Elihu Benjamin Washburne

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Elihu Benjamin Washburne

Elihu Benjamin Washburne (born September 23, 1816 in Livermore , Androscoggin County , Massachusetts , †  October 23, 1887 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American politician who briefly served as Secretary of State in the cabinet of President Ulysses S. Grant .

Life

Born in what is now Maine , Elihu Washburne came from a politically active family. His older brother Israel was the governor of Maine; the younger brother Cadwallader held this office in Wisconsin . William , the youngest brother, became a US Senator for Minnesota . In contrast to his brothers, Elihu wrote his last name "Washburne" and not "Washburn".

After attending school, he first completed an apprenticeship as a printer and worked as an editor at the Kennebec Journal in Augusta . He then studied at the Harvard Law School , the Law , was admitted to the bar in 1840 and worked subsequently as a lawyer in Galena .

Washburne began his political career with the Whigs . He took in 1844 and 1852 to each in Baltimore held Whig National Convention in part and made 1848 a first attempt in Congress to be elected, but failed. In 1852 he succeeded in winning the election in the first congressional electoral district of Illinois, which he represented in the US House of Representatives from March 4, 1853 . In 1863 he moved to the third district. Washburne resigned on March 6, 1869. During this time he was, among other things, chairman of the Economic Committee and the Approval Committee .

Washburne joined the Republican Party after the fall of the Whigs in the mid-1850s and developed into a leading "Radical Republican". He was one of the first to demand legal equality between whites and blacks. As a member of Congress, he was known for his courage: he greeted President- elect Abraham Lincoln on his arrival in Washington, DC on February 23, 1861 , while other leading Republicans stayed away for fear of assassination. Washburn, meanwhile, protected the president-elect by cutting vital telegraph wires in person, keeping Lincoln's exact whereabouts secret from the public.

After Ulysses S. Grant took office, Washburne became Foreign Minister in his cabinet on March 5, 1869 . But he only held this office for twelve days until March 16; he then succeeded John Adams Dix as the United States' ambassador in Paris . Hamilton Fish was his successor as head of the State Department . During the Franco-German War, he looked after the Germans who stayed in France , but above all the Germans who remained in Paris. During the time of the Paris Commune , he was the only foreign diplomat remaining in the capital and in this role also looked after all other nationals.

In 1877 he returned to the USA, where he was mainly active in literature in Chicago. In the years 1880 and 1884 he was considered a possible presidential candidate, but was not nominated either. From 1884 to 1887 he was President of the Chicago Historical Society . Washburne died on October 23, 1887 and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Galena. His son Hempstead Washburne was Mayor of Chicago from 1891 to 1893 .

literature

  • Edward S. Mihalkanin: Elihu B. Washburne. In: Derselbe (Ed.): American Statesmen: Secretaries of State from John Jay to Colin Powell . Greenwood Publishing 2004, ISBN 978-0-313-30828-4 , pp. 521f.
  • Mark Washburn: A Biography of Elihu Benjamin Washburne. Congressman, Secretary of State, Envoy Extraordinary . Self-published, New Jersey (?) Approx. 2000, ISBN 0738838578 or ISBN 1401040160

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Washburne, Elihu Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Livermore , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1887
Place of death Chicago , Illinois