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Hamilton Fish

Also Known As Fish

Former United States Secretary of State

Education

  • Graduated - Columbia University
  • History and government - Harvard University

Overview

Hamilton Fish was an American politician who served as the 16th governor of New York from 1849 to 1850, a United States senator from New York from 1851 to 1857, and the 26th U.S. secretary of state from 1869 to 1877. Fish is recognized as the pillar of Ulysses S. Grant's presidency and considered by scholars as one of the nation's most effective U.S. secretaries of state, known for his judiciousness and efforts towards reform and diplomatic moderation. Fish settled the controversial Alabama Claims with Great Britain through his development of the concept of international arbitration. Fish and Grant kept the United States out of war with Spain over Cuban independence by coolly handling the volatile Virginius incident. In 1875, Fish initiated the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom that ultimately led to statehood for Hawaii by negotiating a reciprocal trade treaty for the island nation's sugar production. He also organized a peace conference and treaty in Washington, D.C., between South American countries and Spain. Fish worked with James Milton Turner to settle the Liberia-Grebo War in 1876. President Grant said he trusted Fish the most for political advice. 

Fish came from prominence and wealth. His Dutch American family was long-established in New York City. He attended Columbia College and later passed the New York state bar. Initially working as commissioner of deeds, he ran unsuccessfully for New York State Assembly as a Whig candidate in 1834. After marrying, he returned to politics and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843. Fish ran for New York's lieutenant governor in 1846, falling to a Democratic Anti-Rent Party contender. When the office was vacated in 1847, Fish ran and was elected to the position. In 1848, he ran and was elected governor of New York, serving one term. In 1851, he was elected U.S. Senator for New York, serving one term. Fish gained valuable experience serving on Committee on Foreign Relations. Fish was a moderate on the question of maintaining or dissolving slavery; he opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery.

After traveling to Europe, Fish returned to the United States and supported Abraham Lincoln, the Republican nominee for president in the 1860 U.S. presidential election. During the American Civil War, Fish raised money for the Union war effort and served on Lincoln's presidential commission that made successful arrangements for Union and Confederate troop prisoner exchanges. Fish returned to his law practice after the Civil War, and was thought to have retired from political life. When Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868, he appointed Fish as U.S. secretary of state in 1869. Fish took on the State Department with vigor, reorganized the office, and established civil service reform. During his tenure, Fish had to contend with Cuban belligerency, the settlement of the Alabama claims, Canada–U.S. border disputes, and the Virginius incident. Fish implemented the new concept of international arbitration, where disputes between countries were settled by negotiations, rather than military conflicts. Fish was involved in a political feud between U.S. senator Charles Sumner and President Grant in the latter's unsuccessful efforts to annex the Dominican Republic. Fish organized a naval expedition in an unsuccessful attempt to open trade with Korea in 1871. Leaving office and politics in 1877, Fish returned to private life and continued to serve on various historical associations. Fish died quietly of old age in his luxurious New York State home in 1893.

Fish has been praised by historians for his calm demeanor under pressure, honesty, loyalty, modesty, and talented statesmanship during his tenure under President Grant, briefly serving under President Hayes. The hallmark of his career was the Treaty of Washington, peacefully settling the Alabama Claims. Fish also ably handled the Virginus incident, keeping the United States out of war with Spain. Fish's lesser-known, but successful South American détente and armistice, has been forgotten by historians.[citation needed] Fish, while Secretary of State, lacked empathy for the plight of African Americans, and opposed annexation of Latin American countries. Fish has been traditionally viewed to be one of America's top ranked Secretaries of State by historians. Fish's male descendants would later serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for three generations.

U.S. Secretary of State :

Fish was appointed Secretary of State by President Ulysses S. Grant and served between March 17, 1869, and March 12, 1877. He was President Grant's longest-serving Cabinet officer. Upon assuming office in 1869, Fish was initially underrated by some statesmen including former Secretaries of State William H. Seward and John Bigelow. Fish, however, immediately took on the responsibilities of his office with diligence, zeal, and intelligence. Fish's tenure as Secretary of State was lengthy, almost eight years, and he had to contend with many foreign policy issues including the Cuban insurrection, the Alabama Claims, and the Franco-Prussian War. 

During Reconstruction, Fish was not known to sympathize with Grant's policy to eradicate the Ku Klux Klan, racism in the Southern states, and promote African American equality. Fish complained of being bored at Grant's cabinet meetings when Grant's U.S. Attorney General Amos T. Akerman told of atrocities of the Klan against black citizens.

Early Life

Fish was born on August 3, 1808, in what is the present-day Hamilton Fish House in Greenwich Village in New York City, to Nicholas Fish and Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a daughter of Peter Stuyvesant and direct descendant of New Amsterdam's Director-General Peter Stuyvesant. He was named after his parents' friend Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father and the nation's first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington. Nicholas Fish (1758–1833) was a leading Federalist politician and notable figure of the American Revolutionary War. Colonel Fish was active in the Yorktown Campaign, which featured the final battles of the American Revolutionary War and led to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and American independence. Peter Stuyvesant was a prominent founder of New York, then a Dutch Colony, and his family owned much property in Manhattan. 

Fish received his primary education at M. Bancel, a private school. In 1827, Fish graduated from Columbia College, having obtained high honors. At Columbia, Fish became fluent in French, a language that would later help him as U.S. Secretary of State. After his graduation, Fish studied law for three years in the law office of Peter A. Jay, served as president of the Philolexian Society, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1830, practicing briefly with William Beach Lawrence. Influenced politically by his father, Fish aligned himself to the Whig Party. He served as commissioner of deeds for the city and county of New York from 1831 through 1833, and was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for New York State Assembly in 1834. 

On December 15, 1836, Fish married Julia Kean, a sister of Col. John Kean, both descendants of William Livingston, a New Yorker who went on to become New Jersey's first governor. The couple's lengthy married life was described as happy and Mrs. Fish was known for her "sagacity and judgement." The couple had three sons and five daughters.

Career

  • United States - Former Secretary of State

Reference

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