Edmund Burke Fairfield (August 7, 1821 – November 7, 1904) was an American minister, educator and politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

He spent two years as a Christian minister in New Hampshire, and two in Boston as pastor of the Ruggles Street Baptist Church.

[6] He was elected to serve as the 12th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan from 1859 to 1861,[7] and made a widely published speech on the "Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories".

[10] In the early 1870s, Fairfield was involved in public dispute based on a review he published in Mansfield, Ohio, regarding the Henry Ward Beecher adultery scandal.

The scandal broke in 1873, and in 1874, Fairfield published "Wickedness in High Places: A Review of the Beecher Case" [11] Robert Raikes Raymond, brother of Vassar professor John Howard Raymond, published a scathing review to this pamphlet entitled: "The Case of the Rev.

: Being an Examination of his 'Review of the case of Henry Ward Beecher" together with his 'Reply' and a Rejoinder"[12] He received a number of honors in the academic world before being elected Chancellor of the University of Nebraska in 1876.

[15] In 1886, he was the Moderator of the Congregationalists' "General Association of Michigan" meeting held in Flint[16][17] In July 1889, President Benjamin Harrison nominated Fairfield to be the consul of the United States at Lyons in place of Lawson V.