RUFUS KING 1755-1827 King was strong in an age of strong men, and distinguished among men of distinction. His honesty and patriotism were unimpeachable, and his knowledge of the deeper principles of government thorough; and thus it happened that year by year his influence and authority increased, and he was intrusted with posts and negotiations of the highest importance. He labored for the public weal almost without pause during his whole mature life, and died in 1827, at the age of seventy-two, before the expiration of his term of service as Minister to the Court of St. James, to which he had been appointed by President John Quincy Adams in 1825. He was born in Maine in 1755, and graduated at Harvard College twenty-two years later. After a short campaign into Rhode Island under Sullivan, he entered on the practice of law with great success in 1780, and became so marked a man that he was elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts (where he had settled) in 1783. The next year found him in Congress, where he opposed the extension of slavery in the West. He was among the artificers of the constitution; and it was he whose counsel determined Massachusetts to ratify that instrument. He removed to New York in 1788, and after a few months in the local Legislature, was promoted to the United States Senate on the Federalist side. He supported Jay's treaty with England, and incurred a good deal of public obloquy on that account; but Washington marked his approval by appointing him ambassador to England, where he remained till 1803. During ten years after this he was in retirement; in 1813 he re-entered public life as Senator, and in after years was candidate for Governor and Vice-President. He was one of the chief agents for the passage of the Navigation Bill in 1818, and the accompanying speech is one of his best on that subject. He was one of the highest authorities in the country on maritime law and commerce, as he had already showed in his Camillus papers, explaining the Jay treaty, in 1795. He was again a member of the Senate in 1819, closing his career there in 1825; when, as above stated, Adams induced him to accept the English mission. After a year in London, he obtained leave of absence for ill health, and his death occurred the year following, near New York. He was a great champion of the opponents of slavery extension, and his speeches on the Missouri question are so able and exhaustive that students of the constitutional aspects of the matter need not go further. He was powerful for good, and wielded great influence, in his lifetime. The cool judgment of history adds to instead of detracting from his honest fame. |