CLAYTON, JOHN MIDDLETON Amer ican politician, was born in Dagsborough, Del., on July 24, 1796. He came of an old Quaker family long prominent in the political history of Delaware. He graduated at Yale in 1815, and. in 1819 began to practise law at Dover, Delaware. Engaging in poli tics, he became in 1824 a member of the state house of representa tives, and in 1826-28 was secretary of state for Delaware. In 1829 he was elected to the U.S. Senate by the anti-Jackson forces, and in 1835 was re-elected as a Whig, but resigned in 1836. In 1845 he again entered the Senate, where he opposed the an nexation of Texas and the Mexican War. In March, 1849, he became secretary of state in President Taylor's cabinet. His brief tenure of the state portfolio, which terminated July 22, 185o, soon after Taylor's death, was notable chiefly for the negotiation with the British minister, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (q.v.). He was once more a mem ber of the Senate from March, 1853, until his death at Dover, Del., Nov. 9, 1856. By his contemporaries Clayton was considered one of the ablest debaters and orators in the Senate.
See the memoir by Joseph P. Comegys in the Papers of the His torical Society of Delaware, No. 4 (Wilmington, 1882) .