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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—Massachusetts / New YorkKING, Rufus
(1755—1827)
Senate Years of Service:
1789-1795; 1795-1796; 1813-1823; 1823-1825
Party:
Pro-Administration; Federalist; Federalist; Adams-Clay Federalist
KING, Rufus, (half brother of Cyrus King and father of John Alsop King and James Gore King), a Delegate from Massachusetts and a Senator from New York; born in Scarboro, Maine (then a district of Massachusetts), March 24, 1755; attended Dummer Academy, Byfield, Mass., and graduated from Harvard College in 1777; served in the Revolutionary War; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Newburyport in 1780; delegate to the Massachusetts General Court 1783-1785; Member of the Continental Congress from Massachusetts 1784-1787; delegate to the Federal constitutional convention at Philadelphia in 1787 and to the State convention in 1788 which ratified the same; moved to New York City in 1788; member, New York assembly; elected to the United States Senate in 1789; reelected in 1795 and served from July 16, 1789, until May 1796, when he resigned to become United States Minister to Great Britain; Minister to Great Britain 1796-1803; unsuccessful Federalist candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1804; again elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate in 1813; reelected in 1819 and served from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1825; chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Sixteenth Congress), Committee on Foreign Relations (Seventeenth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for Governor of New York in 1816 and for President of the United States in 1816; again United States Minister to Great Britain 1825-1826; died in Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y., April 29, 1827; interment in the churchyard of Grace Church.
Bibliography
American National Biography
; Dictionary of American Biography
; Ernst, Robert. Rufus King: American Federalist
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968; King, Charles, ed. The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King
. 6 vols. 1894-1900. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.
Arbena, Joseph L. “Politics or Principle? Rufus King and the Opposition to Slavery, 1785-1825.” Essex Institute Historical Collections
101 (January 1965): 56-77.
Brush, Edward Hale. Rufus King and His Times
. New York: N.L. Brown, 1926.
Egerton, Cecil Baker. “Rufus King and the Missouri Question: A Study in Political Mythology.” Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1968.
Ernst, Robert. Rufus King, American Federalist
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968.
___. “Rufus King, Slavery, and the Missouri Crisis.” New-York Historical Society Quarterly
46 (October 1962): 357-82.
Hockett, Homer C. “Rufus King and the Missouri Compromise.” Missouri Historical Review
2 (April 1908): 211-20.
King, Charles R., ed. The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King
. 6 vols. 1894-1900. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.
Reeser, Robert E. “Rufus King and the Federalist Party.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1948.
Welch, Richard E., Jr. “Rufus King of Newburyport: The Formative Years (1767-1788).” Essex Institute Historical Collections
96 (October 1960): 241-76.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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