Isaac Wayne MacVeagh was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat and the 36th Attorney General of the United States. Born in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, he attended Yale University, where he was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , and graduated 10th in his class in 1853. He was admitted to the bar in 1856 and was District Attorney of Chester County, Pennsylvania, from 1859 through 1864. He led militia forces organized to battle back threatened Confederate invaders in 1862 and 1863 and served in the Union army during the American Civil War as an infantry captain and as a major... in the cavalry. He became a leader in the Republican party, and was a prominent opponent of his father-in-law, Simon Cameron, in the fight within the party in 1871. MacVeagh was U.S. Ambassador to The Ottoman Empire in 1870 through 1871, and was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1872 and 1873. In 1875, he co-founded the Philadelphia-based law firm known today as Dechert LLP. He also served as chairman of the MacVeagh Commission, sent in 1877 by President Rutherford B.
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