out during his 1908 campaign when it was discovered that not one member of Congress from 1863, when Allison entered the House of Representatives, was still serving.

Held in high esteem by others in governmental service, Allison was offered the position of secretary of the treasury by presidents Garfield and Harrison. President McKinley asked him to be secretary of state. Allison declined all these offers and served as the Senate majority leader in 1897, 1904, 1906, and 1907-1908.