Postbellum
After the war, Hawley served as governor of Connecticut from April 1866 to April 1867, but was not re-elected. A few months after stepping down from that office, he bought the Hartford Courant newspaper, which he combined with the Press. Under his editorship, this became the most influential newspaper in Connecticut and one of the leading Republican papers in the country.
Hawley was the permanent chairman of the Republican National Convention in 1868, was a delegate to the conventions of 1872, 1876 and 1880. He represented Connecticut in the U.S. Congress from December 1872 until March 1875 and again in 1879–81, having lost the two elections in between. From 1873 to 1876, he served as president of the United States Centennial Commission, which planned and ran the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. He was also a trustee of Hamilton College and received his LL. D. degree in 1875 (and another one from Yale in 1888).
Hawley was a United States Senator from 1881 to 1905, being one of the key Republican leaders both in the House and the Senate. He was chairman of the committee on civil service, and vigorously promoted civil service reform legislation. He also chaired a special committee called to investigate the production of military ordnance and warships. In this capacity, he wrote a detailed report on the heavy steel industry and gun making in the United States and England.
He died in Washington, D.C., two weeks after stepping down from the Senate.
Hawley has a battery named his honor at Fort Baldwin, in Phippsburg, Maine.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Roswell Hawley