George Cabot | |
|---|---|
 A posthumous engraving of Cabot c. 1856 | |
| United States Senator fromMassachusetts | |
| In office March 4, 1791 – June 9, 1796 | |
| Preceded by | Tristram Dalton |
| Succeeded by | Benjamin Goodhue |
| Member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council | |
| In office 1808–1809 | |
| Governor | James Sullivan Levi Lincoln (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1751-12-16)December 16, 1751[1] or(1752-12-03)December 3, 1752 |
| Died | April 18, 1823(1823-04-18) (aged 70) |
| Political party | Federalist |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Occupation | Merchant, seaman, politician |
George Cabot (1751 or 1752 – April 18, 1823)[2] was an American merchant, seaman, and politician fromMassachusetts. He representedMassachusetts in the U.S. Senate and was the presiding officer of the infamousHartford Convention.
During and after his term in the Senate, Cabot was a major figure in the Hamiltonian faction of theFederalist Party and was a vocal supporter of war withRevolutionary France.
Cabot was born inSalem, Massachusetts.[2] His father was Joseph Cabot, a ship merchant. His mother was Elizabeth Higginson.[3] George was the seventh of ten siblings,[3][4] including John Cabot (b. 1745), Joseph Cabot Jr. (b. 1746), and Samuel Cabot (b. 1758). The Cabot family is originally fromJersey andNorman-French.[5]
In 1766, Cabot enrolled atHarvard College. After two years there, his father died. George inherited 600 pounds and rather than become a charge on his father's estate, dropped out to go to sea, where he became acabin boy on the ship of his brother-in-law Joseph Lee. By the age of 21, he was captain of his own ship. While traveling, he became fluent in French and Spanish.[6]
In 1775, Cabot and Lee formed a partnership inBeverly, Massachusetts, as merchants, trading the same goods they had transported as sailors.[7]
During the American Revolution, the Cabot family were ardent patriots. Cabot ships served as privateer vessels, raiding British merchants to support the revolutionary cause and turning a profit in the process. Some of their ships were captained by the famous privateerHugh Hill.[8][9]
Some time after the Revolution, Cabot's business took him to New York City, where he was acquainted withAlexander Hamilton, who became a lifelong friend and political ally. The visit strengthened Cabot's preference for a strong federal government and led to his founding membership in theFederalist Party.[10]
His business interests were suspended in 1794, during his service as Senator.[11]
Cabot's political career began in 1775, when he became a member of theMassachusetts Provincial Congress.[citation needed] In 1777, Cabot was elected as Beverly town fire-ward and director and president of the Bridge Company, tasked with constructing the Essex Bridge, which first connected Beverly withSalem across the Danvers River.[8]
In 1777, the town of Beverly voted to rejectthe proposed Massachusetts Constitution, and Cabot was a member of a committee selected to draft objections. He opposed the proposed system of weighted representation and price controls, but was unsuccessful.[12] That constitution was ultimately rejected by voters.
In August 1780, he was elected tothe convention for a new Massachusetts Constitution. Populist GovernorJohn Hancock, who supported the failed 1778 Constitution, accused his conservative opponents of being controlled by an "Essex Junto," including Cabot, which soon became a popular invective metonym.[13]
In 1788, Cabot was a delegate to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the newUnited States Constitution, which he strongly supported. Along withRufus King,Theophilus Parsons, andFisher Ames, he successfully engineered Massachusetts ratification by persuading Hancock andSamuel Adams to support ratification.[14]
In 1789, PresidentGeorge Washington breakfasted with Cabot at the latter'sBeverly home when he was in town inspecting the country'sfirst cotton mill and the new Essex Bridge.[15]
In 1791, midway through the first presidential term ofGeorge Washington, Cabot was elected to theU.S. Senate. During his time in the Senate, he was principally concerned with finance and commerce, and was a supporter of his friendAlexander Hamilton's policies asSecretary of the Treasury.
Duringhis first Congress, Cabot was a member of the Committee on Appropriations and chair of the Committee on Fisheries. He became a founding member of the newFederalist Party, led by Hamilton and Vice PresidentJohn Adams.[16] Hamilton frequently consulted with Cabot on matters of revenue, commerce, and manufacturing. Cabot's bill to subsidize fishermen became a major feature ofHamilton's economic program.[17]
Throughout the Congress, tensions with the Jeffersonian faction intensified both in the capital of Philadelphia and in the newspapers. Party differences were deepened by the ongoing French Revolution, which drew Jeffersonian support and Federalist revulsion. Cabot himself stood out as an ardentFrancophobe, and by extension, anAnglophile.[18] After theGenêt affair, Cabot called for the French ambassador's dismissal and personally persuaded Vice President Adams to urge Washington to remove Genêt.[19]
Inhis second Congress, Cabot opposed Secretary Jefferson's attempts at establishing favorable trade with France, blocking the election of JeffersonianAlbert Gallatin of Pennsylvania to the Senate. He remained a leader in matters of commerce and finance and helped pass a bill laying the groundwork for a national Navy.[20] In 1793, he was named a director of theFirst Bank of the United States.[citation needed]
Amid rising United States tensions with Great Britain, Cabot joined Senators Rufus King,Oliver Ellsworth, andCaleb Strong in calling for the appointment of Hamilton as special minister to negotiate a treaty with Britain. However, the public clamor that would be aroused by Hamilton's appointment led Washington to appointJohn Jay instead.[21] Though he thought it less than ideal, Cabot was one of the most uncompromising defenders of the resultingJay Treaty with Great Britain as the best possible compromise at a time when war would have destroyed the Union.[22]
During the debate over the Jay Treaty inhis final Congress, Jefferson accused Cabot of supporting the dissolution of the Union, based on Cabot's belief that rejection of the treaty would lead to ruinous war.[23] Jefferson also quoted Cabot as supporting a "President for life and an hereditary Senate."[24]
In May 1796, Cabot returned to Massachusetts and resigned from office, citing the growing bitterness and personal character of Philadelphia politics. He waited until his friendBenjamin Goodhue was elected as his successor, then promptly sent his resignation to the Massachusetts General Court. It became effective in June.[25]
Shortly after Cabot's resignation from the Senate, fellow Massachusetts FederalistJohn Adams was elected to the presidency. Though he did not actively participate in the campaign, Cabot supported Adams over Hamilton's preferred choice,Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the current Minister to France.[26]
As a private citizen, Cabot remained intensely interested in the progress of the French Revolution and intensely opposed to the Francophile policy of Thomas Jefferson, now serving as Vice President. He wrote that "the first and highest duty of the electors was to prevent the election of a French President." Hamilton andFisher Ames each urged the appointment of Cabot as part of a three-man mission to France, but Washington and Adams each declined. Adams instead choseElbridge Gerry, whose reputation in France, particularly with French Foreign MinisterCharles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, was more positive.[27]
Cabot himself was opposed to the appointment of such a commission, believing that the time for negotiation with France had passed.[28] After Pinckney's dismissal as Minister to France, Cabot called for war measures against France, including opposition to the establishment of any embassy whatsoever. He firmly believed that any continued diplomacy with France would only encourageJacobinism in the United States.[29]
In the winter of 1797–98, tensions with France escalated. Cabot, along with Pickering, Ames,Oliver Wolcott, andJames McHenry, formed the faction of "war Federalists" led by Hamilton. They opposed the moderate (mostly southern[30]) Federalists and Jefferson's Republicans, who sought peace with France at any cost.[30]
In March, President Adams declared to Congress that negotiations had failed and that the United States must arm for potential war.[31] The revelation of theXYZ affair effectively silenced all opposition and enabled Federalists to pass legislation creating a separate Department of the Navy.[32] Adams appointed Cabot as the firstUnited States Secretary of the Navy, but Cabot refused the appointment.Benjamin Stoddert filled the position in his place.[32]
Cabot became involved in the debate over the organization of a provisional army. Former President Washington suggested Hamilton, Pinckney, and former Secretary of WarHenry Knox, in that order, serve as major generals.[33] Despite this, Adams granted Knox the first rank. Cabot sided with Washington, Hamilton, and other leading Federalists in objecting to Knox's elevation; President Adams gave in, but the entire affair created divisions within the Federalists. Some Federalists suggested the Jeffersonian Elbridge Gerry, now returned from his mission to France, had undue influence over Adams's decision-making.[34]
In 1799, Adams, without consulting his cabinet, appointed Minister to the NetherlandsWilliam Vans Murray to lead a commission to renew peace negotiations with France, disappointing the war Federalists.[35] Cabot remained strictly opposed to any negotiation with France without first advances toward reconciliation by the French.[36]
Despite his ardent opposition to Adams's policy toward France, Cabot sought to reconcile the factions within the Federalist Party, for fear of the party's destruction.[37] Despite his efforts and frequent correspondence with leaders of both factions, the Federalist Party divided between the Adams and Pinckney-Hamilton campaigns through the remainder of 1799.[38]
Cabot's distance from the Adams administration also grew over theAlien and Sedition Acts. Cabot defendedJohn Marshall, a Federalist opponent of the Acts, to the shock of Cabot's friendFisher Ames.[39]
As the 1800 campaign approached and Adams prepared to seek a second term, tensions within the Federalist Party were exacerbated by the publication of the 1792Tench Coxe letter, in which Adams insinuated that the Pinckney family were British sympathizers,[40] and the death of President Washington.[41] At this point, Adams dismissed Pinckney as Secretary of State; Cabot understood this as "the complete abandonment by Mr. Adams of all the best principles of the Federalist Party." Cabot was also distressed by the use of "British sympathies" as a bludgeon against critics of Adams.[42]
When Adams returned to Quincy in the spring, Cabot made no effort to visit him.[43]
While Hamilton openly supported Pinckney for President over Adams, Cabot felt such a course was impossible and instead supported an equal electoral vote for Adams and Pinckney, to be resolved by the House of Representatives and urged Hamilton not to attack Adams openly.[44] Hamilton disregarded these pleas, publishing his attack on Adams. Though they remained friends, Cabot strongly admonished Hamilton for damaging Federalists' chances in the election.[45]
After Adams's loss in the 1800 election, Cabot withdrew from politics.[46] He played no part in Hamilton's plot to elect Aaron Burr over Thomas Jefferson in the 1801 contingent election, though he still passively opposed Jefferson's administration.[47] Though he supported the appointments ofJames Madison andAlbert Gallatin to Jefferson's cabinet, Cabot saw the 1800 election as the total defeat of the Federalist Party, and his mantra became, "Things must grow worse before they are better."[48]
Cabot tended to his Brookline farm for a time, but grew tired of the work and leased his estate to a tenant.[46] He remained President of the U.S. Bank of Boston,[46] and occasionally entertained friends who were in Boston on business.
The deaths of his son Edward in 1803 and his friend Alexander Hamilton in 1804 put Cabot in a period of mourning, both for his personal loss and the loss of any conceivable future for the Hamiltonians.[49] Cabot sold some lands to provide for Hamilton's family.[50]
Cabot opposed Jefferson's acquisition of theLouisiana Territory and his removals of Federalist appointees and judges, but resistedTimothy Pickering's calls for dissolution of the Union.[51]
In 1805, Cabot made his only public pronouncement during the Jefferson administration. He reluctantly led a committee of Boston merchants opposed to British policy of seizing American ships in commerce with France.[52]
After theBattle of Trafalgar and Napoleon's declaration of theContinental System, Cabot privately adopted a stance of definite alliance with the British in opposition to Napoleonic France.[53] After the 1807Chesapeake–Leopard affair, Cabot urged forgiveness and acceptance of the British terms of reparation.[53] Jefferson's response, instead, was theEmbargo Act of 1807.[54] Cabot, like most Federalists and most of New England, opposed Jefferson's embargo against Britain, which he believed was designed to draw the United States into a war with Great Britain and would injure American business.[55]
The Embargo Act and the ensuing 1808 campaign drew Cabot and many other Federalists back into politics.[56]
Cabot published and distributed a letter on behalf ofTimothy Pickering, now representing Massachusetts in the Senate and the most prominent Federalist in public life. This pamphlet was widely read and revitalized support for the Federalists.[57] Cabot, however, feared that Pickering's approach could revitalize accusations the Federalists were a "British faction" and wrote to him urging caution. When Pickering persisted, Cabot suppressed several anti-Jeffersonian diatribes from the Senator.[58]
Nonetheless, Cabot could not remain withdrawn from public life. Though Federalists did not win a resounding victory in Massachusetts, the party won sufficient seats in the General Court to elect Cabot to a one-year term on theGovernor's Council.[59]
In theconcurrent presidential election, Cabot advised against a union with theClintonian faction of the Republican Party and any strategy that might suggest that Federalists supported dissolution of the Union or regional separatism, including Pickering's proposal to hire a French engineer to fortify the port of Boston, traditionally a duty of the national government. Though the Federalists were unsuccessful in electing a President, the party did succeed in forcing repeal of the Embargo Act, after which Cabot withdrew from public life again. He withdrew further after the death of his eldest son, Charles, in 1811.[60]
Cabot opposed theWar of 1812 from the outset as unjust and wicked and publicly determined to refrain from aiding its prosecution in any way. However, he refrained from political commentary until 1814.[61]
Cabot was elected as a delegate to theHartford Convention, organized in 1814 by Federalist politicians of New England who were unhappy with the conduct of theWar of 1812, in particular the conscription of state militias into national service. On his journey to Hartford, Cabot was joined byDr. James Jackson. Cabot reportedly told Jackson he was going to Hartford to "keep you young hot-heads from getting into mischief."[62]
Cabot chaired the secretive meeting and later certified the official proceedings and platform of the convention, which called for constitutional reforms but stopped short of calling for secession. In his role, Cabot remained reticent regarding his own views, drawing the ire of more radically anti-war Federalists like Pickering andJohn Lowell Jr.[62]
After the war ended, the convention was widely viewed as unconstitutional, bordering on treasonous. TheTreaty of Ghent, signed while the convention was meeting, effectively ended both the Federalist Party and Cabot's political career. He made no further public appearances and no longer maintained his correspondence with public figures, save a brief discussion with Pickering weighing the merits of free trade.[63]
After the Hartford Convention, Cabot returned to a life largely of leisure. He remained president of the Boston Marine Insurance Company, which kept him in touch with his merchant colleagues. He was an active member of Boston society and devoted much of his time to his wife, daughter Elizabeth, and son Henry who lived nearby with his family.[64]
Cabot steadfastly refused to have his portrait painted during his lifetime; most depictions of him are posthumous. He was described by contemporaries as tall and "powerfully built."Samuel Griswold Goodrich, a witness to the Hartford Convention, described him as bearing a striking resemblance to George Washington.[65]
Cabot was raised as a member of the Congregational Church of New England but later in life became aUnitarian.[66]
He was averse to public speaking but considered an excellent conversationalist in private.[67] Among his close friends wasJosiah Quincy II, who later became President ofHarvard University.[68] HistorianGeorge Bancroft credited Cabot with encouraging him to study abroad at the University of Göttingen, where he was among the first Americans awarded a Ph.D.[69]
He was elected a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788.[70]
Cabot married his second cousin Elizabeth Higginson in 1774.[7] They had four children:
Charles became a merchant like his father, taking long voyages to theEast Indies. Henry and Edward both began their careers in Boston, in a law office and counting-house, respectively.[73] Edward died in 1803.[72] Charles died of consumption in Havana in 1811.[71] Henry and Elizabeth lived into adulthood.[64]
Elizabeth marriedJohn Thornton Kirkland, the fifteenthPresident of Harvard University.
Through Henry's daughter Anna, George Cabot was the great-grandfather ofHenry Cabot Lodge, who held Cabot's seat in the United States Senate from 1893 until his death in 1924. Lodge's grandsonHenry Cabot Lodge Jr. also represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 1937 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1953.
In 1795, Cabot was briefly the guardian ofGeorges Washington de La Fayette, son of theMarquis de Lafayette, who had fled France to live in the United States in exile. Lafayette lived in Boston under the assumed name "Motier" and studied atHarvard College. Lafayette later entered the care of Hamilton before finally being adopted by Washington until he could return to France.[74]
In 1794, Cabot moved his family from Beverly toBrookline, Massachusetts, where he built an estate named "Greenhill." Among his guests there was Supreme Court JusticeJames Iredell.[22] In 1803, to permit his daughter Elizabeth to enter society, Cabot sold his Brookline estate and moved to Boston, where he spent the rest of his life.[73] AfterFisher Ames died on July 4, 1808, Cabot hosted his funeral in his home.[75]
In 1821, Cabot suffered his first case of kidney stones and suffered from them for the remaining two years of his life.
He died inBoston, Massachusetts, on April 18, 1823, and was buried theGranary Burying Ground.[76] He was later reinterred inMount Auburn Cemetery inCambridge, Massachusetts.
Cabot's only full-length biography was published by his great-grandsonHenry Cabot Lodge in 1877.[4] Lodge also named his sonGeorge Cabot Lodge.
captain hugh hill.
| U.S. Senate | ||
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| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts 1791–1796 Served alongside:Caleb Strong | Succeeded by |
| Class 1 |  | |
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| Class 2 | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
