Orville Hitchcock Platt

Born:  Washington; July 19, 1827
Died:  Meriden; April 21, 1905

Orville Hitchcock Platt was without doubt the most important Connecticuter in national political affairs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Platt represented Connecticut in the United States Senate from 1879 until his death.

Platt was a descendant of an old Connecticut family—the first Platt came to New Haven in 1638—and was educated by his friend Frederick W. Gunn (1816-1881), founder of the Gunnery School for boys in Washington. Platt subsequently read law and was admitted to the bar in 1850. For almost thirty years Platt practiced law in Meriden, specializing in patent, real estate, and corporation law. Platt was also active in Connecticut politics during his Meriden years, serving as clerk of the Connecticut State Senate (1855-1856); secretary of state (1857); member of the General Assembly (1864); and speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives (1869). He was serving as state's attorney for New Haven County when he was elected to the United States Senate.

In the Senate, Platt's untiring industry, honesty, and sound judgment won him the respect of his colleagues. His unqualified support of a high tariff and sound money gained him membership in the "Big Four," a group of conservative Republican senators—Rhode Island's Nelson W. Aldrich (1841-1915), Iowa's William Boyd Allison (1829-1908), and Wisconsin's John Coit Spooner (1843-19l9)—recognized as "the masters of the Senate" during the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations.

Platt's major Senate efforts included service as chairman of the Committee on Territories from 1887 to 1893, during which six Western states were admitted to the Union; the engineering through the Senate of the international copyright law of 1891, legislation that ended most forms of literary piracy; and important work in the passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890.

With respect to foreign affairs, Platt generally stood with the president in office. He supported President Cleveland, whom be did not particularly like, during the Venezuela Boundary Dispute with Great Britain in 1895-1896. During the growing American impatience with Spain over Cuba in the late 1890s, Platt shared President McKinley's hesitancy as to American military intervention. Once the Spanish-American War began, however, Platt supported the American military effort and became an ardent expansionist. He supported the American acquisition of the Philippines and in 1901 introduced the so-called Platt Amendment [to an army appropriation bill] which in effect made Cuba a protectorate of the United States.

Platt was several times mentioned as a Republican vice-presidential possibility, but he apparently had no interest in office other than the senatorship from Connecticut. Orville H. Platt's career in the United States Senate reflected his own rigid sense of duty and attention to detail as well as the conservatism of the rural and business interests of the Connecticut Republican party of his day.

Further Reading

Coolidge, Louis A. Orville H. Platt of Connecticut. New York, 1910.

Smith, Edwina Carol. "Conservatism in the Gilded Age: The Senatorial Career of Orville H. Platt."  Unpublished Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1976.

Entry by David M. Roth.

* Entry under revision.