Rufus King: Forgotten Founding Father
For over forty years Rufus King (1755-1827) served his country as a State legislator, member of Congress, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Senator, Minister to Great Britain, and candidate for Vice-President, and President. He helped draft both the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution, which he signed and later supported at the Massachusetts Ratification Convention.
A student during most of the war, King began his public service as a member of the Massachusetts legislature, where he demonstrated his interest in the national cause by championing a bill that provided for regular financial support to the Congress of the Confederation. Later, while serving in Congress, he joined with Jefferson in contributing an anti-slavery provision to the Northwest Ordinance, the document that prescribed the conditions for the formation of new States from the Northwest Territory. At the Constitutional Convention, where he was recognized as one of the most eloquent speakers, King maintained his position against slavery and supported the idea of a national government with clear authority beyond that of the States.
As a member of the first U.S. Senate, the Federalist King supported the policies and programs of Washington’s administration. He backed Hamilton’s financial plans and began serving as a director of the Bank of the United States—an institution he helped to establish—on this day in 1794. In 1796 he resigned from the Senate to become minister to Great Britain, a position which taxed his considerable diplomatic ability—helping to keep America neutral while France and Britain were at war.
In the elections of 1804 and 1808, King was a Vice-Presidential candidate, running both times on the unsuccessful Federalist ticket with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. In 1816 King was himself the Federalist candidate for President, losing to James Monroe.
Back in the Senate, King continued to serve as an eloquent spokesman for Federalist principles. In 1820, he opposed the Missouri Compromise—with the admission of Missouri as a slave state—as a failure to deal squarely with the problem of slavery. Forcefully but unsuccessfully, he advocated the abolition of slavery. Handsome and sociable, King achieved success as a legislator and diplomat, and he won high praise as a speaker from one of America’s most celebrated speakers. Of King, Daniel Webster wrote: “You never heard such a speaker. In strength, and dignity, and fire; in ease, in natural effect, and gesture as well as in matter, he is unequaled.”