Wade, Benjamin Franklin (1800–1878)

US lawyer and public official. As a US senator (Whig, Ohio, 1851–56; Republican, 1856–69), he joined with congressional Radical Republicans to press for the emancipation of slaves and, after the American Civil War, a punitive peace for the former Confederacy. As chair of the powerful Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, he participated in investigations of every aspect of the federal war effort and supported the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, was raised on a farm, and moved to Ohio at the age of 21. He read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1831. He built a thriving practice before entering public life in the antislavery cause.

As president pro tempore of the Senate, Wade would have succeeded Johnson as president. He was so sure of a conviction that he began to select his cabinet. When Johnson was acquitted in 1869, Wade retired from public life, resumed the practice of law, and became general counsel for the Northern Pacific Railway.