William Cabell Rives (May 4, 1793 – April 25, 1868) was an American lawyer, planter, politician and diplomat from Virginia.

During the Andrew Jackson administration, Rives negotiated a treaty whereby the French agreed to pay the U.S. for spoliation claims from the Napoleonic Wars.

On his death in 1845, the personal estate of Rives Sr. would be valued at $100,000 (~$3.11 million in 2023) and included lands in Albemarle, Buckingham, Campbell and Nelson Counties.

His distant nephew Alexander Brown wrote books about the early history of Virginia as well as The Cabells and their Kin.

Their eldest son, Francis Robert Rives (1821–1891) followed his father's path into the law and diplomacy, but after returning from his foreign service in 1845, married Thomas Henry Barclay's granddaughter, Matilda Antonia Barclay and lived in Manhattan as well as Dutchess County, New York, with his firstborn son George Lockhart Rives (1849–1917) following family tradition by becoming a lawyer and diplomat (but not owning slaves).

[14] Rives's political career began by as one of Nelson County's delegates in the state constitutional convention of 1816.

The French Navy had captured and sent American ships to Spanish ports while holding their crews captive, thus forcing them to labor without any charges or judicial rules.

"[16] Yet, Rives was able to convince the French government to sign a reparations treaty on July 4, 1831, that would award the U.S. ₣ 25,000,000 ($5,000,000) in damages.

After Rives returned from France, Virginia legislators elected (and twice re-elected) him to the United States Senate.

In 1834, Rives resigned because he disagreed the proposed senatorial censure of President Jackson's removal of government deposits from the Bank of the United States.

His wife also published several volumes: The Canary Bird (1835), Epitome of the Holy Bible (1846), Tales and Souvenirs of a Residence in Europe (1842), Home and the World (1857),[5] In 1860, Rives endorsed the call for a Constitutional Union Party Convention.

Rives then became one of Virginia's unofficial delegates to the February 1861 Peace Conference in Washington, which sought to prevent the American Civil War by preserving slavery.