biography
| name: |
Fessenden, William Pitt
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1806–69)
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| biography:
| Lawyer, US representative, and senator, born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, USA. He studied at Bowdoin College (1823) and was admitted to the Maine bar in 1827. He rose in the Whig Party and served Maine in the US House of Representatives (Whig, 1841–3). As a strong opponent of slavery and the Kansas–Nebraska Bill, he became one of the founders of the Republican Party (1854) and then went to the US Senate (Republican, 1854–64). As a member of the Senate Finance Committee (chairman after 1861) he was a staunch proponent of fiscal responsibility, arguing for taxes if necessary to support the Union forces. President Lincoln appointed him secretary of the treasury (1864–5), where he continued his conservative fiscal policies. Returning to the US Senate (Republican, Maine, 1865–9), as chairman of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction he supported severe treatment of the defeated South and opposed President Andrew Johnson and his policies. But, as a man of principle and law, he was convinced that Johnson had been impeached (1868) for political motives, and so voted ‘not guilty’ after the trial even though it led to his being attacked by his party and constituents. |
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