Schuyler Colfax

• Born: March 23, 1823
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: January 13, 1885
• Place of death: Mankato, Minnesota

U.S. vice president (1869-1873)

Cause of notoriety: Colfax allegedly accepted a bribe in the form of stock in Crédit Mobilier, a large railroad construction company. Although he was investigated by Congress, he was never impeached.

Active: 1865-1867

Locale: Washington, D.C.

Early Life

The father of Schuyler Colfax (SKI-ler KOHL-fax) died four months prior to his son’s birth. Young Schuyler grew up poor and at the age of ten began working in a retail store to help support his mother and grandmother. In 1836, his mother remarried, and the family moved to Indiana, where Schuyler initially worked in his stepfather’s store. Colfax became the deputy auditor of St. Joseph County, Indiana, in 1841. He later became a legislative correspondent for an Indiana newspaper and in 1845 bought a partial interest in a South Bend newspaper that was the major Whig supporter in northern Indiana. He married a childhood friend, Evelyn Clark, in 1844.

Political Career

In 1850, Colfax ran for Congress as a Whig candidate but was narrowly defeated. As a Republican, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1854 on an antislavery ticket and served as congressman until becoming vice president of the United States in 1869 under President Ulysses S. Grant. Cofax served his last six years in Congress as Speaker of the House.

Colfax had long been a beloved man in Congress. He taught Sunday school, often spoke at temperance meetings, and was considered a Christian statesman. In fact, his abstinence from drinking hard liquor was one reason he was nominated for vice president: It was felt that he would balance the hard-drinking Grant. Colfax’s image changed when a September 4, 1872, article in the powerful New York Sun accused him and other noted politicians of accepting stock in the Crédit Mobilier in exchange for their influence in Congress.

Crédit Mobilier was the construction company that built the transcontinental railroad on behalf of the Union Pacific Railroad. The objective of the bribes was to ensure that there would be no interference from Congress to delay federal money being funneled into railroad construction. To make the matter of taking bribes even worse, it was determined that one of the purposes of Crédit Mobilier, besides building the railroad, was to defraud the government by overcharging for construction of the tracks. Insiders at the Union Pacific Railroad had created the construction company to enable them to pay themselves millions of dollars to build the railroad. Thus, Crédit Mobilier was a scandal of gargantuan proportions even before it was connected to the acceptance of bribes by politicians.

Crédit Mobilier was formed by Thomas Durant of the Union Pacific Railroad to construct the transcontinental railroad, primarily because the separate corporation would allow Durant to line his own pockets without oversight from either the railroad company or Congress. President Abraham Lincoln had been an avid supporter of the transcontinental project and provided unwavering support. When he was assassinated in April, 1865—before any tracks had yet been laid—Durant and his successor, Oakes Ames, worried that Congress would vote to cut its losses and abandon the government contracts. Their solution was to obtain support from congressional leaders by selling them stock in the company at bargain prices.

The investigation disclosed that Colfax had received twenty shares of stock in Crédit Mobilier and dividends from that investment totaling twelve hundred dollars. Colfax asserted that he had never owned any stock that he had not purchased. Similarly, he claimed never to have received the supposed twelve hundred dollars in dividends.

Legal Action and Outcome

Colfax was the subject of a congressional investigation by the House Judiciary Committee. The investigation determined that Colfax had indeed deposited that amount into his bank account just two days after the supposed dividend payment. After two weeks, Colfax explained that the deposit had been a campaign contribution from a friend who had since died. Even his strongest supporters doubted this story. The money, even if it had been contributed, would have been perceived as a bribe to get Colfax to buy government supplies from the donor.

Colfax was never impeached because his alleged crime took place before he became vice president, and he was nearing the end of his term in office at the time of the investigation. Because of the stigma attached to the accusation, Colfax was not renominated for the 1872 election. Following his retirement from politics, he lectured throughout the United States on the topic of morality in government and on his relationship with former president Lincoln. Some of Colfax’s fellow congressmen accused of bribe-taking were formally censured, but no criminal or civil charges were ever filed against any of the individuals involved in the Crédit Mobilier scandal.

Impact

Even though he was not found guilty, Schuyler Colfax saw his political career destroyed by the scandal. Partially because of the Crédit Mobilier incident and the failure of the transcontinental railroads to make their bond payments, the Panic of 1873 ensued. The result was a disastrous collapse on Wall Street followed by a depression that lasted several years. Although Colfax had played a minor role, media coverage of this economic collapse led many investors to blame him for it.

Bibliography

Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Although this volume does not devote much attention to Colfax, it is an excellent overview of the history of the transcontinental railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America.

Moore, Ambrose Yoemans. The Life of Schuyler Colfax. Philadephia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1868. This is a laudatory biography, published while Colfax was running for vice president. Probably a sponsored biography to help the campaign, it is nonetheless a good source of information on Colfax’s early life.

Smith, Willard H. Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political Idol. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952. A well-researched biography that emphasizes the way the public viewed Colfax before and after the scandal. The chapter on the Crédit Mobilier is probably the best source on Colfax’s involvement in the scandal.