CALEB CUSHING - FREE FRANK SIGNED - HFSID 320488

CALEB CUSHING
Free frank signed by the American statesman who negotiated the first US treaty with China
Free Frank signed: "Free/Cushing", 3½x2¼. Clipped from an envelope. Caleb Cushing (1800-1879), a Democrat, represented his Massachusetts district in the US Congress (1835-1843). After the Senate rejected his nomination to be President Tyler's Secretary of the Treasury, Tyler appointed him US Minister to China (1843-1845), where he negotiated the first treaty between the two nations. During the Mexican War, Cushing raised, equipped and commanded a volunteer regiment, seeing no combat there. After two failed runs for Governor of Massachusetts and a year on that State's Supreme Judicial Court, he served as US Attorney General under President Pierce (1853-1857). A "doughface" northern Democrat who supported the South on the issue of slavery, Cushing presided over the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore in 1860, until he walked out with southern Democrats. Then he presided over the Charleston convention which nominated James Breckinridge for President. Although he remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, his southern sympathies dogged the rest of his career. When President Grant nominated him for the US Supreme Court, Senate opposition compelled withdrawal of the nomination (the second time Cushing had been rebuffed for a Cabinet post). Cushing served as US Minister to Columbia and then to Spain. Toned. Corners lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.