Hamilton
Fish was
born in New York on 3rd August, 1808.
After graduating from Columbia College in 1827, he studied law and
was admitted to the bar in 1830.
A member of the Whig Party, Fish was elected
to the 28th Congress and took his seat in March, 1843. An unsuccessful
candidate in the 29th Congress he resumed work as a lawyer. However,
he returned to politics when he was elected as governor of New York
in 1849.
Fish joined the Republican Party and
in 1850 was elected to Congress. During the American
Civil War Fish was appointed by Abraham
Lincoln as one of the board of commissioners for the relief and
exchange of Union Army prisoners of war
in the South. He also served as chairman of the Union Defense Committee.
In 1869 President Ulysses Grant appointed
Fish as his Secretary of State. During the conflict with Britain over
the Alabama, Fish organized the drafting of the Treaty of Washington
(May, 1871), the first major international arbitration of modern history.
He left office in 1877 and returned to his work as a lawyer in New
York. Hamilton Fish died in Garrison, New York, on 7th September,
1893.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
