William M. Evarts

William Maxwell Evarts (February 6, 1818February 28, 1901) was an American lawyer and statesman from New York who served as U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator from New York. He was renowned for his skills as a litigator and was involved in three of the most important causes of American political jurisprudence in his day: the impeachment of a president, the Geneva arbitration and the contests before the electoral commission to settle the presidential election of 1876. During the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, the reform-minded Evarts was an active member among the "Half-Breed" faction of the Republican Party, which emphasized support for civil service reform, bolstering opposition towards conservative "Stalwarts" who defended the spoils system and advocated on behalf of Southern blacks. Family, education and marriage William M. Evarts was born on February 6, 1818, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the son of Jeremiah Evarts and Mehitabel Barnes Sherman. Evarts's father, a native of Vermont, a "lawyer of fair practice and good ability," and later the editor of The Panoplist, a religious journal, and corresponding secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (during a time of "fervor in mission propagandism") who led the fight against Indian removals, died when William was thirteen. William's mother was the daughter of Roger Sherman, Connecticut founding father, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.