BURLINGAME, ANSON (182o-187o), American legis lator and diplomat, was born in New Berlin, N.Y., on Nov. 14, 1820. In 1823 his parents took him to Ohio, and about ten years afterwards to Michigan. In 1838-41 he studied in one of the "branches" of the university of Michigan, and in 1846 graduated at the Harvard law school. He practised law in Boston, and won a wide reputation by his speeches for the Free Soil party in 1848. He was a member of the Massachusetts senate in 1853-54, and of the national House of Representatives 1855-61, being elected for the first term as a "Know Nothing" and afterwards as a member of the new Republican Party. He was an effective debater in the House, and for his impassioned denunciation (June 21, 1856) of Preston S. Brooks (18r9-57), for his assault upon Senator Charles Sumner, was challenged by Brooks. Burlingame accepted the challenge and specified rifles as the weapons to be used; his second chose Navy island, above the Niagara Falls, and in Canada, as the place for the meeting. Brooks, however, refused these conditions. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him (June 14. 1861) minister to China. This office he held until Nov. 1867, when he resigned and was immediately appointed minister plenipoten tiary to head a Chinese diplomatic mission to the United States and the principal European nations. The embassy arrived in the United States in March, 1868, and concluded at Washington (July 28, I 868) a series of articles, supplementary to the Reed Treaty of 1858, and later known as "The Burlingame Treaty." The "Burlingame Treaty" recognizes China's right of eminent domain over all her territory, gives China the right to appoint at ports in the United States consuls, "who shall enjoy the same privileges and immunities as those enjoyed by the consuls of Great Britain and Russia"; provides that "citizens of the United States in China of every religious persuasion and Chinese subjects in the United States shall enjoy entire liberty of conscience and shall be exempt from all disability or persecution on account of their religious faith or worship in either country," and grants certain privileges to citizens of either country residing in the other, the privilege of naturalization, however, being specifically with held. Burlingame's speeches did much to awaken a more intelli gent appreciation of China's attitude toward the outside world. He died suddenly at St. Petersburg on Feb. 23, 1870.
His son EDWARD LIVERMORE BURLINGAME (1848-1922) was educated at Harvard and at Heidelberg, was a member of the editorial staff of the New York Tribune in 1871-72 and of the American Cyclopaedia in 1872-76, and in 1886-1914 was the editor of Scribner's Magazine.
See Frederick Wells Williams, Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese Mission to Foreign Powers (1912) ; also Robert Grant, "Edward Livermore Burlingame," Harvard Graduates' Magazine, vol. xxxi. p.