Maine's Famous People

Nathan Clifford (1803–1881)

Nathan Clifford was an American statesman, diplomat and jurist.

Clifford was born of old Yankee stock in Rumney, New Hampshire, to a farmer and his wife, the only son of seven children (His great-great-grandmother, Ann Smith, wife of Israel Clifford, was the accuser of Goody Cole.) He attended the public schools of that town, then the Haverhill Academy in New Hampshire, and finally the New Hampton Literary Institute. After teaching school for a time, he studied law in the offices of Josiah Quincy and was admitted to the bar in Maine in 1827, establishing his first practice in Newfield, Maine.

He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1830 to 1834 and served as Speaker of that house the last two years. He was then Maine Attorney General from 1834 until 1838, when he was elected as a Democrat to the 26th and 27th Congresses, serving March 4, 1839 through March 3, 1843, and representing the Second and then the Third District. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1842.

In 1846, President James K. Polk appointed him 20th Attorney General of the United States after his predecessor, John Y. Mason, returned to being Naval Secretary. Clifford served in Polk's Cabinet from October 17, 1846, to March 17, 1848. Immediately after completing his service with the Justice Department he became the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, serving from March 18, 1848 to September 6, 1849. It was through Clifford that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was arranged with Mexico, by which California became a part of the United States.

Following his service in the diplomatic corps, Clifford resumed the practice of law in Portland, Maine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Clifford