Van Wyck was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from New York to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1859 – March 3, 1863). He served as chairman, Committee on Mileage (Thirty-sixth Congress) and on the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions (Thirty-seventh Congress). While in Congress, Van Wyck was a prominent member of an investigation into fraud at the New York Custom House and played a crucial role in the passage of the Fraud Claims Act. In his minority report to the investigation committee he famously wrote: “Worse than traitors in arms are the men, pretending loyalty to the flag, who feast and
fatten on the misfortunes of the nation, while patriot blood is crimsoning the plains of the south, and the bodies of their countrymen are mouldering in dust.”
Assassination attempt
Van Wyck delivered a harsh anti-slavery speech on the House floor on March 7, 1860, which denounced the Southern states for the "crime against the laws of God and nature."[3] The speech was widely reported. On February 22, 1861, Van Wyck was assaulted near the United States Capitol by three men in an assassination attempt, an attack which was reported as related to the prior year's speech.[4] Van Wyck fought off the attack, surviving only because a notebook and copy of the Congressional Globe which he had kept in the breast pocket of his coat had blocked the blade of a Bowie knife.[4] The three men fled and were never identified. This was also the same night as an alleged attempt was made to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln in Baltimore, Maryland.[4]
Van Wyck was elected to the Fortieth Congress (March 4, 1867 – March 3, 1869); successfully contested the election of George Woodward Greene to the Forty-first Congress and served from February 17, 1870 to March 3, 1871.
He moved to Nebraska in 1874, where he settled on a farm in Otoe County, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. Van Wyck was a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1875. He was elected to the State senate 1877, 1879, 1881. That year, he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate from Nebraska and served from March 4, 1881 to March 3, 1887. He served as chairman, Committee on the Mississippi River and Its Tributaries (Forty-seventh Congress) and on the Committee on the Improvement of the Mississippi River and Tributaries (Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses). Van Wyck was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection. In 1892, he was an unsuccessful Populist candidate for Governor of Nebraska. Van Wyck then retired from political life and active business pursuits. He died in Washington, D.C., and was interred beside his wife, Kate Brodhead,[7] in Milford Cemetery, Milford, Pennsylvania.
^Speech of Hon. C. H. Van Wyck, of New York. Delivered in the House of representatives, March 7, 1860. Republican executive congressional committee. OL13505861M. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)