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AMES, FISHER (1758–1808)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 850 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AMES, See also:FISHER (1758–1808) , See also:American statesman, orator and See also:political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was See also:born at See also:Dedham, See also:Massachusetts, on the 9th of See also:April 1758. He graduated at Harvard See also:College in 1774, and began the practice of the See also:law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts See also:convention which (See also:February 1788) ratified for that See also:state the Federal Constitution, and in the same See also:year, having entered the See also:lower See also:house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During the eight years of See also:Washington's See also:administration (1789–1797) he was a prominent Federalist member of the See also:national House of Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the Republicans, hostile to the See also:jay Treaty, were on the point of holding up the See also:appropriation necessary for its See also:execution, Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-See also:bed, made what has been considered the greatest speech of his See also:life; before the delivery of his speech his opponents had claimed a See also:majority of six, but the appropriation was finally passed, in the See also:committee of the whole, by the casting See also:vote of the chairman. When Washington retired from the See also:presidency, See also:Congress voted him an address and See also:chose Ames to deliver it. In 1797 he returned to Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which the state of his See also:health after a few years obliged him to relinquish. He published numerous essays, chiefly in relation to the contest between See also:Great See also:Britain and revolutionary See also:France, as it might affect the See also:liberty and prosperity of See also:America. Ames was one of the See also:group of New See also:England ultra-Federalists known as the " See also:Essex Junto," who opposed the See also:French policy of See also:President See also:John See also:Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their See also:British sympathies. Four years before his See also:death he was chosen president of Harvard College, an See also:honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of See also:July 18o8. His writings and speeches, which abound in sparkling passages, displaying great fertility of See also:imagination, were collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in 1809, by the Rev.

Dr J. T. Kirkland, in one large See also:

octavo See also:volume. A more See also:complete edition in two volumes was published by his son, See also:Seth Ames, at See also:Boston, See also:Mass., in 1854.

End of Article: AMES, FISHER (1758–1808)

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