Editing Caleb Cushing (section)

==Biography==

===Early life===
Cushing was born in [[Salisbury, Massachusetts]], on January 17, 1800; he was the son of John Newmarch Cushing, a wealthy [[shipbuilder]] and merchant, and Lydia Dow, a delicate and sensitive woman from [[Seabrook, New Hampshire]], who died when he was ten. The family moved across the [[Merrimack River]] to the prosperous shipping town of [[Newburyport, Massachusetts]], in 1802. He entered [[Harvard University]] at the age of 13 and graduated in 1817.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Caleb Cushing. |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670873/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA|date=January 1861 }}</ref> He 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.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Cushing, Caleb|volume=7|pages=666–667}}</ref> There he attended the [[First Presbyterian Church, Newburyport|First Presbyterian Church]].

On November 23, 1824, Cushing married Caroline Elizabeth Wilde, daughter of Judge [[Samuel Sumner Wilde]], of the [[Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court]]. His wife died about a decade later, leaving him childless and alone. He never married again.

===State legislature===
Cushing served as a [[Democratic-Republican Party (United States)|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. Afterwards, he spent two years in Europe from 1829 to 1831. Upon his return, he again served in the lower house of the state legislature in 1833 and 1834. Then, in late 1834, he was elected to the [[United States House of Representatives]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

===Washington career===
Cushing served in Congress from 1835 until 1843 (the [[24th United States Congress|24th]], [[25th United States Congress|25th]], [[26th United States Congress|26th]] and [[27th United States Congress|27th Congress]]es). During the 27th Congress, he was chairman of the [[U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs]].

Here the marked inconsistency characterizing his public life became manifest. For when [[John Tyler]] had become president, had been read out of the Whig party, and had vetoed Whig measures (including a tariff bill) for which Cushing had voted, Cushing first defended the vetoes and then voted again for the bills. In 1843 President Tyler nominated Cushing for [[U.S. Secretary of the Treasury]], but the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] refused to confirm him for this office.<ref name="EB1911"/> He was nominated three times in one day, and rejected all three times.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/24/18796378/presidents-have-failed-8-times-to-win-cabinet-confirmations/|title=PRESIDENTS HAVE FAILED 8 TIMES TO WIN CABINET CONFIRMATIONS|date=1989-02-24|work=DeseretNews.com|access-date=2018-02-10|language=en}}</ref> [[John Canfield Spencer]] was chosen instead.

===China mission===
In 1843, Cushing was appointed by President Tyler to be commissioner and [[United States Ambassador to China]], holding this position until March 4, 1845.<ref name="EB1911"/> With the goal of impressing the Royal Chinese court, the Cushing mission consisted of four American warships, loaded with gifts that exalted scientific wonders including revolvers, telescope, and an encyclopedia. His arrival at Macau in February 1844 created a local sensation, but the Chinese government was reluctant to designate another most favored nation. Cushing cleverly mixed the carrot and stick. He warned – against the backdrop of his warships – that not to receive an envoy was a national insult. He threatened to go directly to the Emperor – an unheard of procedure. The Emperor tried delay, but he finally sent an envoy to negotiate with Cushing, leading to the signing of the [[Treaty of Wanghia]] in the village of Wanghia on July 3, 1844.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-01-13 |title=Caleb Cushing {{!}} Diplomat, Lawyer, Politician {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caleb-Cushing |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> In addition to most favored nation status, Cushing made sure that Americans received [[extraterritoriality]]. In the following years American trade with China grew rapidly, thanks to the high-speed clipper ships which carried relatively small amounts of high-value cargo, such as ginseng and silk. American Protestant missionaries also began to arrive.  The popular Chinese reaction was mostly hostile, but there was a favorable element that provided a base of support for American missionaries and businessmen. By 1850–64, China was enmeshed in the [[Taiping rebellion]], a civil war which caused millions of deaths; foreign trade stagnated.<ref name=b1/><ref>{{cite journal|author=Richard E. Welch|title=Caleb Cushing's Chinese Mission and the Treaty of Wanghia: A Review|journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly|volume= 58|issue=4 |year=1957|pages= 328–357|jstor=20612361}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Ping Chia Kuo|title=Caleb cushing and the treaty of Wanghia, 1844|journal=The Journal of Modern History|year=1933|volume=5|issue=1|pages=34–54|doi=10.1086/235965|jstor=1872280 |s2cid=144511935}}</ref><ref>Eldon Griffin (1938) '' Clippers and Consuls: American consular and commercial relations with eastern Asia, 1845-1860''.</ref>

While serving as commissioner to China he was also empowered to negotiate a treaty of navigation and commerce with Japan.

===Return to Massachusetts===
[[File:Caleb Cushing by Alexander Hay Ritchie.jpeg|thumb|upright=.95|Engraving of Caleb Cushing]]
In 1847, while again a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he introduced a bill appropriating money for the equipment of a regiment to serve in the [[Mexican–American War]]; although the bill was defeated, he raised the necessary funds privately.<ref name="EB1911"/>

He 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. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers on April 14 of the same year. He did not see combat during this conflict, and entered Mexico City with his reserve battalion several months after that city had been pacified. He was discharged from the Army on July 20, 1848.

In 1847 and again in 1848 the Democrats nominated him for [[Governor of Massachusetts]], but on each occasion he was defeated at the polls. He was again a representative in the state legislature in 1851,<ref name="EB1911"/> was offered the position as [[Massachusetts Attorney General]] in 1851, but declined; and served as mayor of Newburyport in 1851 and 1852. (He had written a major history of the town when he was 26 years old.)

He became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852. During the presidency [[Franklin Pierce]], from March 7, 1853, until March 3, 1857, he was [[Attorney General of the United States]]. Cushing supported the March 1857 [[Dred Scott v. Sandford|Dred Scott decision]].<ref>{{cite web| title=Letter, Roger Brooke Taney to Caleb Cushing thanking Cushing for his support of Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, 9 November 1857| date=9 November 1857| url=https://www.loc.gov/item/mcc.070/| publisher=Library of Congress| location=Washington, D.C.| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref>

In 1858, 1859, 1862, and 1863 he again served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Also during this time, he founded the Cushing Land Agency in [[St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin]]. The building it was housed in, now known as the [[Cushing Land Agency Building]], is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].

===1860 and the Civil War===
In 1860 he presided over the [[Democratic National Convention]], which met first at [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] and later at [[Baltimore]], until he joined those who seceded from the regular convention. He then presided also over the convention of the seceding delegates, who nominated [[John C. Breckinridge]] for the Presidency.<ref name="EB1911"/> Also in 1860 President [[James Buchanan]] sent him to Charleston as Confidential Commissioner to the Secessionists of South Carolina.

Despite having favored [[states' rights]] and opposed the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition]] of slavery, during the Civil War, he supported the Union. He was later appointed by President [[Andrew Johnson]] as one of three commissioners assigned to revise and codify the laws of the United States Congress. He served in that capacity from 1866 to 1870.

===Return to diplomacy===
In 1868, in concert with the Minister Resident to Colombia, Cushing was sent to [[Bogotá]], [[United States of Colombia|Colombia]], and worked to negotiate a right-of-way treaty for a ship canal across the [[Isthmus of Panama]].

At the Geneva conference for the settlement of the [[Alabama claims]] in 1871–1872 he was one of the [[counsel]]s appointed by President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration on the Alabama claims.<ref name="EB1911"/>

From January 6, 1874, to April 9, 1877, Cushing was [[United States Ambassador to Spain|Minister to Spain]]. He defused tensions over the [[Virginius Affair|''Virginius'' Affair]], and proved popular in the country.

===Supreme Court nomination===
[[File:Cushing Nomination.JPG|thumb|alt= upright=.95|Cushing's Chief Justice nomination]]
On January 9, 1874, Grant nominated Cushing as [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] of the [[United States Supreme Court]]. The nomination came soon after Grant withdrew the nomination of [[George Henry Williams]] to the position.<ref name=RL33225>{{cite report| last=McMillion| first=Barry J.| date= January 28, 2022| title=Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2020: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President| url=https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL33225.pdf| publisher=Congressional Research Service| location=Washington, D.C.| access-date=February 15, 2022}}</ref> The selection caught many off-guard, including Cushing himself.<ref>{{cite news| title=THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP.; CALEB CUSHING NOMINATED. NO ACTION YET BY THE SENATE--SENATORS AND OTHERS TAKEN BY SURPRISE. OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST MR. CUSHING. MR. CUSHING HIMSELF SURPRISED| newspaper=The New York Times| date=January 10, 1874| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1874/01/10/archives/the-chief-justiceship-caleb-cushing-nominated-no-action-yet-by-the.html| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref> [[Radical Republicans]] in the U.S. Senate immediately challenged Cushing's loyalties on account of his earlier close personal rapport with Andrew Johnson and his alleged pre-Civil War [[Copperhead (politics)|Copperhead]] sympathies. Their feelings of distrust turned into all out opposition to his confirmation when a (non-political) letter that Cushing had written in 1861 to [[President of the Confederate States of America|President of the Confederacy]] [[Jefferson Davis]] was found and made public. As a result of rising furor, the nomination was withdrawn on January 13, 1874.<ref>{{cite journal| last=Swindler| first=William F.| title=The Politics of "Advice and Consent"| year=1970| journal=Popular Media| volume=269| url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/popular_media/269| publisher=William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=John S. Goff|title=The Rejection of United States Supreme Court Appointments|journal=The American Journal of Legal History|year=1961|volume=5|issue=4|pages=357–368|doi=10.2307/844034|jstor=844034}}</ref>