As Governor
He was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of New Hampshire in 1860, but was elected in 1865, and again in 1866.
Smyth's terms as governor were consumed by efforts to straighten out the state's wartime finances, which were in substantial disarray because of Civil War expenditures. He borrowed $1.2 million to fund the state's war debt, and settled all state claims against the federal government on terms favorable to the state. He is credited with putting New Hampshire's credit on a sound financial footing, and "mustered out" soldiers remaining in wartime military units.
He oversaw a revision of state statutes, and was a strong supporter of passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (passed 1868), which guarantees due process and equal protection to all United States citizens. He also undertook to restore fish to certain state rivers, and he began publication of state papers.
Read more about this topic: Frederick Smyth (New Hampshire)
Famous quotes containing the word governor:
“President Lowell of Harvard appealed to students ‘to prepare themselves for such services as the Governor may call upon them to render.’ Dean Greenough organized an ‘emergency committee,’ and Coach Fisher was reported by the press as having declared, ‘To hell with football if men are needed.’”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)