Caleb Cushing was an American Democratic politician and diplomat who served as a Member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts and the 23rd United States Attorney General under President Franklin Pierce.
27 Facts About Caleb Cushing
2.
Caleb Cushing helped obtain a favorable settlement of the Alabama Claims, and as the ambassador to Spain in 1870s defused the troublesome Virginius Affair.
3.
Caleb Cushing was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, on January 17,1800; he was the son of John Newmarch Caleb Cushing, a wealthy shipbuilder and merchant, and Lydia Dow, a delicate and sensitive woman from Seabrook, New Hampshire, who died when he was ten.
4.
Caleb Cushing entered Harvard University at the age of 13 and graduated in 1817.
5.
Caleb Cushing 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.
6.
On November 23,1824, Caleb Cushing married Caroline Elizabeth Wilde, daughter of Judge Samuel Sumner Wilde, of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
7.
Caleb Cushing's wife died about a decade later, leaving him childless and alone.
8.
Caleb 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.
9.
Caleb Cushing served in Congress from 1835 until 1843.
10.
For when John Tyler had become president, had been read out of the Whig party, and had vetoed Whig measures for which Caleb Cushing had voted, Caleb Cushing first defended the vetoes and then voted again for the bills.
11.
Caleb Cushing was nominated three times in one day, and rejected all three times.
12.
In 1843, Caleb Cushing was appointed by President Tyler to be commissioner and United States Ambassador to China, holding this position until March 4,1845.
13.
The Emperor tried delay, but he finally sent an envoy to negotiate with Caleb Cushing, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Wanghia in the village of Wanghia on July 3,1844.
14.
Caleb Cushing 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.
15.
Caleb Cushing did not see combat during this conflict, and entered Mexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified.
16.
Caleb Cushing was discharged from the Army on July 20,1848.
17.
Caleb Cushing 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 in 1851 and 1852.
18.
Caleb Cushing became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852.
19.
Caleb Cushing then presided over the convention of the seceding delegates, who nominated John C Breckinridge for the Presidency.
20.
Caleb Cushing was later appointed by President Andrew Johnson as one of three commissioners assigned to revise and codify the laws of the United States Congress.
21.
Caleb Cushing served in that capacity from 1866 to 1870.
22.
In 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, Caleb Cushing was sent to Bogota, Colombia, and worked to negotiate a right-of-way treaty for a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama.
23.
From January 6,1874, to April 9,1877, Caleb Cushing was Minister to Spain.
24.
Caleb Cushing defused tensions over the Virginius Affair, and proved popular in the country.
25.
Caleb Cushing died in Newburyport on January 2,1879, where he was laid to rest in the town's Highland Cemetery.
26.
The United States Revenue Cutter Caleb Cushing was named after Cushing.
27.
The Caleb Cushing served during the American Civil War and was destroyed by Confederate raiders during the Battle of Portland Harbor on June 27,1863.