[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 105 (Monday, June 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9102-S9103]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE LIFE OF GEORGE HENRY WILLIAMS

 Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, throughout its colorful history, 
the State of Oregon has been blessed with the talents of many 
distinguished leaders. In my readings, I have been struck by the number 
of these great Oregon citizens who have received little notice from the 
writers of U.S. history. One such individual is Senator George Henry 
Williams.
  I was reminded of Judge Williams' important role in Oregon history by 
an article which recently appeared in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin. 
The article, excerpted from Judge Williams' obituary, was skillfully 
edited by Julie Hankin of the Bulletin. This excellent piece of history 
gives us a glimpse into the extraordinary life of a great American and 
I recommend it to my colleagues.
  A contemporary and close friend of Abraham Lincoln, Judge Williams 
came to Oregon following his appointment as Chief Justice of the Oregon 
territory in 1853. His ambition, however, was to serve in the U.S. 
Senate.
  Having worked actively as a Free Soil Democrat, he eventually left 
the party for that of Lincoln and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 
1864 on the Republican ticket. There, he quickly earned the respect of 
his colleagues and, later, the notice of his President, Gen. Ulysses S. 
Grant. President Grant nominated Williams to serve as his Attorney 
General. Williams withdrew his name from consideration, however, 
following a set of intriguing circumstances, all of which are detailed 
in the article which I will submit for the Record following my remarks.
  Mr. President, in a city guided all too often by ego, I am always 
pleased to discover unsung heros, those who sought only to serve their 
countrymen, not themselves. As noted author Walter Lippman once said: 
``The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in other men the 
conviction and the will to carry on.'' George Henry Williams was such 
an inspirational figure.
  I ask that the article from the Oregon State Bar Bulletin appear in 
the Record.

             [From the Oregon State Bar Bulletin, May 1995]

  Oregon's Gentle Giant--The Life of George Henry Williams: Senator, 
                      Attorney General, and Lawyer

                            (By C.E.S. Wood)

       George Henry Williams was born in a log cabin in New York 
     state in 1823. Both of his grandfathers served in the 
     Continental Army during the Revolutionary war. He studied 
     law, and in 1844, at the age of 21, he was admitted to the 
     bar at Syracuse. Soon afterward he started West to seek his 
     fortunes as a lawyer.
       Nationwide there were but a few miles of railroad at the 
     time--none west of Indiana. There were no telegraph lines. 
     Travel was by river, canal and coach. Pittsburgh and St. 
     Louis were the Western frontier. Chicago did not exist. He 
     made his way by the Erie Canal, the Ohio Canal, the Ohio 
     River as far as St. Louis and then up the Mississippi to Fort 
     Madison, Iowa. His wealth was the Statutes of New York and 
     some bank notes of New York state banks.
       Unfortunately, while Williams was counting backnotes in 
     Pittsburgh in order to exchange them for western notes, they 
     were snatched from him in a robbery. By virtue of his honest 
     face he procured passage on boats to St. Louis and then Fort 
     Madison.
       In 1847, on the admission of Iowa as a state, he was 
     elected a district judge. The same year he first met Abraham 
     Lincoln at a conference in Chicago. Here began a great, 
     lifelong friendship between these two with much background in 
     common--born in poverty in log cabins, growing to the rugged 
     strength and height of giants, athletic and sympathetic to 
     the great masses. Judge Williams would later be selected as 
     one of the escorts of honor and one of the pall bearers at 
     Lincoln's funeral.
       As an anti-slavery Democrat, Judge Williams campaigned 
     throughout Iowa for Franklin Pierce and was elected one of 
     the presidential electors on the Democratic ticket. Shortly 
     after Pierce's inauguration in 1853, at the suggestion of his 
     friend, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, Williams was appointed chief 
     justice of Oregon Territory. He was 30 years old. The 
     appointment was without his knowledge and contrary to his 
     wish.
       He had gotten married in 1850 in Iowa to Miss Kate Van 
     Antwerp and found his $1,000

[[Page S9103]]

     annual salary as an Iowa district judge too small to meet the 
     expenses of married life. He sent in his resignation, with 
     the intention of resuming the practice of law. Lawyers of 
     both Whig and Democrat persuasion begged him to remain on the 
     bench.
       In the end, the young and romantic Mrs. Williams decided 
     their fortunes. Oregon was the unknown land of the West, and 
     the excitement of voyaging there appealed to her. The couple 
     fully intended to return to Iowa as soon as Judge Williams' 
     term in Oregon expired.
       The young couple made their home in Salem. President 
     Buchanan appointed Judge Williams to a second term, but 
     private practice still tempted him. He resigned, and in 1858 
     opened an office in Portland in a small frame building on the 
     river bank between Washington and Alder streets.
       These were stirring times in Oregon. The admission of the 
     territory into the Union as a state was a vital issue and 
     necessarily involved whether it should come in as a free or 
     as a slave state. One of the desires that induced Williams to 
     leave the bench was not only to add to his income by 
     practicing law, but that he might enter the active arena of 
     politics. His ambition was to be United States senator.
       As a Democrat he championed the anti-slavery cause. He 
     became a Free Soil Democrat, elected to the state 
     constitutional convention and appointed chairman of the 
     judiciary committee there. Apparently by the force of 
     argument and eloquence, he greatly aided in having the free 
     constitution adopted by the state.
       Judge Williams' strong anti-slavery work in Oregon had 
     antagonized the administration in Washington, with the 
     result that he was not appointed United States senator. 
     Also at the first election he was defeated by the 
     opposition.
       Judge Williams had joined in the call for an amalgamation 
     of anti-slavery-war-Democrats with Republicans, to be called 
     the Union Party, and by this transition he entered the 
     Republican party and in 1864 was elected to the United States 
     Senate. His long-held ambition was fulfilled. He entered the 
     Senate at the close of the war and beginning of the 
     reconstruction period. He was the sole author of the 
     Reconstruction Act substantially as it was adopted. He drew 
     the 15th Amendment essentially as it now stands. hew was a 
     member of the Joint High Commission, which met in Washington 
     to determine how the disputes between Great Britain and the 
     United States should be settled. He was a leader in the 
     Senate during the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
       The enforcement of his Reconstruction Act also fell to 
     Williams as Grant's attorney general at the expiration of his 
     senatorial term: In all the troubled times following the 
     Civil War, the responsibility of enforcement law and order by 
     civil remedies was on Williams' shoulders. The task included 
     confronting the Ku Klux Klan's lawlessness. Also, he had to 
     decide between two governments in Louisiana, Alabama and 
     Arkansas, conflicts which he resolved in favor of the 
     Republicans in Louisiana, the Democrats in Arkansas and by a 
     compromise in Alabama.
       If therefore surprised no one (except Oregonians) that 
     General Grant sent his name to the Senate to be chief justice 
     of the United States. Judge Williams eventually insisted on 
     his name being withdrawn. The causes have been variously 
     stated as political animosity in the East due to his 
     reconstruction work and Republican partisanship; social 
     antagonism to his second wife, then ambitious to be a leader 
     in Washington society; and opposition in Oregon, because in 
     the course of his Washington career, he had necessarily 
     failed to please everyone back home.
       As the story goes, he went to see Grant to insist that his 
     name be withdrawn. They drove out behind Grant's favorite 
     pair of trotters, and the president became so absorbed in the 
     discussion that he overdrove the horses and one of them died. 
     I the end, Grant took Williams' suggestion of Morrison R. 
     Waite of Ohio, saying, ``Wire him in your own name and ask 
     him if he will take the office of chief justice of the United 
     States.'' The result is a matter of history.
       It seems that Judge Williams only narrowly missed being 
     chief justice, but he used to sum up the whole matter by 
     saying, ``I believe I have lived longer and happier than if I 
     had been raised to that exalted office.''
       He returned to Portland and resumed the practice of law. He 
     was a two-term mayor of the city from 1902-1905. He died in 
     his sleep at home in Portland, April 4, 1910.


                        What Kind of Man was he?

       These are the milestones in Williams' life. Taken alone, 
     they are impressive enough. On the other hand, other men have 
     held high office and lived long lives, busy in civic affairs 
     on all levels. Those who knew Judge Williams want to 
     emphasize what manner of man he was.
       In all that he did he was filled with common sense and the 
     spirit of justice. As a judge he was calm, impersonal and 
     impartial, sensible, passionless and just. As a lawyer he was 
     forceful, eloquent, sincere and never let justice be obscured 
     by technicalities. Although learned in the law, his ruling 
     trait was plain, good sense. He disliked dissension or 
     contention either in public or private life.
       At 87 he was still youthful in mind, belonging to the 
     present and not the past. He was as interested in the 
     problems of the day and as progressive in thought as a man of 
     25.
       He exhibited his own childlike simplicity of character in 
     his fondness for children. One of the last images his 
     partners had of him was of Williams gazing gravely at a 2-
     year old girl was had toddled into his office from the 
     hallway and stood staring at him.
       After a moment's mutual viewing each other in silence, not 
     knowing they were observed, the judge was heard to say 
     solemnly to his small visitor, ``Were you looking for a 
     lawyer?'' In a few days he was dead, and there passed one of 
     the kindliest and most lovable of men.

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