George Edmund Badger
George Edmund Badger ( born April 17, 1795 in New Bern, North Carolina, † May 11, 1866 in Raleigh, North Carolina ) was an American politician ( Whig Party ), who was Secretary of the Navy as the U.S. Cabinet.
After Badger had been educated at Yale University, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1814. He subsequently worked as a lawyer in his home town of New Bern.
His first public office took over Badger in 1816 as a deputy in the House of Representatives from North Carolina. From 1820 to 1825 he was a judge on the state Supreme Court. At that time he was still followers of Andrew Jackson, but with whom he had a falling out in the 1830s; then he rose to the top leadership of the Whig Party to this and helped to success in the presidential election in 1840.
Victor William Henry Harrison appointed him as Secretary of the Navy in his cabinet. As Harrison already died one month after his inauguration on April 4, 1841 Badger remained under his successor, John Tyler, first in government, then stepped back but already on 11 September 1841 to work again as a lawyer. In his short tenure, he sought to strengthen the Navy, given the ongoing tensions with Britain and the construction of the Home Squadron.
1846 George Edmund Badger went back into politics when he was elected for the Whigs in the U.S. Senate, where he succeeded the retiring William H. Haywood. After his reelection in 1849, he served a total of 25 November 1846 to 3 March 1855. To redial 1854, he was not nominated.
U.S. President Millard Fillmore appointed Badger 1853 a judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate refused to vote; in his place John Archibald Campbell moved by. Badger returned to North Carolina, where he worked as a lawyer again. In the initial phase of the secession of the southern states he was initially loyal to the Union; later he supported the war effort of the Confederacy.
In memory of the late former Secretary of the Navy in 1866 two Navy ships have been named after him, the USS George E. Badger (DD -196 ) and USS Badger (FF -1071 ). Also, the Liberty freighter SS George E. Badger bore his name.