Quick Facts
- NAME: Hannibal Hamlin
- OCCUPATION: U.S. Vice President, U.S. Representative
- BIRTH DATE: August 27, 1809
- DEATH DATE: July 04, 1891
- EDUCATION: Hebron Academy
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Paris Hill, Maine
- PLACE OF DEATH: Bangor, Maine
Best Known For
Hannibal Hamlin was a 19th century U.S. senator who became the country’s 15th vice president, serving under Abraham Lincoln.
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Play NowHannibal Hamlin. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 02:09, Jun 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788.
Hannibal Hamlin. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788 [Accessed 19 Jun 2013].
"Hannibal Hamlin." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 19 2013, 02:09 http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788.
"Hannibal Hamlin," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788 [accessed Jun 19, 2013].
"Hannibal Hamlin," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788 (accessed Jun 19, 2013).
Hannibal Hamlin [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788.
Hannibal Hamlin, http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788 (last visited Jun 19, 2013).
Hannibal Hamlin. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/hannibal-hamlin-9326788. Accessed Jun 19, 2013.
Lincoln issued the proclamation in 1862, once he understood its strategic usefulness.
With Lincoln’s re-election campaign under way in 1864, he decided not to push for Hamlin as his running mate, selecting southern Democrat Andrew Johnson instead. Though Hamlin went along quietly with the decision, he was hurt by the chain of events, having left his Senate seat to take a position he didn’t want only to be ultimately let go. Nonetheless,
Contents
he helped with Lincoln’s campaign and briefly served as part of the Union’s armed forces. (He had enlisted years earlier, and his unit was called to active duty in the summer of 1864.)
A Radical Reconstructionist
Following Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, Andrew Johnson became president and appointed Hamlin to be collector for the port of Boston. The two had strong ideological differences, however. Hamlin favoring a Radical Reconstruction agenda in the South that guaranteed the rights of freed African Americans. In contrast, Johnson took a conciliatory approach with former members of the Confederacy, vetoing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and opposing the 14th Amendment, which would institute black citizenship. Hamlin resigned from his Boston post in disagreement with Johnson’s policies, and was re-elected to the Senate in 1869, serving two terms.
Suffering from heart disease in his later years, Hamlin chose not to run for the Senate again in 1880. He was instead made a diplomat to Spain—an office that was less strenuous in its duties—and officially retired from political life in 1882. He died on July 4, 1891, in Bangor, Maine, at the age of 81.
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