Zachariah Chandler (December 10, 1813 – November 1, 1879) was an American businessman, politician, and one of the founders of the Republican Party, whose radical wing he dominated as a lifelong abolitionist.

Upon graduation, deciding not to attend college, Chandler moved west in 1833 to Detroit, at that time the capital of Michigan Territory.

In Detroit, Chandler opened a general store and through trade, banking, and land speculation became one of the wealthiest men in the state of Michigan.

Chandler financially supported the Detroit Underground Railroad, which helped fugitive or runaway slaves find safe haven.

[3] In 1848 Chandler began his political career by making campaign speeches for the Whig Party presidential candidate Zachary Taylor.

Having supported Kansas as a free state without slavery, Chandler signed a petition that formed the Republican Party on July 6, 1854.

[1] The Republican Convention that year nominated John C. Frémont for president, known as The Pathfinder, who wanted to rid Kansas of African American slavery and opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

From March 1861 to 1875 Chandler was chairman of the Committee on Commerce that controlled powerful "pork barrel" appropriations for rivers and harbors.

[1] On July 6, 1862, Chandler castigated General George McClellan's prosecution of the war in a speech at Jackson, Michigan.

[1] Chandler supported higher tariff rates, the creation of a national bank,[4] and voted for greenbacks as an emergency war measure, but strongly condemned any inflation of the currency.

On January 5, 1866, Chandler authored a resolution for non-intercourse with Great Britain for refusing to negotiate the Alabama Claims, but this was rejected by the Senate.

In compliance with President Grant's recommendations and authority, he implemented reforms in and reorganized the Department of the Interior during his tenure in office.

In February 1876 Chandler handed Indians who refused to leave their hunting grounds, concerning the encroachment in the Black Hills by miners, over to Secretary of War William W. Belknap's department.

[citation needed] When Chandler took office he found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt out of the federal departments under his charge.

Chandler paid no attention to complaints and warned a man who believed he was fired unjustly not to complain to the press.

Chandler also exposed and removed corrupt unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to underpaid replacements.

Bogus "agents" induced Indian tribes to pay them $8.00 a day plus expenses in exchange for fraudulent legislative representation in Washington during the Winter months.

Chandler banned payment to these men for alleged services to Indians saying their claims or representation were illegal and immoral.

In 1879, he was again elected to the Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Isaac P. Christiancy, who had succeeded him just four years earlier.

[1] Under consideration by party leaders as a possible candidate in the 1880 presidential election, Chandler went to Chicago to deliver a political speech on October 31, 1879.

Maintaining his Radical roots, Chandler spoke in front of an African American Young Men's Republican Auxiliary Club at McCormick Hall.