EVERETT, EDWARD, LL.D. (ante), b. Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794; d. Boston, Jan. 15, 1865; an American statesman, orator, and scholar, son of Rev. Oliver Everett. He was at one time a pupil in a Boston school, of which Daniel Webster, in the absence of his brother Ezekiel, was the teacher. In 1811, when only 17 years of age, he gradu ated at Harvard with the highest honors of his class. While an undergraduate he had the principal charge of a students' paper called the Harvard Lyceum. In 1812, he was appointed tutor at Harvard, and while thus employed, found time to prepare himself for the ministry. He was ordained pastor of the Brattle street church (Unitarian) in Boston, Feb. 19, 1814. As a preacher his career was brilliant, though brief. He resigned his pulpit at the end of 13 months, when not quite 21 years of age, having accepted the Eliot professorship of Greek literature at Harvard. To fit himself more completely for his new position, he went to Europe and studied for two years in the university of Gottingen, receiving the degree of PH.D. He then traveled extensively in England and upon the continent, making special visits to Athens and Constantinople. In England he made the acquaintance of the most eminent 'nen of that day, Scott, Jeffrey, Rornilly, and Davy. His range of study during his residence abroad was wide, embracing not only the branches included in his professorship, but a close examination of civil and political law, and of the European systems of government. Upon his return in 1819, he entered upon the duties of his professorship, delivering at the outset a course of lectures on ancient Greece, its architecture and ruins, which he afterwards repeated in Boston. During the period of his professorship, which continued till 1825, he became the editor of the North American Review, to which he contributed a great number of articles_ In 1824, in the presence of gen. Lafayette, he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard, winning new fame by his thoughtful and eloquent presentation of the theme, "Circumstances Favorable to the Progress of Literature in America." On the 22d of Dec. of the same year, he delivered an oration at Plymouth that kindled for him a wide popular enthusiasm. In the same year (1824) he was elected to congress from the Cain bridge district. He was subsequently re-elected for four successive terms, making his whole period of service in that body 10 years. During this whole term he was a member of the committee ou foreign relations, and in the 20th congress its chairman. He also served on the committee, and generally on that for public buildings. He was also a member of some important select committees. His familiarity with the science of government and with the public questions of the time, united with his high literary qualifications, and his acknowledged power as a speaker, fitted him for great usefulness in committees and upon the floor. Some utterances are on record which may be taken as early indications of his subsequent position on the question of slavery. On the 9th of Mar., 1826, lie brought upon himself the rebuke of Churchill C. Cambreling, mem ber from New York, but a native of South Carolina, for these words: " The great rela tion of servitude, in some form or other, with greater or less departure from the theo retic equality of men, is inseparable from our nature. Domestic slavery is not, in my judgment, to be set down as an immoral and irreligious relation. It is a condition of life as well as any other to be justified by morality, religion, and international law." " Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and education are very unmilitary; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack on my back, and put a musket on my shoulder, than that of putting down a servile insurrection at the south." In 1835, he was elected governor of Massachusetts, holding the office by annual re-election until 1840, when lie was defeated by a single vote. In his first message to the legislature, Jan., 1836, he took occasion to refer in deprecatory terms to the anti-slavery excitement of that day, and, alluding to the anti-slavery papers, which were almost universally denounced as "incendiary," he said: "Whatever by direct and necessary operation is calculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves has been held by highly respect able legal authority an offense against the peace of the cominonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." As the governor was known to have at that moment in his official possession, to be communicated to the legislature, the official demands of several of the southern states for the enactment by northern legisla tures of laws to suppress the anti-slavery societies and journals, this portion of his mes sage. created much excitement in the state, and intense alarm in the anti-slavery party. Remonstrances in large numbers, against the adoption of the proposed legislation, were sent to the legislature, and the remonstrants were accorded a public hearing before a special committee. After a severe struggle, the contemplated restriction of the freedom
of the press was averted, and no effort was ever made to enforce the governor's sugges tion in regard to proceedings under the common law for the same object. While in congress, Mr. E. was a constant contributor to the North American Review, and among his papers published therein, was one in which he very ably and successfully contro verted the South Carolina doctrine of nullification. In 1841, he was appointed by president Harrison minister plenipotentiary of the United States to Great Britain. The news of this appointment reached him in Italy, whither lie had gone for the purpose of engaging in historical work. He hastened to obey the call of his country, and entered at once upon the discharge of his official duties. The relations of this country with England at that time involved our minister in very grave responsibilities, which Mr. E. discharged in a manner creditable alike to the country and to himself. Returning home in 1845, he reluctantly accepted the presidency of Harvard university;) giving the next three years to strenuous labor in behalf of his alma mater. After his resignation, he established himself in Boston with the purpose of entering upon literary tasks long post poned. He prepared a collected edition of his own orations and speeches, which appeared in 1850. He also edited a new edition of the works of Webster, at his special request, and prepared a memoir of the author. From such congenial labors he was next summoned to fill the place of secretary of state in the cabinet of president Fillmore, made vacant by Mr. Webster's death. He held this position only four months, retiring at the close of president Fillmore's administration; but during this time several impor tant questions of state received his careful attention. Before leaving the department of state he was elected to the U. S. senate. Feb. 8, 1854, he made a powerful speech in the senate in opposition to the abrogation of the Missouri compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery in all the territories ceded by France to the United States n. of the line of 30'. The object of this abrogation was to open to slavery the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Mr. Everett having been a conspicuous supporter of Webster and the compromises of 1850, was in a position to make his influence felt upon this new issue, but the measure was carried in spite of his eloquent remonstrances. His health failing, he resigned his seat in the senate in May and retired to private life. After recovering his strength, he devoted himself for several years to the work of procuring funds wherewith to purchase Mount Vernon, the home and burial-place of Washington, to be held in perpetuity as a place of resort and pilgrimage. He prepared an eloquent discourse upon the life and character of Washington, which he delivered nearly one hundred and fifty times in different places in the country, devoting the proceeds to this object. He also engaged to contribute an article weekly for one year to the .Aretc Fork Ledger for $10,000, to be paid by the proprietor to the Mount Vernon fund. The articles were afterwards republished in a volume entitled _Mount Vernon, Papers. Giving his time gratuitously and paying his own traveling expenses, he raised over $100,000 in all for the Mount Vernon fund. He subsequently, by similar methods, obtained consider able sums for several public charities. In 1860, be was nominated for vice-president of the United States, with John Bell of Tennessee for president, by a small remnant of the whig, party, which had fallen to pieces under the growing anti-slavery sentiment of that period. The ticket received 590,631 votes from a total of 4,662,170. When the rebellion broke out in 1861, he took his stand promptly among those who determined to maintain the union at every hazard. His patriotic addresses at this crisis were of great service, influencing as they did a large body of conservative men, who, like himself, had done all in their power to discourage and resist anti-slavery agitation. His oration at the consecration of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, Penn., Nov. 15, 1863, was a production creditable alike to his patriotism and his high literary ability. In the great crisis of 1864, when Lincoln was re-elected, Mr. Everett's name headed the list of presi. dential electors of Massachusetts, and his vote for Lincoln was the last act in his politi cal career. Jan. 9, 1865, lie spoke in Faneuil hall in behalf of the needy and suffering citizens of Savannah, and on the following Sunday, the 15th, he died. He received the highest literary honors from the great English universities as well as from his alma mater. He was a corresponding member of the institute of France, and enjoyed the friendship of the greatest men of his time in Europe and America. A statue of him by Ball stands in the Boston public library, and another, by Story, in the public garden.