Stephen Mix Mitchell

Stephen Mix Mitchell

Stephen Mix Mitchell (born December 9, 1743 in Wethersfield , Colony of Connecticut , †  September 30, 1835 ibid) was an American politician and lawyer .

Mitchell attended Yale College , where he graduated in 1763. From 1766 to 1769 he was a lecturer there himself. After graduating in law , he was admitted to the bar in 1770 and worked as a lawyer in Newton . In 1772 he returned to his hometown.

He became politically active from 1778 when he became a member of the State Legislature of Connecticut , of which he was a member until 1784. As a result, he was until 1793 with the exception of 1786 in the State council . In 1779 he also took over the post of associate judge in Hartford County Court ; from 1790 and 1793 he was chairman.

In 1785 Mitchell was called to the Continental Congress , in which he remained until 1788; that same year he was a member of the State Convention that ratified the United States Constitution. When Roger Sherman , United States Senator for Connecticut, died in July 1793, Mitchell was nominated by Governor Samuel Huntington as his successor. He was a senator from December 2, 1793 to March 3, 1795 and was part of the pro-administration faction that supported the policies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton . He did not seek re-election because he returned to Connecticut and took a seat on the Supreme Court . He was its Chief Justice from 1807 until his retirement in 1814.

In 1800 he was politically active again when the Federalist Party called him to the Electoral College , the majority of which, however, elected Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic Republican Party as the new US president. In 1818 he was finally a member of the Connecticut Constitutional Convention.

Web links

• Stephen Mix Mitchell in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Biography at the Wethersfield Historical Society