A member of the influential Bates family, he was the first US Cabinet appointee from a state west of the Mississippi River.

Born in Goochland County, Virginia, in 1814 Bates moved to St. Louis, where he established a legal practice.

He successfully carried out some of the administration's early war policies, but he disagreed with Lincoln on the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation.

His father was a Goochland County native, having been born on his family's Belmont plantation, and served in the local militia, including at the Siege of Yorktown at the end of the American Revolutionary War.

Edward Bates served in the War of 1812 before moving to St. Louis, Missouri Territory, in 1814 with his older brother James, who started working as an attorney.

[2] Bates's private practice partner was Joshua Barton, who was appointed as the first Missouri Secretary of State.

Bates became a prominent member of the Whig Party during the 1840s, where his political philosophy closely resembled that of Henry Clay.

[3] During this time, Orion Clemens, brother of Mark Twain, studied law under Bates.

[4] In 1850, President Millard Fillmore asked Bates to serve as U.S. Secretary of War, but he declined.

The main function was to generate legal opinions at the request of Lincoln and cabinet members, and handle occasional cases before the Supreme Court.

Bates did have a voice on general policy as a cabinet member with a strong political base, but he seldom spoke out.

In an opinion published in mid-December, Bates recognized free African Americans as citizens of the United States, contradicting Dred Scott v. Sandford.

When pressed for clarification by Robert Charles Winthrop, Bates confirmed that citizenship rights were the same regardless of race, and that state laws limiting free Black migration and settlement were unconstitutional.

On the one hand, he was important in carrying out some of Lincoln's earlier war policies, including the arbitrary arrest of southern sympathizers and seditious northerners.

Bates then resigned and was succeeded by James Speed, a Kentucky lawyer with Radical Republican views.

Her sister Caroline married Hamilton R. Gamble (another attorney and Unionist), who ultimately became chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Son Fleming Bates fought with the Confederates, under the command of General Sterling Price.

This caused tension between the father and this son, and Bates rarely mentioned Fleming in his war-time diary.