King, William Rufus

King was born in 1786 in Sampson County, North Carolina . In 1803, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in 1806 began practicing law at Clinton. From 1807 to 1809, he was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, and in 1810 served as the City Counsel in Wilmington. In the period from 1811 to 1816, King was elected three times to the House of Representatives of the US Congress . After that, he went to Europe , where he served as a diplomat in Naples , and then in St. Petersburg . Returning to the United States in 1818, he became a slave owner on a large cotton plantation.

King attended a conference on organizing an Alabama state power system. In 1819, after the formation of the state, he was elected a senator from Alabama, becoming the representative of the Democratic Republican Party . He was later re-elected to the Senate in 1822, 1828, 1834 and 1841, and in the 24th and 27th Congresses he held the position of Acting Chairman of the Senate. Between 1844 and 1846, King was the United States Ambassador to France .

In 1848, he was re-elected to the Senate. During the conflict that arose during the discussion of the Compromise of 1850, King opposed the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and supported a policy of banning debate on the elimination of slavery. In 1849-1850 he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations . From 1850 to 1852, he again served as Acting Chairman of the Senate.

In 1852, he was elected vice president , but due to health problems, the oath taken in March 1853 was carried out in Cuba , where he was undergoing treatment at that time. In April, King returned to his plantation in Alabama, where he soon died of tuberculosis . He served only 45 days as vice president. King was interred on his plantation, but was reburied in Selm in 1882.

•   Wikimedia Commons has William Rufus King related media files
• Biography on the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress