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William Dennison Jr.

William Dennison Jr. (23 November 1815-15 June 1882) was the Republican Governor of Ohio from 9 January 1860 to 13 January 1862 (succeeding Salmon P. Chase and preceding David Tod) and United States Postmaster General from 24 September 1864 to 25 July 1866 (succeeding Montgomery Blair and preceding Alexander Randall).

Biography[]

William Dennison Jr. was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1815, and he became a banker and railroad industralist before entering politics as a Whig. He was one of the first Ohio Whigs to join the Republican Party, rising through the party ranks due to his anti-slavery and anti-discrimination efforts in the state senate. He was elected to the governorship in 1859 serving a single term and refusing to extradite fugitive slaves to Kentucky and Virginia on the eve of the American Civil War. Dennison oversaw the recruitment of over twenty regiments for the Union Army during the war, and he offered George B. McClellan command of the state militia. He failed in his 1861 bid for the US Senate, and he also dealt with secessionist and "Copperhead" sentiment in his state. After the war, Dennison served on the Columbus, Ohio city council, as Postmaster General from 1864 to 1866, and as Commissioner of Washington DC from 1874 to 1878. He died in 1882.

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