Hamilton Fish
American statesman and trusted advisor to President Ulysses S. Grant.
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Hamilton Fish was an American statesman who served as New York's governor, a U.S. senator, and the 26th U.S. secretary of state.[1] Scholars rank Fish among the most effective U.S. secretaries of state; his accomplishments include resolving the Alabama Claims and preventing conflict with Spain.[1]
Life and work
Fish was born on August 3, 1808, in New York City to Nicholas Fish and Elizabeth Stuyvesant.[2] Fish married Julia Kean on December 15, 1836, and the couple had three sons and five daughters.[3] After finishing his studies at Columbia College in 1827, Fish spent three years reading law and gained admission to the New York bar in 1830.[4] Fish was elected to the House of Representatives in November 1842, serving New York's 6th district in the 28th Congress from 1843 to 1845, and in November 1848 he was elected Governor of New York.[5][6]
Fish served as a U.S. Senator from New York from March 19, 1851, until March 4, 1857.[7][8] President Ulysses S. Grant selected Fish as Secretary of State; his term ran from March 17, 1869, through March 12, 1877.[9] The Treaty of Washington, which resolved the Alabama Claims through international arbitration, stands as the central achievement of Fish's career.[10][11]
What the cited sources add
A 1931 Dictionary of American Biography entry notes that when Fish took office in 1869, former Secretaries of State William H. Seward and John Bigelow initially underestimated him.[9] The same source records that Fish tackled his duties with diligence, zeal, and intelligence from the start.[9]
References
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; (December 1981), The Ten Best Secretaries Of State....; ; ; (December 1981), The Ten Best Secretaries Of State....; ; (December 1981), The Ten Best Secretaries Of State....; United States Department of State (December 4, 1871), Foreign relations of the United States, pp. 775–777.; (December 1981), The Ten Best Secretaries Of State....; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; ; ; ; ; Fish was Commissioner of Deeds from 1831; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Dictionary of American Biography", 1931, p. 400 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Hamilton Fish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Alabama Claims, 1862-1872", GlobalSecurity.org (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Hamilton Fish (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Hamilton Fish (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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