As secretary of state under President Ulysses S. Grant, Hamilton Fish settled the Alabama Claims and avoided war with Spain over the Cuban insurrection.

Hamilton Fish was born on Aug. 3, 1808, in New York City. His father was a socially prominent lawyer and Federalist; his mother was from the old Stuyvesant family. Fish graduated with highest honors from Columbia College in 1827 and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He entered politics as a Whig; he was elected to Congress in 1842 and to the governorship in 1848. His administration expanded the New York canal system and established a statewide framework for public education. In 1851 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Conservative in background and patrician in taste, he joined the upstart Republican party only after it was clear that the Whig party was dead beyond revival.

Fish was not known nationally when President U.S. Grant appointed him secretary of state in 1869. Fish accepted reluctantly but found the job to his liking and remained for the entire two terms. His influence helped rescue Grant's presidency from total failure.

Three major foreign policy problems confronted Fish during his tenure. The first was Grant's effort to annex Santo Domingo. Cool toward the project, Fish nevertheless set about loyally to carry out his superior's wishes. A treaty of annexation was concluded, but Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, blocked it. Fish was unsuccessful in mediating the quarrel between Sumner and Grant. Grant's lieutenants in the Senate deposed Sumner from his chairmanship. The annexation was defeated, but Fish emerged from the imbroglio with honor.

Fish's efforts to settle the Alabama Claims were more successful. These claims were damages demanded by the United States from Great Britain for the latter's negligence during the Civil War in allowing Confederate cruisers, especially the Alabama, to be built and supplied in England, in violation of British neutrality