Background
August Belmont was born on December 8, 1816, in the small town of Alzei, in the Rhenish Palatinate, the son of Simon and Frederika (Elsaas) Belmont.
Businessman Diplomat politician
August Belmont was born on December 8, 1816, in the small town of Alzei, in the Rhenish Palatinate, the son of Simon and Frederika (Elsaas) Belmont.
Belmont's father, a wealthy landed proprietor, was able to permit his son to choose his own career. In this choice there was no hesitancy, and at the age of fourteen the youth entered, without pay, the office of the Rothschilds, at Frankfurt-am-Main, to learn the business.
Belmont’s first duty was to sweep the offices, but his industry and his remarkable talent for finance won quick promotion, and after three years' service at Frankfurt he was sent to the branch office at Naples. Here he gave continued proof of his unusual capacity, and, among other accomplishments, carried on successful negotiations with the Papal Court. In Naples much of his leisure was spent in the galleries, where he laid the foundation for an appreciation of art that was to make him one of the foremost collectors of his generation. His duties in Naples completed, he was sent by his employers to Havana, Cuba. While he was at sea the financial panic of 1837 began in the United States. Belmont was quick to sense the possibilities in the financial chaos then prevailing. Having executed his commissions in Havana, he notified the Rothschilds that he was entering business on his own account and sailed for New York on the first available ship.
Belmont rented a small office on Wall St. , and there established, practically without capital, the foundations of the great banking house of August Belmont & Company. His only tangible asset was the agency in the United States for the Rothschilds. Belmont's success was immediate and undisturbed; within a few years he was one of the leading bankers of the country. In August 1841 he fought a duel at Elkton, Indiana, with William Hayward of South Carolina and as a result carried a wound with him throughout life. Securely established in business, he became, as speedily as possible, a citizen. Joining the Democratic party, he cast his first vote, in 1844, for Dallas and Polk. In the same year he was appointed consul-general for Austria in the United States. This post he held until 1850, when he resigned as a protest against the severe treatment of Hungary, and especially of the patriot Louis Kossuth, by the Austrian Government.
This official position, combined with the charm of his personality, and his great wealth, which he spent freely, made him a conspicuous figure in the social life of New York. In 1849 he added to his prestige by marrying Caroline Slidell Perry, daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who "opened" Japan to the Western nations. Belmont's political services and influence were rewarded in 1853 by his appointment by President Pierce as minister to the Netherlands. This post he held with conspicuous success until the expiration of Pierce's term in 1857.
With the outbreak of war, Belmont supported the Government with the greatest vigor. He aided in raising and equipping the first German regiment sent from New York City. In other ways he aided the Union cause, but his most valuable service, perhaps, was a constant correspondence with influential friends in Europe, the Rothschilds and others, in which he set forth forcibly the Northern side in the great conflict. He visited London in 1861 and Paris in 1863. In England he urged upon Palmerston and others the ethical and political claims of the North, and from Paris wrote to Seward that the Emperor Napoleon was the real center of French sympathy for the South.
Belmont’s influence upon public opinion in financial and political circles, both in England and throughout continental Europe, was of value to Lincoln and his advisers. Belmont continued to be a power in his party until 1872, when, the Democrats having accepted Horace Greeley as their nominee, he retired from active political life. His interest in party politics never ceased and he was a constant attendant at state and national conventions as a delegate, and often as presiding officer. August Belmont died in 1890.
August Belmont was one of the wealthiest people and the leading bankers of his time. He was the founder of August Belmont & Company. Belmont also served as Consul-General of Austria to the U. S. (1844–1850); the U. S. Minister to the Netherlands (1853–1857); Chair of the Democratic National Committee (1860–1872). Belmont is the founder of the Belmont Stakes, third leg of the Triple Crown series of American thoroughbred horse racing.
August Belmont was recognized as one of the most influential of the younger leaders of the Democratic party. He was opposed to slavery as an institution, but supported the policies of Stephen A. Douglas rather than those of the abolitionists. Following the split in the Democratic party at Charleston in 1860, he took an active part in the Baltimore convention of the same year. Although he strongly opposed the nomination and election of Lincoln, there was no faltering in his devotion to the Union. "I prefer, " he said in a letter to John Forsyth of Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, "to leave to my children, instead of the gilded prospects of New York merchant princes, the more enviable title of American citizen, and as long as God spares my life I shall not falter in my efforts to procure them that heritage. "
August Belmont was a member of the Democratic party and president of the American Jockey Club.
In 1849 August Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry, daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry.
He was a wealthy landed proprietor.
