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Caleb Cushing | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 20thUnited States Minister to Spain | |
| In office May 30, 1874 – April 9, 1877 | |
| President | Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes |
| Preceded by | Daniel Sickles |
| Succeeded by | James Russell Lowell |
| 23rdUnited States Attorney General | |
| In office March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857 | |
| President | Franklin Pierce |
| Preceded by | John Crittenden |
| Succeeded by | Jeremiah Black |
| United States Minister to China | |
| In office June 12, 1844 – August 27, 1844 | |
| President | John Tyler |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Everett |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's3rd district | |
| In office March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1843 | |
| Preceded by | Gayton Osgood |
| Succeeded by | Amos Abbott |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1800-01-17)January 17, 1800 Salisbury, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | January 2, 1879(1879-01-02) (aged 78) Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican (Before 1825) National Republican (1825–1833) Whig (1833–1847) Democratic (1847–1879) |
| Spouse | |
| Education | Harvard University (AB) |
| Signature |  |
Caleb Cushing (January 17, 1800 – January 2, 1879) was an AmericanDemocratic politician and diplomat who served as aMember of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts and the 23rdUnited States Attorney General under PresidentFranklin Pierce.[1] From 1874 until 1877, he was theUnited States Minister to Spain.
Cushing was an eager proponent of territorial and commercial expansion, especially regarding the acquisition ofTexas,Oregon andCuba. He believed that enlarging the American sphere would fulfill "the great destiny reserved for this exemplar American Republic."[2] Cushing secured the first American treaty with China, theTreaty of Wangxia of 1844; it gave American merchants trading rights in five Chinese ports.[3] After the Civil War, Cushing negotiated a treaty with Colombia to give the United States a right-of-way for a trans-oceanic Canal. He helped obtain a favorable settlement of theAlabama Claims, and as the ambassador to Spain in 1870s defused the troublesomeVirginius Affair.
Cushing was born inSalisbury, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1800; he was the son of John Newmarch Cushing, a wealthyshipbuilder and merchant, and Lydia Dow, a delicate and sensitive woman fromSeabrook, New Hampshire, who died when he was ten. The family moved across theMerrimack River to the prosperous shipping town ofNewburyport, Massachusetts, in 1802. He enteredHarvard University at the age of 13 and graduated in 1817.[4] 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.[5] There he attended theFirst Presbyterian Church.
On November 23, 1824, Cushing married Caroline Elizabeth Wilde, daughter of JudgeSamuel Sumner Wilde, of theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. His wife died about a decade later, leaving him childless and alone. He never married again.
Cushing served as aDemocratic-Republican member of theMassachusetts House of Representatives in 1825, then entered theMassachusetts Senate in 1826, and returned to the House in 1828. Afterwards, he spent two years in Europe from 1829 to 1831. 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 to theUnited States House of Representatives.[5]
Cushing served in Congress from 1835 until 1843 (the24th,25th,26th and27th Congresses). During the 27th Congress, he was chairman of theU.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Here the marked inconsistency characterizing his public life became manifest. For whenJohn 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 forU.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but theU.S. Senate refused to confirm him for this office.[5] He was nominated three times in one day, and rejected all three times.[6]John Canfield Spencer was chosen instead.
In 1843, Cushing was appointed by President Tyler to be commissioner andUnited States Ambassador to China, holding this position until March 4, 1845.[5] With the goal of impressing the Royal Chinese court, the Cushing mission consisted of four American warships, loaded with gifts that exalted scientific wonders including revolvers, telescope, and an encyclopedia. His arrival at Macau in February 1844 created a local sensation, but the Chinese government was reluctant to designate another most favored nation. Cushing cleverly mixed the carrot and stick. He warned – against the backdrop of his warships – that not to receive an envoy was a national insult. He threatened to go directly to the Emperor – an unheard of procedure. The Emperor tried delay, but he finally sent an envoy to negotiate with Cushing, leading to the signing of theTreaty of Wanghia in the village of Wanghia on July 3, 1844.[7] In addition to most favored nation status, Cushing made sure that Americans receivedextraterritoriality. In the following years American trade with China grew rapidly, thanks to the high-speed clipper ships which carried relatively small amounts of high-value cargo, such as ginseng and silk. American Protestant missionaries also began to arrive. The popular Chinese reaction was mostly hostile, but there was a favorable element that provided a base of support for American missionaries and businessmen. By 1850–64, China was enmeshed in theTaiping rebellion, a civil war which caused millions of deaths; foreign trade stagnated.[3][8][9][10]
While serving as commissioner to China he was also empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and commerce with Japan.
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 theMexican–American War; although the bill was defeated, he raised the necessary funds privately.[5]
He served in the Army during the Mexican War first as colonel of the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, of which he was placed in command on January 15, 1847. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers on April 14 of the same year. He did not see combat during this conflict, and entered Mexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified. He was discharged from the Army on July 20, 1848.
In 1847 and again in 1848 the Democrats nominated him forGovernor of Massachusetts, but on each occasion he was defeated at the polls. He was again a representative in the state legislature in 1851,[5] was offered the position asMassachusetts Attorney General in 1851, but declined; and served as mayor of Newburyport 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. During the presidencyFranklin Pierce, from March 7, 1853, until March 3, 1857, he wasAttorney General of the United States. Cushing supported the March 1857Dred Scott decision.[11]
In 1858, 1859, 1862, and 1863 he again served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Also during this time, he founded the Cushing Land Agency inSt. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. The building it was housed in, now known as theCushing Land Agency Building, is listed on theNational Register of Historic Places.
In 1860 he presided over theDemocratic National Convention, which met first atCharleston and later atBaltimore, until he joined those who seceded from the regular convention. He then presided also over the convention of the seceding delegates, who nominatedJohn C. Breckinridge for the Presidency.[5] Also in 1860 PresidentJames Buchanan sent him to Charleston as Confidential Commissioner to the Secessionists of South Carolina.
Despite having favoredstates' rights and opposed theabolition of slavery, during the Civil War, he supported the Union. He was later appointed by PresidentAndrew 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.
In 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, Cushing was sent toBogotá,Colombia, and worked to negotiate a right-of-way treaty for a ship canal across theIsthmus of Panama.
At the Geneva conference for the settlement of theAlabama claims in 1871–1872 he was one of thecounsels appointed by PresidentUlysses S. Grant for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the Alabama claims.[5]
From January 6, 1874, to April 9, 1877, Cushing wasMinister to Spain. He defused tensions over theVirginius Affair, and proved popular in the country.
On January 9, 1874, Grant nominated Cushing asChief Justice of theUnited States Supreme Court. The nomination came soon after Grant withdrew the nomination ofGeorge Henry Williams to the position.[12] The selection caught many off-guard, including Cushing himself.[13]Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate immediately challenged Cushing's loyalties on account of his earlier close personal rapport with Andrew Johnson and his alleged pre-Civil WarCopperhead sympathies. Their feelings of distrust turned into all out opposition to his confirmation when a (non-political) letter that Cushing had written in 1861 toPresident of the ConfederacyJefferson Davis was found and made public. As a result of rising furor, the nomination was withdrawn on January 13, 1874.[14][15]
Cushing died in Newburyport on January 2, 1879, where he was laid to rest in the town's Highland Cemetery.
The United States Revenue CutterCaleb Cushing was named after Cushing. TheCaleb Cushing served during theAmerican Civil War and was destroyed by Confederate raiders during theBattle of Portland Harbor on June 27, 1863.[16]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cushing, Caleb".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 666–667.
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" atFaneuil 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."
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's 3rd congressional district 1835–1843 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee 1841–1842 | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| New office | United States Minister to China 1844 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Minister to Spain 1874–1877 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Massachusetts 1847,1848 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Permanent Chair of the Democratic National Convention 1860 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| New seat | Associate Justice of theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 1852–1853 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Attorney General 1853–1857 | Succeeded by |
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| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | ||
| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | ||
| Chiefs of the U.S. Liaison Office inBeijing | ||
| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | ||
See also:American Institute in Taiwan | ||
| Ministers Plenipotentiary to Spain (1779–1825) | |
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| Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain (1825–1913) | |
| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Spain (1913–present) | |
