Rufus choate
Rufus Choate (1799-1859) was born on October 1, 1799, at the Choate family homestead on Hog Island, Massachusetts, what is now known as Choate Island. He was the son of David Choate and Miriam Foster. The Choate family was of English puritan descent and their presence in North America can be traced to a John Choate, who settled in Massachusetts in 1645. In 1815, at the age of sixteen, Rufus Choate would enter Dartmouth College, and would graduate later in 1819. In the following year, he would work as a tutor at the college, before entering law school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Choate would then relocate to Washington, DC., in 1821, where he studied for a year in the office of William Wirt, who was the United States Attorney General. The following year, Choate would complete his legal training in the office of the renowned Judge Cummins of Salem, Massachusetts. He would then establish his own practice in the town of Danvers in 1824.
Choate would commence his political career in the mid-1820s. He would first be elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1825 and was then appointed to the State Senate in 1827. In 1830, Choate would then be elected on a Whig ticket to the federal House of Representatives and would be subsequently re-elected in 1832. He would resign from his seat early in 1834 in order to establish a law practice in Boston. Choate would then return to politics in 1841, when he was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Daniel Webster’s retirement. Choate would remain in the Senate until 1845, when Webster returned to the Senate. He would then return to his legal practice in Boston. Later, between 1853 and 1854, Choate would serve as the Attorney General of Massachusetts. After the demise of the Whigs in 1854, Choate, unlike many former Whigs, refused to join the Republicans, viewing the new party as too sectional in nature.
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Choate’s contribution to American Protectionist thought came mostly via his congressional speeches. The three most notable of these include his speech delivered on March 14, 1842, entitled Speech on the Power and Duty of Congress to Continue the Policy of Protecting American Labor; another delivered on April 12 and 15, 1844, entitled Speech Upon the Subject of Protecting American Labor by Duties on Imports; and another entitled The Tariff delivered on May 3, 1844. In addition to his Congressional speeches, Choate would also write articles on the subject of protection. Perhaps the most important of these is his 1851 article the Value of Mechanical Industry, which provides one of the most elegant renderings of the individuality argument for economic diversification. Choate’s speeches and writings would be later pamphletized and circulated by the Industrial League. Later in life, Choate would suffer from ill health, and while sailing on route from Boston to England, his health would deteriorate. He was forced to depart the ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He would die in Halifax on July 13, 1859.