William Slade

William Slade, Jr. (May 9, 1786January 16, 1859) was an American Whig and Anti-Masonic politician. He served as a U.S. Representative from Vermont from 1831 to 1843, where he was an outspoken opponent of slavery. He was the 17th governor of Vermont. Biography Slade was born in Cornwall in the Vermont Republic on May 9, 1786, the son of William Slade and Rebecca Plumb. He attended the public schools and graduated from Middlebury College in 1807 with classmates Daniel Azro Ashley Buck and Stephen Royce. He studied law with Joel Doolittle and was admitted to the bar in 1810. He began the practice of law in Middlebury, Vermont. Slade married Abigail Foot on February 5, 1810, in Middlebury. They had nine children between 1810 and 1829; four died very young. One son, James M. Slade, served as Lieutenant Governor from 1856 to 1857. William Slade was a Democratic-Republican presidential elector in 1812 and 1820. Slade engaged in editorial work; he established and was editor of the Columbian Patriot from 1814 to 1816 and maintained a book store and printing office. He was Vermont Secretary of State from 1815 to 1822, Judge of the Addison County Court from 1816 to 1822, and Clerk in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., from 1823 to 1829. In 1831, Slade was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as an Anti-Masonic candidate in a special election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Rollin C. Mallary. He was reelected as an Anti-Masonic candidate to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses and as a Whig candidate to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Congresses, serving from November 1, 1831, to March 3, 1843.