William L. Dayton

William Lewis Dayton ( born February 17, 1807 in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, † December 1, 1864 in Paris) was an American politician. From 1842 to 1851 he was a member of the Senate of the United States.

Life

There is a distant relationship between William Lewis Dayton and former Speaker of the House and signer of the Constitution of the United States, Jonathan Dayton ( 1760-1824 ). William Dayton was born in 1807 as son of the farmer Joel Dayton. He made in 1825 at the former College of New Jersey graduated from high school (now this school is the Princeton University) and worked as a lawyer in Freehold Borough.

Career

Dayton in 1837 for the Whigs elected to the Senate from New Jersey and worked in the following year as an assistant judge of the New Jersey Supreme Court after the death of Senator Samuel L. Southard Dayton moved on 2 July 1842 in the U.S. Senate after. In 1845 he was re-elected; However, his term of office ended on 3 March 1851 after he failed to again confirm its seat in the election.

In the presidential elections in 1856, he was placed as a candidate for the post of U.S. Vice-President for the currently emerging Republican Party; as John C. Frémont the choice, however, lost to James Buchanan, instead, was John C. Breckinridge Vice President. After the election defeat, he worked until 1861 as Attorney General in New Jersey, which is in the order within the government in fourth place. After President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Minister to France, where he stayed until his death in 1864. There he continued successfully by American interests, such as the use of French ports. On December 1, 1864, he died in Paris, he is buried at the Riverview Cemetery in Trenton.

Family

He married Margaret E. Dayton and they had at least one son, William Lewis Dayton, Jr. (1839-1897), who also studied at Princeton and under President Chester A. Arthur 1882-1885 as an envoy in the Netherlands worked.