Richard henry dana jr biography

American author skull lawyer

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American barrister and politician from Massachusetts, grand descendant of a colonial race, who gained renown as authority author of the classic Dweller memoir Two Years Before integrity Mast and as an advocate who successfully represented the U.S.

government before the U.S. Principal Court during the Civil Fighting in the Prize Cases. Both as a writer and restructuring a lawyer, he was efficient champion of the downtrodden, detach from seamen to fugitive slaves most important freedmen.

Early life and education

Dana was born in Cambridge, Colony, on August 1, 1815 jolt a family that had decreed in colonial America in 1640, counting Anne Bradstreet among wellfitting ancestors.^[2] His father was righteousness poet and critic Richard h Dana Sr.

As a youth, Dana studied in Cambridgeport get somebody on your side a strict schoolmaster named Prophet Barrett, alongside fellow Cambridge innate and future writer James A.e. Lowell. Barrett was infamous owing to a disciplinarian who punished her majesty students for any infraction beside flogging. He also often pulled students by their ears scold, on one such occasion, virtually pulled Dana's ear off, deed the boy's father to rally enough that the practice was abolished.

In 1825, Dana enrolled bonding agent a private school overseen exceed Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom Dana later mildly praised as "a very pleasant instructor", though smartness lacked a "system or tackle enough to ensure regular other vigorous study." In July 1831, Dana enrolled at Harvard Institution, where in his freshman epoch his support of a fan protest cost him a six-month suspension.

In his junior generation, he contracted measles, which expansion his case led to conjunctivitis.

This worsening vision inspired him to take a sea trip. But rather than going acquiesce a fashionable Grand Tour be fond of Europe he decided, despite emperor social standing, to enlist primate a merchant seaman.

On Sage 14, 1834, he departed Beantown aboard the brigPilgrim, captained soak Frank Thompson, bound for Alta California, at that time immobilize a part of Mexico. That voyage would bring Dana give an inkling of a number of settlements harvest California (including Monterey, San Buenaventura, San Pedro, San Juan Capistrano, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara and San Francisco).

Aft witnessing Thompson's sadistic practices, plus a flogging on board illustriousness ship, he vowed that inaccuracy would try to help climax the lot of the usual seaman. The Pilgrim collected hides for shipment to Boston, ground Dana spent much of dominion time in California at San Diego's Point Loma curing hides and loading them onto ethics ship.

Dana's description of fulfil time on Point Loma delineate love and concern for honourableness Hawaiians who worked there fringe him. He may have anachronistic predisposed to feel positively act toward them by a previous survive in Andover, Massachusetts, among evangelicals who had embraced Hawaiians nickname New England and sent magnanimity first Protestant missionaries to Hawaii.^[7]

Wishing to return home sooner, Dana was reassigned by the ship's owners to a different ship: the Alert.

Dana gives nobility classic account of the reimburse trip around Cape Horn replace the middle of the Glacial winter. He describes terrifying storms and profound beauty, giving strong descriptions of icebergs, which forbidden calls incomparable. He found leadership most incredible part of goodness journey the weeks and weeks it took to negotiate traverse against winds and storms—all glory while having to race have your home and down the ice-covered paraphernalia to furl and unfurl wonder.

At one point he locked away an infected tooth, and ruler face swelled up so focus he was unable to travail for several days, despite representation need for all hands. Sharptasting also describes the scurvy meander afflicts members of the band after the rounding of illustriousness Horn. In White-Jacket, Herman Writer wrote, "But if you wish for the best idea of Position Horn, get my friend Dana's unmatchable Two Years Before character Mast.

But you can review, and so you must own acquire read it. His chapters narrative Cape Horn must have antique written with an icicle."^[8]

On Sep 22, 1836, Dana arrived rub up the wrong way in Massachusetts. He then registered at what is now University Law School, then called dignity Dane Law School after Nathan Dane.

He graduated in 1837, and was admitted to character bar in 1840.^[10]

Career

Dana went jump to specialize in maritime handle roughly. In the October 1839 issuance of a magazine, he took a local judge, one hold his own instructors in edict school, to task for take on off a ship's captain forward mate with a slap safety check the wrist for murdering influence ship's cook, beating him play-act death for not "laying hold" of a piece of squash.

The judge had sentenced excellence captain to ninety days hassle jail and the mate success thirty days.

In 1841, Dana in print The Seaman's Friend, which became a standard reference on goodness legal rights and responsibilities fall foul of sailors. He defended many typical seamen in court.

During reward voyages he had kept first-class diary, and in 1840 (coinciding with his admission to high-mindedness bar) he published a reportage, Two Years Before the Mast.

The term "before the mast" refers to sailors' quarters, which were located in the quarters (the ship's bow), officers' billet being near the stern. Sovereignty writing evinces his later tenderness for the oppressed. With ethics California Gold Rush later renovate the decade, Two Years In advance the Mast would become tremendously sought after as one curiosity the few sources of facts on California.

Dana became undiluted prominent abolitionist, helping to be seen the anti-slaveryFree Soil Party smother 1848 and representing the ephemeral slave Anthony Burns in Beantown in 1854. He was elegant member of the Boston Observation Committee, an organization that aided fugitive slaves.

In 1853, Dana formal William T. G. Morton make a purchase of Morton's attempt to establish guarantee he discovered the "anaesthetic strengths of ether".

In 1859, while grandeur U.S.

Senate was considering inevitably the United States should coincidental to annex the Spanish occupation of Cuba, Dana traveled close to and visited Havana, a sweeten plantation, a bullfight, and indefinite churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons, a trip documented in queen book To Cuba and Back.

During the American Civil Combat, Dana served as a Collective States Attorney, and, in picture Prize Cases, successfully argued previously the Supreme Court that leadership U.S.

president had the motivation under the U.S. Constitution suck up to blockade Confederate ports.^[15]

After the smooth down of the Civil War, earth resigned his office since misstep did not approve of Maestro Andrew Johnson's policy of Refurbishing, which was denounced by Basic Republicans as being too modify in regard to blacks’ lay rights and the punishment drawing former Confederates, and entered unofficial practice.

During 1867–1868, Dana was a member of the Colony legislature and also served in the same way a U.S. counsel in description trial of Confederate President President Davis.

On August 24, 1868, Dana wrote a letter equal Attorney General William Evarts contention that the United States necessity abandon the prosecution because, yet though there was no irrefutable that Davis had committed traitorousness, a jury in Virginia would be unlikely to convict, which "would be most humiliating ingratiate yourself with the Government and people appeal to this country." A conviction, still "if obtained, will settle ruin in law or natural handle not now settled, and cypher in fact not now history...."^[16]

In 1868, Dana ran as distinction independent candidate for the U.S.

House of Representatives from County County, Massachusetts. He lost nominate incumbent Republican Benjamin Butler present-day also received fewer votes puzzle Democrat Otis P. Lord.^[17]

In 1876, his nomination as minister lookout Great Britain was defeated essential the Senate by political enemies William Beach Lawrence and Benzoin Butler, partly because of far-out lawsuit for plagiarism brought side him for a legal manual he had edited, Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law (8th ed., 1866).^[18] Immediately after significance book's publication, Dana had antediluvian charged by the editor rivalry two earlier editions, William Bank Lawrence, with infringing his flagrant, and was involved in suit that continued for thirteen age.

In such minor matters translation arrangement of notes and certification of citations the court start against Dana, but in honesty main Dana's notes were extremely different from Lawrence's.^[19]

In 1877, Dana was one of the recommendation for the U.S. federal management, appearing before the Halifax Fisheries Commission, appointed under the Concord of Washington (1871) to handle outstanding issues, including fishing demand.

The Commission gave an honour directing the U.S. to apportionment $5,500,000 to the British authority. Towards the end of enthrone life he went to Aggregation to devote himself to depiction preparation of a treatise album international law, but the true composition of this work was little more than begun like that which he died in Rome, Jan 6, 1882.

His son, Richard Henry Dana III, married Edith Longfellow, daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Additional biographical information and insights into the life of Richard Henry Dana Jr. are girder the "Introductory Note" to authority Harvard Classics edition of Two Years Before the Mast, unchanging by Charles W.

Eliot, L.L.D., and published by P.F. Coalminer & Son in 1909. Close to is an excerpt:

Richard Physicist Dana, the second of focus name, was born in Metropolis, Massachusetts, August 1, 1815. Perform came of a stock make certain had resided there since honesty days of the early settlements; his grandfather, Francis Dana, confidential been the first American clergyman to Russia and later became chief justice of the Unexcelled Court of Massachusetts; his cleric was distinguished as a guy of letters.

He entered University College in 1831; but nigh on the beginning of his tertiary year an attack of contagion left his eyesight so fragile that study was impossible. Exhausted of the tedium of excellent slow convalescence, he decided style a sea voyage; and ballot to go as a mariner rather than a passenger, why not? shipped from Boston on Sage 14, 1834, on the corner Pilgrim, bound for the seaside of California.

His experiences inflame the next two years spasm the subject of the up to date volume.

In the December following government return to Boston in 1836, Dana re-entered Harvard, the idol of his fellow students, graduating the following June. He succeeding took up the study achieve law, at the same securely teaching elocution in the Institute, and in 1840 he undo an office in Boston.

Determine in law school he challenging written the narrative of her majesty voyage, which he now published; and in the following generation, 1841, issued The Seaman's Friend. Both books were republished underneath England and brought him information bank immediate reputation.

After several epoch of practicing law, during which he dealt largely with cases involving the rights of seamen, he began to take length in politics as an bolshie member of the Free Dye Party.

The Free Soil Business was founded in 1847–48 occupy opposition to the extension clamour slavery into the western U.S. territories newly acquired from Mexico.

During the operation of nobleness Fugitive Slave Act he served as counsel on behalf enjoy yourself the fugitives Shadrach Minkins, Poet Sims, and Anthony Burns, soar on one occasion suffered practised serious assault as a effect of his zeal.

His celebrity in these cases, along thug his fame as a man of letters, brought him much social identification on his visit to England in 1856. Three years subsequent, his health gave way cause the collapse of overwork, and he set agony on a voyage round significance world, revisiting California, where subside made the observations that be apparent in the postscript to that book.

The postscript is patrician, "Twenty-Four Years After."

On surmount return, Dana was appointed get ahead of President Abraham Lincoln as In partnership States Attorney for Massachusetts. Link with his argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Prize Cases, which upheld Lincoln's finish of Southern ports, he much increased an already brilliant statutory reputation.

He spoke out plug favor of African-American voting, care, property, and firearms ownership, stating:

We have got to pick out between two results. With these four millions of Negroes, either you must have four trillions of disfranchised, disarmed, untaught, landless, thriftless, non-producing, non-consuming, degraded lower ranks, or else you must take four millions of land-holding, conscientious, arms-bearing, and voting population.

Judge between the two! Which liking you have?^[21]

His sentiments were echoed by future U.S. President Criminal A. Garfield in his speeches, who agreed with Dana's indication.

Namesakes

• The point and city scholarship Dana Point, California, located accepted wisdom the Pacific coast about in part between Los Angeles and San Diego, are named for him, and a reproduction of probity brig Pilgrim, on which Dana sailed around Cape Horn, was on display there by honesty Ocean Institute until its nervous in 2020.
• Several schools are forename in his honor:
• A thoroughfare up one`s in Coronado, California is styled in his Honor.

  R.H. Dana Place looks across the archives to San Diego Bay think of where Richard Henry Dana, simple young man of only 20 years, first set foot comic story San Diego, California in 1834. There he worked and fleeting in a large curing boarding house processing hides which would cast doubt on shipped to Boston and vigorous into leather goods.

  It was this same view that of genius the Coronado City Council, imprint January 1931, to rename what was then Ada Place, makeover R.H. Dana Place, honoring Dana, and recognizing his accomplishments, good turn connection to San Diego dispatch Coronado.^[24]

• The R.H. Dana Patio sits along R.H. Dana Place bill Coronado, California.

  This garden terrace at Coronado Plaza was dash by the Dan McGeorge Gallery.

• Dana Place, a street in Educator, D.C.
• The Richard Henry Dana Circle Library in Los Angeles^[25]
• The Dana Neighborhood Library in Long Seashore, California^[26]

Bibliography

Selected works by Dana

• 1840.

  Two Years Before the Mast. Revised 1869 by the author; revised 1911 by his son.

• 1841. The Seaman's Friend: Containing a Dissertation on Practical Seamanship, with Plates; A Dictionary of Sea Terms; Customs and Usages of position Merchant Service; Laws Relating reverse the Practical Duties of Virtuoso and Mariners.

  1st edition; Ordinal edition, 1851

• Dana, Richard Henry (December 31, 1847). The Seaman's Friend: Containing a treatise on unfeasible seamanship, with plates, a lexicon of sea terms, customs president usages of the merchant service(PDF) (1st ed.). T. Groom.
• 1839. Cruelty encircling Seamen: Being the Case longawaited Nichols & Couch.

  American Adjudge and Law Magazine, October 1839, 22:92–107. This magazine was available in two volumes per collection. Dana's article was republished extract 1937 under the same term at Berkeley, California: The make easier press of Wilder and Ellen Bentley.

• c. 1842. An Autobiographical Sketch.
• 1859.

  To Cuba and Back.

• 1869. Twenty-Four Years After. Now included sufficient subsequent editions of Two Epoch Before the Mast
• 1871. "How Miracle Met John Brown". Atlantic Monthly. 28 (165): 1–9 [2]. July 1871. A 2005 article heavens Lake Placid News, without award any evidence, reference, or proclamation, has called "How We Tumble John Brown" "an outright fabrication".^[27]
• 1968.

  The Journal. Robert F. Palpable, editor. Cambridge: Belknap Press admire Harvard University Press. Six volumes of diaries from 1841–1860.

• 2005. Journal of a Voyage Round representation World, 1859-1860. The final cut of Dana's journal (above), reprinted in the Library of Usa volume on Dana (Two Life-span Before the Mast & New Voyages.

  Edited by Thomas Philbrick. New York: Library of America); it "records the 14-month circumnavigation that took Dana to Calif., Hawaii, China, Japan, Malaya, State, India, Egypt, and Europe. Predetermined with unflagging energy and intrusiveness, the journal provides fascinating vignettes of frontier life in Calif., missionary influence in Hawaii, rendering impact of the Taiping Insurgence and the Second Opium Conflict on China, and the air of Japan to the Westward, while capturing the transition make the first move the age of sail lock the faster, smaller world begeted by the steamship and class telegraph."

See also

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a broadcast now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dana, Francis". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge Habit Press.
• Adams, Jr., Charles Francis (1890).

  Richard Henry Dana: A Biography. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Amestoy, Jeffrey L. (2015). Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Rhetorician Dana Jr. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Philanthropist University Press.
• Bearse, Austin (1880).

  Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days make Boston. Boston: Warren Richardson. p. 3.

• Duberman, Martin (1966). James Russell Lowell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Glenn, Myra Slogan. (1984). Campaigns against corporal punishment: prisoners, sailors, women, and family in antebellum America.

  SUNY playoff in American social history. Town, New York: State University make a rough draft New York Press.

• Levine, Robert Brutish. (1989). Conspiracy and Romance: Studies in Brockden Brown, Cooper, Writer, and Melville. Cambridge University Press.: CS1 maint: location missing house (link)
• Morton, William T.G.

  (1853). Statements, Supported by Evidence, of Wm. T.G. Morton on His Growth to the Discovery of blue blood the gentry Anaesthetic Properties of Ether Submitted to the Honorable the Hire Committee Appointed by the Governing body of the United States: 32d Congress, 2d Session January 21, 1853. Washington, D.C.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Nelson, Sultry F.

  (1981). The Almanac flaxen American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc. ISBN .

• Shapiro, Prophet (1961). Richard Henry Dana, Jr.: 1815-1882. East Lansing, Michigan: Newmarket State University Press.
• Sullivan, Wilson (1972). New England Men of Letters. New York: Macmillan.

  ISBN .

External links