Howell E. Jackson
Howell E. Jackson | |
---|---|
Lucius Q. C. Lamar | |
Succeeded by | Rufus W. Peckham |
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit | |
In office June 16, 1891 – March 4, 1893 | |
Nominated by | operation of law |
Preceded by | Seat established by 26 Stat. 826 |
Succeeded by | Horace Harmon Lurton |
Judge of the United States Circuit Courts for the Sixth Circuit | |
In office April 12, 1886 – March 4, 1893 | |
Nominated by | Grover Cleveland |
Preceded by | John Baxter |
Succeeded by | Horace Harmon Lurton |
United States Senator from Tennessee | |
In office March 4, 1881 – April 14, 1886 | |
Preceded by | James E. Bailey |
Succeeded by | Washington C. Whitthorne |
Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from Madison County | |
In office January 3, 1881 – February 9, 1881 | |
Preceded by | Benjamin Tyson |
Succeeded by | Hugh C. Anderson |
Personal details | |
Born | Howell Edmunds Jackson April 8, 1832 Paris, Tennessee, US |
Died | August 8, 1895 Nashville, Tennessee, US | (aged 63)
Resting place | Mount Olivet Cemetery |
Political party | Democratic |
Education | University of Virginia West Tennessee College (AB) Cumberland School of Law (LLB) |
Signature | |
Howell Edmunds Jackson (April 8, 1832 – August 8, 1895) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1893 until his death in 1895. His brief tenure on the Supreme Court is most remembered for his opinion in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., in which Jackson argued in dissent that a federal income tax was constitutional. Republican President Benjamin Harrison appointed Jackson, a Democrat, to the Court. His rulings demonstrated support for broad federal power, a skepticism of states' rights and an inclination toward judicial restraint. Jackson's unexpected death after only two years of service prevented him from having a substantial impact on American history.
Born in
Shortly after President Harrison – Jackson's former Senate colleague – lost reelection, Supreme Court Justice Lucius Q. C. Lamar died. Harrison wanted to select a Republican replacement for Lamar, but he realized Democratic senators would likely stall the nomination until he left office. He chose Jackson, whom he viewed both as a close friend and a well-regarded jurist. The Senate unanimously confirmed Jackson just before Harrison left office in 1893. Not long after assuming office, Jackson developed tuberculosis, preventing him from playing a major role in Supreme Court affairs. He authored only forty-six opinions, many of which were in patent disputes or other insignificant cases. He left Washington hoping that a better climate would aid his health but returned to the capital after the remaining eight justices split 4–4 in Pollock. Yet Jackson ended up dissenting in the landmark income tax case, likely because of a change in another justice's vote. While Jackson's opinion in Pollock kept him from total obscurity in the annals of history, the journey to Washington also worsened his health considerably: he died on August 8, 1895, only eleven weeks after the ruling was handed down.
Early life and career
Jackson was born in Paris, Tennessee, on April 8, 1832.[2]: 239 His parents, natives of Virginia, moved to Tennessee in 1827.[2]: 239 Jackson's father, Alexander, was a university-trained physician in a time when professional medical training was rare.[3]: 41–42 A Whig, Alexander later served in the Tennessee legislature and as mayor of Jackson, Tennessee.[3]: 42–43 The Jackson family moved to Madison County, Tennessee, in 1840.[2]: 239 Howell Jackson enrolled at Western Tennessee College, where he studied Greek and Latin.[2]: 239 After graduating in 1850, he pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Virginia for two years.[3]: 44 Jackson then read law with A. W. O. Totten, a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court, and with attorney and former U.S. Congressman Milton Brown.[3]: 44 He next entered Cumberland Law School, graduating in 1856 after one year's study.[2]: 239 Jackson was admitted to the bar that same year[4]: 567 and began practicing law in the town of Jackson.[3]: 46 His work there appears to have been largely unsuccessful, and he moved to the larger city of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1857.[3]: 46–47 There he established a joint legal practice with David M. Currin, who later served as a Confederate congressman.[5]: 141 The firm was successful, and it provided Jackson with experience in corporate litigation.[3]: 47
Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861.[3]: 48 Although Jackson had opposed secession, he supported the Southern side in the war that followed.[6]: 317 Judge West H. Humphreys appointed Jackson to enforce Confederate sequestration law in western Tennessee, placing him in charge of confiscating and selling the property of Union loyalists.[7]: 357–359 Extant newspaper accounts show Jackson auctioned off a wide variety of property, including almonds, pickles, chairs, alcohol, tobacco and dried peaches.[7]: 359, 361 Just before the Union recaptured Memphis in 1862, Jackson fled with his family to LaGrange, Georgia.[7]: 362 He attempted unsuccessfully to secure a position in the Confederate military judiciary.[3]: 49–50 After the Civil War ended in 1865, Jackson returned to Memphis.[7]: 362 Since he had served in the Confederate government, he had to secure a presidential pardon before he could continue the practice of law.[7]: 362 Arguing that his role in the Confederate civil service was small, Jackson claimed in his petition that no formal sequestration orders had ever been issued under his tenure.[3]: 51–52 Scholar Terry Calvani has contended these statements in Jackson's application "simply were not true", characterizing them as perjury.[3]: 52–53 President Andrew Johnson initially rejected Jackson's petition, but he granted a second request in 1866.[7]: 362
Since Currin had died during the war, Jackson started a new legal practice with a former colleague.[7]: 362 Their clients consisted mainly of banks and other business enterprises.[8]: 597 The firm was successful, arguing numerous cases before the Memphis courts.[3]: 55 Jackson's political sympathies had by this time moved toward the Democratic Party.[9]: 339 A Redeemer, he was against Reconstruction-era policies and efforts toward racial equality.[10]: 210 After his first wife died in 1873, he returned to the town of Jackson, where he started a law practice with General Alexander W. Campbell.[3]: 59–60 Their firm litigated many cases involving property and criminal law.[3]: 59–60 Jackson was well regarded as a lawyer: he sat as a judge on the local courts and served as a law professor at Southwestern Baptist University.[3]: 62–63
Service in state government
Jackson practiced law in Jackson until 1880.[11]: 407 In 1875, however, he was appointed a judge of the temporary Court of Arbitration for Western Tennessee, which heard cases stemming from the large backlog created by the Civil War.[12]: 150 When that court was dissolved, Jackson sought the Democratic nomination for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court, running against incumbent Thomas J. Freeman.[3]: 65 At the convention, Jackson lost by a single vote; he refused the entreaties of his supporters to challenge the result.[9]: 339–340 Jackson then became involved in what was then Tennessee's key political dispute: whether to pay back the state debt.[2]: 241 Republicans generally supported its repayment, while Democrats were split between a state-credit faction, which was supportive of fulfilling the state's financial obligations and a low-tax faction, which favored repudiating the debt.[3]: 68–69 Jackson, who viewed repudiation to be immoral, was firmly on the state-credit side of this debate.[9]: 340 After giving a speech on the debt, he was urged to run for a seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives.[3]: 69 Jackson reluctantly agreed, and he was elected in 1880 to represent Madison County following a contentious campaign.[9]: 340 After the legislature's session began in January 1881, he was appointed by Speaker Henry B. Ramsey to the finance, ways and means; judiciary; penitentiary; public grounds and buildings; incorporations; and privileges and elections committees.[13] He was given the chairmanship of the committee on public grounds and buildings, but his prompt elevation to the U.S. Senate prevented him from making any substantial impact in that position.[14]: 91
The most urgent task before the legislature during Jackson's tenure was the election of a U.S. Senator.[3]: 69 Incumbent Senator James E. Bailey's state-credit policies alienated the low-tax faction of the Democratic caucus, but Republican candidate Horace Maynard also failed to garner majority support.[3]: 69 Jackson, who was considered capable of obtaining bipartisan support, refused to enter the race because he favored Bailey.[9]: 340 A week of balloting failed to break the gridlock.[3]: 69 Bailey then withdrew from consideration and urged Jackson to enter the race in his stead.[9]: 340 On the thirtieth ballot, Republican R. R. Butler announced his support for Jackson, saying he had given up any hope that a Republican would be chosen.[15] The Speaker of the House, a Maynard loyalist, followed suit, arguing that Jackson was the best choice among the Democrats.[15] A number of Democratic legislators, many of whom were afraid that a Republican could be elected if they did not unite behind a candidate, backed Jackson as well.[3]: 70 Convinced by Butler, other Republicans did the same, and Jackson was elected, receiving sixty-eight votes of the ninety-eight cast.[3]: 70 He telegraphed his resignation from the state house, effective immediately, to Governor Alvin Hawkins on February 9, 1881.[16] After a special election, he was succeeded later in the month by Hugh C. Anderson, who represented the district composed of Haywood, Hardeman, and Madison counties in the previous legislative session.[13]
Senate tenure
Jackson took his seat in the Senate on March 4, 1881.
Circuit judge
The 1886 death of Tennessee federal judge
In other cases, Jackson took a broader view of constitutional provisions.
Supreme Court nomination
On January 23, 1893, Supreme Court Justice
Supreme Court service
Jackson's brief tenure on the Supreme Court lasted from March 4, 1893 until his death on August 8, 1895.[19]: 112 He wrote only forty-six opinions.[18]: 216 Because of his poor health and his lack of seniority, many of them were rendered in insignificant cases, especially patent disputes.[19]: 112
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
Scholar Irving Schiffman maintains that Jackson's name would have been "buried in [the] coffin of historical neglect" were it not for his participation in a single case: Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.[9]: 334 Pollock involved a challenge to a provision of the 1894 Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act that had imposed a two percent personal income tax on all revenue over four thousand dollars.[25]: 285 According to the plaintiff, the law imposed a direct tax without apportioning it among the states, in violation of a provision of the Constitution.[25]: 285 In practice, it would be impossible to apportion such taxes among the states, so a ruling on that basis would doom all federal income taxation.[26]: 118 Jackson was ill, but the eight remaining justices heard the case. They struck down certain other provisions of the act but split 4–4 on the constitutionality of the income tax.[25]: 285––286 When Jackson suggested he could return to Washington, the Court agreed to rehear the case to make a more conclusive ruling on the income tax's legality.[9]: 335–337
Because the other eight justices had been evenly split, it was assumed that Jackson's vote would determine the case.[9]: 338 Experts were uncertain how he would rule: his Southern background suggested he might support the tax, but his pro-business judicial views meant he might be inclined to strike it down.[19]: 118 During the three days of arguments, lawyers aimed their contentions at the violently coughing Jackson, often ignoring other justices in their zeal to persuade the swing vote.[9]: 338 But when the ruling finally came down on May 20, 1895, Jackson was in dissent.[19]: 118 A five-justice majority led by Chief Justice Fuller ruled the tax to be unconstitutional, declaring it was an impermissible unapportioned direct tax.[25]: 286 Jackson joined Brown and justices John Marshall Harlan and Edward Douglass White in dissenting from the Court's holding.[9]: 347 In an impassioned opinion, he wrote "this decision is, in my judgment, the most disastrous blow ever struck at the constitutional power of Congress".[19]: 118–119 Numerous coughing fits interrupted Jackson's ardent turns of phrase, stopping the seriously ill justice several times during his forty-five-minute delivery of the dissent.[9]: 348
Many have attempted to determine how Jackson ended up in the minority.
Other cases
History has taken little notice of most of Jackson's remaining opinions.[9]: 344 He was assigned to write a number of opinions involving patent law, a field with which his circuit court tenure had given him experience.[19]: 112 A disproportionate number of his rulings drew no dissents, suggesting they were mostly insignificant.[9]: 344 His poor health and the fact that he was one of the newest justices for the entirety of his brief tenure likely contributed to this.[19]: 112 Jackson's few cases display support for the proposition that the judiciary should defer to the legislature.[19]: 112–113 His opinions in Schurz v. Cook (1893) and Columbus Southern Railway v. Wright (1894) rejected attempts by corporations to strike down various tax laws.[9]: 344–345 Jackson's opinions also evidence both his support for broad federal power and his skepticism of states' decisions.[9]: 345 In Mobile & Ohio R.R. v. Tennessee (1894), he favored a broad interpretation of the Contract Clause, ruling over four dissenting votes that Tennessee acted illegally in using its state constitution to renege on a promised tax exemption for a railroad company.[9]: 344 In the 1893 case of Brass v. North Dakota, meanwhile, he exhibited support for the concept of substantive due process, joining a dissent by Justice Brewer that argued that a North Dakota regulation of grain elevators was an unconstitutional infringement upon the freedom of contract.[9]: 345 Finally, he joined a five-justice majority in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) to hold the federal government could deport Chinese immigrant laborers without providing them with due process protections.[9]: 345
Illness and death
Despite being apparently healthy at the time of his nomination, Jackson developed
Personal life
Jackson married Sophie Malloy, a Memphis banker's daughter, in 1859. They had six children (two of whom died during infancy) before her death in 1873.[2]: 239–240 He then married Mary Harding, the daughter of influential Tennessee resident W. G. Harding, the following year.[3]: 61 Jackson's brother William Hicks Jackson, who had been a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War, was married to another of Harding's daughters.[3]: 62 [29]: 111, 113 When Harding died in 1886, the two Jackson brothers and their wives inherited the Belle Meade Plantation, where thoroughbred horses were raised.[30]: 163–164 Howell's role was minimal, and he sold his stake in the horses to his brother in 1890.[30]: 165 His thousand acres of property at West Meade (another part of Harding's estate) contained his home, which was considered among the finest in the state.[6]: 321 Jackson had three children with his second wife.[6]: 321 He was a devout Christian, serving as an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville.[6]: 321 His hobbies included hunting foxes and watching horse races.[6]: 321
Legacy
Jackson's impact on history was minimal, due in no small part to the brevity of his Supreme Court tenure.[19]: 119 A 1972 survey of legal scholars found Jackson was considered a "below average" justice, although the respondents declined to classify him as a "failure".[31]: 1186 His participation in Pollock, however, prevented him from being entirely covered with what Schiffman called the "shroud of anonymity".[9]: 334 Pollock was among the leading cases of the era, and his vote aligned with later public sentiment.[18]: 217 While Jackson was well regarded by his contemporaries,[6]: 321 Timothy L. Hall writes that he "would probably never have been a great Supreme Court justice"; according to Hall, the "plodding and pedestrian" Jackson "was capable of solid work but not of judicial brilliance".[18]: 217 Scholar Roger D. Hardaway, while conceding that the justice "is not a giant" in the annals of the Supreme Court, argues that Jackson's accomplished if brief work deserves a prominent place in Tennessee history.[19]: 119 The Liberty ship SS Howell E. Jackson was named in his honor.[32]: 119
See also
References
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- ^ ISBN 978-1-60871-832-0. Archivedfrom the original on April 26, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Calvani, Terry (January 1977). "The Early Legal Career of Howell Jackson". Vanderbilt Law Review. 30 (1): 39–72. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2021 – via Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law.
- ^ Carson, Hampton Lawrence (1904). The History of the Supreme Court of the United States: With Biographies of All the Chief and Associate Justices. Vol. 2. Philadelphia, PA: P. W. Ziegler. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2021.
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- ^ a b c d e f g Green, John W. (June 1944). "Two United States Circuit Judges". Tennessee Law Review. 18 (4): 311–322. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2021 – via HeinOnline.
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- ^ Myers, Gustavus (1912). History of the Supreme Court of the United States. Chicago, IL: C. H. Kerr. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Schiffman, Irving (Winter 1970). "Escaping the Shroud of Anonymity: Justice Howell Edmunds Jackson and the Income Tax Case". Tennessee Law Review. 37 (2): 334–348. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2021 – via HeinOnline.
- ^ a b Newkirk, Zachary (2014). "Gray Jackets and Rifles to Black Robes and Gavels: Confederate Veterans in the U.S. Federal Courts from Ulysses S. Grant to William H. Taft". Journal of Southern Legal History. 22: 187–231. Archived from the original on April 27, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2021 – via HeinOnline.
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- ^ Reilly, Don; Murphy, Norman; Timanus, Chuck, eds. (1992). The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Beginnings & Its Justices, 1790–1991. Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
- ^ a b "Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Tennessee, Forty-Second General Assembly". Nashville: Tavel & Howell. 1881. pp. 4, 50–52, 485. Retrieved April 21, 2023 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ a b c d Hudspeth, Harvey Gresham (1998). "Seven Days in Nashville: Politics, the State Debt, and the Making of a United States Senator; January 19–26, 1881". West Tennessee Historical Society Papers. 52: 81–94 – via Shelby County Register of Deeds.
- ^ a b "Howell E. Jackson, of Madison County, The Dark Horse, Who Wins on the Thirtieth Ballot". The Daily Memphis Avalanche. January 27, 1881. p. 1. Archived from the original on May 2, 2021. Retrieved May 1, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
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- ^ "Howell E. Jackson Dead". The New York Times. August 9, 1895. p. 1. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved May 3, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Hardaway, Roger D. (1976). "Howell Edmunds Jackson: Tennessee Legislator and Jurist". West Tennessee Historical Society Papers. 30: 104–119 – via Shelby County Register of Deeds.
- ^ a b Hudspeth, Harvey Gresham (2002). "The Rise and Fall of the Greene Doctrine: The Sherman Act, Howell Jackson, and the Interpretation of "Interstate Commerce", 1890 — 1941". Essays in Economic & Business History. 20 (1): 97–112. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved May 4, 2021 – via The Economic & Business History Society.
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