Rufus Choate

Rufus Choate ( born October 1, 1799 in Essex or Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts, † July 13, 1859 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) was an American lawyer and politician of the National Republican Party and the Whig Party, who other things, the state of Massachusetts represented in both the House and the Senate of the United States.

Life

Study, a lawyer and politician in Massachusetts

Choate came from a family, who settled in 1667 in Massachusetts. His grandfather was John Choate 1741-1761 Member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts. He himself was considered early as a child prodigy who could recite by heart at the age of six years longer texts of the Bible and the pilgrimage to the blessed eternity. After school he studied at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1819 as valedictorian, and was at this then 1819 to 1820 worked as a tutor. He then studied law first at the Law School of Harvard University, before DC 1821-1822 his legal education in the then U.S. Attorney General William Wirt, Washington Office, continued.

After his legal approval in Massachusetts 1823 he was an attorney in Peabody, where he worked until 1828. During this time he began his political career at the same time and was initially from 1825 to 1826 as his grandfather a member of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, before 1827 he was a member of the Massachusetts Senate.

In 1828 he began his work as a lawyer in Salem and soon reached this public attention by a number of significant legal proceedings taken over from him.

Congressman and U.S. Senator

In 1830 he was elected as a candidate of the National Republican Party for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and represented in this after his reelection in 1832 of 4 March 1831 to 30 June 1834 the second congressional district of Massachusetts. In his first election he could to prevail against the longtime owner of the Federal constituency party and former Minister of the Navy in the cabinets of U.S. President James Madison and James Monroe, Benjamin Williams Crowninshield. During his membership in the House of Representatives he held a particular bemerkswerte speech in defense of a protective tariff.

Even before completing his second term in the 23rd U.S. Congress, he resigned on June 30, 1834 back as a deputy and became a lawyer in Boston. At that time he was in all the States of New England already as a great orator and made ​​speeches at numerous public events.

After he devoted several years of his work as a lawyer, he returned in 1841 to political life and became the Whig Party as the successor of Daniel Webster, who was appointed foreign minister in the cabinet of William Henry Harrison, a member of the U.S. Senate for Massachusetts as Senator class he belonged first to the Senate on 23 February 1841 to the end of the regular term Websters on March 3, 1845.

A few weeks after his arrival in the Senate held Choate one of his most notable speeches at the funeral ceremonies at Faneuil Hall in Boston, who died on April 4, 1841 President William H. Harrison. As a senator, he dedicated himself to issues such as protective tariffs, Oregon compromise, Fiscal Bank Act and the annexation of Texas, he spoke out against the in March 1845 during a debate.

Retreat from federal politics

In 1845 he opted not to run again for the Senate, to which Daniel Webster was again Senator, and then resumed his legal career. For several years he retired from political life also largely back, but was a great supporter of Daniel Webster's policy, which represented this in his famous Seventh of March Speech of 7 March 1850. On the other hand, failed Choate However, in its efforts to support the candidacy Websters for the Whig Party in the presidential election in the United States in 1852.

After that, he was in 1853 for some time a member of the Constituent Assembly of Massachusetts was and beyond 1853-1854 and Attorney General of the State.

In the U.S. presidential election in 1856, he rejected unlike many Whig Party members entry into the Republican Party and gave the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party James Buchanan, in which he looked different than the Republican candidate John C. Frémont the representatives of a national party.

In July 1859, his health deteriorated, so that it intended a recreation trip to Europe. But this he could no longer competed, but died shortly before his embarkation on July 13, 1859 in Halifax.

Rufus Choate was honored by induction into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.