Attorney General: William M. Evarts
William Maxwell Evarts was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 6, 1818. He graduated with honors from Yale University in 1837. He studied law at Harvard Law School and in the office of Daniel Lord in New York City. Evarts was admitted to the New York bar in 1841 and founded his own firm the following year. From 1849 to 1853, he was assistant district attorney for the Southern District of New York. In 1860, Evarts chaired the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago. In 1868, he helped defend President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial.
On July 15, 1868, President Johnson appointed Evarts as Attorney General of the United States, an office he held until March 3, 1869. In 1877, he was the chief counsel of the Republican Party before the Electoral Commission, which resolved the disputed U.S. presidential election of 1876. Evarts served as Secretary of State under President Rutherford B. Hayes from 1877 to 1881. In 1881, he was the United States delegate to the International Monetary Conference in Paris, France. On March 4, 1885, he became a U.S. Senator, in which capacity he served until 1891. Evarts died on February 28, 1901, in New York City.
Born in Newton, Pennsylvania, in 1823, Thomas Hicks began painting at age 15. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1845, he went to Europe to study under Thomas Couture in Paris. Upon his return to the United States, he painted portraits of many notable Americans, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln. His portrait of Attorney General Evarts was painted in 1869. Hicks died in 1890.