Daniel Stevens Dickinson (September 11, 1800 – April 12, 1866) was an American politician and lawyer, most notable as a United States senator from 1844 to 1851.
Biography
Born in Goshen, Connecticut, he moved with his parents to Guilford, Chenango County, New York, in 1806. He attended the common schools, was apprenticed to a clothier, and taught school at Wheatland, New York from 1821 on. In 1822, he married Lydia Knapp, with whom he had four children: Virginia, Manco, Lydia, and Mary; Virginia died at age 20 in 1846, and Manco in 1851.[1][2] He also engaged in land surveying, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. He commenced practice in Guilford, and served as Postmaster of Guilford from 1827 to 1832. He moved to Binghamton, New York and served as its first Village President in 1834.[3]
In 1844, he was appointed as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, and was subsequently elected to a full term, holding office from November 30, 1844, to March 3, 1851. He was Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Finance (1849–1850), a member of the Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth United States Congresses), and a member of the Committee on Private Land Claims (Thirty-first United States Congress). As a senator and after, Dickinson was the leader of the conservative Hunker faction of the New York Democratic Party, and would eventually become leader of the "Hards" who opposed reconciliation with the more radical Barnburner faction which had left the party in 1848 to join the Free Soilers. Dickinson resumed the practice of law in 1851. He was delegate to the 1852 Democratic National Convention, where, on the 48th ballot, after efforts to nominate Franklin Pierce had fallen short, Virginia dramatically switched its votes from Pierce to Dickinson. The enthusiastic reaction in the hall suggested that a delegate-stampede to Dickinson might have ensued, but Dickinson then addressed the convention and "eloquently withdrew his own name," enabling Pierce to obtain the nomination on the next ballot.[4] In 1853, President Pierce appointed him as Collector of the Port of New York, but he declined to take office. In 1860, he supported John C. Breckinridge for president.
Dickinson was considered as a possible vice presidential candidate when Abraham Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864 and desired a pro-war Democrat on the Republican ticket to demonstrate support for his war policy, but the nomination went to Andrew Johnson. Dickinson supported Lincoln's reelection, and was appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1865, an office in which he served until his death.
On April 12, 1866, Dickinson died suddenly in New York City at the residence of his son-in-law Samuel G. Courtney, and was buried at the Spring Forest Cemetery in Binghamton. His cause of death was reported as a hernia.[5][6]
Speiser, Matt. “The Ticket’s Other Half: How and Why Andrew Johnson Received the 1864 Vice Presidential Nomination.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 65, no. 1 (2006): 42–69. online.