Rufus King

Rufus King’s public career spanned the administra-tions of the first six U.S. presidents. He represented Massachusetts during the Continental Congress, helped frame the Constitution, opposed the War of 1812, and was the Federalist Party’s last presidential candidate in 1816. During his first year as minister to Great Britain (1796–1803), King presented Lord Lansdowne with Gilbert Stuart’s famous full-length portrait of George Washington, which is now displayed on this museum’s second floor.

Stuart painted this portrait in 1819–20, when King was serving as a senator from New York (1813–25) and trying to rouse opposition to admitting Missouri as a slave state. John Quincy Adams witnessed him speak on “the natural liberty of man, and its incom-patibility with slavery in any shape.” He noted that King spoke, “with great power, and the great slave-holders . . . gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as they heard him.”