rufus king
united states senator
biography
Rufus King was an American political leader, born in Scarboro, Maine and educated at Harvard College. After studying law there, he was admitted to the bar in 1780, and in 1783, he became a judge in the Massachusetts General Court, to which he was reelected several times. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and introduced, in 1785, a resolution prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory, which had been ceded to the United States by Great Britain three years before. He took an active part in the framing of the Federal Constitution.
The substance of King’s resolution was subsequently incorporated into the Ordinance of 1787, and the following year he helped procure the ratification of the Constitution by Massachusetts. In 1788, he moved to New York City and was elected to the New York state assembly the next year.
Later, in 1789, he was elected to the United States Senate, and was becoming known as an outstanding leader in the Federalist party. From 1796 to 1803 he was serving as the United States minister to Great Britain. Furthermore, he was nominated twice, in 1804 and 1808 by the Federalists as a vice-presidential candidate but had been defeated. A U.S. senator from 1813 to 1825, he led an unsuccessful campaign for the presidential nomination in 1816. He served again in 1825 and 1826 as the minister to Great Britain. In collaboration with Hamilton he wrote the Camillus Letters explaining the Jay Treaty.
