Senator Albert Collins Greene

Albert Collins Greene, U.S. Senator

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_C._Greene
• https://ledger.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/ledger/students/1074

Greene was a United States Senator from Rhode Island.

Biography

He was born in East Greenwich, the son of Perry Greene, a brother of American Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene. He graduated from Kent Academy, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1812, and commenced practice in East Greenwich. He was a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1815 to 1825, serving as speaker from 1821 to 1825. He was brigadier general, and then major general, of the Fourth Brigade of State Militia from 1816 to 1823 and was attorney general of Rhode Island from 1825 to 1843.

Greene was a member of the Rhode Island Senate in 1843-1844, and was elected as a Whig to the U.S. Senate, serving from March 4, 1845 to March 4, 1851; he was not a candidate for reelection, and was elected to the Rhode Island Senate in 1851 and 1852. In 1857 he was again a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He retired from public life, and died in Providence; interment was in Grace Church Cemetery.

Perhaps a young state wanted young leadership. Or perhaps his good name and amiable nature attracted Rhode Island voters. Whatever the reason, by the time he turned 30, Albert Collins Greene was the speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, the major general of the militia and the state’s most popular political figure.

Four years later, at 34, he was overwhelmingly elected attorney general of Rhode Island, despite entering the race a scant month before the election and receiving neither political party’s nomination. His remarkable career of public service included terms in both houses of the state legislature, 18 years as attorney general and six years in the U.S. Senate.

Albert Collins Greene hailed from a family that expected great achievements, early and often. The youngest son of Perry and Elizabeth Greene, Albert was born April 15, 1791, to one of Rhode Island’s most prominent families. His uncle, Gen. Nathanael Greene, a hero of the Revolutionary War, was perhaps the state’s most revered resident — indeed, Albert Collins Greene often was compared to his uncle, and it was said Albert “was second only to him who was equaled by none.” His mother, Elizabeth, hailed from the prominent Belcher family of Newport and, with her dark hair, ivory skin and aristocratic features, was considered one of the loveliest women of Rhode Island society. Her beauty was so prized that a local dealer in fine china produced porcelain miniatures of her, a turn of events to which she gave her tacit approval by not raising an objection.

From a very early age Albert was driven to succeed, perhaps partly by his demanding father. Afflicted with what might today be diagnosed as muscular dystrophy but that at the time was thought to be merely physical weakness, the elder Greene was perpetually overshadowed by his renowned older brother, Nathanael, with whom he nevertheless enjoyed a close fraternal relationship.

Determined to see his son succeed where he could not, Albert’s father arranged for him to leave the family’s comfortable East Greenwich home at the age of 12 — after he had completed his studies at the local Kent Academy — and become an apprentice to George Brinkerhoff, a prominent lawyer in New York City and a friend of the Greenes.

Following his apprenticeship, Albert enrolled in the Law School at Litchfield, Conn., where he easily excelled, perhaps because of the years of experience he had gained with Brinkerhoff. At the age of 21 he passed the Rhode Island bar exam, administered by an associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court, and in 1813 returned to East Greenwich to set up a law practice.

But the private life was not for Albert. Within two years he ran for his first public office: East Greenwich’s representative in the state House of Representatives. He was, by all accounts, not motivated by ideology, but rather by an earnest belief that men of his stature had a responsibility to serve the public good.

A Whig by upbringing, Albert Collins Greene was a political moderate — his only apparent political passion was for former President George Washington, to whom he frequently swore allegiance — and his lack of partisan zeal was a calming influence in the fledgling state legislature. His unflappable demeanor and deep sense of fair play made him a perfect candidate for Speaker of the House, which he was elected in 1822, just seven years after taking office as a representative.

He was, perhaps, unflappable in the face of political squabbles because he knew too well a more profound grief than the temporary setbacks of partisan wrangling.

Consistent with the pace of his professional life, Greene married early, at age 20, the year before he passed the bar exam, and by age 21 he had a son, William Albert, who was followed the next year by a daughter, Katharine Celia. By the time Greene was elected Speaker of the House, he and his wife, Catharine Celia Greene, had four children: a son and three daughters.

But they had also lost three infant sons, and their deaths haunted Albert.

In January of 1826, after just 11 years of marriage, Albert lost Catherine to fever. She was just 32 years old. Friends privately noted that he never seemed to recover from her loss, but he poured himself into his work in the public sphere with a renewed vigor.

In 1840 tragedy struck again, when Albert’s eldest child, William Albert, died aboard the steamboat Lexington, which caught fire and burned off Long Island Sound en route to Stonington, Connecticut from New York.

Albert spent the 15 years after Catherine’s death alone, until he remarried, at the age of 50, to a widow, Julia Bourne, 51, of Bristol. She died less than five months after they were wed, and Albert remained a bachelor for the rest of his days.

Whether because personal tragedy steeled him for public controversy or simply as a result of his naturally even-tempered demeanor, Greene steered the House of Representatives with a steady hand. But his duties in the House occupied him only part of the time, leaving plenty of time for the practice of law, his first love. By all accounts he was that rare specimen: a born lawyer.

“His pleasant, friendly manner often led on a partisan witness to admissions which destroyed or abated the force of his testimony,” said Chief Justice Ames of the Rhode Island Supreme Court in a pamphlet passed out at Greene’s funeral. “He would seek and find, with instinctive acuteness, the most undefended points in [the witness’s] cause, and press them home for a verdict.”

In 1825, 10 years after he first entered public life and a few months before he lost his first wife, Greene was elected attorney general and began what was perhaps the most satisfying period of his professional life, for his new position required that he spend nearly all of his time where he was happiest and most at home: court.

In the office of attorney general Greene became the best liked public figure in Rhode Island, as his

professional duties carried him into every corner of the state and brought him into greater contact with the people than any other public figure of the time.

He was one of only a handful of lawyers who could pack a courtroom with spectators simply by arguing a case. Indeed, on days he was known to be appearing in open court, the line for admission to the courthouse would often stretch for a block or more.

He was held in such high esteem that, after he had spent some years as attorney general, juries began to take his word as proof in itself.

“His assertion alone was treated by them as full proof of the law,” said Chief Justice Ames. “To his honor ... he was never known to abuse it ... he was never suspected of affirming that which he did not believe to be correct.”

Greene adored and dominated the clubby atmosphere of the Rhode Island Bar. Reserved, fastidious and at all times utterly proper in his conduct, he was hardly a gregarious backslapper, but he nevertheless endeared himself to his colleagues, and won their respect, with his gentlemanly conduct and generous spirit. He steadfastly upheld the custom of attending open court whenever it was in session, even as some lawyers began the more modern practice of only showing up to argue cases, because he enjoyed the community atmosphere of the Bar and meant to support his colleagues.

In 1844, after running unopposed for attorney general eight times and serving 18 years in that position, Greene bowed to pressure from his colleagues and ran for the Rhode Island Senate.

The state had just ratified a new constitution, and Greene was urged to run for the Senate, for the Legislature needed his steady leadership more than ever to help smooth out the transition from the old constitution to the new. He was easily elected, becoming the first senator from East Greenwich under the new constitution.

But no sooner had he taken his seat in the Senate chambers than he was called on to represent Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate. Senators during that era were appointed by their states’ legislatures rather than directly elected as they are today, and in Rhode Island U.S. senators were generally chosen from among the members of the state Senate, making Greene an obvious selection. He easily won election on the first round of balloting, and on March 4, 1845, he was sworn in as a member of the U.S. Senate.

As a senator, Greene established a reputation as a principled and articulate legislator who sought to bring the same kind of meticulous order to the lawmaking process as he imposed on his own life.

In March of 1849, for example, Greene took the Senate floor to declare his support for the abolition of corporal punishment aboard Navy ships and, simultaneously, his intention to vote against a bill that would ban the practice. He objected to the way the measure was introduced, arguing that it had been tacked onto an appropriations bill as an afterthought and made no provisions for maintaining order aboard Navy ships once the lash was retired.

“I am in favor, sir, of abrogating the punishment of the lash in the Navy of the United States,” he said, “but I am in favor of that as I am in favor of all other legislation — only at the proper time, in the proper place and in the proper manner.”

But Greene reserved his most energetic oratory for the subject that came to define the times: the Mexican-American War. He became a fervent opponent of what he argued was quickly turning into the conquest of Mexico, and on Feb. 18, 1848, he delivered from the Senate floor a stirring indictment of President Polk for pursuing an “unconstitutional” war.

A staunch opponent of the extension of slavery, he feared any annexation of Mexican territory would bring up the question of slavery and upset the delicate balance of slave and free states.

“The mass of Mexicans, ignorant, unenlightened, varying in complexion as they are, have all the rights of free men in their present condition,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Are we willing to give them the same rights as a portion of the United States?”

As a senator Greene also took an assortment of less controversial positions. He petitioned for the purchase of Mount Vernon, argued against increasing postal rates and, in the name of Brown University professors, asked that foreign books be allowed duty-free import into the United States.

The only known portrait of Greene comes from his time in the Senate. Shown in profile as he listens to Daniel Webster addressing the Senate on the Compromise of 1850, his face is seemingly made up exclusively of angles: strong chin, deep set eyes, a sharp nose. At 59 the cares of more than 30 years of public service show in the lines on his face, the set of his jaw, the streaks of gray in his hair.

Tired, perhaps, by so long in the public eye, and longing to return to Rhode Island, Greene did not seek a second term in the U.S. Senate, but returned in 1851 to finish his political career as he had begun it: in the Rhode Island Legislature. He served an additional term in the state Senate before moving to Providence from East Greenwich and mounting his last political campaign: to represent Providence in the state House of Representatives. By this time, some 37 years after he was first elected to office, Greene enjoyed the respect and prominence of a senior statesman and easily won election to a final term, which he carried out before retiring from the public life in 1857 at the age of 65.

On Jan. 8, 1863, Albert Collins Greene passed away at the age of 71. He was laid to rest at the Grace Church Cemetery. The next day, the Providence Journal devoted an editorial to him.

“His integrity was never questioned, his honor was never tarnished,” the Journal wrote. “He leaves a good name to his posterity, which, in these latter days, when uprightness seems to be passing from among men, is more precious than rubies.”

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7254016

GEDCOM Note

US Senator. Elected as a Senator from Rhode Island to the US Senate, serving from 1845-1851. Also served as a nenber if the Rhode Island State Legislator.
Source Link: https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000175875251855label=@S489@