Biography

Senator from Connecticut from 1855-1867. He was a politician and lawyer. He served as a judge in the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1870 to 1876. He graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1828. He also taught school in Providence and studied law in Norwich, CT. He was admitted to the Maryland bar from Centerville, MD in 1830. He then returned to Norwich and was admitted to the federal bar in 1831. Foster edited the Republican, a Whig newspaper, out of Connecticut. He also served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1839 to 1840, 1846 to 1848, and 1854, serving as Speaker of the House for three years. He was nominated for Governor of Connecticut by the Whigs in both 1850 and 1851, but lost both elections. He then served as mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, from 1851 to 1852 before being elected to the United States Senate in 1854 and 1860 as a Republican, serving from 1855 to 1867. Foster was elected President pro tempore of the Senate in 1865, which he served as until the end of his term in 1867. Six weeks after he was elected, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth of April 14, Lincoln died the next morning. If the full plan had succeeded he would have been President of the U.S., but because it failed Johnson became president and Foster became President of the Senate. In 1866 Foster was defeated for reelection for a third term and left the Senate the following year. He taught law at Yale beginning in 17=869 and returned to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1870. He was elected Speaker of the House, but resigned to take a seat in the Connecticut Supreme Court. In 1874 he was a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1874, but was unsuccessful and resigned from the court in 1876, retiring from public life.