Caleb Cushing

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Caleb Cushing (1874)

Caleb Cushing (born January 17, 1800 in Salisbury , Essex County , Massachusetts , †  January 2, 1879 in Newburyport , Massachusetts) was a lawyer , politician and diplomat in the United States .

Youth and education

His father was John Newmarch Cushing, a merchant and shipowner, and his mother, Lydia Dow, from Seabrook NH. She died when he was 10 years old. In 1802 Caleb's father moved across the Merrimac River to the thriving town of Newburyport. The economy flourished in the ports of New England, and Caleb watched his father's ships sail to India and China. Here he developed his love for seafaring and longing for foreign countries. He lived at a time when Essex County produced a group of remarkably gifted men, such as: B. Rufus Choate , Nathaniel Hawthorne , William Lloyd Garrison , Robert Rantoul, and John Greenleaf Whittier . At the age of 13 he was sent to Harvard College , where he graduated with George Bancroft in 1817 as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Latin Salutatorian Association . After a year at the newly formed Harvard Law School, he joined the Ebenezer Moseley office in Newburyport, where he studied continuously for the next three years and was admitted to the Massachusetts Court in 1821.

Lawyer - Writer - Politician

In February 1820 he was appointed as a math teacher at Harvard College by President Kirkland, but resigned in 1821 after learning that he had no great future as a teacher. In the meantime, he had translated Robert-Joseph Pothier's treatise On Maritime Contracts of Letting to Hire into English and was writing for the newly formed North American Review at Edward Everett's request . While building his law practice in Newburyport and editing the local newspaper, he made public speeches, spoke at least four languages, and was aggressively involved in politics.

He won the election of 1824 as Representative to the Massachusetts Court of Justice, and in 1826 he was elected to the Senate and ran unsuccessfully for the US House of Representatives. Essex County was a stronghold of uncompromising federalism and Caleb went public as a supporter of John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson . After an extremely fierce election campaign, he was able to confidently defeat Adams and take office in March 1829. In the fall of 1832 Jackson was re-elected for a second term without any problems.

In 1823, Cushing was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1829 he toured Europe and published Reminiscences of Spain . He joined the Whig Party , for which he entered the United States House of Representatives on March 4, 1835 . In 1841 he turned to the Democratic Party , but found himself not satisfied with parliamentary life and went to China in 1843 , where on July 3, 1844 he succeeded in concluding the first North American Unequal Treaty , the Treaty of Wanghia . In 1847 he equipped a regiment himself for the war with Mexico . He served as Mayor of Newburyport from 1851 to 1852 before becoming a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1852 . From 1853 to 1857 he was Attorney General member of the federal government under President Franklin Pierce . In 1871 he represented the United States in the mixed commission on the Alabama question that prepared the Washington Treaty in Geneva . In 1874 he was appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary for his homeland in Spain. In 1877 he returned to the United States.

Author of the books

Political offices

  • US Ambassador to Spain (1874-77)
  • US Attorney General (1853–57 under Franklin Pierce)
  • Massachusetts State Court (1852)
  • Mayor of Newburyport, MA (1851-52)
  • Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1850)
  • Massachusetts House of Representatives (1845-46)
  • U.S. Ambassador to China (June 12, 1844 to August 27, 1844)
  • United States Congressman for Massachusetts (1835–43)
  • Massachusetts House of Representatives (1833–34)
  • Massachusetts State Senate (1827)
  • Massachusetts State House of Representatives (1825)

literature

Memoir / obituary

  • Hon. Caleb Cushing, LL.D. In: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , Volume 14, May 1, 1878, Textarchiv - Internet Archive
  • A memorial of Caleb Cushing, from the city of Newburyport . Pub. by order of the City council Newburyport, 1879, Text Archive - Internet Archive
  • Claude Moore Fuess: Caleb Cushing, a memoir . In: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society , Boston, vol. 64, Oct. 1931, Textarchiv - Internet Archive

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Harvard Law School History
personal data
SURNAME Cushing, Caleb
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, politician, and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 17th January 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Salisbury , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1879
Place of death Newburyport , Massachusetts