I'm a retired international science and public policy specialist living in Columbia, Maryland and author of the forthcoming Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy (W.W. Norton, January 2025). My distant family member, George Boutwell, was a close colleague and friend of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant who helped write the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, served in Congress and as Treasury Secretary, and at age 80 was president of the Anti-Imperialist League working with Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie to oppose Teddy Roosevelt's annexation of the Philippines. Boutwell is the most consequential public figure Americans have never heard of.
