Rufus Choate (/tʃoʊt/) (October 1, 1799 – July 13, 1859) was an Americanlawyer,orator, and Senator who represented Massachusetts as a member of theWhig Party. He is regarded as one of the greatest American lawyers of the 19th century, arguing over a thousand cases in a lifetime practice extending to virtually every branch of the law then recognized. Notably, he was one of the pioneers of the legal technique of arousing jury sympathy intort cases. In one instance, he successfully won a record judgement of $22,500 for a badly injured widow, the most ever awarded to a plaintiff at the time.^[1]

Rufus Choate
Choatec. 1853
United States Senator fromMassachusetts
In office February 23, 1841 – March 3, 1845
Preceded by	Daniel Webster
Succeeded by	Daniel Webster
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's2nd district
In office March 4, 1831 – June 30, 1834
Preceded by	Benjamin W. Crowninshield
Succeeded by	Stephen C. Phillips
10thMassachusetts Attorney General
In office 1853–1854
Governor	John H. Clifford
Preceded by	John H. Clifford
Succeeded by	John H. Clifford
Member of theMassachusetts Senate
In office 1827
Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
In office 1825–1826
Personal details
Born	(1799-10-01)October 1, 1799 Ipswich, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	July 13, 1859(1859-07-13) (aged 59) Halifax,British Canada
Resting place	Mount Auburn Cemetery Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political party	Whig
Alma mater	Dartmouth College Harvard University
Profession	Law

Along with his colleague and close associateDaniel Webster, he is also regarded as one of the greatest orators of his age. Among his most famous orations are hisAddress on TheColonial Age of New England delivered at the centennial celebration of the settlement ofIpswich, Massachusetts in 1831 and hisAddress on The Age of the Pilgrims as the Heroic Period of Our History before theNew England Society of New York in 1843. Through these addresses, Choate became one of the most prominent advocates of promoting thePuritan settlers as the first founders of the American republic.

A staunch nationalist and unionist, Choate was among several former Whigs to oppose theRepublican Party over concerns that it was a "sectional party" whose platform threatened to separate the Union. In turn, he publicly voiced his support forDemocratic candidateJames Buchanan over RepublicanJohn C. Frémont in the1856 presidential election.

Rufus Choate was born inIpswich, Massachusetts, the son of Miriam (Foster) and David Choate, a teacher and Revolutionary War veteran.^[2] He was a descendant of an English family which settled in Massachusetts in 1643.^[3] His first cousin, physician George Choate, was the father ofGeorge C. S. Choate andJoseph Hodges Choate. Rufus Choate's birthplace,Choate House, remains virtually unchanged to this day.

A precocious child, at six he is said to have been able to repeat large parts of theBible and ofPilgrim's Progress from memory. He was elected toPhi Beta Kappa^[4] and graduated asvaledictorian of his class atDartmouth College in 1819, was a tutor there in 1819–1820.

In the fall of 1820 he was entered at theDane Law School in Cambridge, under the instruction of Chief Justice Parker and ProfessorAsahel Stearns. In the following year Choate studied inWashington, D.C. in the office ofWilliam Wirt, thenAttorney General of the United States.^[5]

He was admitted to the Massachusettsbar in 1823 and practiced at what was laterSouth Danvers (now Peabody) for five years, during which time he served in theMassachusetts House of Representatives (1825–1826) and in theMassachusetts Senate (1827).

In 1828, he moved toSalem, where his successful conduct of several importantlawsuits brought him prominently into public notice. In 1830 he was elected to Congress as aWhig from Salem, defeating theJacksonian candidate for re-election,Benjamin Crowninshield, a formerUnited States Secretary of the Navy, and in 1832 he was re-elected. His career in Congress was marked by a speech in defence of a protectivetariff.

In 1834, before the completion of his second term, he resigned and established himself in the practice of law inBoston. Already his reputation as a speaker had spread beyondNew England, and he was much sought after as an orator for public occasions. His skill was so great that when he argued cases at theNorfolk County Courthouse, students from the nearbyDedham High School would be dismissed to listen to his orations.^[7] For several years, he devoted himself unremittingly to his profession but, in 1841, succeeded fellow Dartmouth graduateDaniel Webster in theUnited States Senate. Shortly afterwards he delivered an address at the memorial services forPresident William Henry Harrison atFaneuil Hall.

In the Senate, he spoke on the tariff, theOregon boundary, in favor of theFiscal Bank Act, and in opposition to theannexation of Texas. On Webster's re-election to the Senate in 1845, Choate resumed his law practice. He later served a short term as attorney-general of Massachusetts in 1853–1854. In 1846, Choate convinced a jury that the accused,Albert Tirrell, did not cut the throat of his lover, or, if he did so, he did it whilesleepwalking, under the 'insanity of sleep'.^[8] His successful use ofsleepwalking as a defense againstmurder charges was the first time in American legal history this defense was successful in a murder prosecution.^[9] He was a faithful supporter of Webster's policy as declared in the latter'sSeventh of March Speech of 1850 and labored to secure for him the presidential nomination at the Whig National Convention in 1852. In 1853, he was a member of the state constitutional convention.

In 1856, he refused to follow most of his former Whig associates into theRepublican Party and gave his support to DemocratJames Buchanan, whom he considered the representative of a national instead of a sectional party.

The Colonial Age of New England, 1831.

The Importance of Illustrating New-England History by a Series of Romances like the Waverly Novels, 1833.

The Age of the Pilgrims as the Heroic Period of Our History, 1843.

The Positions and Functions of the American Bar, as an Element of Conservatism in the State, 1845.

American Nationality, 1856,

The Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods, 1857.

In 1850 Choate traveled Europe for three months to improve his health. He was accompanied by his old friend and well-known lawyer, the Hon.Joseph M. Bell, who married Choate's sister, and later his daughter Helen.^{[5]: 427, 429, 434}

In 1859, failing health led him to seek rest yet again in Europe. In June 1859, he sailed from Boston to England, became worse and left the ship atHalifax, Nova Scotia, where he died on July 13.^[5] He was buried atMount Auburn Cemetery in Boston.^[10]

With his wife Helen Olcott, whom he married on March 29, 1825, Choate had seven children: Catherine Bell (1826–1830), an infant child (1828–1828), Helen Olcott Bell (1830–1918), Sarah (1831–1875), Rufus (1834–1866), Miriam Foster (1835–??), and Caroline (1837–1840).^[5]

Choate's private library contained seven thousand books with three thousand volumes in his law library.^[5] Hischildhood home is preserved by theTrustees of Reservations on theCrane Wildlife Refuge.^[11] Astatue of him stands in theSuffolk County Courthouse in Boston.

• Works — edited, with a memoir, byS. G. Brown, and published in two volumes at Boston in 1862
• Memoir — published in 1870
• EG Parker'sReminiscences of Rufus Choate (New York, 1860)
• EP Whipple'sSome Recollections of Rufus Choate (New York, 1879)
• Albany Law Review of 1877–1878
• Claude Fuess'Rufus Choate, The Wizard of the Law (1928)
• The Political Writings of Rufus Choate (2003)

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911)."Choate, Rufus" .Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Attribution

•   This article incorporatespublic domain material from theBiographical Directory of the United States Congress

• United States Congress."Rufus Choate (id: C000375)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Reminiscences of Rufus Choate by Edward Parker, published 1860.
• The Works of Rufus Choate: With a Memoir of His Life by Samuel Gilman Brown, published 1862.
• Memories of Rufus Choate by Joseph Neilson, published 1884.
• Works by Rufus Choate atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks)