Washburn, Israel, Jr.

WASHBURN, Israel, Jr.,  (brother of Elihu Benjamin Washburne, Cadwallader Colden Washburn, and William Drew Washburn), a Representative from Maine; born in Livermore, Androscoggin County, Maine, June 6, 1813; attended the common schools and was educated by private tutors; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1834 and commenced practice in Orono, Penobscot County, Maine; member of the State house of representatives in 1842 and 1843; unsuccessful candidate for the Thirty-first Congress in 1848; elected as a Whig to the Thirty-second and Thirty-third Congresses, as a Republican to the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-sixth Congresses and served from March 4, 1851, to January 1, 1861, when he resigned, having been elected Governor; chairman, Committee on Elections (Thirty-fourth Congress); Governor of Maine in 1861 and 1862; declined to be a candidate for renomination; appointed by President Lincoln as collector of customs at Portland, Maine, and served from October 31, 1863, until March 16, 1877, when he resigned; served as president of the board of trustees of Tufts College, Medford, Mass.; engaged in literary pursuits; died in Philadelphia, Pa., on May 12, 1883; interment in Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor, Maine.

WASHBURN, Israel, war governor of Maine, was born at Livermore, Me., June 6, 1813; brother of С. С., С. A., and E. B. Washburn. He was descended from John Washburn, who was secretary of the Plymouth colony in England, and who came to this country in 1861 and settled in Duxbury, Mass His grandfather (Israel) was a revolutionary soldier and member of the Massachusetts legislature; his father (Israel 2d) was born at Raynham, Bristol county, Mass., in 1784, removed to Maine in 1806, became a shipbuilder and trader on the Kennebec river, and settled at Livermore, where he died Sept. 1, 1876, leaving seven sons, most of whom became eminent; three of them being in congress at the same lime. The eldest (Israel 3d) became a lawyer in 1834, opened an office at Orono, Penobscot county, Me., and was sent to the legislature in 1842. He was in congress 1851-60, first as a whig, then as an active republican, governor of Maine 1861-62, collector at Portland, Me., 1863-77. He refused in 1875 the presidency of Tufts college, of which he was long president of the board of trustees. Besides sundry speeches, addresses and contributions to periodicals, be published “Notes, Historical, Descriptive, and Personal, of Livermore, Me.” (1874). He received the degree of LL. D. from Tufts in 1872, and died in Philadelphia, Pa., May 12, 1883.

Washburn began his congressional career as a champion of Maine interests. He sponsored, for instance, a bill for aid to the European and North American Railway, which, by constructing a railroad from Canadian ports to American railroad lines, would have made Maine a corridor for European immigration. The slavery question, however, quickly propelled Washburn into a national role. Morally opposed to slavery and increasingly convinced that a slave power threatened northern economic progress, Washburn worked hard to prevent the 1852 Whig National Convention from endorsing the Compromise of 1850. In 1854 Washburn helped lead the fight in the House against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Its passage convinced him that only a new northern party could check slave power aggression. With popular meetings throughout the North condemning the new law, Washburn took action to unite opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act into a national coalition. In late May 1854 he called a meeting of approximately thirty antislavery congressmen of all parties and suggested they form a new political organization called the Republican party. Shortly after he had launched the new party among politicians, Washburn publicly called for all northerners to join together as Republicans against the slave power. Washburn was an important congressional Republican leader for the rest of the decade, acting, for instance, as a member of the inner circle that elected Nathaniel P. Banks Speaker of the House in 1856. Quick-tempered and an authority on House rules, Washburn was a sound strategist with rigid integrity and wide influence.

EX-GOV. ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR.