Edwards Pierrepont, American lawyer and politician, 34th United States Attorney General (d. 1892)
Edwards Pierrepont (March 4, 1817 – March 6, 1892) was an American attorney, reformer, jurist, traveler, New York U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Minister to England, and orator. Having graduated from Yale in 1837, Pierrepont studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840. During the American Civil War, Pierrepont was a Democrat, although he supported President Abraham Lincoln. Pierrepont initially supported President Andrew Johnson's conservative Reconstruction efforts having opposed the Radical Republicans. In both 1868 and 1872, Pierrepont supported Ulysses S. Grant for president. For his support, President Grant appointed Pierrepont United States Attorney in 1869. In 1871, Pierrepont gained the reputation as a solid reformer, having joined New York's Committee of Seventy that shut down Boss Tweed's corrupt Tammany Hall. In 1872, Pierrepont modified his views on Reconstruction and stated that African American freedman's rights needed to be protected.In April 1875, Pierrepont was appointed U.S. Attorney General by President Grant, who, having teamed up with Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, vigorously prosecuted the notorious Whiskey Ring, a national tax evasion swindle that involved whiskey distillers, brokers, and government officials, including President Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock. Upon his appointment, Pierrepont quickly cleaned up corruption in Southern U.S. districts. Pierrepont had continued former Attorney General George H. Williams moratorium on prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had been previously prosecuted by President Grant's Attorneys General Amos T. Akerman and Williams from 1871 to 1873, prosecuting civil rights violations of whites against African Americans. Pierrepont ruled that a naturalized Prussian immigrant's son born in the U.S. was not obligated to serve in the Prussian military as an adult. In his ruling of the Chorpenning Claim, Pierrepont cited the Supreme Court case Gorden v United States, having agreed that the Postmaster General, as well as the Secretary of War, served as ministers rather than legally binding arbitrators for a monetary claim by a private citizen. After serving as Attorney General, Pierrepont was appointed Minister to Great Britain by President Grant serving from 1876 to 1877. After many visits to France, Pierrepont became an advocate for bimetalism. Having returned from England, Pierrepont resumed his law practice until his death in 1892.