Edward Everett was born on April 11, 1794, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Oliver and Lucy Everett. His father earned a living as a minister, and he died in 1802. His mother moved the family to Boston, Massachusetts, and Everett grew up and attended school there. He graduated valedictorian from Harvard University in 1811. He earned his Master’s degree two years later, and he spent the late 1810s travelling through Europe. He received his PhD in September 1817.

 

He returned to America in 1819 and began working as a professor at Harvard. He also served as editor of the North American Review, and he became a popular public speaker. He married Charlotte Gray Brooks on May 8, 1822, and they had at least six children: Anne, born around 1823; Charlotte, born around 1825; Grace, born around 1827; Edward, born around 1830; Henry, born around 1834; and William, born on October 10, 1839.

 

He supported the National Republican Party and, later, the Whig Party, and he was elected to Congress in November 1824. He served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Libraries and Public Buildings. He promoted economic development, favoring protective tariffs, federally-funded internal improvements, and a national bank. He was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1835, and he served until January 1840. During his administration, Massachusetts created a state Board of Education and established a normal school to train teachers.

 

He served as ambassador to Great Britain from 1841 until 1845, and he became president of Harvard in February 1846. He resigned the presidency in December 1848. He served as Secretary of State under President Millard Fillmore from November 1852 until March 1853, and he became a United States Senator immediately afterward. He sat on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Territories. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. After missing a critical vote, however, he faced intense criticism from Massachusetts’s anti-slavery voters. In response, he resigned from the Senate in May 1854.

Everett then returned to Boston and worked as a writer and public speaker. He helped raise money to preserve George Washington’s Mount Vernon home. In 1860, the Constitutional Union Party nominated him for vice president. During the secession crisis, he championed the Crittenden Compromise in hopes of preserving the Union. When compromise failed, he actively supported the Union war effort.

 

In November 1863, he was the featured speaker at the Gettysburg National Cemetery dedication ceremony. He supported Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864 and served as one of Massachusetts’s presidential electors. He died of pneumonia in Boston on January 15, 1865.

 

Image: Edward Everett (courtesy Wikicommons)

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