Elihu B. Washburne
Elihu Benjamin Washburne ( born September 23, 1816 in Livermore, Androscoggin County, Massachusetts, † October 23, 1887 in Chicago, Illinois ) was an American politician, who was the Cabinet of President Ulysses S. Grant for a short time as Foreign Minister.
Life
Born in present-day Maine Elihu Washburne came from a politically active family. His older brother Israel was governor of Maine; the younger brother Cadwallader exercised this office in Wisconsin. William, the youngest brother, was a U.S. Senator for Minnesota. Unlike his brothers Elihu spelled his last name " Washburne " and not " Washburn ".
He completed post-school trained as a printer and worked as editor of the Kennebec Journal in Augusta. He then studied at Harvard Law School, the Law, was admitted to the bar in 1840 and worked in the episode as a lawyer in Galena.
His political career began Washburne at the Whigs. He took in 1844 and 1852 participated in the taking place each in Baltimore Whig National Conventions in 1848 and made a first attempt to be elected to Congress, which failed however. But in 1852 he succeeded then the victory in the first Congressional District of Illinois, which he took from March 4, 1853 at the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1863 he transferred to the third district. Washburne laid down his mandate on March 6, 1869. During this time, he served as Chairman of the Business Committee and the Appropriations Committee.
Washburne joined after the collapse of the Whigs mid- 1850s the Republican Party and became a leading " Radical Republicans ". So he called one of the first legal equality of whites and blacks. As a member of Congress, he was known for his courage: he welcomed the elected to President Abraham Lincoln on February 23, 1861 upon his arrival in Washington, DC, while other leading Republicans fear stayed away before an assassination attempt. Washburn, meanwhile protecting the elected president by average personally important telegraph wires and was able to keep so Lincoln's exact whereabouts secret from the public.
After Ulysses S. Grant took office Washburne was born on March 5, 1869 Foreign Minister in his cabinet. But this office he held only whole twelve days from until March 16; then he was appointed as successor of John Adams Dix United States Ambassador in Paris. During the Franco-German war he was in charge in France, particularly in Paris but the remaining Germans. In the time of the Paris Commune he was the only one in the capital remaining foreign diplomat and supervised in this function, all other nationals.
In 1877 he returned to the U.S., where he was active mainly literary in Chicago. In the years 1880 and 1884, he was considered a possible presidential candidate, but was not nominated in each case. From 1884 to 1887 he was president of the Chicago Historical Society. Washburne died on October 23, 1887 and was buried at the Greenwood Cemetery in Galena. His son Hempstead Washburne was from 1891 to 1893 mayor of Chicago.