William Temple (governor) - Civil War

Civil War

Following his time as Governor, he was elected to the Delaware Senate and served in three sessions, from the 1849/50 session through the 1853/54 session. With the demise of the Whig Party, he was too conservative to support the agenda of Stephen A. Douglas, but too fearful of disunion to support the Republican Party or the eventual candidacy of John C. Breckenridge. In the election of 1860 he sought the elusive middle ground, and was one of the Delaware leaders of the short lived Constitutional Union Party. This party supported the right of each state to decide the slavery question, but argued that somehow that right could be preserved within the Union.

After the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession of the Confederate states, Temple took a position opposing the enforced restoration of the Union, and joined the Democratic Party. After presiding over a futile "Peace Convention" in Dover in June 1861, he became the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the hotly contested and controversial 1862 election. His opponent was the incumbent Republican George P. Fisher, who had served as Secretary of State when Temple was Governor. Now Fisher was convinced that there were various schemes being planned to prevent a legitimate election. Accordingly, he requested that Abraham Lincoln leave the Delaware troops in the U.S. Army home until after the election, and that he send additional Federal troops to supervise the polls on election day. The Democrats were outraged and managed to narrowly elect Temple and a majority in the General Assembly, although losing the Governorship. While officially a member of the U.S. House from March 4, 1863, Temple died before the December convening of the House, and consequently never actually served. He was forty-nine years old. In a subsequent special election, Republican Nathaniel B. Smithers won the seat due to a Democratic Party boycott of the election in protest of the continuing presence of Federal troops at the polling places.