George S. (George Sewall) Boutwell

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1818, he grew up with modest schooling, taught for a time, worked in business, and studied law largely on his own. He entered politics early, served in the Massachusetts legislature, and became governor of Massachusetts in the early 1850s. As the slavery crisis deepened, he helped build the Republican Party in Massachusetts and became identified with its antislavery wing.

During and after the Civil War, he rose to national prominence. He served as the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue, then as a member of Congress, where he was one of the House managers in the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson. President Ulysses S. Grant later appointed him Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held from 1869 to 1873, before he went on to serve in the U.S. Senate.

In his later years, he remained active in public life as a writer, lawyer, and speaker. He is especially remembered for his strong support of Black civil rights during Reconstruction and, near the end of his life, for serving as the first president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, opposing U.S. control of overseas territories after the Spanish-American War. He died in 1905, after a public career that stretched across more than half a century.