Rufus King (24 March 1755 – 29 April 1827) was a US Senator from New York from 16 July 1789 to 23 May 1796, preceding John Laurance, and again from 4 March 1813 to 4 March 1825, succeeding John Smith and preceding Nathan Sanford. He was a member of the Federalist Party.
Biography[]
Rufus King was born in Scarborough, Massachusetts (now a part of Maine) on 24 March 1755, the son of a prosperous merchant. King studied law before joining the patriot militia during the American Revolutionary War, winning election to the Massachusetts General Court in 1783 and to the Congress of the Confederation the following year. At the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, he emerged as a leading nationalist, and he called for increased powers for the federal government. After the convention, he returned to Massachusetts and contributed to the state's ratification of the US Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton persuaded him to abandon his law practice and move to New York City to enter Federalist Party politics. In 1789, he was elected to represent New York in the US Senate, serving until 1796; from 1796 to 1803, he was ambassador to Great Britain. In 1804 and 1808, he served as the Federalist vice-presidential candidate, and he ran for president in 1812, obtaining the votes of those few Federalists who did not vote for DeWitt Clinton during the election. King again served in the Senate from 1813 to 1825, and he became the Federalists' last presidential candidate when he ran in 1816. From 1825 to 1826, he served in John Quincy Adams' administration as ambassador to Britain, but ill health forced him to retire from public life, and he died in 1827.