Cullom was born in 1829 in
Monticello, Kentucky, a son of Richard Northcraft Cullom and Elizabeth G. "Betsey" (Coffey) Cullom. He moved with his family a year later to
Tazewell County, Illinois. During his youth, Cullom assisted his father with farm labor. Cullom attended the
Mount Morris Seminary for two years and became a teacher. Cullom's father served as a
Whig member of the state legislature, so Cullom became interested in politics. He moved to
Springfield, Illinois in 1853, where he studied law with
Stuart &
Edwards and was admitted to the bar in 1855. He practiced law in Springfield with
Charles S. Zane, and was elected
city attorney in 1855. Cullom was elected to the
Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig in 1856, serving one term. With the disintegration of the Whig party, Cullom identified with both the
Republican and the
American parties. He was a candidate for elector on the American party ticket during the
1856 election. In 1860, he was re-elected to the Illinois House as a Republican, and served as
Speaker. In 1855, he married Hannah Fisher. She died in 1861, and in 1863 he married her sister Julia. They were married until her death in 1909. Cullom returned to the Illinois House from 1873 to 1874, serving again as Speaker. In 1876, he was elected
Governor of Illinois, defeating
Lewis Steward by 6,834 votes. He was re-elected in 1880, becoming the first Illinois governor to be re-elected after a four-year term. Under Cullom's governorship, the
Southern Illinois Penitentiary was commissioned, the
Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was quelled, the
Illinois Appellate Court was founded, and the
Illinois State Board of Health was established. He resigned in 1883 to take office as a US senator;
Lieutenant Governor John Marshall Hamilton assumed the governorship in his place. Cullom was elected to the
United States Senate in 1882, and reelected in 1888, 1894, 1900 and 1906, serving from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1913. As a Senator, Cullom oversaw the passage of the
Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. He believed that only the federal government had the power to force railroads to provide fair treatment to all of its customers, large and small. This was because corporations, such as
Standard Oil, had corrupted many of the railroads' officials into providing them with rebates, and as a whole, the companies in question were more powerful than any state government. Cullom had an interest in the
territories of the United States of the time. Together with Congressman
Isaac S. Struble, Cullom pushed the
Cullom-Struble Bill, whose sanctions against
polygamy included exclusion of the
Utah Territory from statehood. The bill was on the verge of passing Congress in 1890, but the legislation was preempted when
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) formally disavowed polygamous marriages with the
1890 Manifesto. Cullom was appointed by President
William McKinley in July 1898 to the commission created by the
Newlands Resolution to establish government in the
Territory of Hawaii. He died in 1914 in
Washington, D.C., and is buried in
Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Cullom was a close personal friend and associate of
Jacob Bunn and
John Whitfield Bunn, the Illinois industrialist brothers who contributed to the building of hundreds of millions of dollars of business enterprises by 1900. The village of
Cullom, Illinois, is named in his honor. == Notes ==