b. Moretown, Vermont, 1824
d. Washington, D.C., February, 1881

Matthew Hale Carpenter was a Lawyer and Senator. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1842 to 1845, studied law under Paul Dillingham and Rufus Choate and was admitted to the bar in 1847. In 1848, he moved to Beloit, Wisconsin. He practiced law and served as district attorney of Rock County.

Republican Party

He changed his name to Matthew Hale Carpenter in the 1850s. He quickly rose to the top in the local legal and political circles. He was one of the attorneys for William A. Barstow in the disputed gubernatorial election of 1855. In 1858, he moved to Milwaukee and briefly conducted a legal partnership with Edward G. Ryan. An avid Democrat, he supported Stephen A. Douglas in the election of 1860. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he became a "war Democrat," and soon joined the ranks of the Republican Party.

Senate

The Republican state legislature chose him to succeed James R. Doolittle as U.S. Senator in 1869. Carpenter was one of the radical supporters of President Grant in the Senate, and vigorously defended him against the criticism of Senator Charles Sumner. Carpenter was one of the leading figures in the Senate, a brilliant orator and logician. But lack of deep-rooted loyalties gave political ammunition to his enemies, who made him the symbol of reconstruction corruption. In 1874, both parties' press attacked Carpenter on political and personal grounds. At home, his defense of the Credit Mobilier and the "salary grab" act, his opinion that the state Potter law was constitutional and his support for federal railroad regulations led to his defeat.

Cases

In 1879, Carpenter was elected to the Senate again. He held the office until his death. Carpenter was one of the leading constitutionalist lawyers in the nation. He argued his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862, acquired nationwide recognition in the 1869 McCardle case and was the primary advocate for reconstruction policies.

He also worked on the famous Slaughterhouse cases of 1873 and the defense of Secretary of War William W. Belknap in the impeachment proceedings of 1876. He was retained by the Democrats in 1877 to present the case of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden to the electoral commission investigating the disputed election of 1876.

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Dict. Amer. Biog.;..F. A. Flower, Life of M. H. Carpenter (Madison, 1883); J. R. Berryman, ed., Bench and Bar of Wis. (2 vols., Chicago, 1898); Green Bag, 6 (1894) pp. 441-446; E. B. Usher, Wis. (8 vols., Chicago, 1914); Milwaukee Evening Wis., Feb. 24, 1881; Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 24, 1881; WPA field notes; E. B. Thompson, M. H. Carpenter (Madison, 1954).