John M. Palmer

John M. Palmer

John McAuley Palmer (born September 13, 1817 in Eagle Creek , Scott County , Kentucky , †  September 25, 1900 in Springfield , Illinois ) was an American politician and from 1869 to 1873 the 15th  Governor of Illinois. He also represented this state in the US Senate .

Early years and political advancement

In 1831, Palmer and his family moved to Alton , Illinois. There he attended Shurtleff College . He then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He then opened a law firm in Carlinville . In 1847, Palmer was a member of the committee designed to revise the Illinois Constitution. Between 1849 and 1852 he served as a district judge. From 1852 to 1854, and again in 1856, he was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives . As a member of the new Republican Party in 1856 he was a member of the first State Party Congress in Illinois. He was also a member of the Electoral College in 1860 , which Abraham Lincoln elected US President .

In the spring of 1861 he was a delegate at a peace conference in Washington , where attempts were unsuccessful to avert the impending civil war . During the war he rose from colonel to major general . He took part in several battles and was part of the army of William T. Sherman , which conquered parts of the southern states in the fall of 1864 and spring 1865 . After his honorable retirement from the army in 1866, he was nominated by his party as a candidate for the gubernatorial election two years later and was elected by the citizens of Illinois on November 3, 1868.

Illinois Governor

John Palmer's four-year term began on January 11, 1869, and a new constitution came into force at the very beginning. In 1871, the governor established the Illinois Department of Agriculture. The main event of his tenure, however, was the great Chicago fire , which killed around 300 people in October 1871 and caused more than $ 200 million in damage. The governor supported the victims as financially possible. During his tenure, Palmer switched from the Republicans to the Democratic Party .

US Senator

After the end of his tenure on January 13, 1873, he continued to be politically active for his new party. In 1888 he ran unsuccessfully for governor. Between 1891 and 1897 he was a US Senator in Congress in Washington. There he chaired the committee that dealt with pension claims. In 1896, one wing of the Democratic Party had separated from the parent party. This National Democratic Party , which campaigned for the preservation of the gold standard, nominated Palmer as its presidential candidate of 1896. Palmer had no chance in the presidential elections . The Republican William McKinley profited from the split in the Democrats and made it into the White House. The actual Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan , also did significantly better than Palmer. This now withdrew from politics. He died in Springfield in 1900. John Palmer was married twice and had a total of ten children.

Web links

• John Palmer at the National Governors Association (English)
• John M. Palmer in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Illinois Blue Book History and Election Results, p. 366
• John M. Palmer in the database of Find a Grave (English)