Richard Bassett (2 April 1745 – 15 August 1815) was a US Senator from Delaware from 4 March 1789 to 4 March 1793, preceding John Vining, and Governor of Delaware from 9 January 1799 to 3 March 1801, succeeding Daniel Rogers and preceding James Sykes.
Biography[]
Richard Bassett was born in Cecil County, Maryland in 1745, and he became a lawyer in Dover, Delaware. In 1776, he helped to draft the state constitution, despite being a conservative and a reluctant revolutionary. He served in the Delaware General Assembly during the American Revolutionary War, and he helped his neighbor John Haslet with raising the 1st Delaware Regiment in 1776. Bassett was one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, and he served in the US Senate from 1789 to 1793 and as Governor from 1799 to 1801, serving as a Federalist Party member. On 18 February 1801, he was one of President John Adams' appointed "Midnight Judges", serving until his seat was abolished in 1802. He died in 1815.