Samuel Dexter (14 May 1761 – 4 May 1816) was a member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts' 1st district from 4 March 1793 to 3 March 1795 (succeeding Fisher Ames and preceding Theodore Sedgwick), a US Senator from 4 March 1799 to 3 May 1800 (succeeding Sedgwick and preceding Dwight Foster), Secretary of War from 1 June 1800 to 31 January 1801 (succeeding James McHenry and preceding Henry Dearborn), and Secretary of the Treasury from 1 January to 13 May 1801 (succeeding Oliver Wolcott Jr. and preceding Albert Gallatin).
Biography[]
Samuel Dexter was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1761, and he studied under the future Attorney General Levi Lincoln Sr.. He opened a law practice in Lunenburg in 1784, and he served in the State House of Representatives from 1788 to 1790, in the US House of Representatives from 1793 to 1795, and in the US Senate from 1799 to 1800. In 1795, when William Branch Giles suggested that immigrants be forced to renounce their noble titles, Dexter responded by demanding that Catholics denounce allegiance to the Pope, forcing James Madison to defend the Catholics. In 1799, Dexter delivered the Senate eulogy for the former president George Washington. In 1800, President John Adams appointed Dexter Secretary of War, and Dexter served as Secretary of the Treasury two months into Thomas Jefferson's term before Jefferson could nominate Albert Gallatin in a recess appointment. Dexter returned to Boston to practice law, and his support for the War of 1812 led to him joining the Democratic-Republican Party. He died in 1816.