Thomas Addis Emmet (24 April 1764 – 14 November 1827) was the Democratic-Republican Attorney General of New York from 1812 to 1813, succeeding Matthias B. Hildreth and preceding Abraham Van Vechten.
Biography[]
Thomas Addis Emmet was born in Cork, County Cork, Ireland in 1764, the brother of Robert Emmet and Mary Anne Holmes. He practiced law before becoming active in the Irish republican movement, becoming a legal adviser to the United Irishmen and supporting the extension of the democratic franchise for the Irish Parliament and the re-enfranchisement of Catholic voters. On the failure of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Emmet was imprisoned from 1798 to 1802, when he went into exile in Europe and sought to obtain French support for a new rising. He grew disheartened upon being turned away by Napoleon's regime for his Jacobin views, and after he realized that Napoleon would likely turn a liberated Ireland into another French client state. In 1804, Emmet sailed to the United States, where he set up a legal practice in New York City and became an abolitionist. He served as Attorney General of New York from 1812 to 1813, when he was removed by the newly-elected Federalist government, and he went on to become one of the most respected attorneys in the nation, including for the New York Manumission Society (doing so without pay). Emmet died in 1827.