Caleb Blood Smith

Caleb Blood Smith

Caleb Blood Smith (born April 16, 1808 in Boston , Massachusetts , †  January 7, 1864 in Indianapolis , Indiana ) was an American politician who belonged to the cabinet of US President Abraham Lincoln as Secretary of the Interior .

Professional career

Originally from New England , Smith moved to Ohio with his parents in 1814 . He received his education at Cincinnati College and Miami University before studying law in Cincinnati and Connersville, Indiana, and was inducted into the bar in 1828. In Connersville he first worked as a lawyer; later he switched to the newspaper industry. He started the Indiana Sentinel , which he also served as its editor.

Public offices

From 1833 he was also politically active and initially belonged to the Indiana House of Representatives for four years , where he acted as its speaker in 1836 . Another session followed from 1840 to 1841. His attempt to be elected to the US House of Representatives for the Whigs failed in 1841. In 1843, however, he was successful: Until 1849, Smith was a member of Parliament after being re-elected several times, including chairing the Territorial Committee. After his departure from Congress , the new US President Zachary Taylor appointed him to an agency that examined claims by US citizens against neighboring Mexico . In 1850 he returned to the legal profession and initially worked again in Cincinnati.

When the civil war threatened to break out in 1861 , Caleb Smith , who had meanwhile switched to the Republicans , worked in a peace convention held in Washington, DC ; However, this did not achieve its goal. The new President Abraham Lincoln then brought Smith into his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior , which was also a reward for his commitment during Lincoln's election campaign. He was the first Indian citizen to serve in the US cabinet.

However, the minister's interest in his new office was limited; In addition, he had health problems, so he delegated many of his tasks to his deputy, John Palmer Usher . Then in 1862 Smith signaled an interest in the vacant US Supreme Court judge's post ; However, President Lincoln nominated David Davis .

In December of the same year, Smith finally resigned, to which his position on the emancipation proclamation passed shortly before in the cabinet contributed. He returned to Indiana, where he succeeded Elisha Mills Huntington as a judge in the federal district court for the state district in early 1863 . However, Caleb Smith died on January 7, 1864. President Lincoln ordered black flags of mourning on government buildings for a period of two weeks.

Confusion about the final resting place

For a long time it was said that Smith was buried in Connersville Cemetery. When a local homeland researcher received permission to have the body exhumed in 1977, it turned out that the person in Smith's grave was not the former minister, but his son-in-law William Watton Smith. A few years later a letter emerged that clarified this fact: According to this, Caleb Smith's wife Elizabeth had her husband's remains buried in Indianapolis without the public noticing. This was done for fear of vandalism by disappointed southerners at the actual burial site.

Web links

• Caleb Blood Smith in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Caleb Blood Smith in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Caleb Blood Smith in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• Biography in the Indiana State Library