biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1778–1856)
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| biography:
| Lawyer, US representative, and public official, born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA. He studied at Harvard (1802) and worked for a time as a tutor in Virginia before returning north to practise law. He served eight years in the Massachusetts legislature and a single term in the US House of Representatives (Whig, 1835–7) where he passionately opposed slavery. His appearance in a Charleston, SC court to argue on behalf of free blacks (1844) nearly sparked a riot, and his expulsion from the city provoked outrage in the north. In 1854–5 he helped found the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts. |
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