Background
Samuel Whittlesey Dana was born on February 13, 1760 in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. He was the elder son of James Dana, Congregational minister at Wallingford, by his first wife, Catherine Whittelsey.
Samuel Whittlesey Dana was born on February 13, 1760 in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. He was the elder son of James Dana, Congregational minister at Wallingford, by his first wife, Catherine Whittelsey.
Dana graduated from Yale in the class of 1775 with high honors.
Three years later he was appointed to deliver a congratulatory oration in Latin on behalf of the student body upon the occasion of the inauguration of President Ezra Stiles.
He studied law at Middletown, Connecticut, under Judge J. T. Hosmer and was admitted to the bar in 1778.
Dana interested himself in the Connecticut militia and in 1790 was commissioned brigadier-general.
In January 1797 he took his seat in the lower house of Congress and held this office until he was transferred to the Senate in May 1810, upon the resignation of James Hillhouse.
His career in national politics ended with the expiration of his term on March 3, 1821, his defeat being due to the political overturn in Connecticut in 1818.
Returning from Washington to Middletown he resumed the practise of law.
In 1822, however, he returned to public life as the mayor of Middletown, and held this post almost to the time of his death. F
From 1789 to 1796 he served as member of the General Assembly of Connecticut.
His estate was insolvent, but his contemporaries were agreed that he could have amassed a considerable fortune had he devoted himself continuously to the practise of his profession.
In Congress he belonged to the Federalist group, although he was not a leader.
He voted for the Sedition Act of 1798, and in the same year introduced a resolution to abrogate the treaty of 1778 with France.
He opposed the acquisition of Louisiana, the Embargo and NonIntercourse Acts, and also the impeachment of Justice Chase.
He consistently supported a navy of frigates and expressed his contempt for those “aquatico-terrene vehicles denominated gun boats. ”
He favored the bill of 1816 increasing congressional salaries and opposed the measure of the same year chartering the second Bank of the United States.
Dana made clear his complete disapproval of Jackson and of British policy with respect to the United States and then proceeded to discuss in an impressive manner the problems of international law which were involved not only in the pending resolution but in the policy of the Madison administration toward Jackson. The speech was the work of a careful student of political science who was familiar not only with Grotius, but with Martens, Vattel, and Wicquefort.
He broke with Adams on the supreme necessity for the protection of property and did not share in the distrust of the masses which characterized the thinking of Hamilton and Fisher Ames. In his system Dana combined the best thought of the Federalists and the Jeffersonians. His philosophy explains why he shared in neither the plots of Harrison Gray Otis nor the despair of Fisher Ames at the growth of democracy. Two years after the revolution of 1818 in Connecticut had doomed his party in that state, Dana exclaimed: "Look at the young empire in the New World! See the American States advancing in the ascent of glory”.
Dana opposed slavery and objected to the Missouri Compromise on the ground that the admission of a state should be considered on its individual merits.
