Caleb Cushing

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(b. Salisbury, Mass., 17 Jan. 1800; d. Newburyport, Mass., 2 Jan. 1879), lawyer, attorney general, diplomat, and unconfirmed nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court. Cushing attended Harvard Law School and became a member of the Massachusetts bar. In 1834 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving four terms. Although Cushing was against slavery, he believed that it was more important to preserve the Union than to abolish slavery. He became alienated from the Whig party when he sided with President John Tyler against Henry Clay. The Senate repeatedly rejected Tyler's attempt in 1843 to name Cushing secretary of the treasury. His shifts of party affiliation—from Whig to Democrat in 1841 and from Democrat to Republican in 1861—can be explained by his devotion to the Union, although many saw him as a political chameleon.

In 1844 Tyler sent Cushing to China to negotiate an important commercial agreement with that country. President Franklin Pierce appointed him attorney general in 1852. Cushing expanded the duties of that office, handling pardons, extraditions, and judicial appointments, matters formerly managed by the State Department. Cushing was the first attorney general to adhere to the residence requirement, abandoning his private law practice while in office.

President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Cushing as chief justice of the Supreme Court on 9 January 1874. His age and his political record hurt him in the Senate. When it became obvious that he would not be confirmed, Grant withdrew his name at Cushing's request on 14 January. Partisan motives deprived the country of a chief justice who was honest, learned in the law, and devoted to the Union.

After serving as ambassador to Spain from 1874 to 1877, Cushing retired to Newburyport, where he died on 2 January 1879.

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See also Nominees, Rejection of

— Judith K. Schafer

Caleb Cushing was a lawyer, politician, diplomat, and statesman who served as attorney general of the United States under President FranklinPierce. Cushing was the nation's first full-time attorney general; he is credited with institutionalizing and expanding the office.

Cushing was born January 17, 1800, in Salisbury, Massachusetts, descending from a family with roots in colonial Massachusetts. A gifted student, he tutored classmates in mathematics and philosophy, and he graduated from Harvard at the age of seventeen. He studied law in Boston and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1821. The same year, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, and established his first practice. Although he represented a number of clients and interests as a young lawyer, he spent most of his time in public service. Cushing also had a long-standing love of literature and devoted his free time to a variety of literary pursuits.

His political career began in 1825 when he was elected, as a Republican candidate, to the lower house of the Massachusetts Legislature; in 1826, he was elected to the state senate.

His formal writing career also began in 1826 with the publication of his first two books, History of the Town of Newburyport and The Practical Principles of Political Economy. Encour- aged by interest in these texts and eager to develop his talent, Cushing resigned his state senate office and moved to Europe in 1829. He devoted the next two years to writing. His two-volume Historical and Political Review of the Late Revolution in France and his Reminiscences of Spain were published in 1833.

Returning to the United States, Cushing ran for Congress in 1832. In his first effort, he was defeated—largely because of divisions within the Republican party. In 1834 he was elected as a Whig candidate from the Essex North District of Massachusetts. He served the district in Congress for four consecutive terms. He also continued to write. His Growth and Territorial Progress in the United States was published in 1839.

In 1840 Cushing supported the successful candidacy of William H. Harrison for president. To aid the campaign, he authored a biographical booklet called The Life of William H. Harrison. When Vice President John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrison's death in 1841, Cushing was one of the few northern Whigs to support him. During the Tyler administration, a break in the Whig party occurred, and Cushing became allied with the Democrats—making his third change of party affiliation in a decade. Cushing's support of Tyler was rewarded in 1843 with a nomination as secretary of the treasury. But, suspicious of his party hopping, the Senate would not confirm him. Nevertheless, several months later, he was confirmed by the Senate as the new U.S. commissioner to China.

During the early 1840s, U.S. traders had asked the U.S. government for help in easing the restrictive trade conditions in China. Congress responded by setting up a commission to negotiate a trade agreement with China's representatives; Cushing was selected to head the commission. His work in China, known as the Cushing Mission, resulted in the first trade treaty between China and the United States— the Treaty of Wanghia (Wangxia, Wangsia, Wang-Hsia), signed in 1844.

After completing his mission in China, Cushing returned to serve in the Massachusetts state legislature until the outbreak of the Mexican War. In 1847, he raised a volunteer regiment at his own expense and traveled to Mexico to participate in the conflict. He attained the rank of brigadier general.

While still in Mexico, Cushing was drafted as a gubernatorial candidate by Massachusetts's Democratic party. He lost the election, and subsequent bids for the governor's seat in 1847 and 1848. He served a term in the Massachusetts state legislature from 1850 to 1852, and was then appointed an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

One year later, Cushing was named attorney general of the United States by President Pierce. Cushing had been a personal friend of the new president's for more than twenty years, and he was one of the most influential members of the Pierce cabinet. According to biographer Claude M. Fuess, "Cushing had a part in nearly every matter of significance arising during the next four years in Washington."

When Cushing accepted the job of attorney general, it was a part-time position with a substantially smaller salary than those of other cabinet positions. Cushing's appointment coincided with a move by Congress to increase the attorney general's salary, and to enforce a residency requirement that had been routinely ignored by previous appointees.

Cushing interpreted Congress's actions as a mandate to relinquish his private practice and serve as attorney general full-time. His decision to abandon his practice was controversial. The old tradition of continuing a private practice while in office was thought by many to be essential in maintaining sharp legal skills and keeping abreast of current law. In defense of his action, Cushing wrote,

Within the last few years … the condition of the country has undergone changes, occasioning a vast augmentation in the amount of administrative business … and it would not be possible now … for the Attorney General … to be frequently absent from the seat of government, attending to private professional pursuits, nor could he find much leisure to prepare and argue private causes even before the Supreme Court.

With the barriers of low pay and part-time status removed, the attorney general became an equal member of the cabinet, and the office became more visible and more constant than in previous administrations. The changes had the cumulative effect of stabilizing and institutionalizing the office.

As a full-time cabinet officer, Cushing had both the time and the personal inclination to be active in a broad range of government activities. He assumed responsibility for several functions previously overseen by the secretary of state, such as pardons, legal and judicial appointments, and extradition cases.

In keeping with his lifelong love of writing, Cushing wrote frequently about the office of attorney general and his duties and responsibilities. In an 1856 treatise on the office, Cushing described his role as the administrative head of the government's legal business. He also took his opinion-writing function seriously. An opinion, he wrote, "is in practice final and conclusive,—not only as respects the action of public officers in administrative matters … but also in questions of private right, inasmuch as parties, having concerns with the government, possess in general no means of bringing a controverted matter before the courts of law."

Following his term as attorney general, Cushing continued to play a conspicuous role in both local and national politics until the end of his life. He returned to the Massachusetts state legislature from 1857 to 1859. In 1860 he served as chairman of the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, but he gave loyal support to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War.

In 1866 he was named to a commission charged with revising and codifying the laws of Congress. In 1868, he served on a diplomatic mission to Bogotá, Colombia. And in 1872, he was appointed counsel for the United States at the Geneva conference for the settlement of the Alabama claims, where arbitrators determined the amount of the award in a dispute concerning the construction and release of confederate cruisers by Great Britain.

In 1873 he was nominated by President Ulysses S. Grant as chief justice of the Supreme Court. With the memory of the Civil War still fresh, Cushing's opponents questioned his cordial relations with Jefferson Davis (based upon his Democratic connections) and forced the withdrawal of his nomination. The Treaty of Washington, Cushing's last work—and said to be his most important—was published in 1873. In 1874, he was nominated and confirmed as minister to Spain; he finished his term abroad in 1877.

Cushing died at his Newburyport home on January 2, 1879, just two weeks short of his eightieth birthday.

Caleb Cushing
24th United States Attorney General
In office March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857
Preceded by	John J. Crittenden
Succeeded by	Jeremiah S. Black
Member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 3rd district
In office March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1843
Preceded by	Gayton P. Osgood
Succeeded by	Amos Abbott
Born	January 17, 1800(1800-01-17) Salisbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	January 2, 1879 (aged 78) Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political party	Anti-Jacksonian, Whig, Democratic
Spouse(s)	Caroline Cushing
Alma mater	Harvard University
Profession	Teacher, Lawyer, Politician
Signature

Caleb Cushing (January 17, 1800 – January 2, 1879) was an American statesman and diplomat who served as a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts and Attorney General under President Franklin Pierce.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 State legislature 1.3 Washington career 1.4 Return to Massachusetts 1.5 1860 and the Civil War 1.6 Return to diplomacy 1.7 Nomination to Supreme Court 1.8 Death 2 Works 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links

Biography

Early life

Born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, in 1800, he was the son of John Newmarch Cushing, a wealthy shipbuilder and merchant, and of Lydia Dow, a delicate and sensitive woman from Seabrook, New Hampshire, who died when he was ten. The family moved across the Merrimack River to the prosperous shipping town of Newburyport in 1802. He entered Harvard University at the age of 13 and graduated in 1817. He was a teacher of mathematics there from 1820 to 1821, and was admitted to practice in the Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas in December, 1821. He began practicing law in Newburyport in 1824. There he attended the First Presbyterian Church.

On November 23, 1824, Cushing married Caroline Elizabeth Wilde, daughter of Judge Samuel Sumner Wilde, of the Supreme Judicial Court. His wife died about a decade later, leaving him childless and alone. He never married again.

State legislature

Cushing served as a Democratic-Republican member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1825, then entered the Massachusetts Senate in 1826, and returned to the House in 1828. Afterwards, he spent two years, from 1829 to 1831, in Europe. Upon his return, he again served in the lower house of the state legislature in 1833 and 1834. Then, in late 1834, he was elected a representative to Congress.

Washington career

Cushing served in Congress from 1835 until 1843 (the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th Congresses). During the 27th Congress, he was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Here the marked inconsistency which characterized his public life became manifest; for when John Tyler had become president, had been read out of the Whig party, and had vetoed Whig measures (including a tariff bill), for which Cushing had voted, Cushing first defended the vetoes and then voted again for the bills. In 1843 President Tyler nominated Cushing for U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but the U.S. Senate refused to confirm him for this office. John Canfield Spencer was chosen instead.

Cushing was, however, appointed by President Tyler, later in the same year, to be commissioner and United States Ambassador to China, holding this position until March 4, 1845. In 1844 he negotiated the Treaty of Wang Hiya, the first treaty between China and the United States. While serving as commissioner to China he was also empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and commerce with Japan.

Return to Massachusetts

Caleb Cushing

In 1847, while again a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he introduced a bill appropriating money for the equipment of a regiment to serve in the Mexican-American War; although the bill was defeated, he raised the necessary funds privately, and served in Mexico first as United States Army colonel and afterwards as brigadier-general of volunteers. He did not see combat during this conflict, and entered Mexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified.

In 1847 and again in 1848 the Democrats nominated him for Governor of Massachusetts, but on each occasion he was defeated at the polls. He was again a representative in the state legislature in 1851, was offered the position as Massachusetts Attorney General in 1851, but declined; and served as mayor of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1851 and 1852. (He had written a major history of the town when he was 26 years old.)

He became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852, and during the administration of President Franklin Pierce, from March 7, 1853 until March 3, 1857, was 23rd Attorney General of the United States. Cushing, a "doughface," i.e., a Northerner with Southern sympathies, supported the Dred Scott decision and to such a degree that Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the decision, wrote Cushing a letter thanking him for his support.

In 1858, 1859, 1862, and 1863 he again served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

1860 and the Civil War

In 1860 he presided over the Democratic National Convention which met first at Charleston and later at Baltimore, until he joined those who seceded from the regular convention; he then presided also over the convention of the seceding delegates, who nominated John C. Breckinridge for the Presidency. Also in 1860 President James Buchanan sent him to Charleston as Confidential Commissioner to the Secessionists of South Carolina.

Despite having favored states' rights and opposed the abolition of slavery, during the American Civil War, he supported the Union. He was later appointed by President Andrew Johnson as one of three commissioners assigned to revise and codify the laws of the United States Congress. He served in that capacity from 1866 to 1870.

Return to diplomacy

In 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, Cushing was sent to Bogotá, Colombia and worked to negotiate a right-of-way treaty for a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama.

At the Geneva conference for the settlement of the Alabama claims in 1871-1872 he was one of the counsels appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the Alabama claims.

From January 6, 1874 to April 9, 1877 Cushing was Minister to Spain. He defused tensions over the Virginius Affair, and proved popular in the country.

Nomination to Supreme Court

On January 9, 1874, Grant nominated him for Chief Justice of the United States, but in spite of his great learning and eminence at the bar, his anti-war record and the feeling of distrust experienced by many members of the U.S. Senate on account of his inconsistency, aroused such vigorous opposition that his nomination was withdrawn on January 13, 1874.^{[citation needed]}

Death

An acute attack of erysipelas in July 1878 was a warning that his end was nearing. He died January 2, 1879, at Newburyport, Massachusetts, and is buried in Highland Cemetery in that city.^[1]

Works

• History and Present State of the Town of Newburyport, Mass. (1826)
• Review of the late Revolution in France (1833)
• Reminiscences of Spain (1833);
• Oration on the Growth and Territorial Progress of the United States (1839)
• Life and Public Services of William H. Harrison (1840)
• The Treaty of Washington (1873)

References

1. ^ Caleb Cushing at http://www.findagrave.com

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• Caleb Cushing at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Further reading

• Belohlavek, John M. Broken Glass: Caleb Cushing & the Shattering of the Union (2005)
• Fuess, Claude M. The Life of Caleb Cushing, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1923. (2 vols.)
• Kuo, Ping Chia. "Caleb Cushing and the Treaty of Wanghia, 1844." The Journal of Modern History 5, no. 1 (1933): 34-54. Available through JSTOR.
• Schurz, Carl. Reminiscences. New York: McClure Publ. Co., 1907. Schurz reports his impressions of seeing Cushing, in an effort to discourage anti-slavery sentiment, speak at a “Conservative Union Meeting” at Faneuil Hall in Boston just before the Civil War (Volume II, Chapter IV, p. 162): “While speaking he turned his left shoulder to the audience, looking at his hearers askance, and with a squint, too, as it seemed to me, but I may have been mistaken. There was something like a cynical sneer in his manner of bringing out his sentences, which made him look like Mephistopheles alive, and I do not remember ever to have heard a public speaker who stirred in me so decided a disinclination to believe what he said. In later years I met him repeatedly at dinner tables which he enlivened with his large information, his wit, and his fund of anecdote. But I could never quite overcome the impression he had made upon me at that meeting. I could always listen to him with interest, but never with spontaneous confidence.”

External links

• Caleb Cushing at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
•  John William Weidemeyer (1900). "Cushing, Caleb". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 
• Works by Caleb Cushing at Project Gutenberg

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Gayton P. Osgood	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district 1835–1843	Succeeded by Amos Abbott
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Edward Everett	U.S. Minister to China 1843–1845	Succeeded by John W. Davis
Preceded by Daniel E. Sickles	U.S. Minister to Spain 1874–1877	Succeeded by James Russell Lowell
Legal offices
Preceded by John J. Crittenden	U.S. Attorney General 1853–1857	Succeeded by Jeremiah S. Black

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v • d • e Cabinet of President Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) Vice President William R. King (1853) Secretary of State William L. Marcy (1853-1857) Secretary of the Treasury James Guthrie (1853-1857) Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (1853-1857) Attorney General Caleb Cushing (1853-1857) Postmaster General James Campbell (1853-1857) Secretary of the Navy James C. Dobbin (1853-1857) Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland (1853-1857)

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