Lucius Horatio Stockton (1765 – May 26, 1835) was an American lawyer who served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1798 to 1801. His rise to this position was relatively swift: he was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1791; he became counsellor in 1794; and in April 1797, he was appointed sergeant-at-law.[1]
On January 13, 1801, President John Adams nominated Stockton to be Secretary of War, weeks before the end of his administration, in a move that incensed President-Elect Thomas Jefferson. On January 20, 1801, Richard Stockton, a congressman and the brother of Lucius wrote a letter to the Honorable Johnathan Dayton (a signer of the Constitution) asking Dayton to inform Adams that Lucius would not accept the nomination, and a letter to President Adams was enclosed. Stockton was known as a strongly partisan supporter of the Federalist Party.[3]Secretary of the TreasuryOliver Wolcott Jr. at the time called him "a crazy, fanatical young man."[4] The nomination was later withdrawn by Adams.[5]
In 1803, Stockton wrote a series of articles in the Trenton Federalist defending himself and his late uncle Samuel W. Stockton from attacks by the True American, a Democratic-Republican organ.[3] On July 4, 1814, Stockton delivered the main address at the New Jersey Friends of Peace Convention, organized by Federalists opposed to U.S. involvement in the War of 1812. He was also the organizer of the Washington Benevolent Society of Trenton.[6]
He died on May 26, 1835, and was buried in Trenton.[3]
^James McLachlan, Richard A. Harrison, Ruth L. Woodward, Wesley Frank Craven, and J. Jefferson Looney, Princetonians: A Biographical Dictionary, Princeton, N.J., 1976–1991; 5 vols., vol. 4:238. Stockton's full entry runs from 4:237–244