William E. Chandler (1835 - 1917)
Born and died at Concord (NH).
Lawyer, state and national legislator.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1894, after an 1885 portrait by Matthew Wilson.
Presented to the State, 1894.

Chandler studied at academies in Pembroke (NH) and Thetford (VT) before entering Harvard Law School. He graduated in 1855 and was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar the same year.

Chandler practiced law in Concord for several years. He was appointed court reporter for the New Hampshire Supreme Court (1859). Active in state politics, Chandler served as a State Representative (1862 - 1864); in 1863 and 1864 Chandler was Speaker of the House. He was also chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Committee for several years.

The U.S. Navy Yard at Philadelphia was a comfortable operation, where it was suspected money was being spent unwisely. March 9, 1865 President Lincoln appointed Chandler Solicitor and Judge Advocate General for the U.S. Navy, the first time these two posts had been created. But Chandler resigned those investigator positions later that year, to become Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury. He resigned his position with the Treasury soon thereafter (November 30, 1867), to practice law in Washington, D.C. Chandler also served as secretary to the Republican National Committee (1868 - 1876).

In 1876 Chandler served as one of the legal counsel to the electors pledged to Rutherford B. Hayes, a candidate for the presidency. The 1876 Hayes-Tilden campaign was one of the most important campaigns in American history, because from it came the Democratic South which has only recently seen inroads made by the Republican Party. The 1876 elections in the South were thought to be corrupted by Reconstruction, and results were challenged in a number of states. In Florida the board of canvassers challenged the results and Chandler was one of the counsel representing electors pledged to the Republican candidate, Hayes. In the end the Electoral Commission gave all the disputed returns to Hayes, allowing Hayes to win in the Electoral College by one vote. Hayes became president; the South became a solid Democratic Party block in its first election since reentering the Union, and it remained a Democratic Party power base until the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan's form of Republicanism carried the region.

Chandler's service to the Republican Party made Chandler a national Republican Party figure. In 1880 Chandler was a member of the Committee on Credentials at the 1880 Republican National Convention, and he was a member of the Republican National Committee during the campaign. He was nominated for Solicitor General by President Garfield (March 23, 1881); but Garfield had passed over the "stalwarts" chosen by his powerful Republican supporter at a deadlocked national convention, Roscoe Conkling, and chosen Conkling's mortal enemy, James G. Blaine, to be Secretary of State. An infuriated Republican Senate refused to confirm Chandler because he was a Garfield nominee. Conkling had given Garfield only passive, pro forma support during the convention, but Garfield needed Conkling's support in order to govern. For the rest of his term Garfield was pursued by angry office-seekers, and one of them attempted to assassinate Garfield (July 2, 1881). The president died of his wound in September. Chandler returned to New Hampshire to serve as a State Representative. He favored state regulation of railroad freight prices during his one year term.

The Vice President, Chester A. Arthur, was loyal to Roscoe Conkling; Garfield had acceded to Arthur's being on the presidential ticket in order to win Conkling's support. When Vice President Arthur became president he nominated Chandler to be his Secretary of the Navy. Chandler fought the comfortable practice of repairing wooden vessels, which were worthless in the new era of post-Civil War ordinance. He fought to reduce the extravagant Navy Yard establishment. He resigned his position after three years (March 7, 1885). On June 14, 1887 Chandler was chosen by New Hampshire to fill out the unexpired term of (Republican) U.S. Senator Austin F. Pike. Chandler was subsequently elected to two full terms as New Hampshire's United States Senator (1889 - 1895, 1895 - 1901).

Upon completion of his second full term in the United States Senate, President McKinley appointed William Chandler to be Spanish War Claims Commissioner. Chandler served six years (1901 - 1907) in that position.

References: Richard Herndon, ed., Men of Progress (1898); National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (vol. IV, 1897); Thetford Academy 75th Anniversary and Reunion (1894).