KING, RUFUS
\kˈɪŋ], \kˈɪŋ], \k_ˈɪ_ŋ]\
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(1755-1827), was born in Maine and graduated at Harvard. He came prominently forward as a member of the Massachusetts Legislature and a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the latter body he moved in 1785 the provision against slavery in the Northwest Territory, afterward adopted in 1787. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and went home to work zealously for the ratification of the Constitution by Massachusetts. Having removed to New York he was a Federalist U. S. Senator from that State in 1789-1796, and wrote some of the " Camillus " papers. He was Minister to London, 1796-1803, and again in the Senate 1813-1825. In 1816 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor, and the same year received thirty-four electoral votes for President, having been the Federalist candidate for Vice-President in 1804 and 1808. His last service was again at the Court of London in 1825-1826. Life and works by King (1894).
By John Franklin Jameson