William Maxwell Evarts

Evarts, William Maxwell

(1818–1901) lawyer, cabinet officer, U.S. senator; born in Boston (grandson of Roger Sherman). At Yale he founded the Yale Literary Magazine but he took up the law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1841. He soon became one of the most prominent lawyers in the country, and although personally opposed to slavery he would argue the constitutionality of the institution when clients engaged him to return escaped slaves. Originally active in the Whig Party, he joined the new Republican Party in 1854. In 1863–64 he went to England on diplomatic missions to try to stop the British from supplying the Confederate navy. He was the chief counsel for President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial, after which Johnson named him the attorney general (1868–69). Returning to New York City, he led the fight against the corrupt Tweed Ring. Among his other celebrated cases, he was counsel for the U.S.A. in the arbitration of the Alabama claims (1871–72), defense lawyer for Henry Ward Beecher in the adultery trial (1875), and chief counsel for the Republican Party in the Hayes-Tilden presidential dispute (1877). After the last-named, Hayes appointed him secretary of state (1877–81). He served New York in the U.S. Senate (Rep., 1885–91) and was forced to retire because of poor eyesight. In addition to the high esteem he earned as a lawyer and public servant, he was noted as a public speaker, and on July 4, 1876, he delivered the principal address at the Philadelphia centennial of the Declaration of Independence.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.