Choate, Joseph Hodges (1832-1917)

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Republican Party

John Adams Kingsbury to Jane Addams, August 15, 1912

Paul Underwood Kellogg to Jane Addams, May 10, 1917

The United States and the Permanent Court of International Justice, April 1927

Announcement, Association pour la Sauvegarde du Droit es Gens, 1915

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Birth Date

1832-01-24

Death Date

1917-05-14

Birthplace

Salem, MA

Biographical Text

John Hodges Choate attended Harvard University and graduated in 1852, and in 1854 he graduated from Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts and New York and worked for the New York City law office, Scudder & Carter. In 1860, he became a junior partner for Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, and its successor, Evarts, Choate & Beaman, was one of the leading law firms in the country. Choate was involved with some of the most famous cases in American history, such as the Tilden, A.T. Stewart, and Stanford will cases, the Kansas prohibition cases, the Chinese exclusion cases, the Maynard election returns case, and the Income Tax Suit. He was also a member of the Committee of Seventy, which broke up the Tweed Ring. He was president of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the New York City Bar Association. In 1897, Choate was a candidate for the Republican U.S. senatorial nomination for New York, and in 1894 he was president of the New York state constitutional convention. In 1899 he was appointed to U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and served until 1905. In 1917, he was chairman of the mayor's committee in New York for entertaining the British and French commissions.

Choate married Caroline Dutcher Sterling in 1861. They had two children together: Mabel and Joseph Hodges Jr. Choate died in 1917.