Thomas Andrews Hendricks (September 7, 1819 - November 25, 1885) was an American politician and lawyer from Indiana who served as the 16th Governor of Indiana (1873-77) and the 21st Vice President of the United States (1885). Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851-55) and the U.S. Senate (1863-69). He also represented Shelby County, Indiana, in the Indiana General Assembly (1848-50) and as a delegate to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention. In addition, Hendricks served as commissioner of the General Land Office (1855-59).

Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate (1863-69) during the final years of the American Civil War and part of the Reconstruction Era. Military reverses in the Civil War, some unpopular decisions in the Lincoln administration, and Democratic control of the Indiana General Assembly helped Hendricks win election to the U.S. Senate. His six years in the Senate covered the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth Congresses, where Hendricks was a leader of the small Democratic minority and a member of the opposition who was often overruled. Hendricks challenged what he thought was radical legislation, including the military draft and issuing greenbacks; however, he supported the Union and prosecution of the war, consistently voting in favor of wartime appropriations. Hendricks adamantly opposed Radical Reconstruction. After the war he argued that the Southern states had never been out of the Union and were therefore entitled to representation in the U.S. Congress. Hendricks also maintained that Congress had no authority over the affairs of state governments. Hendricks voted against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that would, upon ratification, grant voting rights to males of all races and abolish slavery. Hendricks felt it was not the right time, so soon after the Civil War, to make fundamental changes to the U.S. Constitution. Although Hendricks supported freedom for African Americans, stating, "He is free; now let him remain free," he unsuccessfully opposed reconstruction legislation. Hendricks also opposed the attempt to remove President Andrew Johnson from office following his impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hendricks's views were often misinterpreted by his political opponents in Indiana. When the Republicans regained a majority in the Indiana General Assembly in 1868, the same year Hendricks's U.S. Senate term expired, he lost reelection to a second term, and was succeeded by Republican Congressman-elect Daniel D. Pratt, who resigned the U.S. House seat to which he had been elected in 1868 in order to accept the Senate seat.

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