Choate, RUFUS

Choate, RUFUS, a scholarly American lawyer, born in Essex, Massachusetts, 1st October 1799, graduated at Dartmouth in 1819, and was admitted to the bar in 1823. He sat in congress from 1830 to 1834, when he settled in Boston. Here his singular eloquence rapidly advanced him to the place of leader of the Massachusetts bar; indeed, it has been claimed for him that he was the most eminent advocate New England, or even America, has produced. After a term in the United States senate, 1841-45, he returned to his profession; in 1859, his health giving way, he sailed for Europe, but stopped at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died July 13. His writings, with a memoir, were published at Boston in 1862. See Neilson's Memories of Rufus Choate (Boston, 1884).