Representative George Oscar Rathbun

George Oscar Rathbun (October 16, 1802 – January 4, 1870) was an American lawyer and politician who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from New York from 1843 to 1847. He was born on October 16, 1802, in Scipioville, near Auburn, New York, the son of Edward and Anna Fuller Rathbun. Raised in central New York during the early years of the republic, he grew up in a region that was rapidly developing politically and economically, circumstances that would later shape his legal and political career.

Rathbun received his early education in the schools of Auburn, New York. After completing his basic schooling, he pursued the study of law, reflecting the common path of ambitious young men of his era who sought entry into public life through the legal profession. He read law in the traditional manner, was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of law in Auburn. On October 16, 1823, he married Eliza Treat Gould, establishing his family and professional life in the same community where he had been educated and where he would remain an active figure for decades.

Before entering national politics, Rathbun built a local reputation both as an attorney and as a Democratic Party officeholder. He served as Clerk of the Cayuga County Board of Supervisors, a position that placed him at the center of county administration and local governance. From 1837 to 1841 he was postmaster of Auburn, an important federal appointment in a period when the postal service was a principal means of communication and political organization. These roles enhanced his standing in the Democratic Party and among his constituents, preparing the way for his election to Congress.

As a member of the Democratic Party representing New York, Rathbun was elected to the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1843, to March 3, 1847. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, marked by intense debates over territorial expansion, party realignments, and the growing sectional conflict over slavery. During his first term he served as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions, overseeing legislation related to the claims of veterans and their families from the Revolutionary era. In his second term he rose to the influential position of chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reflecting the confidence of his colleagues in his legal training and legislative abilities. Throughout his two terms, he contributed to the legislative process and participated in the democratic governance of the nation while representing the interests of his New York constituents.

Rathbun’s congressional career was also marked by a notable and widely reported incident on the House floor. On April 23, 1844, he became involved in a physical confrontation with former Speaker of the House John White of Kentucky, a member of the Whig Party. White was delivering a speech in defense of Senator Henry Clay, the Whig nominee for president in the 1844 election, and objected to a ruling from the Speaker that denied him additional time to conclude his remarks. When Rathbun told White to be quiet, White confronted him, and their disagreement escalated into a fistfight, prompting dozens of members to rush in and attempt to separate them. In the confusion, an unknown visitor in the gallery fired a pistol into the crowd, wounding a police officer. The disturbance underscored the intensity of partisan feeling in the antebellum Congress. Both Rathbun and White subsequently apologized for their actions, and the incident was resolved without formal censure.

Over the course of his political life, Rathbun’s views on slavery and party affiliation evolved in step with the broader realignments of mid-nineteenth-century American politics. Although he began his national career as a Democrat, he opposed slavery and became associated with the Barnburners, the antislavery faction of the New York Democratic Party that resisted the extension of slavery into new territories. As the sectional crisis deepened and the Republican Party emerged in the 1850s as the principal political vehicle for opposition to the expansion of slavery, Rathbun joined the new party, aligning himself with its free-soil and antislavery principles.

After leaving Congress in 1847, Rathbun returned to Auburn and continued to practice law, maintaining his role as a respected member of the local bar. He remained active in public affairs and party politics in New York. In the later years of his life he served as a delegate to the New York State constitutional convention of 1867, participating in efforts to revise and modernize the state’s fundamental law in the aftermath of the Civil War. His involvement in the convention reflected his continued engagement with questions of governance and legal structure well into his later years.

George Oscar Rathbun died in Auburn, New York, on January 4, 1870. He was interred in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, a burial place for many of the community’s prominent citizens. His career as a lawyer, local official, congressman, and later Republican and constitutional delegate illustrates the trajectory of a nineteenth-century New York politician whose life intersected with major political transformations in the United States, from Jacksonian democracy through the rise of the antislavery movement and the reconfiguration of the party system on the eve of the Civil War.