page_title: Schuyler Colfax
section_title: Crédit Mobilier scandal
hierarchical_section_title: Schuyler Colfax / Vice president (1869–1873) / Crédit Mobilier scandal
caption_attribution_description: English: Editorial cartoon: Uncle Sam directs Vice President Schuyler Colfax and member of the U.S. Congress disgraced by their involvement in the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal to commit Hari-Kari. Carl Schurz and Charles Sumner peer out from behind a screen.
context_page_description: Schuyler Colfax Jr. was an American journalist, businessman, and politician who served as the 17th vice president of the United States from 1869 to 1873, and prior to that as the 25th speaker of the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1869. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Indiana's 9th congressional district from 1855 to 1869.
  Colfax was known for his opposition to slavery while serving in Congress, and was a founder of the Republican Party. During his first term as speaker he led the effort to pass what would become the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. When it came before the House for a final vote in January 1865, he made the unusual choice to cast a vote, voting in the affirmative. Chosen as Ulysses S. Grant's running mate in the 1868 election, the pair won easily over Democratic Party nominees Horatio Seymour and Francis Preston Blair Jr. As was typical during the 19th century, Colfax had little involvement in the Grant administration. In addition to his duties as president of the U.S. Senate, he continued to lecture and write for the press while in office.
context_section_description: In September 1872, during the presidential campaign, Colfax's reputation was marred by a New York Sun article which indicated that he was involved in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Colfax was one of several Representatives and Senators (mostly Republicans), who were offered (and possibly took) bribes of cash and discounted shares in the Union Pacific Railroad's Crédit Mobilier subsidiary in 1868 from Congressman Oakes Ames for votes favorable to the Union Pacific during the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Henry Wilson was among those accused, but after initially denying a connection, he provided a complicated explanation to a Senate investigating committee, which involved his wife having purchased shares with her own money, and then later canceling the transaction over concerns about its propriety. Wilson's reputation for integrity was somewhat dampened, but not enough to prevent him from becoming vice president.
  Colfax also denied involvement to the press, and defended himself in person before a House investigative committee, testifying in January 1873 that he had never received a dividend check from Ames. Despite his protests of innocence, the congressional investigation revealed that in 1868 Colfax had taken a $1,200 gift check for 20 shares of Crédit Mobilier stock from Ames. Colfax had deposited $1,200 in his bank account at the same time Ames recorded that he had paid Colfax $1,200. Making matters worse for Colfax, the investigation also revealed that Colfax had received a $4,000 gift also in 1868 from a contractor who supplied envelopes to the federal government while Colfax was chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and so had influence in the awarding of such contracts. Afterward, a resolution to impeach the vice president was introduced in the House, but failed to pass by a mostly party-line vote, mainly because the incident took place during his tenure as congressman (not as vice president), and because just a few weeks remained in his term.
  His political career ruined, Colfax left office under a cloud at the end of his term, and never ran for office again. His only consolation on that bitterly cold March day was a hand-written letter from Ulysses Grant. In it, the president wrote,
  I sympathize with you in the recent congressional investigations; that I have watched them closely, and that I am satisfied now as I have ever been of your integrity, patriotism and freedom from the charges imputed as if I knew of my own knowledge your innocence. Our official relations have been so pleasant that I would like to keep up the personal relations engendered, through life.
caption: Colfax was castigated for his involvement in the Crédit Mobilier scandal in this March 6, 1873 political cartoon in which Uncle Sam is shown encouraging Colfax to commit hara-kiri.
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