Cushing, Caleb

Life Span
to
Full name
Caleb Cushing
Place of Birth
Burial Place
Birth Date Certainty
Exact
Death Date Certainty
Exact
Gender
Male
Race
White
Sectional choice
North
Origins
Free State
No. of Spouses
1
No. of Children
0
Family
John Newmarch Cushing (father), Lydia Gow Cushing (mother), Caroline Elizabeth Wilde (wife)
Education
Harvard
Occupation
Politician
Diplomat
Attorney or Judge
Educator
Relation to Slavery
White non-slaveholder
Church or Religious Denomination
Presbyterian
Political Parties
Democratic
Whig
Government
Harrison/Tyler Administration (1841-45)
Pierce Administration (1853-57)
Johnson Administration (1865-69)
Grant Administration (1869-77)
Diplomat
US House of Representatives
State legislature
State supreme court
Local government
Military
US military (Pre-Civil War)

Caleb Cushing (Congressional Biographical Dictionary)

Reference
CUSHING, Caleb, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Salisbury, Mass., January 17, 1800; was graduated from Harvard University in 1817; studied law; was admitted to the bar at Newburyport in 1823; member of the State house of representatives in 1825; served in the State senate in 1827; again a member of the State house of representatives in 1833 and 1834; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Twenty-third Congress in 1833; elected as an Anti-Jacksonian candidate to the Twenty-fourth and reelected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1835-March 3, 1843); chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Twenty-seventh Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1842; appointed by President Tyler as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China on May 8, 1843, and also commissioner on the same date; resigned March 4, 1845; while serving as commissioner to China was empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and commerce with Japan; again a member of the State house of representatives in 1845 and 1846; colonel of a Massachusetts regiment which served in the war with Mexico; appointed brigadier general by President Polk April 14, 1847; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1847 and again in 1848; again elected to the State house of representatives in 1850; offered the position as attorney general of Massachusetts in 1851, but declined; mayor of Newburyport, Mass., in 1851 and 1852; appointed judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts in 1852; appointed by President Pierce as Attorney General of the United States on March 7, 1853, and served until March 3, 1857; chairman of the Democratic National Conventions at Baltimore and Charleston in 1860; appointed by President Johnson as a commissioner to codify the laws of the United States and served from 1866 to 1870; instructed on November 25, 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, to negotiate a treaty for a ship canal across the Isthmus; appointed in 1872 by President Grant counsel for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the Alabama claims; nominated by President Grant in 1874 to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, but was not confirmed by the Senate; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain from January 6, 1874, to April 9, 1877; died in Newburyport, Essex County, Mass., on January 2, 1879; interment in Highland Cemetery.
“Cushing, Caleb,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C001016.
How to Cite This Page: "Cushing, Caleb," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/34900.