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Hamilton Fish. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
Hamilton Fish. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
For more information on Hamilton Fish, visit Britannica.com.
Hamilton Fish
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Hamilton Fish |
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| Biography: Hamilton Fish |
As secretary of state under President Ulysses S. Grant, Hamilton Fish (1808-1893) settled the Alabama Claims and avoided war with Spain over the Cuban insurrection.
Hamilton Fish was born on Aug. 3, 1808, in New York City. His father was a socially prominent lawyer and Federalist; his mother was from the old Stuyvesant family. Fish graduated with highest honors from Columbia College in 1827 and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He entered politics as a Whig; he was elected to Congress in 1842 and to the governorship in 1848. His administration expanded the New York canal system and established a statewide framework for public education. In 1851 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Conservative in background and patrician in taste, he joined the upstart Republican party only after it was clear that the Whig party was dead beyond revival.
Fish was not known nationally when President U.S. Grant appointed him secretary of state in 1869. Fish accepted reluctantly but found the job to his liking and remained for the entire two terms. His influence helped rescue Grant's presidency from total failure.
Three major foreign policy problems confronted Fish during his tenure. The first was Grant's effort to annex Santo Domingo. Cool toward the project, Fish nevertheless set about loyally to carry out his superior's wishes. A treaty of annexation was concluded, but Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, blocked it. Fish was unsuccessful in mediating the quarrel between Sumner and Grant. Grant's lieutenants in the Senate deposed Sumner from his chairmanship. The annexation was defeated, but Fish emerged from the imbroglio with honor.
Fish's efforts to settle the Alabama Claims were more successful. These claims were damages demanded by the United States from Great Britain for the latter's negligence during the Civil War in allowing Confederate cruisers, especially the Alabama, to be built and supplied in England, in violation of British neutrality. The cruisers destroyed scores of American freighters during the war and all but drove the U.S. merchant marine from the seas. In addition, the North demanded reparations for other British actions during the war. Senator Sumner said at one point that the claims could be satisfied only by ceding Canada to the United States. Britain had no intention of acceding to any such extreme demands, and Fish intimated through diplomatic channels that a less extravagant settlement would be acceptable. A joint high commission met in Washington under Fish's watchful eye and negotiated the Treaty of Washington (1871), which provided for the arbitration of the Alabama Claims and of minor issues between the United States and Canada. The arbitration tribunal awarded the United States $15,500,000 in damages.
A Cuban insurrection was in process when Fish took office. He talked Grant out of issuing a recognition of rebel belligerency, which might have led to a conflict with Spain, and he tried unsuccessfully to work out a peace settlement between Spain and the revolutionaries. In 1873 the Virginius, a rebel-owned steamer with illegal American registry engaged in carrying arms, was captured by the Spanish, and 53 crewmen and passengers, including several Americans, were executed as pirates. The incident could have led to war, but again Fish cool-headedly negotiated a settlement, which included indemnities for the families of dead Americans and a Spanish promise (never fulfilled) to punish the officer responsible for the executions.
Fish retired from public life in 1877 and busied himself in civic and social affairs. He died in New York on Sept. 6, 1893.
Further Reading
Amos E. Corning's Hamilton Fish (1918) has been largely superseded by Allan Nevins's rich and massive Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936; rev. ed. 1957), based on Fish's letters and diary. Also valuable is the essay on Fish by Joseph Fuller in volume 7 of Samuel Flagg Bemis, ed., American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (1929).
Additional Sources
Fish, Hamilton, Memoir of an American patriot, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway; Lanham, MD: Distributed by National Book Network, 1991.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Hamilton Fish |
Fish, Hamilton, 1808-93, American statesman, b. New York City, grad. Columbia, 1827; son of Nicholas Fish (1758-1833). He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1830.
Named for his father's friend Alexander Hamilton, and heir to the Federalist tradition, Fish naturally gravitated to politics as a Whig. He served as U.S. Representative (1843-45) and was elected lieutenant governor of New York in 1847 and governor, for a two-year term, in 1848. From 1851 to 1857, Fish was a U.S. Senator, serving on the foreign relations committee in 1855-57. A moderate antislavery man, he opposed both abolitionist and proslavery excesses and deplored the breakup of the Whigs as a national party. Slow to join the new Republican party, he lost his national political standing but became prominent in civic activities in New York.
Fish was one of many to lionize the victorious Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, but his appointment (Mar., 1869) as Grant's Secretary of State, to succeed the grossly miscast Elihu B. Washburne, came as a surprise. He accepted reluctantly and expected to hold the office for only a few months, but actually remained in the cabinet longer than any other member, serving through both of Grant's administrations.
Fish was one of the ablest of U.S. Secretaries of State. Grant was much impressed with Fish's character and ability, and he called upon Fish's aid in the administration of domestic affairs as well. Fish's greatest achievement as Secretary was bringing about the treaty (see Washington, Treaty of) that paved the way for settlement of the Alabama claims and other long-standing disputes with Great Britain. This was accomplished amid great difficulties, especially those offered by the vigorously anti-British chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Charles Sumner.
The period was one of constant trouble with Spain, arising out of the Ten Years War, and Fish was hard pressed to persuade Grant not to recognize the belligerency of Cuba. Under Fish's vigilant eye filibustering expeditions from the United States to Cuba were kept to a minimum, but the Virginius affair in 1873 nearly brought the nation, long sympathetic to the Cuban cause, to war with Spain. To secure Grant's support of other policies Fish supported without enthusiasm the President's unsuccessful project to annex the Dominican Republic.
Bibliography
See A. Nevins, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936, repr. 1957).
| Wikipedia: Hamilton Fish |
- See Hamilton Fish (disambiguation) for others with the same name
| Hamilton Fish | |
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| In office March 17, 1869 – March 12, 1877 |
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| Preceded by | Elihu B. Washburne |
| Succeeded by | William M. Evarts |
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16th Governor of New York
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| In office January 1, 1849 – December 31, 1850 |
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| Lieutenant | George Washington Patterson |
| Preceded by | John Young |
| Succeeded by | Washington Hunt |
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| Born | August 3, 1808 New York City, New York |
| Died | September 7, 1893 (aged 85) Garrison, New York |
| Political party | Whig, Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Julia Kean Fish |
| Alma mater | Columbia College of Columbia University |
| Profession | Politician, Lawyer |
| Religion | Episcopalian |
| Signature |  |
Hamilton Fish (August 3, 1808 – September 7, 1893), born in New York City, was an American statesman who served as Governor of New York, United States Senator and United States Secretary of State.
Contents |
Biography
Fish was born at what is now known as the Stuyvesant-Fish House in Greenwich Village, New York City, to Nicholas Fish and Elizabeth Stuyvesant (a great-great-granddaughter of New Amsterdam's Peter Stuyvesant), and his parents named him after their friend Alexander Hamilton. Nicholas Fish (1758-1833) was a leading Federalist politician and notable figure of the American Revolutionary War. Hamilton Fish married Julia Kean (a descendant of a New Yorker who was a New Jersey governor, William Livingston) in 1836. They would have three sons and five daughters, and multiple notable relatives.
Fish graduated from Columbia College in 1827 and was admitted to the New York bar in 1830, practicing briefly with William Beach Lawrence. He served as commissioner of deeds for the city and county of New York from 1832 through 1833, and was an unsuccessful candidate for New York State Assembly in 1834.
Political career
As a member of the Whig party, Fish was elected to the House of Representatives, defeating Democrat John McKeon and serving in the 28th Congress from New York's 6th District between 1843 and 1845. After losing his bid for re-election, he returned to private practice as a lawyer. He was the Whig candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1846, but was defeated by Democrat Addison Gardiner who had been endorsed by the Anti-Rent Party. Gardiner was elected in May 1847 a judge of the New York Court of Appeals and vacated the office of lieutenant governor. Fish was then in November 1847 elected to fill the vacancy, and was Lieutenant Governor in 1848.
In November 1848, he was elected Governor of New York, defeating John A. Dix and Reuben H. Walworth, and served from January 1, 1849, to December 31, 1850.
On March 19, 1851, Fish was elected a U.S. Senator from New York, and he took his seat on December 1. In the United States Senate, he was a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations until the end of his term on March 3, 1857. He was a Republican for the latter part of his term and was part of a moderately anti-slavery faction. He opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. At the expiration of his term, he traveled with his family to Europe and remained there until shortly before the opening of the American Civil War, when he returned to begin actively campaigning for the election of Abraham Lincoln.
In 1861 and 1862 he was associated with John A. Dix, William M. Evarts, William E. Dodge, A.T. Stewart, John Jacob Astor and other New York men on the Union Defence Committee, which (from April 22, 1861, to April 30, 1862) co-operated with the New York City government in the raising and equipping troops, and disbursed more than $1 million for the relief of New York volunteers and their families.
He was also appointed in 1862 to serve with Edward Raymond Ames to visit the Union Army prisoners being held in the Confederate States of America capital in Richmond, Virginia. The Confederate government, however, refused to allow the commission to enter the city.
Secretary of State
He also served as Secretary of State between March 17, 1869 and March 12, 1877 under Ulysses S. Grant. He was Grant's longest-serving Cabinet officer.
He conducted the negotiations with Great Britain which resulted in the Treaty of Washington of 1871, under which the Alabama claims and the San Juan Boundary Dispute (concerning the Oregon boundary line) were referred to arbitration. He also negotiated the reciprocity treaty of 1875 with the Kingdom of Hawaii.
In 1871 Fish presided at the peace conference at Washington between Spain and the allied republics of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, which resulted in a general truce between those countries.
It was chiefly due to his restraint and moderation that a satisfactory settlement of the Virginius Affair was reached by the United States and Spain in 1873.
Within the Department of State, he promoted testing job applicants to see if they were truly qualified for duty at a consulate.
Later life
After leaving the Cabinet, he returned to the law and managing his real estate in New York City.
He died at Glen Clyffe, his estate near Garrison, New York, in Putnam County, New York, in the Hudson River Valley, and is buried in Garrison at St. Philip's Church-in-the-Highlands Cemetery.
Other involvements
- Vice-president general of the Society of the Cincinnati from 1848 to 1854, president general from 1854 until his death
- Appointed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as one of the board of commissioners for the relief and exchange of Union prisoners of war in the South
- President of the New York Historical Society from 1867-1869
- Served as a trustee of Columbia University for 53 years (1840–1849, 1851–1893), and as chairman of the board of trustees from 1859 until his death in 1893
- Served as president of the Union League Club from 1879 to 1881.
- Acted as a trustee of both the Lenox Library and the Astor Library, which were later shaped into the New York Public Library
Notable relatives
Fish had many notable ancestors and descendants.
- Through his ancestor Gilbert Livingston (b. 1690) he was a second cousin four times removed of US Senator Prescott Bush and his son George H. W. Bush and grandson George W. Bush, both US Presidents.
- He had a son, a grandson and a great-grandson (all named Hamilton Fish) serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for New York:
- Son Hamilton Fish II (1849–1936)
- Grandson Hamilton Fish III (1888–1991)
- Great-grandson Hamilton Fish IV (1926–1996)
- His great-great grandson Hamilton Fish V ran for Congress in 1988 and 1994 (to succeed his retiring father) but lost. With other investors, Hamilton Fish V purchased The Nation out of bankruptcy in 1977, and sold it in 1995, but remains connected to the foundation. He is also an adviser to George Soros.
- Another son Stuyvesant Fish was an important railroad executive
- Another son, Nicholas Fish, was a U.S. diplomat, who was appointed second secretary of legation at Berlin in 1871, became secretary in 1874, and was chargé d'affaires at Berne in 1877-1881, and minister to Belgium in 1882-1886, after which he engaged in banking in New York City.
- Nicholas's son Hamilton Fish, an 1895 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University, saw service in The Spanish-American War as one of the storied Rough Riders. He was the first member of that regiment to be killed in action, at Las Guasimas, Cuba.
- Nephew Stuyvesant Fish Morris, physician from New York
- Grandnephew Hamilton F. Kean, US Senator from New Jersey
- Great-grandnephew Thomas Kean, Governor of New Jersey
Trivia
 |
Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (January 2009) |
- The Newburgh-Beacon Bridge on I-84 across the Hudson river is named after him.
- The Hamilton Fish Park Pool on the corners of Pitt St. and E. Houston St. in New York City is named after him.
- He is a distant relative of child killer Albert Fish. Albert is named after him.
References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
"Fish, Hamilton". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.- This article incorporates text from the public domain Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.
- Who Was Who in America: Historical Edition, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1967.
Further reading
- Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (Dodd) 1936. (1937 Pulitzer Prize winner in biography/autobiography category)
External links
- U-S-History.com: Article
- Biography from Spartacus Educational
- The History of New York State, Book XII, Chapter 7, Part 5 (Editor, Dr. James Sullivan; Online Edition by Holice, Deb & Pam)
- Desmond-Fish Library Public Library co-founded by Hamilton Fish IV. Library has many Fish family artifacts, papers and portraits on display.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by James G. Clinton |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 6th congressional district 1843 - 1845 |
Succeeded by William W. Campbell |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Albert Lester Acting |
Lieutenant Governor of New York 1848 |
Succeeded by George W. Patterson |
| Preceded by John Young |
Governor of New York 1849 - 1850 |
Succeeded by Washington Hunt |
| Preceded by Elihu B. Washburne |
United States Secretary of State Served under: Ulysses S. Grant 1869 – 1877 |
Succeeded by William M. Evarts |
| United States Senate | ||
| Preceded by Daniel S. Dickinson |
United States Senator (Class 1) from New York 1851 - 1857 Served alongside: William H. Seward |
Succeeded by Preston King |
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Mentioned in
- Fish (New York family)
- Stuyvesant Fish (American personage)
- Thomas Hicks (American painter)
- Treaty of Washington (treaty, United States/England)
- Alabama claims (government, United States)
- Virginius affair (historical event, United States/Spain)
- Allan Nevins (literature)
- George Sewall Boutwell (American statesman)
- John Lothrop Motley (American historian & statesman)
- Thomas Hicks (art)
- Hamilton Fish (disambiguation)
- Charles Sumner
- Benjamin Helm Bristow
- Ulysses Simpson Grant (American president & military leader)
