James Falconer "Jefferson Jim" Wilson (October 19, 1828April 22, 1895) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a Republican U.S. Congressman from Iowa's 1st congressional district during the American Civil War, and later as a two-term U.S. Senator from Iowa. He was a pioneer in the advancement of federal protection for civil rights.

While in the United States House of Representatives, he had prominently opposed the 1867 effort to impeach President Andrew Johnson. However, he voted for the subsequent 1868 impeachment of Johnson, and served as a manager (prosecutor) during Johnson's impeachment trial.

In the last half of the nineteenth century, two unrelated Iowans named James Wilson achieved high office, necessitating an early form of disambiguation. Representative and Senator James F. Wilson (of Jefferson County, Iowa) became known as "Jefferson Jim" Wilson, while Representative and Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (of Tama County, Iowa) became known as "Tama Jim" Wilson. After serving as a harnessmaker's apprentice, he studied law in Newark alongside future U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Burnham Woods.

Wilson played an important role in the formation of the Iowa Republican Party, and antebellum Iowa government. In 1857, he was a delegate to Iowa's constitutional convention, and served as a Republican in the Iowa House of Representatives that year and in 1859, when he was elected to the Iowa Senate. He served on the Committee of the Judiciary, Curtis won the nomination, then the general election. After the outbreak of the Civil War, however, Curtis resigned to accept appointment as an officer of the Union Army. At the convention called to choose the Republican nominee to succeed Curtis, "it was a foregone conclusion that James F. Wilson would be the unanimous choice." In all, Wilson served in the House from October 8, 1861, to March 4, 1869.

1867 impeachment inquiry against Andrew Johnson

Wilson voted in support of launching the 1867 impeachment inquiry against Andrew Johnson. The vote authorizing the impeachment inquiry was largely seen as a means for Republicans to voice their displeasure with Johnson without actually going so far as to impeach him. Many Republicans fully expected that the House Committee on the Judiciary, which would oversee the inquiry, would not recommend impeachment, and that the prospect of impeachment would die quietly in the committee.

At the time of the inquiry, Wilson was the chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. As a member of the committee, Wilson voted against recommending impeachment. However, on November 25, 1867, the committee voted 5–4 in support of recommending impeachment. Wilson wrote one of the committee's minority reports against impeachment. In his minority report, Wilson argued that, while Johnson, "deserves the censure and condemnation of every well-disposed citizen," the Congress should wait and let Americans remove Johnson from office in the 1868 presidential election. His minority report declared that Johnson, "has disappointed the hopes and expectations of those who placed him in power. He had betrayed their confidence and joined hands with their enemies." However, in arguing against impeachment, it declared, "the day of political impeachments would be a sad one for this country."

When the full House of Representatives subsequently voted on whether to impeach President Johnson, on December 7, 1867, he presented the argument against impeachment after George S. Boutwell made the case in support of impeachment. Wilson argued that while Johnson was the "worst of presidents", his opposition to the positions of the Republican Party was not itself illegal. He argued that, despite Boutwell's assertions that it did, the House did not have lone authority to determine what constitutes an "impeachable offense". Wilson warned the that a broad interpretation of impeachment powers, as Boutwell championed, in theory could allow the House to effectively dictate the policy of presidents. Wilson characterized Boutwell as having effectively argued that the House should be allowed to impeach Johnson for something he could do, rather than some thing he had done. Wilson argued, "this would lead us even beyond the conscience of this house." In his closing remarks, Wilson asked, "if we cannot arraign the president for a specific crime, for what are we to proceed against him?" After Wilson delivered his argument against impeachment were presented, the House voted proceeded to hold a vote in which it strongly voted against impeachment.

Despite his initial misgivings on impeachment, Before the vote, Wilson expressed an opinion representative of those expressed during debate by many Republicans that had previously voted against the impeachment resolution brought by the Judiciary Committee at the close of the 1867 impeachment inquiry against Johnson, When the House voted on specific articles of impeachment in early March, Wilson voted for all but one of the eleven articles, being one of twelve members of the Republican Party to vote against the tenth article of impeachment (which had been written by Benjamin Butler independent from the seven-member committee). Wilson was elected one of the seven House managers (prosecutors) for impeachment trial of President Johnson. During the trial, Wilson sparred with Maine senator William P. Fessenden, who claimed that he broke from "his usual discretion." The General Assembly re-elected him in 1888 to a second six-year term. In the Senate, Wilson served as chairman of the Committee of Mines and Mining (in the Forty-eighth Congress), Committee on Expenditures of Public Money (in the Forty-eighth Congress), Committee on the Judiciary Committee (in the Forty-ninth), Committee on Revision of the Laws of the United States (in the Forty-ninth through Fifty-second Congresses), and the Committee on Education and Labor (in the Fifty-second Congress).

In the Senate, Wilson was known as a staunch supporter of the Prohibition cause, being a member of the Sons of Temperance. President Benjamin Harrison instead picked Michigan judge Henry Billings Brown, who would later write the Supreme Court's opinion upholding "separate but equal" racial segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

Death

Wilson died in Fairfield shortly after his second Senate term ended. In its obituary, the New York Times attributed his death to "paralysis of the brain", and stated that his death had been expected.

See also

  • US Senator James F. Wilson House in Fairfield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

References

  • James F. Wilson at The Political Graveyard