1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MacVeagh, Wayne

MacVEAGH, WAYNE (1833–), American lawyer and diplomatist, was born near Phoenixville, Chester county, Pa., on the 19th of April 1833. He graduated at Yale in 1853, was admitted to the bar in 1856, and was district attorney of Chester county in 1859–1864. He held commands in militia forces raised to meet threatened Confederate invasions of Pennsylvania (1862–63). He became a leader in the Republican party, and was a prominent opponent of his father-in-law, Simon Cameron, in the fight within the party in 1871. MacVeagh was minister to Turkey in 1870–1871; was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1872–1873; was chairman of the “MacVeagh Commission,” sent in 1877 by President Hayes to Louisiana, which secured the settlement of the contest between the two existing state governments and thus made possible the withdrawal of Federal troops from the state; and was attorney-general of the United States in 1881 under President Garfield, but resigned immediately after Garfield’s death. In 1892 he supported Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee for the presidency, and from 1893 to 1897 was ambassador to Italy. He returned to the Republican party in 1896. In 1903 he was chief counsel of the United States before the Hague tribunal in the case regarding the claims of Germany, Great Britain and Italy against the republic of Venezuela.