The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890

by Huebner, Timothy S.

• ISBN13: 9780820321011
• ISBN10: 082032101X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

This first book to examine the lives and work of nineteenth-century southern judges explores the emergence of a southern judiciary and the effects of regional peculiarities and attitudes on legal development. Drawing on the judicial opinions and private correspondence of six chief justices whose careers span both the region and the century, Timothy S. Huebner analyzes their conceptions of their roles and the substance of their opinions related to cases involving homicide, economic development, federalism, and race. Examining judges both on and off the bench--as formulators of law and as citizens whose lives were intertwined with southern values--Huebner reveals the tensions that sometimes arose out of loyalties to sectional principles and national professional consciousness. He exposes the myth of southern leniency in appellate homicide decisions and also shows how the southern judiciary contributed to and reflected larger trends in American legal development. This book adds to our understanding of both southern distinctiveness and American legal culture.

Author Biography

Timothy S. Huebner, an associate professor of history at Rhodes College, is author of The Taney Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy and coeditor, with Kermit L. Hall, of Major Problems in American Constitutional History, second edition. He and Paul Finkelman edit the series Studies in the Legal History of the South.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Southerners, Judges, and Southern Judges	p. 1
Spencer Roane, Virginia Legal Culture, and the Rise of a Southern Judiciary	p. 10
John Carron, Jacksonian Jurisprudence, and the Expansion of the South	p. 40
Joseph Henry Lumpkin and the Vision of an Independent South	p. 70
John Hemphill, the Texas Supreme Court, and the "Taming" of the Frontier	p. 99
Thomas Ruffin, Judicial Pragmatism, and Southern Constitutionalism	p. 130
George W. Stone, Political Sectionalism, and Legal Nationalism	p. 160
Conclusion: Southern Judges and American Legal Culture	p. 186
Notes	p. 193
Bibliography	p. 225
Index	p. 253
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