George Sewall Boutwell (28 January 1818-27 February 1905) was Governor of Massachusetts from 11 January 1851 to 14 January 1853 (succeeding George N. Briggs and preceding John H. Clifford), in the US House of Representatives (R-MA 7) from 4 March 1863 to 12 March 1869 (succeeding Daniel W. Gooch and preceding George M. Brooks), Secretary of Treasury from 12 March 1869 to 16 March 1873 (succeeding Hugh McCulloch and preceding William Adams Richardson), and a US Senator from Massachusetts from 17 March 1873 to 3 March 1877 (succeeding Henry Wilson and preceding George Frisbie Hoar).
Biography[]
George Sewall Boutwell was born on Brookline, Massachusetts in 1818, and he was raised in Lunenburg. He worked as a clerk and shopkeeper in Groton from 1835 to 1838, and he was inspired by Daniel Webster to join the abolitionist movement. He entered politics as a Democrat supportive of Martin Van Buren, and he served on the board of education and in the State House before serving as Governor from 1851 to 1853, in the US House of Representatives from 1863 to 1869, Secretary of Treasury from 1869 to 1873, and a US Senator from 1873 to 1877. He became a Republican in 1855, and he championed African-American civil rights and suffrage during Reconstruction, and he was instrumental in the construction and passage of the Reconstruction amendments. As Treasury Secretary, he reduced the national debt by selling Treasury gold and created a cash shortage by using greenback money to buy up Treasury bonds; in 1869, he released $4 million in gold into the economy. He went on to sponsor the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and he later went on to practice international law. At the turn of the 20th century, he quit the Republican Party because of his opposition to the acquisition of the Philippines and supported William Jennings Bryan for President as a Democratic elector.