John Milton Niles

John Milton Niles

John Milton Niles (born August 20, 1787 in Windsor , Connecticut , †  May 31, 1856 in Hartford , Connecticut) was an American politician who was also active as a writer of historical works.

Life

After attending school and studying law , Niles was admitted to the bar in 1817; he then began to practice in Hartford. There he started a newspaper, the Hartford Weekly Times , for which he worked as an editor and writer for the next 30 years.

politics

John Niles was initially politically active in the Democratic Republican Party , which later became the Democratic Party . He took his first public office in 1821 as a judge at the Hartford County Court . He resigned from this post when he was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1826 . When he was denied re-election, he first turned to legal work. In 1829 he was appointed to the post of Hartford, which he remained until 1836.

After the death of the Whig - Senator Nathan Smith on December 6, 1835 Niles took over his seat in Congress . He was a member of the Senate until 1839, when he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Manufactures . He was not considered for re-election. In 1839 and 1840 Niles ran as a candidate for the post of governor of Connecticut, but was defeated both times by the National Republican incumbent William W. Ellsworth . US President Martin Van Buren then appointed him to his cabinet as Minister of Post in 1840 , which he remained until the end of his tenure in 1841.

Niles returned to Washington, DC in 1844 : he had already been re-elected US Senator for Connecticut in 1842 and was only able to take up this office a year late due to a serious illness. After the end of his tenure in 1849, he decided not to run again. In the meantime, like his friend Martin Van Buren, he had joined the Free Soil Party and supported its presidential candidacy for the newly founded party. Niles himself ran again in 1849 as a candidate for governor in Connecticut for the Freesoilers, but was unsuccessful. After the Free Soil Party was absorbed into the Republican Party , Niles was appointed Connecticut's delegate to the 1856 Republican National Convention , but he died before the party meeting.

Away from politics

Before he began his political career, John Milton Niles had written a number of historical and political works, starting with a book about the life of Oliver Hazard Perry (1820). Other books followed, most recently (1838) a two-volume study of the history of South America and Mexico.

After his political career ended, Niles spent much time in Europe in 1851 and 1852. Later he devoted himself to horticulture . He bequeathed his library to the Connecticut Historical Society and donated a US $ 70,000 charity fund to the City of Hartford to provide annual grants to those in need.

Web links

• John Milton Niles in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• John Milton Niles in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)