Richard Rush was born on August 29, 1780, in Philadelphia, the son of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Julia Stockton Rush. His father was a physician, reformer, professor, and signer of the Declaration of Independence; his mother was the daughter of Richard Stockton, another signer. Richard therefore grew up within a family that joined Revolutionary prestige, professional learning, and Presbyterian moral discipline. The Rush household was large, intellectually active, and demanding. Benjamin Rush supervised his children’s education closely and expected them to connect personal conduct with service to the republic. Richard attended local schools and entered the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, graduating in 1797. His studies included classics, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, moral philosophy, and political thought. He then studied law under William Lewis, a distinguished Philadelphia attorney. Apprenticeship introduced him to common law, constitutional argument, courtroom practice, and the commercial disputes of a growing national capital. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1800. Philadelphia during Rush’s youth was both a revolutionary memory place and the temporary seat of the federal government. Political leaders, foreign diplomats, physicians, printers, and reformers passed through his family’s circle. The yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s also brought intense public controversy around his father’s medical methods and exposed the family to disease, criticism, and civic crisis. Before becoming attorney general, diplomat, and treasury secretary, Richard Rush had been shaped by an eminent but exacting father, a politically connected mother, Princeton education, legal apprenticeship, and life in the early republic’s most intellectually vigorous city. His privileges created opportunity, but they also imposed a burden to justify a famous family name through disciplined achievement and public service.