Rufus King (March 24, 1755April 29, 1827) was an American Founding Father, lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention and was one of the signers of the United States Constitution in 1787. After formation of the new Congress, he represented New York in the United States Senate. He emerged as a leading member of the Federalist Party and was the party's last presidential nominee during the 1816 presidential election.
The son of a prosperous Massachusetts merchant, King studied law before he volunteered for the militia during the American Revolutionary War. He won election to the Massachusetts General Court in 1783 and to the Congress of the Confederation the following year. At the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, he emerged as a leading nationalist and called for increased powers for the federal government. After the convention, King returned to Massachusetts, where he used his influence to help ratify the Constitution. At the urging of Alexander Hamilton, he then abandoned his law practice and moved to New York City.
He won election to represent New York in the United States Senate in 1789 and remained in office until 1796. That year, he accepted President George Washington's appointment to the position of Minister to Great Britain. Though King aligned with Hamilton's Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican President Thomas Jefferson retained King's services after Jefferson's victory in the 1800 presidential election. King served as the Federalist vice-presidential candidate in the 1804 and 1808 elections and ran on an unsuccessful ticket with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. Though most Federalists supported the Democratic-Republican DeWitt Clinton in the 1812 presidential election, King, without the support of his party, won the few votes of the Federalists who were unwilling to support Clinton's candidacy. In 1813, King returned to the Senate and remained in office until 1825.
King, the de facto Federalist nominee for president in 1816, lost in a landslide to James Monroe. The Federalist Party became defunct at the national level after 1816, and King was the last presidential nominee whom the party fielded. Nonetheless, King was able to remain in the Senate until 1825, which made him the last Federalist senator because of a split in the New York Democratic-Republican Party. King then accepted President John Quincy Adams's appointment to serve another term as ambassador to Great Britain, but ill health forced King to retire from public life, and he died in 1827. King had five children who lived to adulthood, and he has had numerous notable descendants.
Early life King was born on March 24, 1755, in Scarborough, which was then part of Massachusetts but is now in Maine. He was a son of Isabella (Bragdon) and Richard King, a prosperous farmer, merchant, lumberman, and sea captain who had settled at Dunstan Landing in Scarborough, near Portland, Maine, and had made a modest fortune by the time Rufus was born. His financial success aroused the jealousy of his neighbors, and when the unpopular Stamp Act 1765 was imposed, a mob ransacked his house and destroyed most of the furniture. Nobody was punished, and the next year, the mob burned down his barn. John Adams once referred to that moment in discussing limitations of the "mob" for the Constitutional Convention and wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, in which he described the scene:
I am engaged in a famous Cause: The Cause of King, of Scarborough vs. a Mob, that broke into his House, and rifled his Papers, and terrifyed him, his Wife, Children and Servants in the Night. The Terror, and Distress, the Distraction and Horror of this Family cannot be described by Words or painted upon Canvass. It is enough to move a Statue, to melt an Heart of Stone, to read the Story....
Richard King was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, but all his sons became Patriots.
Education and early career King attended Dummer Academy (now The Governor's Academy) from the age of twelve in South Byfield, Massachusetts. Later, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1777.Siry, Steven E. (February 2000), "King, Rufus"; American National Biography Online. He began to read law under Theophilus Parsons, but his studies were interrupted in 1778, when King volunteered for militia duty during the American Revolutionary War. Appointed a major, he served as an aide to General John Sullivan during the Battle of Rhode Island. After the campaign, King returned to his apprenticeship under Parsons. He was admitted to the bar in 1780 and began a legal practice in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Political career Constitutional Convention King was first elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1783 and returned there yearly until 1785. Massachusetts sent him to the Confederation Congress from 1784 to 1787.
In 1787, King was sent to the Constitutional Convention, which was held in Philadelphia. Despite his youthful stature, King held a significant position at the convention since "he numbered among the most capable orators." Along with James Madison, "he became a leading figure in the nationalist causes." Furthermore, he attended every session. King's major involvements included serving on the Committee on Postponed Matters and the Committee of Style and Arrangement.
Although when he came to the convention, he was still unconvinced that major changes should be made in the Articles of Confederation, his views underwent a startling transformation over the debates. He worked with Chairman William Samuel Johnson, James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton on the Committee of Style and Arrangement to prepare a final draft of the U.S. Constitution. King was one of the most prominent delegates namely because of playing "a major role in the laborious crafting of the fundamental governing character." The Constitution was signed on September 17 but needed to be ratified by the states. After signing the Constitution, he returned home. He went to work to get the Constitution ratified and unsuccessfully positioned himself to be named to the U.S. Senate. The ratification passed by the narrow margin of 187–168. With the ratification passed, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the constitution in early February 1788.
King was indirectly responsible for the passing of this ratification because his "learned, informative, and persuasive speeches" convinced a "popular, vain merchant and prince-turned-politicians to abandon his anti-federalism and approve the new organic law."
Later career
After his early political experiences during the Constitutional Convention, King decided to switch his vocational calling by "[abandoning] his law practice [in 1788], [and] moved from the Bay State to Gotham, and entered the New York political forum." At Hamilton's urging, King moved to New York City and was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1789. Shortly afterwards, he was elected as Senator from New York and was re-elected in 1795. King declined an appointment as Secretary of State to succeed Edmund Randolph. In 1795, King helped Hamilton defend the controversial Jay Treaty by writing pieces for New York newspapers under the pseudonym "Camillus." Of the 38 installments in the series, King wrote nine numbers 23–30, 34, and 35, in which he discussed the treaty's maritime and commercial aspects. He was re-elected in 1795 but resigned on May 23, 1796, after he had been appointed U.S. Minister by George Washington to Great Britain. John Skey Eustace was angry at King, when he was ordered to leave the country and published an offensive pamphlet.British Critic: And Quarterly Theological Review, Band 10, p. 208 Even though King was an outspoken Federalist politically, President Thomas Jefferson, upon his elevation to the presidency, refused to recall him. In 1803, King voluntarily relinquished his position.
King then returned to elected politics, for a long time with little success, but he later returned to the Senate. In April 1804, King ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from New York. Later that year and again in 1808, King and another signer of the Constitution, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, were candidates for vice president and president, respectively, fronting a Federalist Party in decline. Accordingly, they had no realistic chance against the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, and they received only 27.2% of the popular vote and lost by 45.6%, marking the highest recess in presidential election history. In 1808, both candidates were nominated again and lost against James Madison, gaining 32.4% of the popular vote.
In September 1812, the unpopular War of 1812 against Great Britain helped the opposing Federalists to regain their reputation, King led an effort at the Federalist Party caucus to nominate a ticket for the presidential election that year, but the effort failed, as the Democratic-Republican DeWitt Clinton had the best chances to defeat his fellow party member Madison, which made the Federalists field no candidate. However, some sought to make King the nominee to have a candidate under the Federalist banner on the ballot, and though little came of it, he finished third in the popular vote, with approximately 2% of the total. Shortly thereafter, King celebrated his first success after ten years by being elected to his "second tenure on Senate" in 1813.
In April 1816, he ran for governor of New York but lost to Daniel D. Tompkins. In the fall of that year, he became the informal presidential nominee for the Federalist Party, as it did not meet for any convention. He received only 30.9% of the popular vote and lost again, this time to James Monroe, whose running mate, coincidentally, was Tompkins. King was the last presidential candidate by the Federalists before their collapse.
When he ran for re-election to the Senate in 1819, he ran as a Federalist even though the party was already disbanding and had only a small minority in the New York State Legislature. However, because of the split of the Democratic-Republicans, no successor was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1819, and the seat remained vacant until January 1820. Trying to attract the former Federalist voters to their side at the next gubernatorial election in April 1820, both factions of the Democratic-Republican Party supported King, who served another term in the U.S. Senate until March 3, 1825. The Federalist Party had already ceased to exist on the federal stage. During King's second tenure in the Senate, he continued his career as an opponent of slavery, which he denounced as anathema to the principles underlying the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In what is considered the greatest speech of his career, he spoke against admitting Missouri as a slave state in 1820.
Diplomat
King played a major diplomatic role as minister to the Court of St James's from 1796 to 1803 and again from 1825 to 1826. Although he was a leading Federalist, Thomas Jefferson kept him in office until King asked to be relieved. Some prominent accomplishments that King had from his time as a national diplomat include a term of friendly relations with Great Britain and the United States, at least until it became hostile in 1805. With that in mind, he successfully reached a compromise on the passing of the Jay Treaty and was an avid supporter of it.