Thaddeus Betts

Thaddeus Laddins Betts (February 4, 1789 – April 7, 1840) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 32nd and 34th lieutenant governor of Connecticut and later as a United States senator from that state. He was born in Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut, where he spent much of his life and from which he would later be elected to the state legislature. His early years were shaped in the milieu of post-Revolutionary New England, in a community closely tied to maritime commerce and emerging professional life, influences that helped direct him toward the study of law and public affairs.

Betts pursued a formal education that prepared him for a legal and political career, attending Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale in 1807, a period when the college was a leading training ground for New England’s professional and political elite. After completing his undergraduate studies, he read law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of law in his native Norwalk. His legal work in the community established his reputation and provided a foundation for his entry into public service.

Betts’s political career began at the state level, where he became active in Connecticut’s legislative institutions. He served in the Connecticut House of Representatives as a member from Norwalk, representing his hometown in the lower chamber of the General Assembly. He subsequently advanced to the Connecticut Senate, where he represented the 12th district. In these roles he participated in state legislative deliberations during a period of evolving party alignments and growing debates over economic development, internal improvements, and the balance of state and federal authority.

Building on his legislative experience, Betts rose to statewide office as lieutenant governor of Connecticut. He first served as the 32nd lieutenant governor from 1832 to 1833 and then, after a brief interval out of that office, returned as the 34th lieutenant governor from 1834 to 1835. In this capacity he presided over the state senate and stood as the second-ranking official in the executive branch, working alongside the governor in overseeing state administration. His repeated election to the lieutenant governorship reflected the confidence of Connecticut’s voters and political leaders in his judgment and leadership.

At the national level, Betts became affiliated with the Whig Party, which had emerged in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and advocated for a stronger role for Congress, support for internal improvements, and a more active federal role in economic development. As a member of the Whig Party representing Connecticut, he contributed to the legislative process during one term in office in the United States Senate. He was elected as a Whig to the Senate and took his seat on March 4, 1839, during the 26th Congress, a significant period in American history marked by continuing debates over banking policy, the aftermath of the Panic of 1837, and sectional tensions that would later intensify in the decades before the Civil War.

In the Senate, Betts participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Connecticut constituents within the broader national legislature. Although his tenure was brief, he served during a time when the Whig Party was consolidating its influence and preparing for the presidential election of 1840, in which the party would secure the presidency with William Henry Harrison. Betts’s work in Congress placed him among the cohort of Whig lawmakers seeking to shape federal policy on finance, commerce, and infrastructure in response to the economic dislocations of the late 1830s.

Thaddeus Laddins Betts’s service in the United States Senate was cut short by his death in office. He died on April 7, 1840, in Washington, D.C., while still serving as a senator from Connecticut. His passing ended a public career that had spanned local, state, and national office, from the Connecticut House of Representatives and Connecticut Senate to the lieutenant governorship and the United States Senate. He was interred in Union Cemetery in Norwalk, Connecticut, returning in death to the community that had shaped his early life and first entrusted him with public responsibility.