Editing Timothy Pickering (section)

==Middle years==
[[File:Portrait of Rebecca White Pickering (Mrs. Timothy Pickering).jpg|thumb|Rebecca White Pickering, portrait by [[Gilbert Stuart]]]]
After a quarrel with President [[John Adams]] over Adams's plan to make peace with [[France]], Pickering was dismissed from office in May 1800. After an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1802,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bioguide Search |url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/P000324 |access-date=2024-12-30 |website=bioguide.congress.gov}}</ref> he was named to the [[United States Senate]] as a senator from [[Massachusetts]] in 1803 as a member of the [[Federalist Party]]. In 1804, Pickering and a band of Federalists, agitated at the lack of support for Federalists, attempted to gain support for the secession of New England and New York from the Jeffersonian United States. The plan was abandoned following [[Aaron Burr|Aaron Burr's]] defeat in the [[1804 New York gubernatorial election]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Henry |title=History of the United States of America during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson |date=1986 |publisher=Literary Classics of the United States |location=New York |isbn=0940450348 |pages=409, 428 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds00henr}}</ref> The irony of a Federalist moving against the national government was not lost among his dissenters. Pickering opposed the American seizure and annexation of Spanish [[West Florida]] in 1810, which he believed was both [[unconstitutional]] and an act of aggression against a friendly power.<ref>Clarfield. ''Timothy Pickering and the American Republic'' p.246-247</ref>

===Attacking Embargo policy===
Near the end of his only term as a senator, Pickering challenged Jefferson's [[Embargo Act]], reviving his plan for a convention of the New England states to oppose the act and potentially secede from the union.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=Henry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RX81AQAAMAAJ&dq=timothy+pickering+new+england+confederation&pg=PA402 |title=History of the United States of America: The second administration of Thomas Jefferson, 1805-1809 |date=1893 |publisher=C. Scribner's |pages=402–404 |language=en}}</ref> He held several conferences with the special British envoy [[George Henry Rose|George Rose]] and proposed the creation of a pro-British party in New England and urged Rose to persuade British Foreign Secretary [[George Canning]] to maintain his hard line against America with the hopes that Jefferson would resort to even more extreme measures, which would ultimately effect a political suicide for the Republicans. Pickering also published his open letter to the Massachusetts Republican governor, which he refused even to read; it contained harsh criticism of the Embargo Act, claimed that Jefferson had presented no real arguments for its enactment, and called for its nullification by the state legislators.<ref>[[#McDonald76|McDonald,1976]], pp. 147–148</ref> Pickering was charged with reading confidential documents in an open Senate session before an [[closed sessions of the United States Senate|injunction of secrecy]] had been removed.{{specify|date=August 2018}} In response to that charge, the Senate [[censure in the United States|censured]] Pickering by a vote of 20–7 on January 2, 1811.<ref>{{Cite web|title = U.S. Senate: Expulsion and Censure|url = https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Expulsion_Censure.htm|website = www.senate.gov|access-date = October 11, 2015}}</ref>

===Member of Congress===
Pickering was later elected to the [[United States House of Representatives]] in the [[U.S. House election, 1812|1812 election]], where he remained until 1817. His congressional career is best remembered for his leadership of the [[New England]] secession movement (see [[Essex Junto]] and the [[Hartford Convention]]). He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1815.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter P|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterP.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=July 28, 2014}}</ref>