Rufus Choate (/tʃoʊt/) (October 1, 1799 – July 13, 1859) was an American lawyer, orator, and Senator who represented Massachusetts as a member of the Whig Party.

He is regarded as one of the greatest American lawyers of the 19th century, arguing over a thousand cases in a lifetime practice extending to virtually every branch of the law then recognized.

In turn, he publicly voiced his support for Democratic candidate James Buchanan over Republican John C. Frémont in the 1856 presidential election.

In the fall of 1820 he was entered at the Dane Law School in Cambridge, under the instruction of Chief Justice Parker and Professor Asahel Stearns.

In the following year Choate studied in Washington, D.C. in the office of William Wirt, then Attorney General of the United States.

His skill was so great that when he argued cases at the Norfolk County Courthouse, students from the nearby Dedham High School would be dismissed to listen to his orations.

[7] For several years, he devoted himself unremittingly to his profession but, in 1841, succeeded fellow Dartmouth graduate Daniel Webster in the United States Senate.

In the Senate, he spoke on the tariff, the Oregon boundary, in favor of the Fiscal Bank Act, and in opposition to the annexation of Texas.

[9] He was a faithful supporter of Webster's policy as declared in the latter's Seventh of March Speech of 1850 and labored to secure for him the presidential nomination at the Whig National Convention in 1852.

In June 1859, he sailed from Boston to England, became worse and left the ship at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died on July 13.