La Fayette Sabine Foster (November 22, 1806 – September 19, 1880) was an American politician and jurist from Connecticut. He served in the United States Senate from 1855 to 1867 and was a judge on the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1870 to 1876. He was President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1865 to 1867, and was first in the presidential line of succession for most of his tenure, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Biography

Lafayette Sabine Foster was born in Franklin, Connecticut, on November 22, 1806, to Daniel Foster and his second wife, Welthea Ladd. His father Daniel was a captain in the Continental Army and fought in several battles including the battles of White Plains, Stillwater, and Saratoga. Daniel Foster was a lieutenant in Latimer's Regiment of Militia during the Battle of Saratoga. While on the field of battle, he received a warrant of promotion to the post of adjutant.

Foster began his education in the common schools around Franklin. He entered his college preparatory studies under the tuition of the Rev. Abel Flint of Hartford, Connecticut, who he studied under for five months. Foster taught school in Franklin for two subsequent winters. He completed his preparatory studies under the Rev. Cornelius B. Everest of Windham, Connecticut, in 1824, and in February 1825 enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He was an assistant in the school of Roswell C. Smith in Providence for the winter after his graduation. In the following spring, he began to study law back in Norwich, Connecticut, in the office of Calvin Goddard. He took charge of an academy in Centerville, Maryland, and he was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1830.

In 1831, he returned to Connecticut and was admitted to the bar of New London County. He opened a law office in Hampton, Connecticut in 1833, but a year later moved back to Norwich, which became his home for the rest of his life.

He was Whig candidate for Governor of Connecticut in the 1850 election, but lost narrowly to Democrat) candidate Thomas H. Seymour, 48% to 47%. Because Seymour had a plurality, not a majority, he was elected by the Connecticut General Assembly.

Foster had a very busy year in 1851. He ran again for governor and again lost narrowly (49%-47%), and the election again went to the General Assembly. The Whigs had a slight majority in the Assembly, but there was division amongst them, and Seymour was re-elected by one vote, 122–121.

Foster was instead appointed again to the Merchants' Bank.

Then in the US Senate election, the Whigs failed to elect Roger S. Baldwin, with Foster also getting a few votes.

Foster was awarded a Legum Doctor degree in 1851 by Brown University.

In 1854 he was again elected as the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. On May 19, 1854, the Whigs and Free Soilers in the Assembly combined to elect Foster to the US Senate for the full six-year term beginning in 1855. Two days after the Kansas–Nebraska Act was passed by the House in May 1854, he addressed a public meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, saying that the time for speechmaking was over, and the time for action against slavery had come. He resigned his seat in the Connecticut House of Representatives on June 8, 1854.

In the 37th to the 39th Congress (1861-1867), he served as chairman of the Committee on Pensions. On October 2, 1860, Foster married Martha Prince Lyman.

Legacy

Foster willed his personal library to the town of Norwich and his residence for the use of the Norwich Free Academy. He also endowed two academic endeavors, the Lafayette Sabine Foster Prize in Greek at Brown University and the Lafayette S. Foster Professorship of English Common Law at Yale University. Charles Calverley, an American sculptor, created a marble bust of Foster that was presented to the Senate by Foster's second wife Martha Prince Lyman Foster in 1885. She gave Brown University a portrait of Foster in 1895 that was made by the portraitist Robert Cutler Hinckley.

Notes

References

  • Foster, L. F. S. (1864) Speech of the Hon. L.F.S. Foster, of Connecticut, in the Senate of the United States, on the bill to repeal the Fugitive slave law : first session, thirty-eighth Congress, Wednesday, April 20, 1864. Washington, D.C.: Gibson Brothers – via Cornell University Library Digital Collections
  • Vignette Portrait of Lafayette S. Foster, Mississippi State University Libraries
  • Portrait of LaFayette Sabine Foster (1806-1880), Smithsonian Institution Archives

|-

|-

|-