James Harlan (politician, 1820)

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James Harlan

James Harlan (born August 26, 1820 in Clark County , Illinois , †  October 5, 1899 in Mount Pleasant , Iowa ) was an American politician . He was a member of the cabinet of US President Andrew Johnson between 1865 and 1866 as Secretary of the Interior and represented the state of Iowa in the US Senate .

Lawyer and Senator

At the age of four, Illinois-born James Harlan moved with his family to Indiana , where he attended village school, helped his father farm, and taught himself until 1841 before embarking on an academic path and graduating from Indiana Asbury University in 1845 , what later became DePauw University in Greencastle . That same year he moved to Iowa to where he in Iowa City , the law studied, was admitted to the bar in 1850 and finally began to practice as a lawyer. From 1853 to 1855 he served as president of Iowa Wesleyan College .

Initially close to the Whigs , he turned down that party's nomination for election to governor of Iowa in 1850. He later joined the Free Soil Party , for which he was elected US Senator in 1855. In January 1857 the seat was declared vacant by the Senate because of irregularities in Harlan's election by the Iowa General Assembly . After a short time Harlan was re-elected by the Parliament of Iowa and took his mandate again from January 29, 1857; in the meantime he had converted to the Republicans .

Interior minister

On May 15, 1865, he resigned at his own request from the Senate after President Johnson had appointed him as Home Secretary in his cabinet ; he took over this office the following day. He proclaimed the goal of his term of office to "clean the house" and wanted to "fire a considerable number of people who were rarely at their respective desks". For Harlan, this also included the well-known poet Walt Whitman , who was an official in the Bureau of Indian Affairs . He found Whitman's book Leaves of Grass at his workplace on June 30, 1865 , described it as morally offensive and put Whitman at the door with the words that he did not want the author of this book in his ministry. In addition, Harlan stated, "If the President of the United States ordered his reinstatement, I would resign rather than reinstate him." 29 years later, he defended his move, adding that Whitman was only fired because his services were not needed .

Harlan then resigned of his own free will on August 31, 1866 because he no longer agreed with President Johnson's policies. He returned to the Senate the following year, where he represented Iowa again until 1873. He then retired in Mount Pleasant, where he died in 1899.

Others

A bronze sculpture by James Harlan has been in the National Statuary Hall in the US Capitol in Washington, DC since 1910. Each US state is represented there with two statues of important personalities from its history; Iowa's choice also fell on Samuel Jordan Kirkwood , who held Harlan's Senate position as Home Secretary.

In June 1865, Harlan dismissed the American poet Walt Whitman from the Home Office because he saw his collection of poems Leaves of Grass as immoral.

James Harlan was a close friend of President Abraham Lincoln and his family. In 1868 his daughter married Mary Lincoln's son Robert .

Web links

Commons : James Harlan  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Douglas O'Connor: The Good Gray Poet . In: Ed Folsom & Kenneth M. Price (Eds.): The Walt Whitman Archive . 1866 ( whitmanarchive.org [accessed June 7, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Harlan, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Clark County , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1899
Place of death Mount Pleasant , Iowa