Henry Randolph Storrs

Henry Randolph Storrs (September 3, 1787 – July 29, 1837) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a prominent early nineteenth-century lawyer and jurist, and was the brother of William Lucius Storrs. He was born in Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut, on September 3, 1787, into a New England family that would produce several notable public figures.

Storrs pursued a classical education and was graduated from Yale College in 1804, when he was still in his teens. Following his graduation, he studied law, preparing for admission to the bar at a time when formal legal education was largely conducted through apprenticeship and self-directed study. He was admitted to the bar in 1807 and soon thereafter moved to northern New York, where the expanding frontier and growing communities offered opportunities for a young attorney.

After his admission to the bar, Storrs commenced the practice of law in Champion, Jefferson County, New York. As his professional reputation developed, he later practiced in Whitesboro and then in Utica, both in Oneida County, New York. These communities were important legal and commercial centers in upstate New York, and his work there established him as a figure of regional influence in legal and political affairs.

Storrs entered national politics as a member of the Federalist Party. He was elected as a Federalist to the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1817, to March 4, 1821, as a Representative from New York. At the conclusion of his second term, he was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1820, a period marked by the decline of the Federalist Party and the realignment of national political factions.

With the emergence of new political coalitions, Storrs returned to Congress later in the decade. He was elected as an Adams-Clay Federalist to the Eighteenth Congress, then re-elected as an Adams candidate to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses, and subsequently elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-first Congress, serving continuously from March 4, 1823, to March 4, 1831. During the Nineteenth Congress he served as chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, where he played a role in overseeing legislation related to the United States Navy. In 1830 he was appointed one of the impeachment managers by the House of Representatives to conduct the impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, United States judge for the district of Missouri, reflecting the confidence of his colleagues in his legal acumen and parliamentary skill.

Storrs was also noted for his outspoken opposition to certain policies of President Andrew Jackson, particularly with regard to Indian affairs. In 1830, as Jackson sought to break or disregard treaties with Native American nations, Storrs condemned the administration’s course as a dangerous usurpation. He warned that, “If the friends of State rights propose to sanction the violation of these Indian treaties, they must bear him out to the full extent of this thoughtless usurpation.” He argued that republics could, like monarchies, oppress weaker peoples, and cautioned that the United States would confirm this truth by its own example if it violated its treaty obligations, thus placing himself among the prominent congressional critics of Indian removal policy.

In addition to his congressional service, Storrs held important judicial responsibilities in New York. He served as presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Oneida County from 1825 to 1829, a position that involved oversight of civil and criminal matters in one of the state’s key upstate jurisdictions. After concluding his extended period of service in Congress and on the bench, he moved to New York City, where he resumed the practice of law and continued his professional career in the nation’s largest and most dynamic urban center.

Henry Randolph Storrs died in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 29, 1837. He was interred in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, a burial ground that holds many distinguished figures associated with Yale and Connecticut’s public life.