Rufus King

This article is about the Federalist candidate for president. For other persons of the same name or the high school, see Rufus King (disambiguation).

Rufus King
Rufus King by Gilbert Stuart, 1819
United States Senator from New York
In office March 4, 1813 – March 4, 1825
Preceded by	John Smith
Succeeded by	Nathan Sanford
In office July 25, 1789 – May 23, 1796
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	John Laurance
United States Minister to Great Britain
In office November 11, 1825 – May 10, 1826
Nominated by	John Quincy Adams
Preceded by	Richard Rush
Succeeded by	Albert Gallatin
In office July 26, 1796 – May 16, 1803
Nominated by	George Washington
Preceded by	Thomas Pinckney
Succeeded by	James Monroe
Personal details
Born	(1755-03-24)March 24, 1755 Scarborough, Massachusetts (now Maine)
Died	April 29, 1827(1827-04-29) (aged 72) Jamaica, Queens, New York
Political party	Federalist
Spouse	Mary Alsop King
Children	James G. King John Alsop King Charles King Edward King Frederic Gore King
Profession	Lawyer
Signature

Rufus King (March 24, 1755 – April 29, 1827) was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was a delegate for Massachusetts to the Continental Congress. He also attended the Constitutional Convention and was one of the signers of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented New York in the United States Senate, served as Minister to Britain, and was the Federalist candidate for both Vice President (1804, 1808) and President of the United States (1816).

Biography

Early life

He was born on March 24, 1755 at Scarborough which was then a part of Massachusetts but is now in the state of Maine. He was a son of Sabilla Blagden and Richard King, a prosperous farmer-merchant, who had settled at Dunstan Landing in Scarborough, near Portland, Maine, and had made a modest fortune by 1755, the year Rufus was born.

His financial success aroused the jealousy of his neighbors, and when the Stamp Act 1765 was imposed, and rioting became almost respectable, a mob ransacked his house and destroyed most of the furniture. Nobody was punished, and the next year the mob burned down his barn. It was not surprising that Richard King became a loyalist. All of his sons, however, became patriots in the American War of Independence.

Career

King attended Dummer Academy (now The Governor's Academy) and Harvard College, graduating in 1777. He began to read law under Theophilus Parsons, but his studies were interrupted in 1770 when King volunteered for militia duty in the American Revolutionary War. Appointed a major, he served as an aide to General Sullivan in the Battle of Rhode Island. After the campaign, King returned to his apprenticeship under Parsons.

He was admitted to the bar in 1780 and began a legal practice in Newburyport, Massachusetts. King was first elected to the Massachusetts state assembly in 1783, and returned there each year until 1785. Massachusetts sent him to the Confederation Congress from 1784 to 1780. He was one of the oldest at the conference.

Politics

In 1787, King was sent to the Federal constitutional convention at Philadelphia where he worked closely with Alexander Hamilton on the Committee of Style and Arrangement to prepare the final draft. He returned home and went to work to get the Constitution ratified and to position himself to be named to the U.S. Senate. He was only partially successful. Massachusetts ratified the Constitution, but his efforts to be elected to the Senate failed.

At Hamilton's urging, he moved to New York City, and was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1789. When the United States Constitution took effect, the State Legislature disagreed on who should be chosen besides Philip Schuyler for U.S. Senator from New York. Alexander Hamilton endorsed Rufus King as a candidate, thwarting the plans of the prominent Livingston family, who had hoped to place one of their own, James Duane, on the seat. Governor George Clinton, looking to cause a rift between the Livingstons and the Schuyler family (Hamilton was Philip Schuyler's son-in-law), discreetly supported King, and as a result he was elected in 1789. He was re-elected in 1795 but resigned on May 23, 1796, having been appointed U. S. Minister to Great Britain. Before becoming Minister to Britain, King was offered the post of Secretary of State by President George Washington but declined it.

Diplomat and national candidate

King's nomination to be Minister to the UK (1825)

King played a major diplomatic role as Minister to the Court of St. James from 1796 to 1803, and again from 1825 to 1826. Although he was a leading Federalist, Thomas Jefferson kept him in office until King asked to be relieved. He successfully settled disputes that the Jay Treaty had opened for negotiation. His term was marked by friendship between the U.S. and Britain; it became hostile after 1805. While in Britain, he was in close personal contact with South American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda and facilitated Miranda's trip to the United States in search of support for his failed 1806 expedition to Venezuela.

He was the unsuccessful Federalist Party candidate for Vice President in 1804 and 1808. In 1813, he was elected again to the U.S. Senate, and served until March 4, 1819. In April 1816, he lost the election for Governor of New York to the incumbent Daniel D. Tompkins of the Democratic-Republican Party. Later that year, King was nominated by the Federalists in the United States presidential election, 1816, but lost again. King was the last presidential candidate to be nominated by the Federalists before their collapse at the end of the First Party System of the United States.

In 1819, he ran for re-election as a Federalist, but the party was already disbanding and had only a small minority in the New York State Legislature. Due to the split of the Democratic-Republicans, no successor was elected to the U.S. Senate, and the seat remained vacant until January 1820 when King was elected again. Trying to attract the former Federalist voters to their side at the next gubernatorial election in April 1820, both factions of the Democratic-Republican Party supported King, who served another term in the U.S. Senate until March 4, 1825.

In 1822 he was admitted as an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.

Anti-slavery activity

Oil painting of King by Charles Willson Peale (1818)

King had a long history of opposition to the expansion of slavery and the slave trade. This stand was a product of moral conviction which coincided with the political realities of New England federalism. While in Congress, he successfully added provisions to the 1785 Northwest Ordinance which barred the extension of slavery into the Northwest Territory. But he also said he was willing "to suffer the continuance of slaves until they can be gradually emancipated in states already overrun with them." He did not press the issue very hard at this time. At the Constitutional Convention, he indicated that his opposition to slavery was based upon the political and economic advantages it gave to the South, but he was willing to compromise for political reasons.

In 1817, he supported Senate action to abolish the domestic slave trade and, in 1819, spoke strongly for the antislavery amendment to the Missouri statehood bill. In 1819, his arguments were political, economic, and humanitarian; the extension of slavery would adversely affect the security of the principles of freedom and liberty. After the Missouri Compromise, he continued to support gradual emancipation in various ways.

Library

At the time of his death in 1827, King had a library of roughly 2,200 titles in 3,500 volumes. In addition, King had roughly 200 bound volumes containing thousands of pamphlets. King's son John Alsop King inherited the library and kept them in Jamaica, Queens, until his death in 1867. The books then went to John's son Dr. Charles Ray King of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They remained in Pennsylvania until donated to the New-York Historical Society in 1906, where most of them currently reside. Some books have extensive marginalia. In addition, six commonplace books survive in his papers at the New-York Historical Society.

Family

Many of King's family were also involved in politics and he had a number of prominent descendants. His brother William King was the first governor of Maine and a prominent merchant, and his other brother, Cyrus King, was a U. S. Representative from Massachusetts.

His wife Mary Alsop was born in New York on October 17, 1769, and died in Jamaica, New York, on June 5, 1819. She was the only daughter of John Alsop, a wealthy merchant and a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776. She was also a great niece of Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She married Mr. King in New York City on March 30, 1786, he being at that time a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress then sitting in that city.

Mrs. King was a lady of remarkable beauty, gentle and gracious manners, and well cultivated mind, and adorned the high station, both in England and at home, that her husband's official positions and their own social relations entitled them to occupy. The latter years of her life, except while in Washington, were passed in Jamaica, Queens, New York.

King died on April 29, 1827, and his funeral was held at his N Y in Jamaica, Queens. He is buried in the Grace Church Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, New York. The home that King purchased in 1805 and expanded thereafter and some of his farm make up King Park in Queens. The home, called King Manor, is now a museum and is open to the public.

The Rufus King School, also known as P.S. 26, in Fresh Meadows, New York, was named after King, as was the Rufus King Hall on the CUNY Queens College campus and King Street in Madison, Wi. Rufus King High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is named after his grandson, Rufus King, a general in the American Civil War.

Descendants

Rufus King's descendants number in the thousands today. Some of his notable descendants include;

• Dr. C. Loring Brace IV was a noted Biological anthropologist.
• Gerald Warner Brace (1901–1978) was an American writer, educator, sailor and boat builder.
• Charles Loring Brace (1826–1890) was a philanthropist and was most renowned for founding The Children's Aid Society.
• Wolcott Gibbs was an American editor, humorist, theater critic, playwright and author of short stories.
• Archibald Gracie III was a career United States Army officer, businessman, and a graduate of West Point. He is well known for being a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War and for his death during the Siege of Petersburg.
• Archibald Gracie IV was an American writer, amateur historian, real estate investor, and survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
• Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey, Jr., USN, (called "Bill Halsey" and sometimes known as "Bull" Halsey), was a U.S. Naval officer and the commander of the United States Third Fleet during part of the Pacific War against Japan. Earlier, he had commanded the South Pacific Theater during desperate times.
• Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822–1907) was a leader in the women's suffrage movement and an author.
• Charles King (academic) was an American academic, politician, newspaper editor and the ninth president of Columbia College (now Columbia University).
• Charles King was a United States soldier and a distinguished writer.
• James G. King was an American businessman and Whig Party politician who represented New Jersey's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. His daughter, Frederika Gore King, married Bancroft Davis.
• John Alsop King was an American politician who served as governor (1857–1859) of New York.
• Rufus King was a newspaper editor, educator, U.S. diplomat, and a Union brigadier general in the American Civil War.
• Rufus King, Jr. was an artillery officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and a Medal of Honor recipient.
• Ellin Travers Mackay was the 2nd wife of composer and lyricist Irving Berlin.
• Alice Duer Miller was an American writer and poet.
• Halsey Minor is a technology entrepreneur who founded CNET in 1993.
• Mary Alsop King Waddington was an American author.
• Hon. Rufus Gunn King III (retired) was the Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia

See also

• List of United States political appointments that crossed party lines
• U.S. Constitution, ratification debates, judiciary debates

Notes

Primary sources

• King Charles R. The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 4 vol 1893-97
• Ernst, Robert. Rufus King: American Federalist. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1968
• Arbena, Joseph L. "Politics or Principle? Rufus King and the Opposition to Slavery, 1785-1825." Essex Institute Historical Collections (1965) 101(1): 56-77. ISSN 0014-0953
• Perkins, Bradford ; The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795-1805 1955.

External links

• United States Congress. "Rufus King (id: K000212)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• King Manor Museum
• Historic House Trust of New York, King Manor Museum
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825
• The members of the 1st United States Congress (took seat on July 25, 1789)
• The members of the 4th United States Congress (resigned on May 23, 1796)