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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—DelawareCLAYTON, John Middleton
(1796—1856)
Senate Years of Service:
1829-1836; 1845-1849; 1853-1856
Party:
Anti-Jacksonian; Whig; Opposition
CLAYTON, John Middleton, (nephew of Joshua Clayton, cousin of Thomas Clayton, and great-granduncle of C. Douglass Buck), a Senator from Delaware; born in Dagsboro, Sussex County, Del., July 24, 1796; pursued preparatory studies at academies in Berlin, Md., and Milford, Del., and graduated from Yale College in 1815; studied law at the Litchfield Law School; admitted to the bar in 1819 and commenced practice in Dover; member, State house of representatives 1824; secretary of State of Delaware 1826-1828; elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the United States Senate in 1829; reelected in 1835 and served from March 4, 1829, until December 29, 1836, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses); chief justice of Delaware 1837-1839; elected as a Whig to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1845, until February 23, 1849, when he resigned to accept a Cabinet position; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Zachary Taylor 1849-1850; while Secretary of State negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with Great Britain; again elected as a Whig (later Opposition Party) to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1853, until his death in Dover, Del., November 9, 1856; interment in Presbyterian Cemetery.
Bibliography
American National Biography
; Dictionary of American Biography
; Comegys, Joseph. Memoir of John M. Clayton
. Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1882; Wire, Richard. “John M. Clayton and the Search for Order: A Study in Whig Politics and Diplomacy.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1971.
Comegys, Joseph Parsons. Memoir of John M. Clayton
. Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1882.
U.S. Congress. Obituary Addresses on the Occasion of the Death of the Hon. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
. 34th Cong., 3d sess., 1856-1857. Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, 1857.
Wire, Richard Arden. “The Early Life of John M. Clayton.” Delaware History
15 (October 1972): 104-17.
___. “John M. Clayton and the Rise of the Anti-Jackson Party in Delaware, 1824-1828.” Delaware History
15 (October 1973): 256-68.
___. “John M. Clayton and the Search for Order: A Study in Whig Politics and Diplomacy.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1971.
___. “John M. Clayton and Whig Politics During the Second Jackson Administration.” Delaware History
18 (Spring-Summer 1978): 1-16.
___. “Young Senator Clayton and the Early Jackson Years.”Delaware History
17 (Fall-Winter 1976): 104-26.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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