Adlai Stevenson I
Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) was an American politician who served as the 23rd vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897 under President Grover Cleveland. A member of the Democratic Party, Stevenson served as a U.S. Representative for Illinois in the late 1870s and early 1880s. He was the founder of the Stevenson political family.
Adlai Stevenson I
Malcolm Hay
Major W. Packard
Martin L. Newell
June 14, 1914 (aged 78)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Letitia Green (m. 1866)
4, including Lewis
After his appointment as assistant postmaster general of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889), Stevenson fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he was elected vice president of the United States. During his term of office, Stevenson supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for governing in a dignified, non-partisan manner.
In 1900, he ran for vice president with William Jennings Bryan.[1] In doing so, Stevenson became the fourth vice president to run for that post teamed with two different presidential candidates (after George Clinton, John C. Calhoun and Thomas A. Hendricks). He was the paternal grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, a Governor of Illinois and the unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominee in both 1952 and 1956.
Ancestry[edit]
Adlai Ewing Stevenson was born in Christian County, Kentucky, on October 23, 1835,[2][3][4] to John Turner and Eliza Ann Ewing Stevenson,[2] Wesleyans of Scots-Irish descent. The Stevenson family is first recorded (as the Stephensons) in Roxburghshire, Scotland, in the early 18th century. The family appears to have had some wealth, as a private chapel in the Archdiocese of St Andrews bears their name. At some point, probably shortly after the Jacobite rising of 1715, the family migrated to County Antrim, Ireland, near Belfast. At least one Stephenson was a police officer. Adlai's great-grandfather William Stephenson was a tailor who specialized in millinery. After William's father died in the 1730s, his family moved to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. William joined when his apprenticeship was completed in 1748.[5]
In 1762, the family moved to North Carolina in what is now Iredell County. Including lands given to his children, William Stephenson (Stevenson after the American Revolution) had amassed 3,400 acres (1,400 ha) of land by the time of his death.[6] One branch of the family, including Adlai Stevenson's father, then moved to Kentucky in 1813.
Election of Grover Cleveland in 1884 and the U.S. Post Office[edit]
The Stevensons vacationed at lake resorts in Wisconsin during summers. There, Stevenson befriended William Freeman Vilas, a growing voice among Midwest Democrats and a friend of Grover Cleveland. Stevenson was a delegate to the 1884 Democratic National Convention, and after briefly supporting a local candidate, he threw his support behind Cleveland. Vilas and Stevenson personally informed Cleveland of the nomination. When Cleveland was elected that November, Vilas was named postmaster general. Although a different supporter was initially named assistant postmaster general, Stevenson received the position after the first choice fell ill.[14]
The new position put Stevenson in charge of the largest patronage system in the country. Like his predecessors, Stevenson removed tens of thousands of political opponents from postal positions and replaced them with Democrats. Just before Cleveland left office, he nominated Stevenson for the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia judgeship left vacant by the death of William Matthews Merrick. Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate and refused to act, exacting a measure of revenge on Stevenson for replacing Republican postmasters while also secure in the knowledge that they would be able to confirm a Republican nominee after Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated. A disappointed Stevenson returned to Bloomington at the conclusion of Cleveland's term.[15]
Legacy[edit]
Stevenson was the founder of the Stevenson political family, which has been called "Illinois's longest-lasting political dynasty–the only one to span four generations".[25] Stevenson's son, Lewis G. Stevenson, was Illinois secretary of state (1914–1917). Stevenson's grandson Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was the Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 1952 and 1956 and Governor of Illinois. His great-grandson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, was a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981 and an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986.[25] Adlai III, like his great-grandfather, was also a contender for the 1976 Democratic vice presidential nomination.[2]
In 1962, Stevenson's alma mater, Centre College, named a newly built residence hall "Stevenson House" in his honor. They had previously awarded him an honorary degree in 1893.[26] Stevenson's home in Metamora, Illinois is now a museum.[27]
There is a bust of Stevenson in the United States Capitol Building as part of the United States Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection. It was sculpted in 1894 by Franklin Simmons.[20][19] The bust originally sat on a gallery-level niche in the Senate chamber, but in 1910 the bust collection was reorganized, and Stevenson's bust was placed in the main Senate corridor.[19] In 1991 it was moved to the opposite end of the corridor, which required moving the bust of Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks. Stevenson's bust was moved that time to make room for the incoming bust of then-president and former vice president George H. W. Bush.[28]
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