Caesar Augustus Rodney
Caesar Augustus Rodney (January 4, 1772 – June 10, 1824) was the United States Attorney General from 1807 to 1811, a U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1822 to 1823, and the U.S. Minister to Argentina from 1823 until his death in Buenos Aires in 1824. He was the nephew of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who is depicted on the Delaware state quarter.
Rodney was born in Dover, Delaware. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, he studied law under Joseph B. McKean in Philadelphia and was admitted to the bar in 1793. He practiced law in Wilmington and New Castle for the next three years.
In 1796 he entered the Delaware House of Representatives, serving until 1802. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1803 to 1805. A staunch supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he became his Attorney General on January 20, 1807, and continued in that post in Madison's administration.
As Attorney General, Rodney participated as a member of the prosecution during the second treason trial of former Vice-President Aaron Burr. He resigned on December 5, 1811. During the War of 1812, he commanded a company of volunteers in defense of Baltimore. From 1821 to 1822, he was again a Representative in Congress from Delaware, and from 1822 to 1823 served as United States Senator, the first Democratic Republican to serve as a Senator from Delaware.
Rodney was appointed United States Minister to the Argentine Republic in 1823. He had spent a number of years in foreign service before this appointment, serving on a 1817 commission of President James Monroe to investigate whether newly formed South American republics should be recognized. Rodney died on June 10, 1824 and was buried in an English churchyard in Buenos Aires.
Trivia
Rodney was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in January 1804 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against John Pickering, judge of the United States District Court for New Hampshire, and in December of the same year against Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Rodney's Delaware home was "Cool Springs", located in Wilmington.
This article contains material from the US Department of Justice Attorneys General of the United States which, as a US government publication, is in the public domain.
See also Rodney family of Delaware
