Gideon Welles

Born:  Glastonbury; July 1, 1802
Died:  Hartford; February 11, 1878

Entry by James P. Walsh

In the period from 1818 to 1876 Connecticut produced very few politicians who achieved national importance. The great exception was Gideon Welles—who helped organize both the Democratic and Republican parties in Connecticut and who played a key role during the Civil War as Lincoln's secretary of the Navy.

When the followers of Andrew Jackson began to organize in order to elect Jackson president in 1818, Welles became the first important Jacksonian in Connecticut. His attachment to the Democratic party is explained in large part by the fact that his parents, though wealthy and prominent, were Episcopalians and therefore outside the Congregational establishment that still dominated the social and political life of the state. Welles was attracted by the claim of the Democratic party that it was the champion of the "common man" in his eternal struggle against the "aristocracy."

Although the Democratic party in Connecticut was weak, Jackson's election in 1828 meant that Welles controlled virtually all Federal patronage in the state. He used this patronage to build the party, and by 1836 the Democrats had become as strong as the Whigs in Connecticut. As editor of the Hartford Times, Welles committed the Democrats to a progressive program including legislation providing for the abolition of imprisonment for debt and allowing religious dissidents to testify in the state's courts.

In the l850s the Democratic party was in serious trouble in Connecticut because of its pro-Southern position on the spread of slavery into the Western territories. Connecticut was strongly in favor of restricting the spread of slavery, but the national leaders of the party sought to satisfy their Southern constituents by supporting the expansion of slavery. The crucial episode was passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, permitting slavery in areas where it had before been prohibited. In reaction, Welles left the Democratic party and joined with others in 1856 to support in Connecticut the Republican party which was emerging as a national party dedicated to preventing the expansion of slavery in the territories.

In 1861 Lincoln appointed Welles secretary of the Navy, an office Welles filled with great distinction. He expanded the Navy from forty to more than 500 vessels by 1865, and he did so with conspicuous honesty. He pushed for the development of ironclads; urged that blacks be allowed to serve in the armed forces; and organized the blockade of the Confederacy that contributed so effectively to the economic strangulation of the South.

After the Civil War, Welles disagreed with the leaders of the Republican party who wanted to treat the South harshly. He believed that the Constitution should be construed to allow former rebels to once again hold public office. On this issue Welles left the Republican party even though his decision meant the end of his long political career.

Welles impressed those he worked with as a steady, competent, and utterly reliable person. It was typical that he sat by Lincoln's bedside all through the terrible night of the president's death and that when Lincoln finally breathed his last, Welles sent word to the other members of the Cabinet to meet at noon so that the nation would see that the government still functioned.

For Further Reading

A good study of Welles is John Niven, Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy (New York. 1973). Welles kept one of the classic diaries of American history. It has been edited most recently by Howard K. Beale (New York, 1960).

* Entry under revision.