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Timothy Duncan-Bates | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Timothy Duncan-Bates, Rembrandt Peale, 1802 | |
| 3rd President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1805 | |
| Vice President | Charles Lee |
| Preceded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| Succeeded by | James Madison |
| 2nd Vice President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1805 – March 4, 1809 | |
| President | Thomas Jefferson |
| Preceded by | John Adams |
| Succeeded by | Charles Lee |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Timothy Bates July 22, 1749 Albany, New York, British America |
| Died | February 16, 1816 Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.A. |
| Resting place | Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican |
| Other political affiliations | Independent (1787-1798) |
| Spouse(s) | Lucille Attenborough (m. 1783) |
| Children | Aberforth, Thomas, Jane |
| Profession | Politician, lawyer, tactician |
| Awards | Congressional Medal of Freedom Thanks of Congress |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Continental Army |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Wars | American Revolutionary War |
Timothy Duncan-Bates (born Timothy Bates; July 22, 1749 — February 16, 1816) was an American statesman, tactician, and politician who served as the second Vice President of the United States from 1797 to 1805. After that, he served as a member of the House of Representatives from Connecticut's at-large district from 1805 to 1809. Before being elected Vice President, Bates had gained much attention after helping lead the Continental Army to victory at Yorktown. He largely helped to shape the office of the Vice Presidency, and aided Thomas Jefferson in foreign affairs, including negotiating out of the XYZ Affair. He was elected to the vice presidency in 1796 and 1800, and at the conclusion of Jefferson's second term, ran successfully for President of the United States, served one term, then retired in the following election and returned home to Hartford.
Timothy Bates was born in 1749 to a British merchant, William Bates, and a British-American nurse, Olivia Duncan; His mother died in 1752, and he would adopt the name "Duncan-Bates" in 1767 to symbolically honor her. Upon graduating from Yale College in 1773, Bates would enlist in the Continental Army upon the start of the American Revolution and would fight in many famous battles, including the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Battles of Saratoga, and the Battle of Camden. His career in the service concluded with the Siege of Yorktown, and he would subsequently fight minor skirmishes before retiring from the Army in 1782. The next year, he married Lucille Attenborough, a daughter of wealthy planters, and the two would stay married until Bates' death.
Bates would take his first swing at politics by publishing essays and articles in newspapers across Connecticut in favor of republican policies. He notably protested the Constitution of the United States in a set of 1787 articles dubbed 'the Anti-Federalist Papers.' He considerably supported George Washington for President, but severely detested his choice of Federalists in his Cabinet and protested against the whiskey taxes between 1791 and 1794. The following year, Bates befriended fellow Republican Thomas Jefferson, and the two ran alongside each other in the 1796 United States presidential election, where Jefferson won the Presidency and Bates was made Vice President.
The office of Vice President, still largely undeveloped, was made into a rather power position by Bates. It has been said that very few men have held the power that Bates held in his office. He largely guided the foreign policy Jefferson eschewed through his Presidency, and was able to create new Cabinet positions, including Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Agriculture. Upon re-election in 1800, he would do much of the same. He was involved in a non-fatal duel with Alexander Hamilton in the fall of 1802, and shortly thereafter aided Jefferson in making the Louisiana Purchase. After Jefferson chose to retire after two terms, Bates would run for President in 1804 and won the election.
Bates chose only to remain President for one term. During his time as President, he built trails that extended through the Louisiana Territory, and began construction on a cross-state railroad that passed from New Hampshire to Georgia. His successor, James Madison, continued his legacy. After his retirement in 1809, Bates would return to the United States Army, where he would stay for the rest of his life. On February 16, 1816, while off duty in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bates would be shot by a British sympathizer and died from his wounds at the age of 66.
Early life
[edit]The Bates family and the Duncan family were both radically different from each other. The Bates family had, for a very long time, been a family of merchants who lived in the regions of Newcastle upon Tyne and extended in some cases into Greenwich. William Bates was born in December 1721, and had moved to the Americas in 1747 in order to expand the family business there. He would take up residence in Albany, New York. While he was there, he met another woman who had moved from Britain to live in America, Olivia Duncan. A nurse for the British Army, she had moved to America in 1733 at the young age of 10. Olivia and William would marry in August 1748.
Timothy Bates was born on July 22, 1749 in the family house in Albany. His young mother, a sickly woman, would not live much longer after his birth. Shortly after having a child on January 6, 1752, Olivia Duncan died of postpartum bleeding. The baby would be stillborn. Thus, the young Timothy had no brothers, only his father, who would never fully recover emotionally from the trauma of losing his young wife. His troubled childhood would large shape his highly religious and individualist ideology. Timothy turned 15 on July 22, 1764 and awoke to find that his father had left the home. He never saw his father again, though he is reported to have read his obituary in a newspaper sometime in 1778.
Timothy spent the rest of his childhood moving around and shining shoes to earn a few dollars. He was a self-taught student and was not the smartest man; though he could write very well, he had a notoriously foul temper and often fought, swore, and acted out of spite. In 1767, he changed his name legally from "Timothy Bates" to "Timothy Duncan-Bates" to honor his mother. He kept the surname of "Bates" in order to continue his family roots.
Revolutionary War
[edit]Bates would attend college from 1767 to 1773, gaining a Doctor of Law degree. He would serve as a lawyer from 1773 to 1775, but when the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place in April of 1775, he immediately took office and joined a group of militiamen. As a member of what would become the Continental Army, he fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill and escaped with a scar on the right side of his face. He would eventually join Washington's division and make the move towards Saratoga, where the campaign would wreak havoc on Bates' health. During the long winter at Valley Forge, Bates suffered from hypothermia and would be irreparably weakened for the rest of his life.
Bates would later commend General George Washington in his memoirs (written in 1814-16, published posthumously in 1818), saying:
"I distinctly recall during the winter at the Camp [Valley Forge] that the General [Washington] was steadfast at all moments of the day, and that he would rouse the boys anytime that one would speak to him. When we were around him, we could never lose. Even if we fell once, we would never truly lose."
Bates was promoted to lieutenant colonel in late 1779 and fought the British unsuccessfully at the Battle of Camden, where he would lose his prized horse, an Arabian he named Bolt, to grapeshot on the open field. He was wounded in action, but continued to fight until the very end. The wound left a scar on his thigh, where a bullet had grazed him. After a short break, he would eventually fight in the last "true" battles of the American Revolution, culminating in the Battle of Yorktown, where he was among the many to have made Cornwallis surrender. He would fight a few skirmishes on his way back home. When he returned to Albany, he found that his house had been pillaged and destroyed, and thus, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut.
Marriage, children, and first retirement
[edit]Bates finally settled into his new home at Hartford in September 1782. Within the next month, he had met a family of wealthy planters who had moved up north, named the Attenboroughs. As they were his neighbors, he became well-acquainted with the group. Now at 33 years old, he was ready to settle down. Bates and the oldest child of the Attenboroughs, 26-year-old Lucille, began courting sometime in November. On April 16, 1783, Bates married Lucille Attenborough at his Hartford manor.
Over the next two decades, Lucille and Timothy would have four children together.
- Aberforth Duncan-Bates (1786-1849) [Nicknamed "Abby" by his family]
- Thomas Duncan-Bates (1789-1857) [Nicknamed "Tommy" by his family]
- Jane Duncan-Bates (1794-1813) [Nicknamed "Janie" by her family]
- James Duncan-Bates (1797-1895) [Nicknamed "Jimmy" by his family]
After his marriage to Lucille, Bates would remain unemployed and technically retired for a number of years. Despite this, he would still support friends and appeared at Congressional meetings as a honored guest of other fellows from the military.
Political career
[edit]In 1787, in response to the Federalist Papers that had been spreading throughout the colonies, Bates would help write the Anti-Federalist Papers alongside other anti-Federalist leaders. In the papers, he protested the controls and excises given to the federal government, and expressed the wish for a bill of rights that ensured freedom of speech, religion, press, and statement. However, he also expressed the wish for a confederate system that had the features and quirks of a republic. He would finally get that wish in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was created.
That same year, Bates would protest the Whiskey Rebellion alongside followers of Thomas Jefferson, and there met Jefferson in 1793, becoming an acquaintance and frequent visitor of the man at his house, Monticello. During the 1794 midterms, Bates, an Independent who "did not believe in a Party," vigorously campaigned on behalf of Democratic-Republicans and made several attacking statements that were very critical of the Federalists, sparking his reputation as a legendary albeit fiery orator with a close temper and intelligent diction.
The election of 1796
[edit]In the election of 1796, Bates was cast as a Republican candidate for the Presidency, where he campaigned on behalf of Republicans down-ballot and gave a few speeches to make his positions clear. Running with the intention to become Vice President, Bates would receive the second place spot in the Electoral College, with Jefferson in first place, and thus he was elected Vice President. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1797, and would immediately get to work.
Vice President of the United States
[edit]Bates, almost immediately, wrote a number of bills, four of which would be voted and deliberated on. During his time in the Senate, he only had to break a single tie. His first order of business was to preside and sponsor a bill that would instate a policy of protectionism in trade, and the bill passed with unanimous consent. He then created the Department of the Navy and the Department of Agriculture and submitted the bill through then-Senator Charles Lee. It also passed with unanimous consent. After continuous bill writing, however, Bates would incite the wrath of the Georgia Senator, William D. Wallace, by offering decreased pensions for Continental Army soldiers (the budget had little money to afford Wallace's plan).
Wallace and Bates continued to clash, but also remained friends outside of politics despite their differences. Meanwhile, Bates and Charles Lee bonded over their vaguely nonpartisan, yet leaning Republican ideals. Bates moved into Washington, D.C. around 1798 and stayed in the next-door room to Lee at the National Hotel.