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Adlai Stevenson I

Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (23 October 1835-14 June 1914) was Vice President of the United States from 4 March 1893 to 4 March 1897, succeeding Levi P. Morton and preceding Garret Hobart. He previously served in the US House of Representatives (D-IL 13) from 4 March 1873 to 3 March 1877 (succeeding John McNulta and preceding Thomas F. Tipton) and from 4 March 1879 to 3 March 1881 (succeeding Tipton and preceding Dietrich C. Smith).

Biography[]

Adlai Ewing Stevenson was born in Herndon, Christian County, Kentucky in 1835, and his family moved to Bloomington, Illinois in 1852. Stevenson became a lawyer in Metamora in 1858, campaigned for the Democrat Stephen A. Douglas during his 1858 US Senate race against the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, spoke out against the Know Nothings, served as a Democratic presidential elector in 1864, and served in the US House of Representatives from 1873 to 1877 and from 1879 to 1881. Stevenson won the support of Irish and German immigrants and Republican voters, and he attacked high tariffs and congressional pay raises. He became grandmaster of the Masonic chapter in Bloomington, and he also founded the Bloomington Daily Bulletin newspaper in 1881. From 1885 to 1889, he served as President Grover Cleveland's First Assistant United States Postmaster General, firing many Republican postal workers and replacing them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the scorn of Republicans and the support of Cleveland, and he went on to serve as Cleveland's Vice President from 1893 to 1897. He supported the free-silver lobby against Cleveland's Bourbon Democrats, and he was known for his nonpartisanship during his tenure. Stevenson loyally endorsed William Jennings Bryan after he won the Democratic nomination for President in 1896, and he was Bryan's unsuccessful vice-presidential running mate in 1900. He died in 1914, and his grandson Adlai Stevenson II would also unsuccessfully run for President in 1952 and 1956.

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