Adlai Ewing Stevenson I was a Congressman from Illinois. He was Assistant Postmaster General of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889) and 23rd Vice President of the United States (1893–1897) during Cleveland's second administration. In 1900, he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Vice President on a ticket with William Jennings Bryan. Stevenson's parents, John Turner Stevenson and Eliza Ewing Stevenson, were Wesleyans of Scots-Irish descent. John Turner Stevenson's grandfather William was born in Roxburgh, Scotland, then migrated to and from Ulster around 1748, settling first in Pennsylvania and then in North Carolina. The family moved to Kentucky in 1813. Stevenson was born on the family farm in Christian County, Kentucky. He attended the common school in Blue Water, Kentucky. In 1852, when he was 16, frost killed the family's tobacco crop. His father set free their few slaves and the family moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where his father then operated a sawmill. Stevenson attended Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington and ultimately graduated from Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. His father's death prompted Adlai to return from Kentucky to Illinois to run the sawmill. Stevenson was admitted to the bar in 1858, at age 23, and commenced practice in Metamora, Illinois. As a young lawyer, Stevenson encountered such celebrated Illinois attorneys as Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, campaigning for Douglas in his 1858 Senate race against Lincoln. Stevenson's dislike of Lincoln might have been prompted by a contentious meeting between the two where Lincoln made several witty quips disparaging Stevenson. Stevenson also made speeches against the "Know-Nothing" movement, a nativist group opposed to immigrants and Catholics. That stand helped cement his support in Illinois' large German and Irish communities. In a predominantly Republican area, the Democratic Stevenson won friends through his storytelling and his warm and engaging personality. In 1868, at the end of his term as district attorney, he entered law practice with his cousin, James S. Ewing, moving with his wife back to Bloomington, settling in a large house on Franklin Square. Stevenson & Ewing would become one of the state's most prominent law firms. Ewing would later became the U.S. ambassador to Belgium. In 1874, Stevenson was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth Congress, serving from March 4, 1875 to March 4, 1877. Local Republican newspapers painted him as a "vile secessionist," but the continuing hardships from the Panic of 1873 caused voters to sweep him into office with the first Democratic congressional majority since the Civil War. In 1876, Stevenson was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection. Stevenson served as first assistant postmaster general under Grover Cleveland in 1885. During that time he fired over 40,000 Republican workers and replaced them with Democrats from the South. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress did not forget this. When Stevenson was nominated for a federal judgeship he was defeated for confirmation by the same people who never forgot his 1885 purge. In 1892, when the Democrats chose Grover Cleveland once again as their standard bearer they appeased party regulars by the nomination of Stevenson for vice president. As a supporter of using greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts, Stevenson balanced the ticket headed by Cleveland, the hard-money, gold-standard supporter. Stevenson was mentioned as a candidate to succeed Cleveland in 1896. Although he chaired the Illinois delegation to the Democratic National Convention, he gained little support. The convention was taken by storm by a thirty-six-year-old former representative from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryanand the Democrats nominated Bryan for president. Many Cleveland Democrats, including most Democratic newspapers, refused to support Bryan, but Vice President Stevenson loyally endorsed the ticket. After the 1896 election, Bryan became the leader of the Democratic party and frontrunner for the nomination in 1900 and selected Stevenson as his running mate. Bryan lost the election to William McKinley. After the 1900 election, Stevenson returned again to private practice in Illinois. He made one last attempt at office in a race for governor of Illinois in 1908, at age 72, narrowly losing. He died in Chicago on June 14, 1914. His body is interred in the family plot at Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington. Stevenson's son, Lewis G. Stevenson, was Illinois Secretary of State from 1914 to 1917. Stevenson's grandson Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 1952 and 1956 and Governor of Illinois. His great-grandson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, was a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981 and an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986.
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