William E. Chandler was born in Concord, New Hampshire to Nathan S. Chandler and Mary Ann Chandler. William's elder brother, John Chandler, was a successful East India merchant and his younger brotherGeorge Chandler, an attorney who served as a major during the Civil War. William Chandler attended the common schools, Thetford Academy and Pembroke Academy before attending Harvard Law School, where he began a romantic correspondence with Lucy Lambert Hale, daughter of Senator John Parker Hale. He graduated in 1854, was admitted to the bar in 1855, and commenced practice in Concord. In 1859 Chandler married Ann Gilmore, the daughter of Governor Joseph A. Gilmore. In 1874, after his first wife's death, Chandler resumed his romance with Lucy Hale, who had been secretly betrothed in 1865 to John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Chandler and Hale were married in 1874, and in March 1875, their only son, John Parker Hall Chandler, was born.
Political career
In 1859, Chandler was appointed reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. He then served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1862 to 1864 and was the Speaker during the last two years. In 1865, Chandler was appointed by President Abraham Lincolnsolicitor and judge advocate general of the Navy Department. Subsequently, he was appointed First Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, until he resigned in 1867. Chandler returned to New Hampshire and became a newspaper publisher and editor during the 1870s and 1880s. Continuing in politics, he was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1876 and a member of the State house of representatives in 1881. Chandler was appointed by President Chester A. Arthur as Secretary of the Navy in 1882. He took charge in 1883 in planning for the rescue of Lt. Adolphus Greely's Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. Chandler served until 1885. As a Republican, he was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Austin F. Pike and served from June 14, 1887, to March 3, 1889. Subsequently, elected for the term beginning March 4, 1889, he was reelected in 1895 and served from June 18, 1889, to March 3, 1901. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination. He served as chairman of the Committee on Immigration, Committee on Census, Committee on Privileges and Elections. In 1892, Chandler proposed a one-year ban on immigration, to keep out undesirables, which included cholera carriers, Anarchists, Nihilists, polygamists, Mafia members, illiterates, "blind or crippled" persons, persons without means, etc. Among the solutions Chandler proposed for addressing the "evils which have been made apparent by the vast increase, within recent years, of degraded immigrants from Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Poland and Russia proper" were the addition of an educational requirement and property qualification for all persons or families seeking to emigrate to the United States. The strongest opponents of the bill were the steamship companies, who stood to lose a major portion of their business. A watered-down version of The Chandler Immigration and Contract Labor Bill became law on March 3, 1893. It simply required steamship companies to prepare lists of their passengers containing full information, and thus very likely served as a compromise to get the steamship companies to back down on Immigration Reform at this time. Chandler was appointed by President William McKinley to the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission in 1901. He was the president of the Commission from its inception until 1907, when its work was nearly complete. In 1907, Chandler served as the lead counsel during the Next Friend's Suit, a legal challenge over the estate of Mary Baker Eddy, the leader of Christian Science church. The trial was headline news across the country. Leaving public office, Chandler resumed the practice of law in Concord and Washington, D.C.. He died at Concord in 1917 and was buried in Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord.
Legacy
was named for him. Chandler's grandson, Theodore E. Chandler joined the U.S. Navy in 1911 while his grandparents were both still alive and later distinguished himself as a Rear Admiral in World War II. While aboard the cruiser USS Louisville, he was killed in action by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft during the Battle of Lingayen Gulf in January 1945.
