Caleb Cushing

author

Caleb Cushing

1800–1879

A sharp-minded 19th-century American statesman, he moved through law, diplomacy, and national politics with unusual range. He is especially remembered for helping open formal relations between the United States and China and for serving as U.S. attorney general under President Franklin Pierce.

1 Audiobook

Speech of Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on the Right of Petition, as Connected with Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia. In The House Of Representatives, January 25, 1836.

Speech of Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on the Right of Petition, as Connected with Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia. In The House Of Representatives, January 25, 1836.

by Caleb Cushing

About the author

Born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, in 1800, Caleb Cushing was a lawyer, politician, and diplomat whose career touched many of the biggest public questions of his era. He entered Harvard at a very young age, graduated in 1817, studied law, and built his career in Massachusetts before moving into state and national politics.

Cushing served in the Massachusetts legislature and then in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1830s and early 1840s. He later became a major diplomatic figure when he was sent to China as a U.S. commissioner, where he negotiated the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844, one of the first major agreements between the United States and Qing China.

His public life continued for decades after that. He served as attorney general of the United States under Franklin Pierce and later as U.S. minister to Spain. Remembered as learned, ambitious, and deeply involved in the legal and political world of the 19th century, Cushing left a record that connects American law, foreign policy, and party politics in a period of rapid change.