Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, as such the highest-ranking judge of the federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants plenary power to the President of the United States to nominate, with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they resign, are impeached and convicted, retire, or die; the chief justice has significant influence in the selection of cases for review, presides when oral arguments are held, leads the discussion of cases among the justices. Additionally, when the Court renders an opinion, the chief justice, if in the majority, chooses who writes the Court's opinion; when deciding a case, the chief justice's vote counts no more than that of any associate justice. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution designates the chief justice to preside during presidential impeachment trials in the Senate. While nowhere mandated, the presidential oath of office is administered by the Chief Justice.
Additionally, the chief justice serves as a spokesperson for the federal government's judicial branch and acts as a chief administrative officer for the federal courts. The Chief Justice presides over the Judicial Conference and, in that capacity, appoints the director and deputy director of the Administrative Office; the Chief Justice is an ex officio member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and, by custom, is elected chancellor of the board. Since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, 17 people have served as chief justice; the first was John Jay. The current chief justice is John Roberts. John Rutledge, Edward Douglass White, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan Fiske Stone, William Rehnquist served as associate justice prior to becoming chief justice; the United States Constitution does not explicitly establish an office of Chief Justice, but presupposes its existence with a single reference in Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: "When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside."
Nothing more is said in the Constitution regarding the office. Article III, Section 1, which authorizes the establishment of the Supreme Court, refers to all members of the Court as "judges"; the Judiciary Act of 1789 created the distinctive titles of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1866, at the urging of Salmon P. Chase, Congress restyled the chief justice's title to the current Chief Justice of the United States; the first person whose Supreme Court commission contained the modified title was Melville Fuller in 1888. The associate justices' title was not altered in 1866, remains as created; the chief justice, like all federal judges, is nominated by the President and confirmed to office by the U. S. Senate. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution specifies that they "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior"; this language means that the appointments are for life, that, once in office, justices' tenure ends only when they die, resign, or are removed from office through the impeachment process.
Since 1789, 15 presidents have made a total of 22 official nominations to the position. The salary of the chief justice is set by Congress; the practice of appointing an individual to serve as chief justice is grounded in tradition. There is no specific constitutional prohibition against using another method to select the chief justice from among those justices properly appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court. Constitutional law scholar Todd Pettys has proposed that presidential appointment of chief justices should be done away with, replaced by a process that permits the Justices to select their own chief justice. Three incumbent associate justices have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as chief justice: Edward Douglass White in 1910, Harlan Fiske Stone in 1941, William Rehnquist in 1986. A fourth, Abe Fortas, was not confirmed; as an associate justice does not have to resign his or her seat on the Court in order to be nominated as chief justice, Fortas remained an associate justice.
When associate justice William Cushing was nominated and confirmed as chief justice in January 1796, but declined the office, he too remained on the Court. Two former associate justices subsequently returned to service on the Court as chief justice. John Rutledge was the first. President Washington gave him a recess appointment in 1795. However, his subsequent nomination to the office was not confirmed by the Senate, he left office and the Court. In 1933, former associate justice Charles Evans Hughes was confirmed as chief justice. Additionally, in December 1800, former chief justice John Jay was nominated and confirmed to the position a second time, but declined it, opening the way for the appointment of John Marshall. Along with his general responsibilities as a member of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice has several unique duties to fulfill. Article I, section 3 of the U. S. Constitution stipulates that the Chief Justice shall preside over impeachment trials of the President of the United States in the U.
S. Senate. Two Chief Justices, Salmon P. Chase and William Rehnquist, have presided over the trial in the Senate that follows an impeachment of the president – Chase in 1868 over the proceedings against President Andrew Johnson and Rehnquist in
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U. S. allies or partner nations. With the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches, it has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force. The U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the American Revolutionary War and was disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
The U. S. Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers, it played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The US Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world; the 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, it is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in U. S. foreign and military policy. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, headed by the civilian Secretary of the Navy; the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is the most senior naval officer serving in the Department of the Navy.
The mission of the Navy is to maintain and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The U. S. Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States; the Navy's three primary areas of responsibility: The preparation of naval forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war. The maintenance of naval aviation, including land-based naval aviation, air transport essential for naval operations, all air weapons and air techniques involved in the operations and activities of the Navy; the development of aircraft, tactics, technique and equipment of naval combat and service elements. U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is "to be prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest." As part of that establishment, the U. S. Navy's functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to "sealift" duties, it follows as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, with it, everything honorable and glorious.
Naval power... is the natural defense of the United States The Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia; the rationale for establishing a national navy was debated in the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries. Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy the world's preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships and reported the captures to the Congress. On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships. S. Navy; the Continental Navy achieved mixed results.
In August 1785, after the Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, Congress had sold Alliance, the last ship remaining in the Continental Navy due to a lack of funds to maintain the ship or support a navy. In 1972, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, authorized the Navy to celebrate its birthday on 13 October to honor the establishment of the Continental Navy in 1775; the United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U. S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U. S. Navy's first warships in 1797 was the U. S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U. S. Coast Guard. Although the USRCS conducted operations against the pirates, their depredations far outstripped its abilities and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794; the Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution.
Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is "often called the father of the American Navy". In 1798–99 the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 18
Benjamin Lincoln
Benjamin Lincoln was an American army officer. He served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Lincoln is notable for being involved in three major surrenders during the war: his participation in the Battles of Saratoga contributed to John Burgoyne's surrender of a British army, he oversaw the largest American surrender of the war at the 1780 Siege of Charleston, and, as George Washington's second in command, he formally accepted the British surrender at Yorktown. After the war Lincoln was active in politics in his native Massachusetts, running several times for lieutenant governor but only winning one term in that office, he served from 1781 to 1783 as the United States Secretary of War. In 1787, Lincoln led a militia army in the suppression of Shays' Rebellion, was a strong supporter of the new United States Constitution, he was for many of his years the politically influential customs collector of the Port of Boston. Benjamin Lincoln was born on January 24, 1733, in Hingham, Province of Massachusetts Bay, the sixth child and first son of Colonel Benjamin Lincoln and his second wife Elizabeth Thaxter Lincoln.
Lincoln's ancestors were among those who first settled in Hingham, beginning with Thomas Lincoln'the cooper,', among several Lincolns who settled in Hingham when it was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Lincoln's father, one of the wealthiest men in Suffolk County, served as a member of the governor's council from 1753 until 1770, occupied many other civic posts before his death in 1771. Lincoln's maternal grandfather, Col. Samuel Thaxter, one of the most prominent and influential citizens in Hingham, became Colonel in a regiment and one of those commissioned to settle the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1719. In his early life, Lincoln worked on the family farm, attended the local school, he followed his father into government, becoming town constable at 21, in 1755 he joined the 3rd Regiment of the Suffolk County militia as an adjutant. In 1756, at the age of 23, Lincoln married Mary Cushing, daughter of Elijah Cushing of Pembroke, whose ancestors were among the founders of Hingham.
They had eleven children. In 1757, he was elected the town clerk of a post he held for twenty years, he continued to be active in the militia during the French and Indian War, but saw no action, was promoted to major by the end of the conflict in 1763. Lincoln was elected a Hingham town selectman in a post to which he held for six years. During this tenure political opposition rose in the province to Parliamentary tax measures, polarizing the political landscape of the colony. Lincoln sided with the opposition becoming a leading force among Hingham's Patriots. In 1770, in a list of resolutions passed by the inhabitants of Hingham, Lincoln outlined the measures urged by residents towards the non-importation of British goods, he condemned the Boston massacre. In 1772, Lincoln was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Regiment of the Suffolk militia; that same year he won election as a representative of the town to the provincial assembly. With the arrival of General Thomas Gage as governor of the colony in 1774, the provincial assembly was dissolved, but reformed itself into the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
Lincoln continued to win election to this body, was placed on committees overseeing militia organization and supply, a position that came to be of utmost importance when the American Revolutionary War broke out with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. He was appointed to the congress' committee of safety, was elected to its executive council, which exercised executive authority over the province outside besieged Boston, he was involved in ensuring that supplies of all sorts reached the nascent Continental Army outside Boston, procuring supplies from blankets to gunpowder. In January 1776, Lincoln was promoted to major general of the Massachusetts militia, overseeing the coastal defenses of the state. After the British evacuated Boston, he and Continental Army General Artemas Ward oversaw attempts to improve the state's coastal fortifications, he was ordered to hold the state's militia brigades in readiness in case the British returned. In May 1776 he directed the state forces that drove the last Royal Navy ships from Boston Harbor.
Despite his lack of combat experience, Lincoln began lobbying state representatives to the Continental Congress for a Continental Army officers commission, anticipating that the aging and ill General Ward might soon step down. The idea was well received, with one representative writing that Lincoln was "a good man for a Brigadier General" and "a man of abilities" though he had not "had much experience". While a Continental commission was not forthcoming, Lincoln was placed in command of a brigade of militia the state sent to join General George Washington at New York Town in September 1776; when Lincoln reached southwestern Connecticut, Washington first ordered him to prepare an expedition across Long Island Sound to raid British positions on Long Island. The expedition was aborted when Washington began to retreat from New York after the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, Lincoln was ordered to bring two regiments to join Washington's army as it retreated northward from New York Town. Lincoln's troops secured the Continental retreat to White Plains, New York, were in the main Continental formation during the subsequent Battle of White Plains in October 1776.
United States Constitution
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, its first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress. Articles Four and Six embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article Seven establishes the procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it, it is regarded as the oldest codified national constitution in force. Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended 27 times, including an amendment to repeal a previous one, in order to meet the needs of a nation that has profoundly changed since the eighteenth century. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government.
The majority of the seventeen amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others modify government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S. Constitution are written on parchment. According to the United States Senate: "The Constitution's first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers wisely separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, of the federal and state governments."The first permanent constitution of its kind, adopted by the people's representatives for an expansive nation, it is interpreted and implemented by a large body of constitutional law, has influenced the constitutions of other nations. From September 5, 1774, to March 1, 1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the provisional government of the United States.
Delegates to the First and the Second Continental Congress were chosen through the action of committees of correspondence in various colonies rather than through the colonial or state legislatures. In no formal sense was it a gathering representative of existing colonial governments; the process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a central governing body. Endowed by the people collectively, the Continental Congress alone possessed those attributes of external sovereignty which entitled it to be called a state in the international sense, while the separate states, exercising a limited or internal sovereignty, may rightly be considered a creation of the Continental Congress, which preceded them and brought them into being; the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States. It was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late 1777, ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781.
The Articles of Confederation gave little power to the central government. The Confederation Congress lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. Although, in a way, the Congressional powers in Article 9 made the "league of states as cohesive and strong as any similar sort of republican confederation in history", the chief problem was, in the words of George Washington, "no money"; the Continental Congress could print money but it was worthless. Congress couldn't pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes. Some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments. By 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts. Internationally, the United States had little ability to defend its sovereignty. Most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil.
They had not been paid. Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce. If any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the diverse sentiments and interests of the various states. Although the Treaty of Paris was signed between Great Britain and the U. S. and named each of the American states, various states proceeded blithely to violate it. New York and South Carolina prosecuted Loyalists for wartime activity and redistributed their lands. Individual state legislatures independently laid embargoes, negotiated directly with foreign authorities, raised armies, and
United States Secretary of the Army
The Secretary of the Army is a senior civilian official within the Department of Defense of the United States with statutory responsibility for all matters relating to the United States Army: manpower, reserve affairs, environmental issues, weapons systems and equipment acquisition and financial management. Prior military service is not a requirement, but quite a few have served in the United States armed forces. Secretary Stone is the only holder to serve in the military outside of the United States; the Secretary of the Army is nominated by the President and confirmed by the U. S. Senate; the Secretary is a non-Cabinet level official serving under the Secretary of Defense. This position was created on September 18, 1947, replacing the Secretary of War, when the Department of War was split into the Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force. On November 15, 2017, Mark Esper was confirmed as the Secretary of the Army, was sworn in to office on November 20, 2017; the Senior Leadership of the Department of the Army consists of two civilians—the Secretary of the Army and the Under Secretary of the Army—and two military officers of four-star rank—the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.
The Secretary of the Army is in effect the chief executive officer of the Department of the Army, the Chief of Staff of the Army works directly for the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary presents and justifies Army policies, plans and budgets to the Secretary of Defense, other executive branch officials, to the Congressional Defense Committees; the Secretary communicates Army policies, programs and accomplishments to the public. As necessary, the Secretary convenes meetings with the senior leadership of the Army to debate issues, provide direction, seek advice; the Secretary is a member of the Defense Acquisition Board. The Secretary of the Army has several responsibilities under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including the authority to convene general courts-martial. Other duties include management of the Civilian Aides to the Secretary of the Army Program; the Office of the Secretary of the Army is composed of the Under Secretary of the Army, the Assistant Secretaries of the Army, the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, the General Counsel of the Department of the Army, the Inspector General of the Army, the Chief of Legislative Liaison, the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee.
Other offices may be established by the Secretary of the Army. No more than 1,865 officers of the Army on the active-duty list may be assigned or detailed to permanent duty in the Office of the Secretary of the Army and on the Army Staff. Under Secretary of the Army Assistant Secretary of the Army Assistant Secretary of the Army Assistant Secretary of the Army Assistant Secretary of the Army Assistant Secretary of the Army General Counsel of the Army Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army Inspector General of the Army Kenneth Claiborne Royall, the last Secretary of War, became the first Secretary of the Army when the National Defense Act of 1947 took effect. Gordon Gray was the last Army secretary to hold the cabinet status, henceforth assigned to the Secretary of Defense. Official website
President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. In contemporary times, the president is looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower; the role includes responsibility for the world's most expensive military, which has the second largest nuclear arsenal. The president leads the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP; the president possesses international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, it vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic and judicial officers, concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president directs the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, takes an active role in promoting his policy priorities to members of Congress. In addition, as part of the system of checks and balances, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation; the power of the presidency has grown since its formation, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. Through the Electoral College, registered voters indirectly elect the president and vice president to a four-year term; this is the only federal election in the United States, not decided by popular vote. Nine vice presidents became president by virtue of a president's intra-term resignation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: natural-born U. S. citizenship.
The Twenty-second Amendment precludes any person from being elected president to a third term. In all, 44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so he is counted twice, as both the 22nd and 24th president. Donald Trump of New York is the current president of the United States, he assumed office on January 20, 2017. In July 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, acting jointly through the Second Continental Congress, declared themselves to be 13 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. Recognizing the necessity of coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions and regulations, but not any laws, could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens; this institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some royal prerogatives to Congress; the members of Congress elected a President of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the office of President of the United States, it was a ceremonial position without much influence. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies.
With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another, they witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms; when the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia.
Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rh
John W. Weeks
John Wingate Weeks was an American politician in the Republican Party. He served as the Mayor of Newton, Massachusetts from 1902 to 1903, a United States Representative for Massachusetts from 1905 to 1913, as a United States Senator from 1913 to 1919, as Secretary of War from 1921 to 1925. John Wingate Weeks was raised in Lancaster, New Hampshire, he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1881, served two years in the United States Navy. He married Martha Aroline Sinclair on 7 October 1885. Weeks made a fortune in banking during the 1890s, after co-founding the Boston financial firm Hornblower & Weeks in 1888. With his financial well-being assured, Weeks became active in politics, first at a local level in his then-home of Newton, serving as alderman in 1899–1902 and as mayor in 1903–04, he moved on to the national scene in 1905, when he was elected to serve the 12th Congressional District of Massachusetts in United States Congress. As a member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, Weeks made various contributions to important banking and conservation legislation.
His most notable accomplishment as Congressman was the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911, his name-sake bill that enabled the creation of national forests in the eastern United States. Despite his defeat for re-election to the Senate in 1918, Weeks remained an active and influential participant in the national Republican Party, he was an early supporter of the nomination of Warren G. Harding for President in 1920, when Harding became President, he named Weeks to his cabinet; as Secretary of War, Weeks was a competent and respected administrator and adviser, who guided the Department of War through its post-World War I downsizing. Weeks's hard work and long hours led to a stroke in April 1925, which led in turn to his resignation as Secretary in October of that year. Weeks died several months at his summer home on Prospect Mountain in Lancaster, New Hampshire, his ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery near. Weeks's son, Charles Sinclair Weeks, was a United States senator from Massachusetts, was Secretary of Commerce during the Eisenhower administration.
Weeks's cousin, Edgar Weeks, was a congressman from Michigan. His granduncle named John Wingate Weeks, was a major in the U. S. Army during the War of 1812 and a congressman from New Hampshire. Weeks's summer home where he died is now open for tours as part of the Weeks State Park. A nearby mountain was named Mount Weeks in his honor; the John W. Weeks Bridge, a footbridge over the Charles River on the campus of Harvard University in Boston and Cambridge, was named for Weeks and opened in 1927; the John Wingate Weeks Junior High School built in 1930 in Newton Centre, was named for him. During World War II, the U. S. Navy destroyer escort USS Weeks was named for Weeks, her construction was cancelled in 1944. The destroyer USS John W. Weeks was named for Weeks, she was in commission from 1944 to 1970. The investment banking and brokerage firm Hornblower and Weeks, founded in 1888, was named for Weeks and co-founder Henry Hornblower. Weeks Field was named after him. Works by or about John W. Weeks at Internet Archive John W. Weeks United States Congress.
"John W. Weeks". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
