Biography
Rush enjoyed a cultivated childhood; during his life he was a statesman, diplomat, widely-praised orator and key figure in two Administrations (James Madison and John Quincy Adams), and carved a distinguished career in public affairs in his own right.
After his entering the bar in 1800 Rush quickly gaining statewide and then national attention as a public speaker and successful trial lawyer. In 1811 he was appointed Attorney General of Pennsylvania. Shortly before this he had declined an offer to run for congress. In November 1811, President James Madison appointed Rush Comptroller of the Treasury.
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Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, memoirs to serve for a history, which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
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