John Wales

John Wales ( born July 31, 1783 in New Haven, Connecticut; † December 3, 1863 in Wilmington, Delaware ) was an American politician ( Whig Party ), who represented the state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

Life

John Wales graduated in 1801 at Yale, and was then taken to the bar. He practiced as a lawyer then in his hometown of New Haven and later in Philadelphia. After two years in Baltimore in 1815 he was finally settled in Wilmington. There he worked as secretary of the Society for the Promotion of American Manufacturers; In 1824 he was president of the National Bank of Wilmington and Brandywine. This office he held until 1829.

Policy

From 1845 to 1849 John Wales acted as Secretary of State of Delaware. Following the resignation of U.S. Senator John Middleton Clayton, he was elected to succeed him in Congress. He took his mandate from the February 23, 1849 true and also stand for re- election, but lost to Democrat James A. Bayard. Thus he had to retire from the Senate on March 3, 1851.

As an opponent of slavery Wales took for the state of Delaware, together with Thomas Garrett part in the first National Convention of the abolitionists. Garrett was accused in 1848 of having helped a slave family to flee, whereupon Wales defended him in the process; he was the guilty verdict, coupled with a fine in the amount of $ 4,500, but not prevent it. Wales was also one of the founders of Newark College, later the University of Delaware.