Henry Sherman Boutell (March 14, 1856 – March 11, 1926) was an American lawyer and diplomat. He became a Congressman from Illinois, and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal by President William Howard Taft.
Biography
Boutell was born at Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lewis Henry and Anna (Greene) Boutell. A colonial ancestry entitled him to membership in the Sons of the American Revolution and in the Society of Colonial Wars. He was also an hereditary member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
His college education was secured at Northwestern (A.B. 1874, M.A. 1879) and Harvard (A.B. 1876, A.M. 1877). After studying law in an office, in 1879 he was admitted to the bar and began practice in Chicago. Although both able and prominent as an attorney, representing, for example, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in securing a right of way into Chicago, and in the erection of its terminal there, his tastes from the beginning ran to public life, and he was soon both active and useful as a worker in the Republican Party.
In 1884, he was a member of the lower house of the state legislature, and from 1897 to 1911 a representative of Chicago districts in Congress. There he was a member of the committees on Rules, and on Ways and Means, and was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures of the Navy. He was an effective speaker and of considerable influence, but his tariff views were unacceptable to business interests in Chicago, which forced his retirement. President William Howard Taft then appointed him to the post of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal, on March 2, 1911. He never assumed its duties, and on April 24, 1911, he was given a similar appointment to Switzerland. In this post he served from May 17, 1911, to July 31, 1913.
He did not find the diplomatic service to his liking, and resigned. Before he did so he had declined the chief justiceship of the United States court of claims tendered him by President Taft (January 1913). With this his public career ended, except for service (November 1913) as chairman of a board of arbitration which settled an important dispute between the operatives and officers of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. From 1914 to 1923, he taught constitutional law and international law in Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.