Senator Benjamin Franklin Rice

Benjamin Franklin Rice (May 26, 1828 – January 19, 1905) was a Republican politician and lawyer who represented Arkansas in the United States Senate during the Reconstruction era, serving from 1867 to 1873. His single term in the Senate coincided with a significant period in American history, as former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union and the federal government sought to redefine civil and political rights in the post–Civil War South.

Rice was born on May 26, 1828, in East Otto, Cattaraugus County, in southwestern New York. He received his early education in private schools and then read law in the traditional manner of the time. After completing his legal studies and gaining admission to the bar, he moved to Irvine in Estill County, Kentucky, where he began the practice of law. His legal training and early professional experience in Kentucky laid the groundwork for a career that would combine law, politics, and public service across several states.

Rice entered public life in Kentucky in the mid-1850s. From 1855 to 1856, he served as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives. In 1856, he further aligned himself with the emerging Republican Party by serving as a presidential elector on the Republican ticket pledged to John C. Frémont, the party’s first presidential nominee. Two years later, in 1858, he married Nancy Jane “Nannie” Riddell. In 1860, Rice and his wife relocated to Minnesota, where he continued his legal and political pursuits on the expanding western frontier.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Rice joined the Union Army from Minnesota. He entered service as a captain and later rose to the rank of major. During the war he served as judge advocate with the 3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, combining his legal expertise with military duty. His wartime service strengthened his identification with the Union cause and the Republican Party, and it positioned him to play a role in the Reconstruction politics that followed the conflict.

In 1864, Rice moved south to Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, where he resumed the practice of law. During the turbulent Reconstruction period, he became active in organizing the Arkansas Republican Party, helping to build a political organization in a former Confederate state undergoing federal military oversight and constitutional reorganization. He was appointed chair of a committee that in 1868 prepared Arkansas’s code of practice, an important component of reestablishing civil government and legal order in the state.

Upon the readmission of Arkansas to the Union, Rice was elected by the Arkansas General Assembly to the United States Senate as a Republican. He served in the Senate from 1867 to 1873, representing Arkansas during the Reconstruction years. During his term, he participated in the legislative process at a time when Congress addressed issues of readmission, civil rights, and the reconstruction of Southern state governments. While in the Senate, he held the chairmanship of the Committee on Mines and Mining, a predecessor of the modern Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, giving him a role in shaping early federal policy on mineral resources and related economic development. Throughout his tenure, he represented the interests of his Arkansas constituents within the broader national debates of the era.

After leaving the Senate at the conclusion of his term in 1873, Rice returned to private life and resumed his law practice. In 1875, he moved to Colorado for health reasons, continuing his legal work while seeking a more favorable climate. In 1882, he relocated again, this time to Washington, D.C., where he maintained an active law practice in the nation’s capital for the remainder of his career. Benjamin Franklin Rice died on January 19, 1905, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although he died in Oklahoma, he was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C., reflecting his long association with the federal capital and his years of national public service.