JAMES ROOD DOOLITTLE (1815 - 1897)

"I have been all my life a follower of ideas rather than men," said James Rood Doolittle. Beginning his political career as a Democrat, Doolittle then helped found the Republican party, from which he served as U. S. Senator for twelve years, before ending his political career as an unsuccessful Democratic candidate. He was first elected to public office as district attorney of Wyoming County, New York. After moving to Racine in 1851, he was elected circuit judge. In both elections he ran and won as a Democrat. An ardent friend and supporter of Abraham Lincoln and bitter foe of slavery, Doolittle switched his political allegiance to the party that represented what he most believed in. He was then elected by the state legislature of Wisconsin to serve as the state’s fourth senator since statehood, its second Republican.

In July of 1862 James and his wife, Mary Cutting (c.1816-1879) celebrated their silver wedding anniversary at their residence along the lakeshore south of Racine College (now the DeKoven Center). According to an account in a local newspaper: "There was no formality, restraint was banished, and a light, pleasant time enjoyed. The Judge is looking quite thin, the result of hard labor and quite a serious illness just before Congress adjourned. We are sorry to say their eldest son, Capt. Henry J. Doolittle (1839-1862), is confined to his room with typhoid fever and dysentery, contracted in Tennessee." Henry, a Civil War officer and graduate of Harvard, died a month later.

Doolittle served on as senator until 1869, when it was said he "committed political suicide" by saying the South should be dealt with through reconciliation rather than retribution. That, along with his defense of President Andrew Jackson during his impeachment, led to the senator’s defeat in 1869. As early as 1866 the Republican Party had called for his resignation but Doolittle refused, defending the righteousness of his position in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. His powerful oratorical skills, used on such occasions, the senator credited to a grade school teacher who had forced him to enunciate vowels and consonants clearly. In 1871 Doolittle ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for the office of governor. That was followed by an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, again as a Democrat. He died on July 27, 1897 in Providence, Rhode Island. His remains were returned to Racine for burial in Mound Cemetery.

—Submitted by Deborah Crowell

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