{{Short description|American biographer and tax commissioner (1801–1883)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=June 2023}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Joseph J. Lewis | image = Joseph J Lewis BIR 1862.jpg | caption = Lewis in 1862 | birth_name = Joseph Jackson Lewis | birth_date = {{birth date|1801|10|05}} | birth_place = Westtown Township, Pennsylvania, US | death_date = {{death date and age|1883|04|05|1801|10|05}} | death_place = West Chester, Pennsylvania | occupation = Lawyer, civil servant, author | known_for = Abraham Lincoln biographer, Internal Revenue Service commissioner | office = 2nd Commissioner of Internal Revenue | president = Abraham Lincoln<br>Andrew Johnson | term_start = March 5, 1863 | term_end = June 30, 1865<ref>{{cite web|title=Internal Revenue Service Data Book 2003|access-date= September 13, 2007|url= https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03databk.pdf|website=irs.gov}}</ref><br>{{Small|(acting commissioner March 5–March 17, 1863)}} | predecessor = George S. Boutwell | successor = William Orton | resting_place = Oaklands Cemetery | spouse = Mary Sinton Miner | children = Charlton Thomas Lewis | signature = Signature of Joseph Jackson Lewis (1801–1883).png }}
'''Joseph Jackson Lewis''' (October 5, 1801 – April 5, 1883) was an American lawyer, civil servant, and author who published the first biography of Abraham Lincoln and served President Lincoln as the second U.S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue from March 1863 to July 1865. He was also a leading Pennsylvania Republican who represented antislavery figures in court.<ref name="Dixon">{{cite web |last1=Dixon |first1=Mark |title=How This Civil War-Era Man Helped Create Modern Taxes |url=http://www.mainlinetoday.com/Main-Line-Today/March-2016/How-This-Civil-War-Era-Man-Helped-Create-Modern-Taxes/ |accessdate=2019-01-29 |website=Mainline Today|date=3 March 2016 }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite web |date=2022-07-13 |title=Previous IRS Commissioners |url=https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/previous-irs-commissioners |accessdate=2022-08-22 |website=Internal Revenue Service}}</ref>
== Early life and career == Lewis was born in Westtown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, to Enoch Lewis, a Quaker and abolitionist who taught mathematics at the Westtown School.<ref name="Dixon"/> Joseph Lewis followed in his father's footsteps as a teacher at Philadelphia and West Chester schools before reading law under James Kent in New York and joining the Chester County bar in 1825. He became a noted attorney and antislavery figure in Chester County, serving as deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania in 1844 and as burgess of West Chester in the 1840s.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Barton |first=William Eleazar |url=http://archive.org/details/lincolnofbiograp00bart |title=The Lincoln of the Biographers |publisher=Journal Printing Company |year=1930 |location=Springfield, Illinois |pages=25–26 |language=en-US}}</ref> Lewis was one of four lawyers who successfully represented antislavery defendant Castner Hanway, who had fought with pro-slavery raiders, in trials following the Christiana Riot of 1851.<ref name="Dixon" />
George W. Roberts, who became a Union Army colonel and died at the Battle of Stones River in 1862, read law with Lewis in 1857.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Hannum |first=Curtis Hoopes |url=http://archive.org/details/genealogyofhannu00hann |title=Genealogy of the Hannum Family: Descended from John and Margery Hannum, Settlers in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with Brief Notices of Other Families Allied with the Name, and Abstracts of Early Wills |publisher=H.F. Temple |year=1911 |location=West Chester, PA |pages=576–578 |language=en-US}}</ref> So did Henry McIntire, a Union Army officer who was elected Chester County District Attorney in 1862.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yale University |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0gFAAAAQAAJ |title=Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College, Deceased from July, 1859, to July, 1870 |publisher=Printed by Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor |year=1870 |location=New Haven, CT |pages=104–105 |language=en}}</ref>
== Lincoln biographer and politician == In 1860, Lewis's friend and fellow Chester County native Jesse W. Fell, one of Abraham Lincoln's closest friends who had been urging Lincoln to run for president, persuaded Lincoln to write up a two-and-a-half-page autobiographical sketch. Fell sent the manuscript to Lewis, who adapted it into a biographical article published in February 1860 in the ''Chester County Times''. Widely reprinted in the Northern newspapers, this sketch was Lincoln’s first widely read biography.<ref name="Dixon" /> Later that year, Lewis proved instrumental in securing Pennsylvania's delegates for Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention, collaborating with Wayne MacVeagh to arrange for Simon Cameron's delegates to vote for Lincoln after Cameron fell short of the nomination.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=George B. |date=1939 |title=The Quakerism of Abraham Lincoln |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/396226 |journal=Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=64 |issn=1934-1504 |via=Project MUSE}}</ref>
== Internal Revenue Service commissioner == As Lincoln's Internal Revenue Service commissioner tasked with collecting taxes and rigorously enforcing the nation's wartime tax laws, Lewis "framed the financial system which saved the nation in the Civil War."<ref name=":0" /> He succeeded Massachusetts politician George S. Boutwell as IRS commissioner in 1863, serving as acting commissioner from March 5 to March 17, 1863, and then as commissioner from March 18, 1863 to June 30, 1865. Lewis's accomplishments included implementing a progressive income tax, introducing tax withholding for federal employees, publicly publishing tax returns to pressure taxpayers into accurately reporting their incomes, and establishing a criminal investigation division.<ref name="Dixon" /><ref name=":1" />
== Personal life == Lewis was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1881.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?year=1881;smode=advanced;startDoc=1 |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=American Philosophical Society}}</ref> He was married to Mary Sinton Miner. His son was Charlton Thomas.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite book |author=Yale University |author-link=Yale University |title=Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University |url=https://archive.org/stream/1900t10obituary00yaleuoft#page/324/mode/1up |year=1910 |publisher=The University |pages=324–326 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{commons category}} *{{find a Grave|133829411}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Joseph J.}} Category:1801 births Category:1883 deaths Category:People from Chester County, Pennsylvania Category:Commissioners of Internal Revenue Category:Lincoln administration personnel Category:19th-century American lawyers Category:19th-century American biographers Category:American male biographers Category:Pennsylvania lawyers Category:Pennsylvania Republicans Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Burials at Oaklands Cemetery