- Caleb Cushing
Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Caleb Cushing
image_width=220px
order=24th
title=United States Attorney General
term_start=March 7 ,1853
term_end=March 4 ,1857
predecessor=John J. Crittenden
successor=Jeremiah S. Black
birth_date=birth date|1800|1|17|mf=y
birth_place=Salisbury, Massachusetts , U.S.
death_date=death date and age|1879|1|2|1800|1|17
death_place=Newburyport, Massachusetts , U.S.
party=Anti-Jacksonian, Whig, Democratic
spouse=Caroline Cushing
profession=Teacher ,Lawyer ,Politician
order2=Member of theUnited States House of Representatives fromMassachusetts 's 3rd district
term_start2=March 4 ,1835
term_end2=March 3 ,1843
predecessor2=Gayton P. Osgood
successor2=Amos Abbott Caleb Cushing (
January 17 ,1800 –January 2 ,1879 ) was an Americanstatesman anddiplomat who served as a U.S. Congressman fromMassachusetts and Attorney General under PresidentFranklin Pierce .Biography
Early life
Born in
Salisbury, Massachusetts , in 1800, he was the son of John Newmarch Cushing, a wealthyshipbuilder and merchant, and of Lydia Dow, a delicate and sensitive woman fromSeabrook, New Hampshire , who died when he was ten. The family moved across theMerrimack River to the prosperous shipping town of Newburyport in 1802. He enteredHarvard University at the age of 13 and graduated in 1817. He was ateacher ofmathematics there from 1820 to 1821, and was admitted to practice in the Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas in December, 1821. He began practicing law in Newburyport in 1824. There he attended the First Presbyterian Church.On November 23, 1824, Cushing married Caroline Elizabeth Wilde,
daughter of Judge Samuel Sumner Wilde, of the Supreme Judicial Court. His wife died about a decade later, leaving him childless and alone. He never married again.tate legislature
Cushing served as a Democratic-Republican member of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1825, then entered theMassachusetts Senate in 1826, and returned to the House in 1828. Afterwards, he spent two years, from 1829 to 1831, inEurope . Upon his return, he again served in the lower house of the state legislature in 1833 and 1834. Then, in late 1834, he was elected a representative to Congress.Washington career
Cushing served in Congress from 1835 until 1843 (the 24th, 25th, 26th and
27th Congress es). During the 27th Congress, he was chairman of theU.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs .Here the marked inconsistency which characterized his public life became manifest; for when
John Tyler had become president, had been read out of the Whig party, and had vetoed Whig measures (including a tariff bill), for which Cushing had voted, Cushing first defended the vetoes and then voted again for the bills. In 1843 President Tyler nominated Cushing forU.S. Secretary of the Treasury , but the U.S. Senate refused to confirm him for this office.John Canfield Spencer was chosen instead.Cushing was, however, appointed by President Tyler, later in the same year, to be commissioner and
United States Ambassador to China , holding this position untilMarch 4 ,1845 . In 1844 he negotiated the Treaty of Wang Hiya, the first treaty betweenChina and the United States. While serving as commissioner to China he was also empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and commerce with Japan.Return to Massachusetts
In 1847, while again a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he introduced a bill appropriating money for the equipment of a regiment to serve in the
Mexican-American War ; although the bill was defeated, he raised the necessary funds privately, and served in Mexico first asUnited States Army colonel and afterwards as brigadier-general of volunteers. He did not see combat during this conflict, and enteredMexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified.In 1847 and again in 1848 the Democrats nominated him for
Governor of Massachusetts , but on each occasion he was defeated at the polls. He was again a representative in the state legislature in 1851, was offered the position asMassachusetts Attorney General in 1851, but declined; and served as mayor ofNewburyport, Massachusetts , in 1851 and 1852. (He had written a major history of the town when he was 26 years old.)He became an
associate justice of theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852, and during the administration of PresidentFranklin Pierce , fromMarch 7 ,1853 untilMarch 3 ,1857 , was 23rd Attorney General of the United States.In 1858, 1859, 1862, and 1863 he again served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
1860 and the Civil War
In 1860 he presided over the
Democratic National Convention which met first at Charleston and later at Baltimore, until he joined those who seceded from the regular convention; he then presided also over the convention of the seceding delegates, who nominatedJohn C. Breckinridge for the Presidency. Also in 1860 PresidentJames Buchanan sent him to Charleston as Confidential Commissioner to the Secessionists of South Carolina.Despite having favored
states' rights and opposed the abolition ofslavery , during theAmerican Civil War , he supported the Union. He was later appointed by PresidentAndrew Johnson as one of three commissioners assigned to revise and codify the laws of the United States Congress. He served in that capacity from 1866 to 1870.Return to diplomacy
In 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, Cushing was sent to
Bogotá ,Colombia and worked to negotiate a right-of-way treaty for a ship canal across theIsthmus of Panama .At the Geneva conference for the settlement of the
Alabama claims in 1871-1872 he was one of thecounsel s appointed by PresidentUlysses S. Grant for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the Alabama claims.From
January 6 ,1874 toApril 9 ,1877 Cushing was Minister to Spain. He defused tensions over the "Virginius" Affair, and proved popular in the country.Nomination to Supreme Court
On
January 9 ,1874 , Grant nominated him forChief Justice of the United States , but in spite of his great learning and eminence at the bar, his anti-war record and the feeling of distrust experienced by many members of the U.S. Senate on account of his inconsistency, aroused such vigorous opposition that his nomination was withdrawn onJanuary 13 ,1874 .Fact|date=July 2008Death
An acute attack of
erysipelas in July 1878 was a warning that his end was nearing. He diedJanuary 2 ,1879 , atNewburyport, Massachusetts , and is buried in Highland Cemetery in that city. [ [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8491732 Caleb Cushing] at http://www.findagrave.com]Works
* "History and Present State of the Town of Newburyport, Mass." (1826)
* "Review of the late Revolution in France" (1833)
* "Reminiscences of Spain" (1833);
* "Oration on the Growth and Territorial Progress of the United States" (1839)
* "Life and Public Services of William H. Harrison" (1840)
* "The Treaty of Washington" (1873)References
*1911
Further reading
* John M. Belohlavek. "Broken Glass: Caleb Cushing & the Shattering of the Union" (2005)
* Fuess, Claude M. "The Life of Caleb Cushing", New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1923. (2 vols.)
* Kuo, Ping Chia. "Caleb Cushing and the Treaty of Wanghia, 1844." "The Journal of Modern History" 5, no. 1 (1933): 34-54. Available throughJSTOR .External links
*CongBio|C001016
*gutenberg author| id=Caleb+Cushing | name=Caleb Cushing
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