Hilliard, Henry Washington

Hilliard, Henry Washington (hĭl`yərd), 1808–92, American statesman and diplomat, b. Fayetteville, N.C. After teaching English literature (1831–34) at the Univ. of Alabama, he began to practice law in Montgomery, Ala. He was a state representative (1836–38) and U.S. chargé d'affaires (1842–44) in Belgium before serving (1845–51) in Congress. Hilliard led a losing fight against adoption of Alabama's ordinance of secession. However, he considered Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to be unconstitutional, and he thereupon briefly joined the Confederate forces. He was U.S. minister to Brazil from 1877 to 1881. He wrote Politics and Pen Pictures at Home and Abroad (1892).