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CUSHING, Caleb, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Salisbury, Mass.,
January 17, 1800; was graduated from Harvard University in 1817; studied law;
was admitted to the bar at Newburyport in 1823; member of the State house of
representatives in 1825; served in the State senate in 1827; again a member of
the State house of representatives in 1833 and 1834; unsuccessful candidate for
election to the Twenty-third Congress in 1833; elected as an Anti-Jacksonian
candidate to the Twenty-fourth and reelected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth,
Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1835-March 3, 1843);
chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Twenty-seventh Congress); was not a
candidate for renomination in 1842; appointed by President Tyler as Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China on May 8, 1843, and also
commissioner on the same date; resigned March 4, 1845; while serving as
commissioner to China was empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and
commerce with Japan; again a member of the State house of representatives in
1845 and 1846; colonel of a Massachusetts regiment which served in the war with
Mexico; appointed brigadier general by President Polk April 14, 1847;
unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1847 and again in 1848; again
elected to the State house of representatives in 1850; offered the position as
attorney general of Massachusetts in 1851, but declined; mayor of Newburyport,
Mass., in 1851 and 1852; appointed judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts
in 1852; appointed by President Pierce as Attorney General of the United States
on March 7, 1853, and served until March 3, 1857; chairman of the Democratic
National Conventions at Baltimore and Charleston in 1860; appointed by
President Johnson as a commissioner to codify the laws of the United States and
served from 1866 to 1870; instructed on November 25, 1868, in concert with the
Minister Resident to Colombia, to negotiate a treaty for a ship canal across
the Isthmus; appointed in 1872 by President Grant counsel for the United States
before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the
Alabama claims; nominated by President Grant in 1874 to be
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, but was not confirmed
by the Senate; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain from
January 6, 1874, to April 9, 1877; died in Newburyport, Essex County, Mass., on
January 2, 1879; interment in Highland Cemetery.
BibliographyBaldasty, Gerald J. Political Stalemate in Essex County: Caleb
Cushings Race for Congress, 1830-1832.
Essex Institute Historical Collections 117 (January 1981):
54-70; Fuess, Claude M.
The Life of Caleb Cushing. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1923.
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