Caleb Cushing

Caleb Cushing
United States Minister to Spain
In office
May 30, 1874 – April 9, 1877
PresidentUlysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded byDaniel Sickles
Succeeded byJames Russell Lowell
23rd United States Attorney General
In office
March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857
PresidentFranklin Pierce
Preceded byJohn Crittenden
Succeeded byJeremiah Black
United States Minister to China
In office
June 12, 1844 – August 27, 1844
PresidentJohn Tyler
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byAlexander Everett
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 3rd district
In office
March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1843
Preceded byGayton Osgood
Succeeded byAmos Abbott
Personal details
Born(1800-01-17)January 17, 1800
Salisbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJanuary 2, 1879(1879-01-02) (aged 78)
Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic-Republican (Before 1825)
National Republican (1825–1833)
Whig (1833–1847)
Democratic (1847–1879)
Spouse
Caroline Wilde
(m. 1824)
EducationHarvard University (AB)
Signature

Caleb Cushing (January 17, 1800 – January 2, 1879) was an American Democratic politician and diplomat who served as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts and the 23rd United States Attorney General under President Franklin Pierce.[1] From 1874 until 1877, he was the United States Minister to Spain.

Cushing was an eager proponent of territorial and commercial expansion, especially regarding the acquisition of Texas, Oregon and Cuba. He believed that enlarging the American sphere would fulfill "the great destiny reserved for this exemplar American Republic."[2] Cushing secured the first American treaty with China, the Treaty of Wangxia of 1844; it gave American merchants trading rights in five Chinese ports.[3] After the Civil War, Cushing negotiated a treaty with Colombia to give the United States a right-of-way for a trans-oceanic Canal. He helped obtain a favorable settlement of the Alabama Claims, and as the ambassador to Spain in 1870s defused the troublesome Virginius Affair.

  1. ^ "Office of the Attorney General | Attorney General: Caleb Cushing | United States Department of Justice". www.justice.gov. 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
  2. ^ Caleb Cushing (1838). Speech ... on the Continuation of the Cumberland Road. Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 19, 1838. Gales & Seaton. p. 15.
  3. ^ Yeewan Koon (2012). "The Face of Diplomacy in 19th-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts". In Johnson, Kendall (ed.). Narratives of Free Trade: The Commercial Cultures of Early US-China Relations. Hong Kong University Press. pp. 131–148.

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