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U.S. Vice Presidents: Hannibal Hamlin

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Hannibal Hamlin

(1809-1891)

Profile

Occupation

15th U.S. Vice President (1861-1865)

U.S. Minister to Spain (1881-1882)

U.S. Senator from Maine (1869-1881)

26th Governor of Maine (1857-1857)

U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 6th district (1843-1847)
Date of Birth August 27, 1809
Date of Death July 4, 1891
Place of Birth Paris, MA
Place of Death Bangor, ME
Education

Old Stone Academy

Dickinson College
Parents

Anna, née Livermore

Cyrus Hamlin
Spouse

Sarah Emery (married 1833; died 1855)

Ellen Emery (married 1856)
Political Party

Democratic (before 1856)

Republican (1856-1891)
Number of Children Six

Did You Know?

Vice President Hamlin...

  • ...maintained his stance against slavery and his work for the integration of former slaves into society.
  • ...advised President Abraham Lincoln on the Emancipation Proclamation demanding the end of slavery in the South.
  • ...was appointed by President James Garfield as a diplomat to Spain.

Biography

Hannibal Hamlin, (born Aug. 27, 1809, Paris Hill, Maine, U.S.—died July 4, 1891, Bangor, Maine), 15th vice president of the United States (1861–65) in the Republican administration of President Abraham Lincoln. Hamlin was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1842 and to the Senate in 1848. In his first term as a senator, he took an antislavery position on sectional issues and left the Democratic Party in 1856 because of its endorsement of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which proponents of abolitionism had attacked as a capitulation to the interests of the slave states. He was elected Maine’s first Republican governor (1856) but resigned in February 1857 to return to the Senate.

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