People of the Revolutionary War | The Founding Fathers - An Overview | Caleb Strong
Caleb Strong (1745-1819) - Massachusetts
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and Memorial Commissions
Strong was born to Caleb and Phebe Strong on January 9, 1745 in Northampton,
MA. He received his college education at Harvard, from which he
graduated with highest honors in 1764. Like so many of the delegates
to the Constitutional
Convention, Strong chose to study law and was admitted to the bar
in 1772. He enjoyed a prosperous country practice.
From 1774 through the duration of the
Revolution, Strong was a member of Northampton's committee of safety.
In 1776 he was elected to the Massachusetts General Court and also
held the post of county attorney for Hampshire County for 24 years. He
was offered a position on the state supreme court in 1783 but declined
it.
At the Constitutional Convention, Strong
counted himself among the delegates who favored a strong central
government. He successfully moved that the House of Representatives
should originate all money bills and sat on the drafting committee.
Though he preferred a system that accorded the same rank and mode of
election to both houses of Congress, he voted in favor of equal
representation in the Senate and proportional in the House. Strong was
called home on account of illness in his family and so missed the
opportunity to sign the Constitution.
However, during the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he took a
leading role among the Federalists and campaigned strongly for
ratification.
Massachusetts chose Strong as one of its
first U.S. senators in 1789. During the 4 years he served in that
house, he sat on numerous committees and participated in framing the
Judiciary Act. Caleb Strong wholeheartedly supported the Washington
administration. In 1793 he urged the government to send a mission to
England and backed the resulting Jay's Treaty
when it met heated opposition.
Caleb Strong, the Federalist candidate,
defeated Elbridge Gerry to become
Governor of Massachusetts in 1800. Despite the growing strength of the
Democratic party in the state, Strong won reelection annually until
1807. In 1812 he regained the governorship, once again over Gerry, and
retained his post until he retired in 1816. During the War of 1812
Strong withstood pressure from the Secretary of War to order part of
the Massachusetts militia into federal service. Strong opposed the war
and approved the report of the Hartford Convention, a gathering of New
England Federalists resentful of Jeffersonian policies.
Strong died on November 7, 1819, 2 years
after the death of his wife, Sarah. He was buried in the Bridge Street
Cemetery in Northampton. Four of his nine children survived him.
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