Goodrich, Chauncey (1759-1815) of Hartford, Conn. Brother of Elizur Goodrich. Born in Connecticut. Member of Connecticut state legislature; U.S. Representative from Connecticut at-large, 1795-1801; U.S. Senator from Connecticut, 1807-1813; mayor; Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, 1813-1815. Died August 18, 1815. Interment at Old North Cemetery, Hartford, Conn. (www site: The Political Graveyard).
Lawyer, United States Senator, eldest son of Rev. Elizur Goodrich and Catharine (Chauncey) Goodrich and brother of the younger Elizur Goodrich was born at Durham, Conn. He grew up in a home which represented the best standards of New England culture of that period, graduated with distinction at Yale in 1776, and taught for a time in the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven. From 1779 to 1781 he was a tutor at Yale and at the same time studied law. After admission to the bar he settled at Hartford where he soon established a considerable practise. His first wife, Abigail Smith, died in September 1788 and on Oct. 13 1789, he married Mary Ann Wolcott, thus establishing an alliance with one of the families which had long exercised a dominating influence in Connecticut affairs. By inheritance, training, profession, and social position he was fully qualified for membership in that Federalist politico-ecclesiastical oligarchy which governed the state until 1818. In 1793, he became a member of the state legislature and a year later was elected to Congress. A stalwart Federalist, he revealed in his correspondence with his brother-in-law, Oliver Wolcott, during these years both the statesmanship and the limited vision which characterized so many leaders of that party (George Gibbs, "Memoirs of the Administration of Washington and John Adams, edited from the papers of Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the treasury," 2 vols., 1846). Goodrich remained in Congress until 1801, and his speeches on the Jay Treaty ("Annals of Congress," 4 Cong., I Sess., pp. 717-25) and on the Foreign Intercourse Bill (Ibid., 5 Cong., I Sess., pp. 931-41) disclosed a high order of ability.
After resigning from Congress in 1801 he resumed the practice of law at Hartford, reentering politics as a member of the Council in 1802 and serving until 1807 when he was elected to the United States Senate. As Senator he was praised by the Federalists for his sturdy opposition to the Embargo and other restrictive policies of the Republican majority, and criticized by the Republicans as an obstructionist of questionable loyalty. In 1813 he was elected lieutenant-governor of Connecticut and resigned from the Senate. A year earlier he had been elected mayor of Hartford and he retained both local offices until his death. His health had begun to fail, but he took a prominent part in the Hartford Convention of 1814. Theodore Dwight, a contemporary, in his history of that ill-starred gathering remarks of Goodrich (post, p. 428), "Rarely has any individual passed through so many scenes in public life with a higher reputation, and a more unimpeachable character." His shortcomings were those of the local group and sectional school of political thought to which he belonged (Dictionary of American biography, NY : Scribner's, 1958).
Following is a letter from Chauncey to his nephew Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860) upon while Samuel was serving in the War of 1812. From Goodrich, Samuel Griswold, "Recollections of a lifetime," NY : Miller, Ortin & Co., 1856, v.1, pg. 472:
"My Dear Samuel:
I had the pleasure to receive yesterday your letter by Mr. Whiting. I am happy to be informed of your health, and that you have the good fare of a soldier : whatever it may want of the delicacies of the luxurious table of the citizen, willbe made up to you in the zest you will have when you return to it. The principal thing you have to attend to is the care of your health, and that also you will best learn, as we do every thing, by experience. Your father will be here to-day. We are all well. Write by every opportunity.
Your affectionate uncle,
Chauncey Goodrich"
The following is abridged from Hollister's "History of Connecticut," vol. 2, pp. 634-638, as cited in Samuel G. Goodrich's "Recollections of a lifetime," v.1, pp. 526-530:
"Chauncey Goodrich was the eldest son of the preceding (Elizur Goodrich, 1734-1797), and was born on the 20th of October, 1779 (should read "1759.") After a career of great distinction at Yale College, where he spent nine years as a student, a Berkeley scholar, and a tutor, he was admitted to the bar at Hartford in the autumn of 1781.
" After serving in the State Legislature for a single session, he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, in the year 1794. For this station he was peculiarly qualified, not only by the original bent of his mind and his habits of study, but also by the fact that an early marriage into the family of the second Governor Wolcott, had brought him into the closest relations with public men and measures, and made him investigate all the great questions of the day with profound interest and attention. His brother-in-law -- afterward the third Governor Wolcott -- held one of the highest offices under the general government. This led him, from the moment he took his seat in Congress, to become intimately acquainted with the plans and policy of the administration; and he gave them his warmest support, under the impulse alike of political principle and of personal feeling. A party in opposition to Gen. Washington was now organizd for the first time in Congress, as the result of Mr. Jay's treaty with Great Britain. Mr. Goodrich took a large share in the debates which followed, and gained the respect of all parties by his characteristic dignity, candor, and force of judgment, and especially by his habit of contemplating a subject on every side, and discussing it in its remotest relations and dependencies. Mr. Albert Gallatin, then the most active leader of the opposition, remarked to a friend near the close of his life, that in these debates he usually selected the speech of Chauncey Goodrich as the object of reply - feeling that if he could answer him, he would have met every thing truly relevant to the subject which had been urged on the part of the government.
"In 1801, he reisgned his seat in Congress, and returned to the practice of the law at Hartford. The next year he was chosen to the office of councilor in the State Legislature, which he continued to fill down to 1807, when he was elected to the Senate of the United States. During the violent conflicts of the next six years, he took an active part in most of the discussions which arose out of the embargo, the non-intercourse laws, and the other measures which led to the war with Great Britain. The same qualities which marked his early efforts were now fully exhibited in the majority of his powers, while the whole cast of his character made him peculiarly fitted for the calmer deliberations of the Senate. He had nothing of what Burke calls the "smartness of debate." He never indulged in sarcasm or personal attack. In the most stormy discussions, he maintained a courtesy which disarmed rudeness. No one ever suspected him of wishing to misrepresent an antagonist, or evade the force of an argument; and the manner in which he was treated on the floor of the Senate, shows how much can be done to conciliate one's political opponents, even in the worst times, by a uniform exhibition of high principle, if connected with a penetrating judgment and great reasoning powers. Mr. Jefferson playfully remarked to a friend during this period -- "That white-headed Yankee from Connecticut is the most difficult man to deal with in the Senate of the United States."
"In 1813, he was chosen lieutenant-governor of the State, and continued to hold this office until his death. At the meeting of the legislature in 1814, he was appointed a delegate to the celebrated Hartford Convention. Though in feeble health, he took a large share in the deliberations of that body, and especially in those healing measures which were finally adopted. During its session, he received communications from distinguished men in other States, touching the various questions at issue, and particularly from Mr. Daniel Webster, who had previously sent him an extended argument to show that the provisions of the embargo law, "so far as it interdicts commerce between parts of the United States," were unconstitutional and oppressive in the highest degree. Mr. John Randolph, also, addressed him under the date of December 16, 1814, forwarding a pamphlet which he had just published against the administration, in the hope of promoting "the welfare of the country in these disastrous times." At an earlier period, Mr. Randolph had been one of the strongest political opponents of Mr. Goodrich; but he now says -- "Unfeigned respect for your character and that of your native State, which like your own is not to be blown about by every idle breath -- now hot, now cold -- is the cause of your being troubled with this letter - a liberty for which I beg your excuse." In reference to the Convention, he remarks - "I make every allowance for your provocations; but I trust that the "steady habits" of Connecticut will prevail in the Congress at Hartford, and that she will be the preserver of the Union from the dangers by which it is threatened from the administration of the general government, whose wickedness is only surpassed by its imbecility."
"Early in 1815, it was found that a hidden disease under which Mr. Goodrich had for some time labored, was an affection of the heart. His death was probably near -- it would unquestionably be sudden -- it might occur at any moment! He received the intelligence with calmness, but with deep emotion. He expressed his feelings without reserve to his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Strong, and at a later period to the writer of this sketch. From his youth, he had been a firm believer in the divine authority of the Scriptures. He read them habitually even in the busiest scenes of his life. So highly did he prize public worship, that he once remarked, he would attend on preaching of a very low intellectual order - which was even repulsive to his taste, and that he always did so, if he could find no better, when away from home - rather than be absent from the house of God. As the result of all his studies and reflections
he had become more and more fixed in his belief of those great doctrines of grace, which had been taught him by his father, and which are generally received in the churches of Connecticut. His life had, indeed, been spotless, and devoted to the service of his country. But in speaking of our ground of acceptance before God, he said in substance - "A moral life is of itself nothing for the salvation of the soul. I have lived a moral life in the estimation of the world; but no language can express my sense of its deficiency in the sight of a holy God. If there was not an atonement, I must be condemned and miserable forever. Here my hope is stayed. A sense of imperfection often sinks my spirit, but generally I have hope that supports me, and at times I have rejoiced in God without fear, and have wished only to be in his hands and employed in his service." In this state of mind his summons found him. On the 18th of August, 1815, in the midst of the family circle, while walking in the room and engaged in cheerful conversation, he faltered for a moment, sank into a chair, and instantly expired, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
"In his person, Mr. Goodrich was a little above the medium height, of a full habit, slightly inclined to corpulency. He had finely turned features, with prominent and rounded cheeks, and a remarkable purity of complexion, which retained throughout life the flush of early youth. His countenance was singularly expressive, showing all the varied emotions of his mind when excited by conversation or by public speaking. His eye was blue, and deep-sunk under an ample forehead. He had the habit of fixing it intently upon those to whom he spoke in earnest conversation, and no one who felt that look, will ever forget its searching and subduing power.
"In demestic and social life, he was distinguished for his gentleness and urbanity. He had a delicacy of feeling which was almost feminine. A friend who had conversed with him intimately for many years, remarked that he had one peculiarity which was strikingly characteristic: "Not a sentiment or expression ever fell from his lips in the most unguarded moment, which might not have been uttered in the most refined circles of female society." He had, at times, a vein of humor, which shows itself in his familiar letters to Oliver Wolcott and others, as published by Mr. Gibbs, in his "Memoirs of the Administration of Washington and John Adams." But, in general, his mind was occupied with weighty thoughts, and it was perhaps this, as much as any thing, that gave him a dignity of manner which was wholly unassumed, and which, without at all lessening the freedom of social intercourse, made every one feel that he was not a man with whom liberties could be taken. He could play with a subject, when he chose, in a desultory manner, but he preferred, like Johnson, to "converse rather than talk." He loved of all things to unite with others in following out trains of thought. The late Judge Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, in a letter to Mr. Gibbs, classes him in this respect with Oliver Ellsworth, Fisher Ames, Uriah Tracy, Oliver Wolcott, and Roger Griswold : of whom he says, "You may well imagine what a rich and intellectual society it was. I will not say that we have no such men now, but I don't know where to find them."
"His crowning characteristic, that of integrity and honor, was thus referred to a few days after his death, by a writer in one of the leading journals of Hartford. "His judgment was so guided by rectitude, that of all men living he was, perhaps, the only one to whom his worst enemy - if enemy he had - would have confided the decision of a controversy, sooner than to his best friend."