J. Donald Cameron - U.S. Senator

U.S. Senator

In 1877, his father resigned from his seat in the United States Senate and Cameron was appointed to fill the vacancy under the ensurance of the Pennsylvania Legislature. He was reelected three more times serving for a total of twenty years. He served as chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs from 1881 to 1891 and again from 1895 to 1897 and as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims from 1893 to 1895. Cameron also served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1879 to 1880.

Cameron was an active politician who, with the initial aid of his father Simon Cameron, and his political allie Matthew Quay, set up a political machine in the Pennsylvania legislature that ensured Cameron would be reelected to office. Senator Cameron rarely gave speeches, and he was viewed as being judicious, unemotional, and reticent. Cameron disapproved of the popular artful oratory methods used by his contemporaries while his own speeches were forceful and direct. Adopting his father's method, Cameron's strength as a politician relied on working inside the antechamber, committees, and caucuses to obtain his goals. Cameron distinguish himself in the Senate in 1890 when he supported the Federal Elections Bill, that ensured African Americans's voting protection rights in the Solid South. However, on the whole, Cameron's nearly twenty years in the Senate remained undistiguished while for the most part he voted on the Republican Party line.