William D. Kelley

After the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Kelley quit the Democratic Party and was one of the founders of the Republican Party.[7]

Kelley was elected as a Republican to Congress in 1860 and served from March 4, 1861, until his death in Washington, D.C. Friendly with Abraham Lincoln, he had served on the committee that went to Springfield to inform the Republican that he had been nominated by the Chicago convention in 1860. He became one of the most prominent figures in the Union League in Philadelphia and an early advocate of enlisting black soldiers on the Union side. At the war's end, when the United States flag was raised over Fort Sumter again, Kelley was one of the delegation sent to attend the ceremony. He spoke often on the justice and necessity of "impartial suffrage", or voting rights for African-Americans, introduced a bill (which passed into law) in the 39th United States Congress which gave the right to vote to African-Americans in the District of Columbia, and spoke in favor of impeaching President Johnson, who had vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill .[8]

Kelley served as Chairman of the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures (1867–1873), Ways and Means Committee (1881–1883), and Committee on Manufactures (1889–1890).[9]

As a member of Congress, Kelley was exempt from military service. Nevertheless, during the American Civil War he volunteered during a September, 1862 emergency call up for service in the Independent Artillery Company, a home guard unit. He served his term of enlistment as a Private.[10][11][12]

In 1871, Kelley was the first Washington politician to suggest of what would later become Yellowstone National Park, as reported by Jay Cooke: "Let Congress pass a bill reserving the Great Geyser Basin as a public park forever--just as it has reserved that far inferior wonder the Yosemite Valley "[13]

He served as Chairman on the United States House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and on the Committee on Manufactures (51st United States Congress).

In his later career, Kelley was best known as an advocate of a high protective tariff. His support for high duties on two Pennsylvania products, iron and steel, earned him the nickname, "Pig-Iron" Kelley. His belief was sincere, and so strong that he would never let himself wear any garment made from an imported product or use any article made in a foreign country, and often lectured his friends for using goods that foreign labor had fashioned.[14] Contrary to what his critics assumed, he never had any financial investments in ironworks or any branch of the iron trade, mines or mining stock.[15]

In 1872, Kelley was among the congressmen accused by the "New York Sun" of having taken bribes from Credit Mobilier, the company formed to construct the Union Pacific Railroad. Kelley, who protested his innocence, had been given Credit Mobilier stock and paid for it out of its dividends, but no evidence showed that he had been asked for any favors in return, and it did not affect his career. Far more controversially, he favored an expansion of the national currency supply during the depression of the 1870s, a position shared at the time by many iron and steel manufacturers troubled by tight credit and currency deflation. To eastern critics, that proved that he was a communist, "an outcast -- a madman. Nobody owns him," said one reporter, "and he is called 'the 365 lunatic.' When he first rose in debate he had the appearance of a crazy man, and a stranger in the galleries would have been excusable for thinking that there was a man just out of bedlam.".[16]

An 1873 investigation connected Kelley to the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. The Congressional committee that reviewed the issue suggested that in the late 1860s Kelley had accepted dividends from shares of Credit Mobilier stock despite not yet having paid for them. Kelley stated that he had contracted with Oakes Ames, a member of the House involved with Crédit Mobilier, to purchase ten shares. At the time of the purchase, Kelley was not prepared to pay, so Ames agreed to hold his shares for him. Kelley told the House that he believed that Ames had sold the stock, and then had paid Kelley the difference between what Kelley had agreed to pay for it and the amount that Ames had received when he sold it—a legitimate transaction by the standards of the day. He also noted to House members that he had been involved in other activities, such as the letting of ship construction contracts during the Civil War, where opportunities for bribery and corruption existed, but had never been accused of dishonesty in those matters. A motion to censure him went through several procedural votes before it was tabled without action.[17]

• Slavery in the Territories (1854)

• The Equality of All Men Before the Law: Claimed and Defended (1865)
• Reasons for Abandoning the Theory of Free Trade and Adopting the Principle of Protection to American Industry (1872)
• Speeches, Addresses (1872)
• Letters on Industrial and Financial Questions (1872)
• Letters from Europe (1880)
• The Old South and the New (1887)