George Sewall Boutwell (January 28, 1818 – February 27, 1905) was an American politician, lawyer, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant, the 20th governor of Massachusetts, a U.S. senator and representative from Massachusetts, and the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Abraham Lincoln. He was a leader in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and served as a House manager (prosecutor) in the impeachment trial.
Boutwell, an abolitionist, is known primarily for his leadership in the formation of the Republican Party, and his championship of African American citizenship and suffrage rights during Reconstruction. As a congressman, he was instrumental in the drafting and passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. As Secretary of the Treasury, he made needed reforms in the Treasury Department after the chaos of the American Civil War and the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. He controversially reduced the national debt by selling Treasury gold and using greenbacks to buy up Treasury bonds, a process that created a cash shortage. Boutwell and President Grant thwarted an attempt to corner the gold market in September 1869 by releasing $4,000,000 (~$ in ) of gold into the economy. As a U.S. senator, Boutwell sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and was chair of a Senate select committee investigating white supremacist violence against Black citizens and their white Republican Party supporters during the 1875 Mississippi state election campaign.
In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Boutwell commissioner to codify the Revised Statutes of the United States and in 1880 to serve as United States counsel before the French and American Claims Commission. He also practiced international law in other diplomatic fora. At the turn of the 20th century, he abandoned the Republican Party, opposed the acquisition of the Philippines, and in 1900 supported Democrat William Jennings Bryan for president.
In 2025, the "first major biography" (according to its dust jacket) of Boutwell was published.Boutwell, Jeffrey. Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy. New York: W. W. Norton, 2025. The dust jacket states, "Jeffrey and George share a common ancestor, the indentured servant James Boutwell, who emigrated in 1632 from England to Salem, Massachusetts".
Early life George S. Boutwell was born on January 28, 1818, in Brookline, Massachusetts.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 1Appletons (1900) According to his autobiography, Boutwell was raised on his family's farm in Lunenburg and attended public schools until the age of seventeen.Boutwell (1902), pp. 2, 7, 19 During the summer months he worked barefooted, tending oxen and picking chestnuts.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 7 He studied arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and Latin grammar.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, pp. 18–19 From 1830 to 1835, Boutwell worked as an apprentice and clerk for Simeon Heywood, who owned a palm leaf hat store.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 20 He worked briefly as a teacher at Pound Hill, Shirley Massachusetts, a nearby town,Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, pp. 31–32 and finished his primary school education in February 1835.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, pp. 24–32
From 1835 to 1838, Boutwell worked as a clerk and shopkeeper in Groton, Massachusetts.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 33 In 1836, he began to study law under attorney Bradford Russell, whose office was above the store where he clerked. Boutwell did not take the bar exam or practice law until many years later.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 40 In 1838, the shop owner offered Boutwell a partnership in the shop.Boutwell (1902), vol 1., p. 47 While Boutwell ran the store, he began a personal regimen of reading and writing in an effort to make up for his decision not to attend college.Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. 48
Boutwell made his public career debut in 1839 as a pension agent for widows of the American Revolutionary War, which had ended in 1783. He traveled to Washington, D.C., and was impressed by Daniel Webster. After talking with an enslaved Black woman whose youngest child had been sold to Louisiana, Boutwell became dedicated to the anti-slavery cause.Boutwell (1902), vol 1., pp. 50–54
Boutwell married Sarah Adelia Thayer on July 8, 1841. She was the daughter of Nathan Thayer from Hollis, New Hampshire. They had two children: Georgianna (born May 18, 1843) and Francis (born February 26, 1847).Boutwell (1902), vol. 1, p. xxiii
Political career (1839–1861) Entering politics as a Democrat and a supporter of Martin Van Buren, Boutwell was appointed head of the Groton post office by his business partner, who had been appointed postmaster. Boutwell's first entry into elective politics was a successful run for the Groton School Committee as a Temperance Party candidate; he sat on that committee for many years. The success prompted him to run for the state legislature on the same party's ticket, but as the candidate of a small third party, he lost badly.Brown, p. 15 In 1840, he won the Democratic Party nomination, despite temperance opinions that were "offensive to many", but lost in a Whig landslide.Brown, p. 16 He won on his third try, defeating incumbent John Boynton in 1841.Brown, p. 17 He won the next two annual elections and lost in 1844 and 1845. He was returned to the state legislature in the 1846 election and served from 1847 to 1850.Brown, pp. 19–23 His elective successes, sometimes in the face of major Whig victories statewide, highlighted Boutwell's potential, and brought him into the Democratic Party's leadership circles.Brown, pp. 21–22 He sat on the judiciary and finance committees, where he gained a reputation for thorough research into legislation, and advocated positions favoring free trade, restraint of the money supply, and increased taxes for spending on education and other reforms.Brown, pp. 22–23, 25 He supported the Mexican–American War, which, unlike other people at the time, he did not believe was motivated by a desire to expand slavery.Brown, p. 24Jeffrey Boutwell (2025), p. 34, notes that, although Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman, opposed the war, he "joined Boutwell in repeating the fatuous contention that Polk wasn't seeking to extend slavery into America's Southwest".
While in the state House of Representatives, Boutwell ran three times for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, losing by significant margins to his Whig opponents.Brown, pp. 22–25 In 1848, he was considered for the Democratic nomination for governor, placing third at the nominating convention.Brown, p. 25 In 1849, he was appointed state banking commissioner by Whig Governor George N. Briggs, a position in which he inspected bank charters that were subject to renewal. In this position, he gained a wealth of experience in matters of banking and finance.Brown, p. 26
Massachusetts governor
Throughout the 1840s, advocates of the abolition of slavery grew to become a significant force in Massachusetts politics. Outrage over the extension of slavery into territories acquired in the Mexican–American War increased the popularity of the Free Soil Party, but they and the Democrats were unable to unite to unseat the Whigs who dominated state politics until 1850.Hart, pp. 4:336–340, 473 In 1849, Boutwell won the Democratic nomination for governor. Because no candidate won a majority, the Whig-controlled legislature decided the election, choosing the incumbent Briggs. The campaign brought Boutwell into close contact with Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, leaders of the state Free Soil Party. The parties flirted with the idea of a coalition, with the Democrats adopting an antislavery platform.Brown, pp. 27–28
In 1850, passage of the Compromise of 1850, in particular the Fugitive Slave Act, sparked further outrage, and the Democrats and Free Soilers were able to agree to a coalition. On the Democratic side, Boutwell and Nathaniel Prentice Banks agreed with Free Soilers Sumner and Wilson on a division of offices should the coalition win. The key to their success was control of the state legislature, which would decide the election if no gubernatorial candidate won a majority of the popular vote.Hart, pp. 4:473–476
Both parties worked to bring out the vote in rural areas sympathetic to their cause. Although Governor Briggs won a plurality of the popular vote (57,000 out of 120,000 votes cast), he did not win a majority, and the legislature was controlled by the coalition. Pursuant to the terms of the deal, Boutwell was elected governor, Banks was made Speaker of the House, and Wilson was elected Senate President. Sumner's election to the U.S. Senate, also part of the bargain, was contested by conservative Democrats, but the coalition eventually prevailed in electing him.Hart, pp. 4:476–478 Boutwell was criticized by Free Soilers for taking a hands-off approach to the contentious election of Sumner, neither supporting nor opposing him during the balloting in the state senate. Sumner later accused Boutwell of preventing a more permanent fusion of the two parties.Brown, pp. 36–37
In the 1851 election, the results were similar, despite efforts by the Whigs to drive wedges between the coalition members, and Boutwell was again elected by the legislature after the Whig candidate won a plurality.Hart, p. 4:481 That election exposed cracks in the coalition, principally on slavery. When Boutwell decided not stand for reelection in 1852,Brown, pp. 39–40 the Whigs regained control of the legislature and elected John H. Clifford to the governor's chair.Holt, p. 762
On May 26, 1851, Boutwell was elected as a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
In Boutwell's first term as governor, both houses of the legislature were controlled by the coalition, and its substantial reform agenda was enacted, including election by secret ballot, although the terms did not satisfy all of the secrecy rules of an Australian ballot, and plurality voting under some conditions. The state legislature's seats were changed from town-based allocations to legislative districts that were not based on town boundaries. Laws governing the issuance of bank charters were streamlined, and the Harvard Board of Overseers was reorganized. Boutwell also engaged in a wholesale reassignment of patronage jobs in the state, which had all been filled with Whigs.Brown, p. 38 In his second term, Whigs controlled the House of Representatives, and were thus able to thwart most of the reform agenda. Boutwell's call to increase taxes for spending on education, prisons, and mental hospitals went unheeded, but the legislature was passed a call for a constitutional convention to discuss long-standing demands for changes to the state constitution. A "Maine law" temperance reform bill was also approved, but Boutwell was criticized by the Whigs for vetoing the first version of it and then signing the second, allegedly under pressure from Free Soilers.Brown, pp. 40–42
Constitutional Convention and Republican Party Boutwell was elected a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853. He opposed the election of judges and the abolition of the Governor's Council, and supported the elimination of any poll tax requirements for voting. He served on the committee responsible for drafting the proposals that the Convention submitted to the voters for approval, and was disappointed when all of those proposals were rejected in the ensuing statewide referendum.Brown, pp. 47–48