Bissell, William Henry

Throughout his six years in Congress, Bissell championed liberal land policies such as homesteads, bounties to veterans, and grants to railroads. Although in 1850 he favored the Fugitive Slave Act and other compromise measures, in 1854 he broke with his party's leadership and refused to support the Kansas-Nebraska Bill because it repealed the Missouri Compromise. In May 1854 he was incapacitated by an illness of some years' standing, probably secondary syphilis affecting the sacrum. While acutely ill, he converted secretly to his wife's Roman Catholic faith. Unable to attend the final vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill on 22 May (although he declared his willingness to be carried into the House on a stretcher were his presence crucial to the outcome), or to participate at all in the second session of the Thirty-third Congress, he did not seek reelection in 1854.

Because Abraham Lincoln and other founders of the Republican party of Illinois believed that only an antislavery Democrat had a prayer of leading their ticket to victory in the state elections of 1856, the party convention that met at Bloomington on 29 May unanimously nominated Bissell for governor. Despite his failed health, Bissell had declared himself available because, he said, "Slavery demands more room--more scope and verge. Shall she have it? . . . I say a thousand times, No!" Although unable to do much campaigning, he won the November election by a plurality of nearly 5,000 votes, drawing support from Democrats, Whigs, abolitionists, and (his Catholicism not being known) nativists.

BISSELL, William Henry, statesman, was born at Hartwick, Otsego county, N. Y., April 25, 1811. He obtained an education through his own efforts, earning the money in winter that enabled him to attend school in the summer. He was graduated at the Philadelphia medical college in 1835, practised for two years in Steuben county, N. Y., and for three years in Monroe county, IL., and was elected to the Illinois legislature, where he made quite a reputation as a ready and able debater. He turned his attention to the study of the law, was admitted to the bar, practised in Belleville, IL., and was elected prosecuting attorney of St. Clair county in 1844. During the Mexican war he served as captain of a company in the 2d Illinois volunteers, and took an active part in the battle of Buena Vista. He represented Illinois in the national house of representatives in the 31st, 32d and 33d congresses, from December, 1849, to March 3, 1855, and hia emphatic opposition to the Missouri compromise involved him in a controversy with southern Democrats. The question as to the bravery of the soldiers from the north as compared with that shown by the south in the Mexican war led to a debate with Jefferson Davis, and resulted in Mr. Bissell being challenged by Mr. Davis. He accepted the challenge, and chose muskets as the weapons to be used at thirty paces. The friends of Mr. Davis interfered at this juncture and the duel was never fought. On the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Mr. Bissell separated from the Democratic party and was elected governor of Illinois on the Republican ticket, serving by re-election from 1856 until his death, which occurred at Springfield, IL., March 18, 1860.