A Toast to Family

I am related to only two influential people that I know of, one of whom was the late actor Don Knotts. It is fitting that I should write about the other, as his place in history is quite important. However, very few people today have ever heard of him.

Born in Goochland County, VA on September 4, 1793, Edward Bates was a descendant of a Jamestown immigrant. His father was a well-to-do Quaker soldier during the American Revolution who was kicked out of the Society of Friends for owning slaves and for fighting in the war. He had two other famous brothers: Frederick Bates (1777-1825), a Michigan State Supreme Court Justice and the second Governor of the state of Missouri, and James Woodson Bates (1788-1846), an influential shaper of the state of Arkansas and a delegate for Arkanas in the U.S. Congress. Batesville, Arkansas is named in honor of James.

Edward studied law and moved to Missouri at the age of 21. He entered politics, serving in state legislatures and the House of Representatives. He was a Whig, opposed to the policies of Andrew Jackson.

Bates was one of the most prominent Whigs of his day, presiding over the 1856 Whig Convention. The Whig Party was dying at this point, so Bates jumped to the new party, the Republicans.

Bates campaigned for the Republican presidential candidacy in 1860, but lost out to Lincoln. When Lincoln was elected, he offered his former opponent a Cabinet post. This was a wise move, for Lincoln wanted a Cabinet that would include Southerners. Bates chose to be Lincoln's Attorney General, putting his law background to good use.

Bates owned slaves, but he granted them their freedom. He was a free-soil advocate, but not as strong a slavery opponent as Salmon P. Chase and others in Lincoln's Cabinet. Also, "he opposed the admission of West Virginia as a state, the subjugation of constitutional rights to military control, and the increasing power of the Radical Republicans" (Encyclopaedia Britannica). This caused him to be alienated from the rest of the Cabinet, and as a result Bates had little authority or say in the President's decisions. He resigned his post in 1864, having served three years and through most of the American Civil War.

Edward Bates lived for five more years, writing against Radical Republicans who wanted to punish the South. Bates died 137 years ago today, on March 25, 1869.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress