Joseph Rucker Lamar

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Joseph Rucker Lamar

Joseph Rucker Lamar (* 15. October 1857 in Ruckersville , Elbert County , Georgia , † 2. January 1916 in Washington, DC ) was Deputy Judge ( Associate Justice ) at the United States Supreme Court . He had been appointed by President William Howard Taft to replace the resigned William H. Moody . The cousin of the former judge Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar was in office from January 3, 1911 until his death on January 2, 1916, he was succeeded by Louis Brandeis .

Life

Lamar was the son of a pastor. He spent his youth in Augusta and attended Richmond Academy and the Martin Institute private school in Jefferson, Georgia. After graduating from the Penn Lucy School near Baltimore , Lamar studied at the University of Georgia , where he was a member of the Phi Kappa literary society . He continued his studies until 1877 at Bethany College to a first degree. The following year he completed his legal training at Washington and Lee University in Lexington and, after his admission to the bar, joined Henry Clay Foster's practice in Augusta.

From 1886 to 1889 he was an elected member of the Democratic Party in the Georgia House of Representatives . During his tenure, he tried to speed up the administration of justice through standardization. Together with two other people he was commissioned by the governor in 1893 to compile a collection of the laws of Georgia. Two years later, this set of laws was passed by the General Assembly . The Civil Code of the State of Georgia was largely overseen by himself. Since 1898 he has been on behalf of the Supreme Court of Georgia on the commission that reviewed applicants for the bar.

In 1901, according to other information on December 31, 1902, Lamar was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia by Governor Joseph M. Terrell for the remainder of the term of an exited judge ; In 1903 he was re-elected. During his tenure, he wrote more than 200 opinions ( Opinions ) before he stepped down from this office in 1905 to again represent railroad companies and other large companies as a lawyer.

At the time of his appeal to the United States Supreme Court , Lamar was only the third judge appointed by a president of another party. The nomination by the Republican President William Howard Taft took place on December 12, 1910, the confirmation by the Senate three days later, according to other sources on December 17, 1910. Lamar took his oath of office on January 3, 1911.

On behalf of his childhood friend, President Woodrow Wilson , he represented the United States in 1914 together with Frederick William Lehmann at a conference of the ABC states in Niagara Falls, Canada . The conference successfully mediated the dispute between the United States and Mexico over the American occupation of the Mexican port of Veracruz and was able to prevent an emerging military conflict.

In 1915 Lamar wrote two short personal statements ( Individual Opinions ) on the controversial case of the Jewish factory owner Leo Frank, who was sentenced to death, pardoned and then kidnapped and lynched from prison .

The burden of work combined with his legal obligations increasingly affected his health in the fall of 1915. On the part of the legislature it was suggested that Lamar could leave his office with continued payment of his salary. However, his death only a few months later made these considerations irrelevant. Lamar was buried in Summerville Cemetery in Augusta. Lamar's legal work and papers accrued during his tenure have been archived at the University of Georgia at Athens , Georgia and can be viewed for research purposes.

In Augusta, a high-rise building that was built in 1913 and is now a listed building was named after him as the Lamar Building .

Lamar was married to Clarinda Huntington Pendleton (1856-1943) since 1879, the couple had three children, Philip Rucker Lamar (1880-1938), William Pendleton Lamar (1882-1958) and Mary Lamar (1885-1885). His wife published his biography in 1926 under the title The Life of Joseph Rucker Lamar 1857-1916 .

Works

  • First Days of St. Paul's Parish, Augusta . Georgia 1910?
  • Trustees of Richmond Academy of Augusta . Georgia
  • Civil Code of the State of Georgia , 1896

literature

  • Leonard Dinnerstein : Joseph Rucker Lamar . In (editors) Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel: The Justices of the United States Supreme Court 1789-1969, Their Lives and Major Opinions , RR Bowker, New York 1969, Volume III, 1973
  • Clarinda Pendleton Lamar: The Life of Joseph Rucker Lamar 1857–1916 , GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1926
  • George Hagemann: The Man on the Bench . Notre Dame, Inc., Dujarie Press, c. 1962
  • Lee Ann Caldwell: Joseph Rucker Lamar . In Dictionary of Georgia Biography , edited by Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr, University of Georgia Press, Athens 1983

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Rucker Lamar Boyhood Home on the National Park Service website , accessed August 3, 2008
  2. ↑ a b c d Detailed biography on the website of the Boyhood Home of President Woodrow Wilson , accessed August 2, 2008 (English)
  3. ↑ Biography at law.jrank.org, accessed August 3, 2008 (English)
  4. ↑ a b c Why Lamar and Lehman were made peace delegates in the New York Times of May 24, 1914, accessed August 2, 2008 (English)
  5. ↑ Short biography ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. to the Supreme Court of the United States , accessed August 3, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.supremecourthistory.org
  6. ↑ Entry on emporis.com , accessed August 3, 2008 (English)
  7. ↑ Lamar Building on the National Park Service website , accessed August 2, 2008
  8. ↑ a b c University of Georgia Library Manuscript Collection , OCR text, accessed August 3, 2008
  9. ↑ Chief Justice Edward Douglass White and President Taft's Court ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Jeffrey B. Morris, in Yearbook 1982 of the Supreme Court Historical Society , August 3, 1982 accessed (English)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.supremecourthistory.org

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Lamar, Joseph Rucker
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American judge
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Ruckersville , Georgia
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1916
Place of death Washington, DC