YATES, Richard, Congress, IL (1815-1873)

Senate Years of Service: 1865-1871
Party: Republican

YATES, Richard, (father of Richard Yates [1860-1936]), a Representative and a Senator from Illinois; born in Warsaw, Gallatin County, Ky., January 18, 1815; attended the common schools; moved to Illinois in 1831; graduated from Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill, in 1835; studied law at Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.; admitted to the bar in 1837 and commenced practice in Jacksonville, Ill.; member, State house of representatives 1842-1845, 1848-1849; elected as a Whig to the Thirty-second and Thirty-third Congresses (March 4, 1851-March 3, 1855); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1854 to the Thirty-fourth Congress; Governor of Illinois 1861-1865; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1863; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1865, to March 3, 1871; was not a candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Thirty-ninth and Forty-first Congresses), Committee on Territories (Fortieth Congress); appointed by President Ulysses Grant as a United States commissioner to inspect a land subsidy railroad; died suddenly in St. Louis, Mo., November 27, 1873; interment in Diamond Grove Cemetery, Jacksonville, Ill.

Bibliography American National Biography ; Dictionary of American Biography ; Hartman, Linda. “The Issue of Freedom in Illinois Under Gov. Richard Yates, 1861-1865.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 57 (Autumn 1964): 293-97; Yates, Richard [1860-1936], and Catherine Pickering Yates. Richard Yates, Civil War Governor . Edited by John H. Krenkel. Danville, IL: Interstate Printers & Publishers, 1966.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present