Thomas D. Eliot

Thomas Dawes Eliot (born March 20, 1808 in Boston , Massachusetts , †  June 14, 1870 in New Bedford , Massachusetts) was an American politician . Between 1854 and 1869 he twice represented the state of Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Thomas Eliot attended public schools in Washington, DC and then studied until 1825 at Columbian College , later George Washington University . After a subsequent law degree and his admission as a lawyer in 1831, he began to work in New Bedford in this profession. Politically, he became a member of the Whig Party, founded in 1835 . In 1839 he became a member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts ; in 1846 he was a member of the State Senate .

After the resignation of MP Zeno Scudder , Eliot was elected as his successor to the US House of Representatives in Washington, where he took up his new mandate on April 17, 1854, when the by-election was due for the first Massachusetts seat. Since he renounced another candidacy in the regular elections of 1854, he could only complete the current legislative period in Congress until March 3, 1855 . This was shaped by the events leading up to the civil war . After the Whigs dissolved, Eliot first became a member of the Free Soil Party . In 1855 he was a delegate to their federal party congress. Then he joined the Republican Party founded in 1854 . In 1857 he turned down a proposed candidacy for the office of Attorney General of his state.

In 1858 Thomas Eliot was again elected to Congress in the first district of his state, where he replaced Robert Bernard Hall on March 4, 1859 , who had succeeded him in 1855. After four re-elections, he was able to spend five more legislative terms in the House of Representatives until March 3, 1869. These were overshadowed by the events of the civil war and its consequences. From 1865 Eliot was chairman of the Committee on the Freedmen's Bureau . From 1867 he also headed the trade committee. Since 1865, the work of Congress has been overshadowed by tension between the Republican Party and President Andrew Johnson , which culminated in a narrowly unsuccessful impeachment trial.

In 1868 Thomas Eliot renounced another candidacy. After the end of his time in the US House of Representatives, he practiced again as a lawyer in New Bedford, where he died on June 14, 1870.

Web links

• Thomas D. Eliot in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Thomas D. Eliot in the database of Find a Grave (English)