George Franklin Edmunds (February 1, 1828 – February 27, 1919) was an American attorney and Republican politician who represented the state of Vermont in the United States Senate from 1866 to 1891. He was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1880 and in 1884, as a leading representative of New England and of the faction favoring civil service reform.
Edmunds was born in Richmond, Vermont, and began to study law while still a teenager; he proved an adept student, and was admitted to the bar as soon as he reached the minimum required age of 21. He practiced in Burlington and became active in local politics and government. Before entering the Senate, he served in a number of high-profile positions in state government, including Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives and President pro tempore of the Vermont State Senate.
Edmunds was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1866, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Solomon Foot. He was subsequently elected by the Vermont General Assembly, and reelected in 1868, 1874, 1880, and 1886 before resigning in November 1891. As a longtime member of the U.S. Senate, he served in a variety of leadership posts, including chairman of the committees on Pensions, the Judiciary, Private Land Claims, and Foreign Relations. He was also the leader of the Senate Republicans as President pro tempore of the Senate and chairman of the Republican Conference. Edmunds was an unsuccessful candidate for president at the 1880 and 1884 Republican National Conventions.
After leaving the Senate, Edmunds practiced law in Philadelphia. He later lived in retirement in Pasadena, California, where he died in 1919. He was buried at Green Mount Cemetery in Burlington, Vermont.
Early life George F. Edmunds was born in Richmond, Vermont, on February 1, 1828, the son of Ebenezer Edmunds and Naomi (Briggs) Edmunds.Hiram Carleton, Genealogical and Family History of the State of Vermont, Volume 1, page 711 He attended the local schools and was privately tutored. Edmunds began studying law as a teenager, spending time in both the office of his brother-in-law Aaron B. Maynard and the office of David A. Smalley and Edward J. Phelps. He was admitted to the bar as soon as he was eligible in 1849. He practiced in Burlington, and became active in politics by serving in local offices including Town Meeting Moderator.Henry Wilson Scott, Distinguished American Lawyers, 1891, page 333Walter Hill Crockett, George Franklin Edmunds, 1919, page 1855Jacob G. Ullery, Men of Vermont Illustrated, 1894, page 118 During his time practicing law, one of the students who studied under him was Russell S. Taft, who later served as Lieutenant Governor and as Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.The Vermonter magazine, Obituary: Russell Smith Taft, April 1902, page 160
A Republican, he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 1854. He served until 1860, and was Speaker from 1857 to 1860. He moved to the Vermont Senate in 1861, where he served until 1862. While in the State Senate, Edmunds was chosen to serve as President pro tempore.Vermont Secretary of State, Vermont Legislative Directory, 1969, page 320Marcus Davis Gilman, The Bibliography of Vermont, 1897, page 81
United States Senate
After the death of U.S. Senator Solomon Foot in March 1866, Governor Paul Dillingham was expected to appoint someone from the west side of the Green Mountains, in keeping with the Republican Party's Mountain Rule. He first considered former Governor J. Gregory Smith. When Smith indicated that he would not accept, Dillingham turned to Edmunds, who had favorably impressed Dillingham during their service together in the State Senate, and whose residence in Burlington was on the west side of the state. Edmunds subsequently won reelection in 1868, 1874, 1880 and 1886, and served from April 1866 until resigning in November 1891.
In the Senate, Edmunds took an active part in the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson in 1868,John Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, 1995, Chapter 31 having helped pass the Tenure of Office Act to rebuke Johnson.Ward, Benjamin. The Downfall of Senator George F. Edmunds: The Election of 1884. Vermont History. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
Although considering himself devoted to the principles of the Republican Party, like most congressional "Half-Breeds", Edmunds staunchly supported civil service reform.Welch, Richard E., Jr. George Edmunds of Vermont: Republican Half-Breed. Vermont History. Retrieved February 23, 2022. This was opposed by the conservative "Stalwart" faction, who supported maintaining the spoils system as a way to reward political supporters and punish political enemies.
Edmunds was influential in providing for the electoral commission to decide the disputed presidential election of 1876 and served as one of the commissioners, voting for Republicans Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler.Elbert William Robinson Ewing, History and Law of the Hayes-Tilden Contest Before the Electoral Commission: The Florida Case, 1877, page 40
He was the author of the Edmunds Act against polygamy in Utah, and the Sherman Antitrust Act to limit monopolies.Trade and Transportation: A Monthly Journal of American Trade, Senator Edmunds on the Anti-Trust Law, December 1911, page 334Paul Finkelman, editor, Religion and American Law: An Encyclopedia, 1999, page 318
In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur nominated Senator Roscoe Conkling to replace the retiring Ward Hunt as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. When Conkling declined, Arthur chose Edmunds, who also declined. The appointment ultimately went to Samuel Blatchford.
Senate leadership positions Edmunds served as chairman of the Committee on Pensions from 1869 to 1873, the Committee on the Judiciary from 1872 to 1879 and again from 1881 to 1891, the Committee on Private Land Claims from 1879 to 1881 and the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1881. He was President pro tempore of the Senate from 1883 to 1885 and chairman of the Republican Conference from 1885 to 1891.
Reputation in the Senate While serving in Congress he continued to practice law, as did many other members of Congress at the time. He held retainers from railroads and other corporations, including those which could be affected by Senate action.Vermont General Assembly, Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate the Vt. Central Railroad, 1873, page 374Edward Chase Kirkland, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 1835-1915: The Patrician at Bay, 1965, page 109 In 1921, former Senator Richard F. Pettigrew published an autobiography in which he condemned Edmunds as a "senatorial bribe-taker" and "distinctly dishonest" for having accepted corporate retainers while a senator.Pettigrew, Richard Franklin (1921). Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920, pp. 125–26. Google Books. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
An acerbic debater, he often favored the status quo or slow progress. He was known for making his colleagues feel the sting of his criticisms, and some thought him better at merely opposing than offering constructive alternatives. David Davis joked that he could make Edmunds vote against any measure by simply phrasing the request for votes in the New England town meeting way: "Contrary-minded will say no."George F. Hoar, Scribner's magazine, Four National Conventions, February 1899, page 159 One friend trying to interest him in a presidential bid pleaded, "But, Edmunds, think how much fun you would have vetoing bills."George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1903), 1:388.
Edmunds took special delight in goading Southern senators into blurting out statements that would embarrass the Democratic Party. To those Southerners opposed to any federal role in protecting blacks' right to vote, Edmunds seemed the epitome of Yankee evil. One Southern correspondent in 1880 wrote, "When I look at that man sitting almost alone in the Senate, isolated in his gloom of hate and bitterness, stern, silent, watchful, suspicious and pitiless, I am reminded of the worst types of Puritan character... You see the impress of the purer persecuting spirit that burned witches, drove out Roger Williams, hounded Jonathan Edwards for doing his sacred duty, maligned Jefferson, and like a toad squatted at the ear of the Constitution it had failed to pervert."Selig Alder, The Senatorial Career of George Franklin Edmunds, 1866-1891, Ph. D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1934, p. 202.
Friendship with Allen G. Thurman In spite of contempt from many Democratic colleagues, Edmunds formed friendships across the aisle. One Democrat with no reason to appreciate him wrote a colleague that among all the Republicans, "Edmunds made the most impression upon me. I couldn't help admiring his clear and incisive way of putting a question, although it appeared to me that his manner is occasionally very irritating. This manner of his is very much that of a lawyer employed as counsel in a case, who therefore makes ex parte statements, and thinks it fair to make all manner of allegations."Perry Belmont to Thomas F. Bayard, January 11, 1875, Thomas F. Bayard Papers, Library of Congress. His closest friend in the chamber for many years was the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio.George Harold Walker, The Chautauquan, Moral and Social Reforms in Congress, October 1891 to March 1892, page 314
Edmunds and Thurman shared similar reformist attitudes. When Edmunds ran for president in 1884, the other candidates included the eventual Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, a Half-Breed. During the campaign, Edmunds touted his alliance with Thurman, which in turn was cited as a positive quality by cartoonist Thomas Nast, an anti-Blaine Mugwump and illustrator for Harper's Weekly.Nast, Thomas (September 20, 1884). The Issue of Protection to American Labor.’—Blaine. HarpWeek. Retrieved February 23, 2022. At Thurman's death in 1895, Edmunds spoke highly of the former Ohio senator as "brave in his convictions".November 17, 1895. Edmunds on Thurman. The New York Times. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
Presidential campaigns
1880 campaign Edmunds was a candidate for president at the 1880 Republican National Convention. Nominated by Frederick H. Billings, he received 34 votes on the first ballot, carrying Vermont and Massachusetts. His support remained at 31 or 32 votes through the 29th ballot, after which his supporters began to trend towards eventual nominee James A. Garfield.The University Magazine, University Biographies: The Hon. Frederick Billings, LL.D., November 1891, page 1077Republican National Committee, History of the Republican Party Together with the Proceedings of the Republican National Convention, 1896, page 48
1884 campaign In 1884, Republicans who favored civil service reform, including Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, supported Edmunds for President over incumbent President Chester A. Arthur and former Senator James G. Blaine, hoping to build a groundswell for Edmunds if the two stronger candidates deadlocked.
Revelations about Edmunds's legal work for railroads and corporations while sitting in the Senate prevented Edmunds from attaining wide support from reformers. On the first ballot he received 93 votes, once again carrying Vermont and Massachusetts, along with Rhode Island, a significant minority in New York, and scattered delegates from throughout the West. His support declined, however, and the nomination went to Blaine on the fourth ballot.
After the convention, many Edmunds supporters backed Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland, earning them the nickname "Mugwumps". Edmunds himself refused support for Blaine, who ultimately narrowly lost the general election.