ROBERT

See also:

• CHARLES
• CHARLES (1270-1325)
• CHARLES (1421-1461)
• CHARLES (1525-1574)
• CHARLES (Fr. Charles; Span. Carlos; Ital. Carlo; Ger. Karl; derived from O.H.G. Charal,latinized as Carolus, meaning originally " man ": cf. Mod.Ger., Kerl," fellow," A.S. ceorl, Mod. Eng. " churl ")
• CHARLES (KARL EITEL ZEPHYRIN LUDWIG; in Rum. CAROL)
• CHARLES (c. 1319-1364)
• CHARLES [KARL ALEXANDER] (1712-1780)
• CHARLES, ELIZABETH (1828-1896)
• CHARLES, JACQUES ALEXANDRE CESAR (1746-1823)
• CHARLES, THOMAS (1755-1814)

CHARLES

See also:

• WINTHROP
• WINTHROP, JOHN (1588-1649)
• WINTHROP, JOHN (1606-1676)
• ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP (1809-1894)

WINTHROP (1809-1894)  , American orator and statesman, a descendant of Governor John Winthrop (1588-1649), was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 12th of May 1809 . He graduated at Harvard in 1828, studied law with Daniel Webster and in 1831 was admitted to the bar . He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1834-1840--for the last three years as speaker,—and in 1840 was elected to the national House of Representatives as a Whig, serving from December 184o to 185o (with a short inter-mission, April-December 1842) . He soon became prominent and was speaker of the Thirtieth Congress (1847-1849), though his conservatism on slavery and kindred questions displeased extremists, North and South, who prevented his re-election as speaker of the Thirty-first Congress . On the resignation of Daniel Webster to become secretary of state, Winthrop was appointed to the Senate (July 1850), but was defeated in the Massachusetts legislature for the short term (Jan . 30, 1851) and for the long term (April 24, 1851) by a coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers and served only until February 1851 . In the same year he received a plurality of the votes cast for governor, but as the constitution required a majority vote, the election was thrown into the legislature, where he was defeated by the same coalition . Thereafter, he was never a candidate for political office . With the breaking up of the Whig party he became an independent and supported Millard Fillmore in 1856, John Bell in 186o, and General G . B . McClellan in 1864 . He was president of the Massachusetts Historical Society from 1855 to 1885, and for the last twenty-seven years of his life was president of the Peabody Trust for the advancement of education in the Southern States .

Among his noteworthy orations of a patriotic

character were those delivered at Boston in 1876, at Yorktown in 1881, and in Washington on the completion of the Washington Monument in 1885 . He died in Boston on the 16th of November 1894 . Among his publications were Addresses and Speeches (Boston, 1852–1886) ; Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vols., Boston, 1864–1867); and Washington, Bowdoin and Franklin (Boston, 1876) . See R . C . Winthrop, Jr., Memoir of R . C . Winthrop (Boston, 1897) .